It didn't take long for the tech companies' secret coalition to be formed. They had already come to a surface-level agreement and had begun spending money for their plan, but on the outside it seemed like different companies just coincidentally had the same idea. They had all gone to different lobbying firms with different complaints, but the money they were spending was ten times the usual amount. And that was just the beginning. Tim Cook was feeling very satisfied and putting his wholehearted effort into lobbying. He was infuriated that GAIA had ignored his threatening email, leaving him with no other option than to go all out. For the sake of his career and his company, he had to ensure that GAIA was removed from competition and their tech in his hands. ... Just like that, three days passed and the tankers full of oil undocked and headed out toward China on the shortest route. Their escort ships, two destroyers and six frigates, remained for twelve hours, then followed them at a
Eden, Northwest airbase.An alarm started blaring, signaling a general scramble among the base personnel. They immediately dropped whatever they were doing and headed to their assigned locations like an anthill that had been kicked over.Pilots were urgently putting on their gear according to a strict checklist procedure. And within five minutes, they were headed to the duty hangar, where they would receive their mission briefing and launch. As they crossed the hangar on their way to the briefing room, they passed a virtual hive of technicians scrambling over the parked jets and giving them last-minute checks and fueling them.The pilots reached the briefing room and received their briefing, then boarded their jets and taxied out of the hangar.Soon, with the screaming sound of jet engines spinning up, four planes were lined up on the runway access lane, ready for takeoff as soon as they received final clearance from the tower."Tower, this is SU-3
A few seconds after the frigates and destroyers of the Poseidon Navy ceased fire, exactly one hundred waterspouts bloomed where speedboats had once existed. The boats had never even entered visual range of the oil convoy... but the waterspouts certainly did. The impact of thirty kilograms of depleted uranium wrapped in electrical steel traveling at ten times the speed of sound imparted over 166 million newtons of force, enough to evaporate thousands of cubic meters of seawater, along with any hapless object that happened to be within that area. The resulting waterspouts reached hundreds of meters into the air and were clearly visible over the horizon, where both the supertanker convoy and the "hidden" submarine could see them.The tripartite batteries of 18" guns on each vessel were capable of firing rounds massing up to, or in excess of, 300 kilograms, but 30 kilograms was the smallest round they could fire. Anything bigger than that and they would have to come to a full sto
Somewhere over the ocean on approach to a nameless island in the Indonesian archipelago.Four Edenian fighter jets were screaming through the air at supersonic speed, trailing flame from their engines. They had been flying with their afterburners on for over an hour and were about halfway to their destination, a pirate base on an unnamed island in the Indian Ocean near Indonesia.The pilots were relaxed, trading jokes back and forth and hyping each other up for their first combat mission. They had just graduated their training a few weeks before and, like many soldiers, sailors, and airmen, were feeling invincible after having been broken down and rebuilt into new versions of themselves through the tried and true method of basic training.The difference was, the members of ARES—whether they be in the Army, under the command of the AI, Mars; the Navy, under the command of the AI, Poseidon; or the Air Force, under the command of the AI, Aeolus—actually
Aron sat up in bed and stretched, then glanced at the sleeping beauty beside him. He decided to let her continue sleeping; their exercise had been particularly intense the night before. He slid out of bed and got dressed, then headed to his office for an update on the situation in the Indian Ocean."Looks like there's no need for our diplomats to do anything else," he said in response to the report. The escort was one frigate lighter and the interceptors had returned without making a mess, so everything had been handled satisfactorily. Though the airstrike had been aborted, it was fine; there was still a frigate on patrol to catch any returning pirates and a message had still been sent. As a bonus, the interceptors hadn't been picked up by any radar systems, so the long-distance strike capability of the Aeolus Air Force was still hidden from greedy eyes.."Has all of the collected evidence been compiled?" he asked Athena, the AI in overall charge of his private military fo
"Is that a simulation of one of our classified projects?" President Trump was in his office receiving his daily briefing. Currently, he was looking at a satellite image of what almost looked like an alien naval fleet.The tablet he was using for his briefing switched to recorded satellite footage of the ships sailing at a rather fast speed. But the idyllic image didn't last long as the ships' batteries turned in unison and fired repeatedly, kicking up enormous waves on the surface of the water near the ships from the overpressure. The recoil from the guns caused the ships to heel over and shift on the ocean's surface, as well as slowed them down a bit.The room fell into silence as the president was stunned into speechlessness by the sheer violence of the gun batteries' barrage."Care to explain what that footage was?" he asked."That was footage our surveillance satellites caught of the Edenian fleet firing yesterday," Reince Priebus, his Chief of Staff said. He was the one in charg
Wednesday March 1st, New York UN headquarters.The day of the hearing had arrived, and the fifteen member nations of this year's UN Security Council, including the member nations with permanent seats, were assembled for a meeting with many items on the agenda. But the main one was the hearing that would determine the fate of the newly revitalized Eden.One by one, the representatives of Bolivia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Sweden, Ukraine, and Uruguay arrived with solemn expressions on their faces and took their seats. Then the five members of the United Nations Permanent Security Council began arriving. The first to arrive was the United Kingdom's representative. He was closely followed by the gentleman from France, who was holding a conversation with the UK rep and didn't consider it necessary, or a breach of protocol, to continue talking as they walked. Following them, the Russian and Chinese representatives arrived, and finally, the representative of the U
"The Republic of Eden remains open to the prospect of peaceful dialogue and cooperation with Indonesia to resolve this dispute through diplomatic means. We have already withdrawn our vessel from their territorial waters and have already attempted to negotiate a peaceful settlement to this whole affair. But so long as their specious allegations against us remain unwithdrawn, our stance remains firm: we will not tolerate their slander, nor will we remain quiet as they tarnish our reputation in the international community."Thank you for your time, Madame President and other distinguished members of the security council. I yield the floor," Ambassador Foster finished, then sat back down in her seat. She had presented nearly all of the evidence Eden had, choosing only to withhold the information about the submarine that was responsible for the jamming to begin with.The back-and-forth continued, with impassioned pleas, rigorous arguments, and tense exchanges between the two na