◇◆◇（Abigail's point of view)
the club lounge of a luxury hotel for guests in Fort 88
The tables inside the stylish and relaxing restaurant were nearly full.
Even in the dim light, the customers attire caught the eye. It was probably because they were well dressed. I could tell right away that they were all wealthy people.
The main attraction of this restaurant was that it was for guests, which meant that it had excellent privacy. Therefore, it was popular among the upper class of the Fort.
A man and woman in their prime chatting peacefully. Couples holding hands and looking at each other on the table. A young man and woman laughing while eating a small cake. Each person was enjoying a special evening in this restaurant.
Each table was illuminated by the dim lights, so the faces of the men and women facing each other were barely visible from the surroundings. This restaurant is one of the highest-ranking restaurants in Fort 88, where secret dinners are sometimes held. The regulars include high-ranking bureaucrats and military officers.
I could hear the whispered laughter. The sound of dishes being scraped.
For a brief moment, the sounds in the restaurant stopped.
At the entrance of the restaurant, where all eyes were focused, stood a blonde woman.
Abigail appeared in an evening dress that brazenly exposed her shoulders and back. As she looked around the restaurant, the calm bustle returned as if nothing had happened.
After a short conversation with the clerk who walked up to her, Abigail began to walk along with him as he led her through the restaurant.
the men's eyes were drawn to her long, slender legs, A glimpse of white skin peeked out from the deep slit of her dress emerging from her high heels and disappearing behind the open slit.
"Yo."
As she was about to walk past the bar counter, Abigail suddenly found herself grabbed by the arm. It was a violent tug, so violent that her bag dropped to the floor.
A grinning man grabbed her arm. He was drinking with a flamboyant woman at the bar counter, but the moment Abigail walked around him, he took her hand in a sudden movement.
"Who are you?"
"Aren't you that alien's plaything women on the news? Man, that tabloid really got me. I didn't know you were this good."
Before I could feel discomfort, a question came to mind. How could such a rude man be in such a high status restaurant?
The man had short blond hair, a thick chest plate peeking out from his open-collared shirt, and his breath smelled of alcohol, as if he had been drinking here for a long time.
The young clerk hurriedly came to stop him.
"Sir Dominic, this is our customer......!"
"Hmm? It's okay, I'm just talking to her."
"But--"
What baffled Abigail even more was that no one other than this clerk interrupted him and that all the eyes that had been on her withdrew as soon as this man appeared.
--I wonder if he's famous.
The man was arguing with the clerk and refused to let go of Abigail's arm.
She was getting annoyed and was about to give him a good beating when a voice came from the back of the store.
"I've been waiting for you."
It was Logan. He was staying at the hotel and was the one who had invited Abigail to the Christmas dinner tonight. He had been in contact with her through a hidden communication network called <Darknet>, which was mentioned on a piece of paper she had been given the other day.
Logan came out from the back and stood in front of the man called Dominic.
"I'm sorry, but she' s with me. I'll have to ask you to leave."
"Oh, you are the recently arrived USEG officer? Isn't that quite a sweet-looking fucking face?"
"I'm on the mission authorized by the Lieutenant General. No matter how much prestige the Secretary General has, you're the one who's going to lose if you confront me head-on, Major."
Logan is a confident man. This man has a lot of guts for a civil officer. His former military background must have helped him.
In terms of the power structure between the unified central government, USEG and Fort, USEG is definitely superior. The Fort is just a division of the Unified Otherworld Force, FORCOM. Logan is a senior officer of the FORCOM. If he has the right connections, he can interfere in the Fort's affairs.
However, when it comes to this Fort 88 alone, Logan's position doesn't hold much weight.
Dominic's smile deepened as he let go of Abigail's arm and stood up.
The two of them stared at each other as a grim air enveloped them.
"Huh. ...... You've got a nice face for a government officer."
Dominic hugged the woman next to him by the shoulders and walked out of the store with her.
Logan looked behind them and picked up Abigail's bag.
"The Secretary General......"
"I heard he's doing whatever he wants. The rumor must have reached his ears when you showed up at the headquarters building the other day--"
So Logan handed her the bag, "You look beautiful today, Abby," he said casually, taking her hand and smiling softly.
"Thank you."
Logan escorted Abigail, who smiled back at him.
As they walked, she kept rubbing her sidebag, tapping it with her finger, seemingly concerned.
Logan suddenly turned around.
"Abby, what's in that bag?"
Abigail paused, her heart pounding at his words.
"Did the perfume vial or something break? It seems to have dropped pretty hard. It would be terrible if it soaked through and got on your clothes. Do you want me to get you a replacement?"
"...... o, oh. It's fine, thank you....... this is quite a nice restaurant."
