GATE: the clash of the titans V2

by Qun Nguyn1

Mostly AUs. A Gate has opened in Tokyo by a Roman-esque Empire, familiar scenario with familiar faces but the people marched through the Gate is from a vastly more powerful magic world. The stage is set. Earth Alliance vs The Holy Empire. Science vs Magic. The power of the thousand sun vs The Beast of the Apocalypse. Let the clash of Titans begin. Let the worlds have War.

11. Chapter 11: Flame of Creation

Chapter 11: The Flame of Creation

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February 2030, Kramatorsk Airport, Greater Russian

Hauptmann Paul Zorner stomped the snow off his boots as he returned to his sleeping quarters, and shrugged off his winter overcoat. The hallway was warm, like the rest of the newly built airfield it was well heated to deal with the Russian winter. The buildings were of standard Luftwaffe design, but there were so many more of them, the airfield was huge and several thousand men and women called the airfield home.

Outside the winter twilight was giving way to true night, he would just have time for a quick meal in the mess before more classroom work and a stint in one of the simulators. He had arrived here a few weeks ago, fresh from a stint of leave after finishing his training on Airbus-262. His leave had been spent in Hamburg with his wife and newly born daughter Carlotta, both he and Lieselotte had agreed that they would not name her Victoria, the most popular girls name in 2028 and 2029.

Now that the contract time was over and wartime pay had disappeared he and Lieselotte had agreed that she would live with her parents for a while yet, even with flight pay they would not be able to afford a house or an apartment just yet. And there was the potential for him to be let go from the Luftwaffe, apparently there were schemes that would send you to university for free after you left, and Zorner was very interested in this.

But for now he was stuck in the Luftwaffe and here in Russia, learning to fly the Airbus-464, well he had yet to even fly as a passenger in one of the big jet bombers. He and the three other members of his crew had spent all their time in classrooms and simulators, learning the ins and outs of the various systems and equipment that the aircraft was packed with. His navigator/bomb aimer and radio operator had the worst of it; they had literally hundreds of hours of classroom and simulator training ahead of them before they were qualified to fly the Airbus-464. He and his co-pilot had only marginally less instruction first before they would be let loose on the Luftwaffe's newest aircraft.

Those crews that were qualified to fly the Airbus-464 were flying 2-3 times a week, often on training flights that lasted for upwards of ten hours, and a strange air of secrecy and paranoia pervaded the airbase. The training was as intense as anything he had experienced in wartime and he was not allowed to name the air field in any correspondence with anyone outside the Luftwaffe.

After a quick shower and then his evening meal Zorner and his co-pilot Paul Hubert-Rauh, a rather jolly Austrian who was two years his senior, and who seemed to have a healthy disrespect for all things military, were strapped into their simulator.

The simulator was the cockpit area of the Airbus-464 and was mounted on hydraulic legs so it could move around to simulate aircraft movement. Right now it was tilting and bucking, simulating an out of control spin following 'battle damage', and Zorner and Rauh were fighting at the controls, trying to regain control. This they eventually did at an indicated altitude of 55,000 meters, earning them some gruff praise from the Stabsfeldwebel who was in charge.

The NCO then reset the simulator back to a cruising altitude of 77,000 meters and a speed of Mach 9 and after a few minutes' alarms blared and flashed, simulating a failure of the main port side electrical bus. Zorner and Rauh went to work, flipping switches and isolating the electrical bus, preventing any of the aircrafts 'systems' from failing.

After a few hours of this torture Zorner collapsed into bed to sleep the sleep of the dead, and awoke the next morning to another day of seemingly endless training.

・・・

Triumphant music blares from the screen, a EUAF's eagle retreats until a slim delta winged shape is visible, flying through various cloudscapes and eventually the aircraft is seen landing and taxiing to a stop.

"This is the EUAF's newest bomber, the Messerschmitt Airbus-464, and the fastest, highest flying and longest range bomber in the world. You cannot find a more potent symbol of European Scientific genius married to American madness. The Airbus-464 is a different bomber to anything you will have flown before, how it flies, how it handles, how it bombs, all are radically different from what has gone before. This is a plane that will perform like no other, if you, the men selected to fly the Airbus-464, learn to adapt to a new set of flying problems and characteristics."

Shots of various Airbus-464's on the ground being serviced and then a fuel bowser pulls up to a Airbus-464 and ground crew men attach fuel hoses to the plane.

"The Airbus-464 needs a large volume of fuel to carry out its long range operations, and fuel is the critical item for the carrying out of the Airbus-464's mission. Every part of your mission plan is completely dependent upon fuel quantity and consumption. Your fuel gauges read in Kilograms and not in Liters, this lets you know at a glance the weight of fuel available in your tanks, and what is more important, the amount of power you have to complete your mission."

The film now cuts to shots of the crew stations on the Airbus-464 in various flight conditions, and more exterior shots of the aircraft in flight.

"Operating an Airbus-464 is an elaborate and serious undertaking, so you must plan seriously for every detail of the mission."

