A Briefing

Osean Department of Defense, Oured, Osean Federation, Osean Continent

December 30th 2019, 06:00

Dozens of people are chatting in the special conference room, people with prominent dignities in military, indicated by the styles of their uniforms and designs of shoulder-insignias. The Lighthouse War had concluded victoriously, Kingdom of Erusea is nothing more than a past term dumped into the garbage pile of history — raped…ripped and torn into sixteen pieces of fragments, its population had been reduced from 78 million of pre-war to less than 10 million (and the royal line is completely purged). Majority of the Osean forces operating in and around Usean Continent during the war are returning home, save for a few stationed in several strongholds across the landmass, and they will return as well after a few months.

"Look at you, a general!" Wiseman drives at the brigadier general insignias of Osean Air Defense Force on Trigger's shoulders.

"They praise me too much." The newly-promoted general responds with humility.

"C'mon! You deserve four-stars on shoulders nine years ago. If there's someone got praised too much, it's me." Wiseman hints the two-star insignias on his own shoulders.

"I hereby to testify his correctness." Long Caster, who bears identical insignias of Wiseman's, appears to back him up, and shakes hand with Trigger: "Nice to meet you here, is everyone fine at home?"

"Still need some time to get it over, but they'll pass." Trigger had already overcome her trauma — via completing her revenge by the destruction of Erusea — the only dissatisfaction is she vowed to personally gut Rosa Cossette D'Elise, princess of Erusea and the No.1 war criminal of this Lighthouse War, like gutting a fish — cutting her belly wide-open, but remnants of the Belkan extreme-right-wing supremacists organization known as Grey Men beat her to the goal — the ringleader of these extremists, Dr. Schroeder, used the princess as a springboard to enable his group to infiltrated into high-levels of Erusea, then deceived the country into initiating this suicidal war, meanwhile using the war to acquire funds, crews and sites for developing advanced (military) technologies. After these pawns outliving their usefulness, doctor and his henchman quickly kicked over the chessboard, squashed pieces under feet and fled with fruitions of their works — of course didn't run very far before being brought to justice. Now the remains of Rosa Cossette D'Elise had been confiscated by the Central Government of Osean Federation and is preserved in formaldehyde solution, as a warning to the entire world: Never ever mess with Osea, or you will wish you were never born.

"Good to hear that. If you need anything, don't hold back." "Yup. You defend our fatherland, we defend you."

…

The chatter goes on, with additional participants such as Bandog, Count, Jaeger, Lanza, Skald, Húxiān, Avril Mead, etc. They're all brothers and sister fought in the same trench, and now they come together again for another common goal.

Then a certain heavy's presence silences everyone in an instant — Secretary of Defense Kei Nagase — after the conclusion of Circum-Pacific War — also known as Belkan Conflict, Heroes of Razgriz were rewarded handsomely for their sheer merits: Snow was accepted into highest level of OADF, followed by Hans Grimm — working back and forth between their lavish offices and vast conference chambers, until the Lighthouse War broken out, they returned to battlefront as Wiseman and Long Caster, with an ace squadron of handpicked pilots, to prove they still possess what it takes to rule the skies; Kei Nagase was appointed to be the Secretary of Defense by President Vincent Harling, but that seat was actually meant for Blaze, the squadron leader of the "quadruple majesties of darkness" — being the primary savior of the country and its people, she was entitled to ask for any positions she wanted except becoming the president, however this uncontested dominator who tyrannizes the skies above Planet Strangereal voluntarily gave up the unimaginable honors and fortune within her reach, instead chose to be an astronaut in Osean Space Defense Force, then went back to OADF as a test pilot after several years of serving outside atmosphere. During the process Blaze also fell in love with Harling who had retired from presidency, married him and had children — oh yeah, she had long since ceased to use the callsign "Blaze", her colleagues address her as "Trigger" when taking to skies.

The presence of Secretary of Defense is a clear indication of the weight of the upcoming mission. No courtesy greetings, Nagase directly goes to the topic: "Classified files seized from Erusean Secretariat-General for National Defence and Security in Farbanti contain acoustic, magnetic and thermal signatures of the submerging carrier Alicorn of Alicorn-Class, enabling us to track its position." As she speaks, a section of floor is opened to allow a holographic projector to rise up, generating a hard-light hologram of Planet Strangereal in front of everyone. Immediately the sphere transforms into a planar world map, and zooms in to a particular high latitude region of southern Pacific Ocean, right between Osean Continent, Verusan Coninent and Antarctica, also highlighting noteworthy information such as seas, islands, seamounts, sea trenches…by lines, texts, dots and icons — of course the most eye-catching one is that submarine symbol of bright-red — Alicorn.

Nagase: "After escaping from Port Artiglio, Alicorn submerged and moved southward to the seas near Antarctica, then turned east and moved along continental shores, bypassing Usea and Verusa, entering southern Pacific Ocean. Doing so was for avoiding our anti-sub hierarchy, to attack Osean metropolitan territories from relatively less defended southwest." The holographic map shows Alicorn's course and all the predicted positions possible of attacking.