She looked around, trying to adjust herself.
"It has a good reputation, but it's a little too crowded today."
As they talked, Abigail was led to a private room in the back.
From the window, she could see the night view of the Fort. The snow seemed to be starting to fall.
On the shiny tablecloth, she saw decorative plates, knives and forks, and a chaser glass.
Shortly after Abigail took her seat, a white-haired man in fine attire came over to greet her.
"I'm the manager of this restaurant. Miss Abigail, We're deeply sorry about earlier. I was absent because I was away from my office---"
The man started to introduce the restaurant and other things.
Abigail looked at him blankly, thinking,' Bullshit, you must have been hiding in the back.'
Perhaps sensing the atmosphere, the manager stepped back, sweat dripping from his brow.
A glass of champagne was poured after the sound of "pop!" followed by the sound of champagne being poured. Abigail stared at the glass as it filled.
Logan raised his glass as the sommelier lowered the bottle into the cooler.
"to the two of us being reunited."
"Cheers."
The glass clinked
Abigail cut in immediately after taking a sip.
"So, what brings you here?"
Logan gave a small cough, just after he sipped the champagne.
"─ You're so direct."
"There's no way you can come to the front lines just to see me."
Abigail said suspiciously as she took a bite of the appetizer that had been brought to her.
"That's not very nice."
Logan scratched his head.
"I came here mostly because I'm worried about you, that's true and, Well, you're right, that's not the only reason I'm here. That's why I dared to pick up some chestnuts in the fire."
"What kind of chestnut?"
"That's classified."
Abigail emptied flute glass, her mouth pouting in boredom. The wine was rather low in alcohol content. The aroma was strong, but not enough.
"Well, I've got plenty of stories to tell you, though-- Here's the list."
"I don't know....... Oh, let me choose."
To be honest, Abigail no longer cared about USEG, FORCOM, AASPINT, aliens, or even her own future. What fills her head now is something else.
Abigail pointed to the list, and immediately the sommelier pulled a bottle from the wine cellar, quickly uncorked it, placed the cork in front of her, and poured a wine into the glass. She swirled the glass around, smelled the aroma, and said, "It's good."
The glasses were placed in front of them again and white wine was poured. She tipped the pale amber liquid without pausing. It was thick on the tongue. The aroma of oak on the nose combined with the fruitiness made me feel at ease.
It was a barrel-rich white, aged in barrels, just the way she liked it. Recently, even high-quality white wines are being made in stainless steel and only put into barrels before shipping to add aroma. What is the value of wine that has not been aged in barrels? I'd rather drink cheap gin than stainless steel wine.
She immediately took a bite of bread. that the best flavor for red wine is wheat, but it also goes well with white wine. This was Abigail's theory.
"-You're not going to ask me what I was going through over there? I mean, it's all pretty unsettling. But isn't that part of your mission?"
"It's enough that you came back safely. You haven't changed at all."
"You're still as boring as ever."
"It's only around you that I'm dressed up like this. Will you go out with me at least for tonight? It's white Christmas."
The first dish was brought to the table.
There was a pure white bubble in the middle of an unusually large bowl. Abigail broke it with her knife and a white fish came out of it. The white foam seemed to be a blue cheese foam. This is quite good. With this thought in mind, Abigail took the glass and drained it in one gulp.
The white wine was added to the glass. Abigail quickly emptied it as well. The sommelier came back in a hurry.
The two of them talked for a while about the situation inside USEG for the past six months.
Logan was in FORCOM's Warfare Development Division, and Abigail had originally belonged to the same department. and just before her disappearance, she had been a member of the alien technology analysis team at AASPINT, so the conversation naturally drifted to weapons development.
Logan put down his knife.
"And so, they're all on the verge of being finished soon. The top brass of land, sea, and air are all competing to say that these three <super weapon> have the potential to be game-changers once they are officially in operation, and the upper echelons of USEG are as obsessed as if their ass is on fire."
"Three?"
The conversation turned to the special weapons being developed by the Army, Air Force and Navy.
"You're probably familiar with the Army's <Candle of Destruction> since you were involved with it, but the other two have been developed at a rapid pace over the past year or so."
Abigail had been involved in the development of the corresponding weapons in the past, so she had a general idea of what was going on in the army. The other two, however, were outside the realm of possibility, and she had only heard rumors about them.
Logan continued, looking at Abigail as she gulped down her glass.
"For example, the super heavy warhead attack aircraft that the Air Force was developing was redesigned as the <Abaddon>, using the original aircraft but with a very different concept."
"Abaddon ......" Abigail tilted her head and continued, "from the Book of Revelation? Abaddon?
Logan snapped his fingers agreeing with her.