Scenes of various four man crews seated at tables pouring over maps and weather charts, reading through thick ring binder books and calculating fuel loads and courses.

"Keep in mind that with the high speed and high fuel consumption of this aircraft your mission plan has to be right first time, even with the advantage of in flight refueling. You will come to understand that you can get full advantage out of every aspect of the Airbus-464's performance if, and only if, you plan each portion of your mission meticulously. HYSCRAM (Hypersonic Superconducting Combustion Ram Accelerated Magnetohydrodynamic Drive ) engines are simpler to handle than turbojets engines but they have their own peculiarities which you must take into account. For example there is only one altitude for the best range performance, and since this is based largely on gross weight, you must utilize a flight plan that involves a rapid climb to optimal altitude. As you use fuel that altitude will gradually increase as your gross weigh decreases."

The camera now cuts to shots a aircrew walking around the Airbus-464 as they carry out ground inspections, the aircrew are dressed in new style flight suits and have the new rigid helmets recently introduced for jet turbine fighter pilots. The aircrew carry out a through ground inspection and chat to the ground crew before boarding the aircraft.

"The four man crew who make this the ultimate bomber of the Luftwaffe are the Pilot, Co-Pilot, Navigator/Bomb Aimer and Radio Operator/Navigator operate the Airbus-464 from a pressurized cockpit area in the nose of the plane. This pressurized compartment also houses much of the electronic equipment that gives the Airbus-464 its amazing bombing and navigational abilities.

The film now shows a crew settling into their stations on the Airbus-464 and performing various tasks.

"In the Airbus-464 there are checklists for everything, and this checklist that the crew is running through is designed to minimize engine running on the ground, because every minute of engine running on the ground cuts a big part of your flying range."

Shots are now displayed of engine start up for the four HYSCRAM engines buried in the wing roots of the delta aircraft. The camera cuts between exterior shots of the engines firing up and interior shots of the pilots flicking switches, pulling throttle levers and close ups of rpm and temperature gauges. Then the ground crew pull away the chocks and the bomber moves off, lining up on a runway and beginning its take off run.

"You will always use full power and full flaps on takeoff and requires a very long ground roll to take off, the Airbus-464 was designed to have a gross takeoff weight of over 360,000kg so weight, runway elevation above sea level and outside air temperature have a large effect on takeoff distance. If needed the Airbus-464 can be fitted with two take off assistance rockets under each wing."

Screen now shows an Airbus-464 taking off trailing a dense cloud of rocket exhaust from the rockets under its wings and then cuts to a shot of an Airbus-464 climbing through a clear blue sky.

"Your fuel consumption at sea level can three times greater than that at high altitude so climb to optimal cruise altitude as quickly as possible. Of course the best indicated climb speed will decrease with altitude, so keep it close to what you calculated for in your mission planning. From here on there are two things that will affect range, your throttle and your altitude. At altitude you will get the maximum performance and range out of the Airbus-464 by following the gradually climbing plan that you laid out in your mission planning. So you will aim to be flying at a constant Mach number and a constant throttle setting for this phase of your mission.

Now the screen shows a Airbus-464 flying through the sky at high altitude, scattered cloud below the aircraft.

"Speed and altitude are your friend; you have a very comfortable margin over everything else that flies, so make the best possible use of it for your missions. For large portions of your flight you will be operating at as close to the speed of sound as is practical for the Airbus-464. As you all know, the speed of sound varies with the temperature of still air, so as you go higher, the air gets colder, and the speed of sound decreases. The speed of sound is known as Mach 1, after the German Scientist Ernst Mach, and the Airbus-464 is built to safely approach a certain percentage of Mach 10, and knowing how to operate as close to this percentage as possible safely, will be of vital importance for operating the Airbus-464, this will be referred to from now on as the 'critical Mach number'."

On the screen an instrument upon which the name Machzahl is displayed, its clock face reads from 0.5 to 11, the single needle pointing to 7.

"This instrument displays your true airspeed in terms of Mach and lest you know at all times the relationship between the speed your are flying at and the speed of sound.

The screen is filled with a Airbus-464 flying past at close range, the camera pans to follow the Airbus-464 off into the distance, then the view changes to a Airbus-464 that seems to be shaking and buffeting all over the sky.

"You will need to learn about an aerodynamic effect called 'buffeting' and on the Airbus-464 it can be experienced as a vibration that starts on the wings and rapidly transfers to the entire airframe. What is happening is that the wings are experiencing a high speed stall, which sounds counter intuitive but which is a sign that you are approaching your critical Mach number. All aircraft have a critical Mach number but few have the ability to reach it, much less in level flight, but the Airbus-464 has the power and aerodynamics to do so. In the Airbus-464 you have to fly at a speed very close to your critical Mach number to get the best performance from the aircraft. As your altitude increases so does your stall speed, on the other hand your critical Mach number decreases as your fly higher, and the Airbus-464 is effectively operating in a narrow speed range between stalling and its critical Mach number. Added complexity is that as you fly higher your minimum engine rpm increases to prevent flame out. So flying at optimal performance requires constant vigilance on the part of the flight crew."