"Enemy sub can launch ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, but only armed with short-range ones, so the real threat is posed by its two Tier 0.5 Scale 4.0 electro-magnetic rail accelerators, capable of sending 600mm-caliber naval gun shells to beyond 3000 kilometers." Attendees whisper among themselves upon hearing this info, and the holograms change to an abridged general view of Alicorn's primary weapons: Two giant railguns, arranged in a horizontal column, are smartly designed to blend in with the top deck of central body, completely invisible when not in use. One can only acknowledge this enormous mechanical whale is in possession of such destructive toys when they're preparing to fire, and acknowledge there are two of them.

"So enemies are planning to initiate a large-scale bombardment of 'dirty shells' against our cites, industrial complexes, farmlands, mines, forests, water sources…for inflicting tremendous casualties, property losses and long-term pollutions, or to threaten us by such forever." The holographic projector demonstrates projected results of predicted attacks. "The menace of Alicorn must be neutralized, vessels of OMDF had been dispatched, Union of Yuktobanian Republics also agreed to send in ships for assistance, both fleets will rendezvous in predetermined location to form a coalition taskforce and advance to the point of interception." A recorded video of Prime Minister of Yuktobania, Seryozha Viktrovich Nikanor, is being played by the holographic projector: "Since this leviathan is built by us, then we won't sit idle to let our former rival and current ally to destroy it alone. The glorious Yuktobanian Navy will help, also for repaying the debts I owe to my old friends."

"Other armaments aboard Alicorn are not to be taken lightly as well. Carrier-based fighters, VLS capable of launching unmanned fighters and missiles from underwater, CIWS…even batteries of experimental Tier 0.5 Scale 2.0 railguns retractable into both shipboards. The estimated overall firepower equals to two or three carrier battle groups." Attendees once again whisper among themselves, meanwhile pointing at those floating, highlighted holographs representing the hostile super-sub's deadly gadgets of killing. "Therefore the coalition naval force won't engage directly, instead will deploy formation outside boundary of AO to attack with anti-sub missiles." Holograms now are a number of warships tossing explosives to Alicorn from ultra-long-range.

Count raise a hand: "Request permission to speak."

"Granted."

"With due respect ma'am, I don't think any available anti-sub ordnance can deal actual damage to that sea-beast's carapace." The former fraudster, current national hero drives at what is being displayed in holographic now: All Osean and Yuktobanian vessels' extrinsic features, names, classes, names of captains, armaments…etc.

"You just pointed out the objective truth. However sinking the vessel is not our priority. As aforementioned — 'neutralized' — the only valid threat of Alicorn is its two main railguns, mission will be considered successful if they're permanently disabled. To achieve this we must force the submarine to surface, its hull is surely impregnable to anti-sub ordnance, but not the propulsion system." Everyone shows excitement upon hearing what Nagase is saying, some of them even get so excited, almost stand up…almost.

Holograms change to a transparent 3D wireframe of Alicorn, and magnify to the nozzles of the two super-high-powered nuclear geared turbines/turbo-electric mixed flow pump jets with conductive internal flow magnetohydrodynamic units. "Alicorn will lose the abilities of forwarding and turning underwater, if the propulsion system sustains enough damage, subsequently forcing it to resurface. When that happens, LRSSG will cooperate with the joint fleet to continue attack to completely knock the propulsion system out." Attendees whisper with nods, not a too ridiculous battle plan.

"Captain Matias Torres." Nagase drives at a male's portrait suspended in midair, consisted by a full face picture and a profile, followed by a long personal track record: "Analysis thinks he's suffering from severe schizophrenia, we can almost ascertain he will jump to the last resort of using the main railguns once his vessel is completely immobilized. This is the only chance, Trigger will destroy those guns before they fire, Scrap Queen's team had designed a special bomb for this task." The manic captain's photos and biography are replaced by a 3D schematic of a specially-designed UGB, with instructions to each part. All people looks at the elated Avril Mead in unison.

"We will decide the details of the next phase of the operation by assessing the actual situation, after Alicorn's primary weapon no longer posing any threats. End of briefing. I with you the best luck in the battle."

The secret railway constructed beneath DOD ferries pilots to Western Suburb Airport. According to battle plan, LRSSG (including aces transferred from other units) will take off from here and land on Port Atlas, located at Terminus Island of Federal Republic of Aurelia, then fly straight to AO after refueling and arming locally. In fact it's extremely easy to solve the "Alicorn Issue", all it needs is dropping a nuke — two nukes if one is not enough — and call it a day; or just dropping the "Jaws Torpedo" featured in movie "007: Tomorrow Never Dies". However you know, this is ACE Combat, which means "no matter how many effective and efficient options are available, the chosen one is always to be the most troublesome and the most costly".