"That's what I'm talking about. Abaddon, king of the locusts, a fallen angel who is said to destroy people with his locust plague."
"But I thought I heard that Air Force kinks were a ridiculously large twin-engined aircraft, so why the locusts?"
The only way to break through the invisible barrier deployed by the aliens was to hit them with a heavy, hard substance at high speed. In order to do this, the Air Force developed a jet plane to carry heavy bombs - large ground-penetrating bombs.
The bombs were so large, with rocket motors and wings, that they had to be launched from some distance away from the battlefield or the mother ship would be shot down. It looked more like a little airplane than a bomb. In order to carry such a large amount of heavy and bulky bombs at once, the mother ship ended up being a catamaran (two airplanes side by side, sharing a wing), with bombs hanging down in the space between them, a weird aircraft that would be useless in a war between humans. It is commonly known as the <Large kite>.
"The Air Force converted the kite into the largest drone carrier in history."
"Drone....."
"Yeah. We loaded the drone as much as we could on a plane that originally carry more than a dozen heavy bombs."
"..... you mean the swarm attack?"
Abigail made a dumbfounded sound, but then quickly shut her mouth in a huff.
"How many drones can be deployed simultaneously?"
"Originally, they had a payload of two hundred tons. It can carry twenty thousand drones, each weighing about ten kilograms."
"Twenty thousand ......."
Abigail flinched a little.
"The idea of a massive drone swarm attack has been around for a while. It can be easily shoot down by a sonic bomber, but the aliens can't deal with the numbers. The invisible shields that they are so good at using are not a problem if the drones are slow enough to fly and hit a few of them. Multicopter drones are not designed to break if they hit a wall. A large number of drones will slowly and surely penetrate and reach their destination."
"But for a small drone to carry enough explosives with enough destructive power, it must have a travel range problem."
"That's right. Of course, larger drones could fly longer distances, but then they would not be able to meet the requirements in terms of transportation and cost-effectiveness. If we can't get the numbers and timing right for a coordinated saturation attack, the aliens will shoot us down and that will be the end of it."
"So from the sky ......"
Logan nodded, "Exactly."
"We're going to launch a bunch of cheap drones into the battlefield from high altitude. The drones are initially dropped in glide mode and fly at a high glide for about 200 kilometers. At that distance, even the slowest kite can return safely, and the problem of the drone's range can be solved at the same time. On the other hand, when the drone reaches the vicinity of the battlefield, it shifts to multicopter mode and flies autonomously, dropping while flying at low speed near the surface. This means that a huge number of bombs will slip through their defenses and be deployed on the battlefield all at once."
Abigail groaned. It's simple, but it's got a lot of power to control the battlefield.
"The drone is equipped with five kilograms of C4 explosives, The C4 is capable of cutting through a steel frame with four kilograms, and a single drone can smash a bus car. We'll be able to shoot out 200 tons of them at once and put them into the battlefield."
"That's 20,000 large anti-personnel mines flying around with a will of their own.."
"If this is not a disaster, I don't know what is. The Air Force calls it the <Locust Swarm>, a swarm of locusts bringing disaster and plagues, and surprisingly, it's already deployed. Abaddon was first in line of the superweapons of land, sea and air. It's already secretly flying in the sky behind the Fort."
Abigail put down her glass and dropped her gaze.
She thought of Gevaudan, who was probably still out there somewhere not too far away.
She wondered if Gevaudan, who had single-handedly defeated countless aliens at Faymbaum that day, would be able to withstand this drone strike......
Seeing Abigail, Logan nodded a few times as if he had gotten a response, and continued, "So, next, let's talk about the Navy......."
The alien monster that has been causing the Navy so much trouble is <Archeron>. you know, that giant turtle is like a iceberg that causing havoc back in the modern age, It ramming through the fleet with its hard ice armor like a Pykrete.
"...... Yeah. It's the one where some crazy military guy thought it was okay to nuke it because it was in the ocean, so did, but it didn't work."
The human had tried to nuke the aliens several times, but all of them ended in failure. Instead, all humans learned was that aliens are terribly resistant to heat, shock waves, and poisons - including radiation.
Of course, not all aliens can withstand a nuclear attack. More than half of them can be vaporized.
But that wasn't the point.
After some time, the aliens emerge from the contaminated land and start working with a nonchalant face, unconcerned about radiation.
If that is not an astonishing sight, I don't know what is.
Therefore, to use nuclear weapons is to commit to a totally unproportionate bargain, in which humanity will spread ashes of death around the world to gain a temporary advantage, and then give up the area permanently, leaving the aliens with an unrecoverable land. With this, humanity has abandoned the nuclear attacks.
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