More shots of an Airbus-464 flying at high altitude, with the camera angle shifting to a view from above the aircraft, showing off its delta wing to good effect.

"Let down brings up another new group of problems unique to the Airbus-464. In order to avoid the high fuel consumption of low altitude flight you will maintain your optimal cruising altitude much closer to your airfield than in a prop driven aircraft. You will not begin let down until you are practically over your home base. In order to slow down and not have to throttle back with the attendant dangers of flame out you will open your airbrakes and once you have attained the indicated airspeed for a descent, start to lose altitude."

The shot of the Airbus-464 from above clearly shows the air brakes opening on the upper surface of the delta wing and the camera angle rotates to now be show the Airbus-464 apparently descending to earth.

"Once you are at the safe airspeed to drop the undercarriage retract the air brakes and begin your approach. Remember that due to the highly aerodynamic nature of the Airbus-464 it can take a long time to slow down, so plan accordingly. Every 5 km of excess speed on landing will cost you 300 meters of landing run to slow down, so make sure you are not coming in too fast to land. However you must remember that your HYSCRAM engines are not as responsive as turboramjet engines, especially at low rpm setting, it takes twice as long to go from 0% to 50% thrust as it does to go from 50% to 100% thrust so keep you engines at 50% rpm for landing.

Various scenes now show Airbus-464's landing and trundling down runways and onto taxi ways before cutting to showing a Airbus-464 flying at full speed over its airfield.

"In the evolution of weapons the concepts of offense and defense are competing continuously for superiority. In the arena of air warfare the advantage of speed has formerly been the providence of fighters, but the Airbus-464 has the speed and altitude to make interception by present day fighters extremely difficult!"

Triumphant music blares out again and the EUAF eagle fills the screen.

March 2nd, 2030, Alnus Launch Site, Falmart

Lieutenant-General Youji Itami looked to the skies as he heard a familiar chopping noise, as the sounds grew louder, he squinted, identifying the source of the chopping noises: the V-44 Bell Boeing Quad TiltRotor helicopter that the American were using to travel. He stepped back as they hovered above him, carefully touching down in the helipad. Leaves from nearby trees and bushes flew every which direction, only settling down when the blades of the helicopters ceased their activity.

A man in a dark suit stepped out of the lead helicopter, flanked by several burly-looking guards holding futuristic plasma rifle. "General Itami?" He called out.

"Yes! Welcome to Alnus Base, Mr. Musk" Itami walked up to shake the richest man in the world hand. To be honest, Itami didn't like doing VIP receptions, he'd rather relax in his room, but his father keep insisting.

"Glad to meet you, Mr Itami," Musk replied.

The world's first trillionaire had expected his first experience in Falmart to be bright light, clean air, and the quiet sounds of a place untouched by modern technology. He was dead wrong, of course, and the sight of the forward operating base reminded him of what he was truly heading into.

Rather than clear air, he was met with the gritty stench of aviation fuel and diesel motors. Rather than general quiet, the continued bustle of tanks, trucks, and other personnel carriers penetrated even the noisy rumble of the Oshkosh L-ATV…to say nothing of a helicopter that was approaching the nearby airfield for landing.

Most remarkable of all, rather than the approaching sunset he had experienced in downtown Tokyo, it was bright midday sun. This last item settled it for him—in his notes, the length of the day was different, not unlike ancient Earth, which ran about half the length of a day on Earth.

It truly was another world.

Felling uneasy by the heat and high gravity. "Mind if we take this inside?"

"Of course. Please, follow me." Itami led Musk and his men into a conference room, where several generals and politicians were already seated.

"Thank you," Musk said as he accepted a seat offered by an aide. He sat down, and pulled out several documents from his briefcase while the the generals finished setting up their papers.

Walking towards the American CEO was Youji's uncle, the chairman of the powerful Itami Group, Hayato Itami.

"I'm glad you can come, Mr. Musk." Hayato offered him a hand shake. "This is a historic day for for space exploration. Thanks to your company, soon we will have the first satellite constellation orbiting Falmart."

"More like a historic day for the militarization of space," Musk replied sarcastically. "SpaceX is just a glorify transportation company, the main focus of this event is Itami Group's Amaterasu V satellites."

"Amaterasu Program is a joint project between the United States and Japan, Itami Corporation is just one of the contractors of the Project like SpaceX." Hayato smiling at the man, his eyes narrowed.

"No need to lower yourself, without your company revolutionary Kusanagi Gamma-ray laser System, the whole program would be cancelled."

The concept of a gamma-ray-laser or graser could be traced all the way back to when lasers themselves were fully conceived. Gamma rays were simply another part of the electromagnetic spectrum composed of everything from radio waves to visible light to x-rays. What ultimately set them apart was their very high frequency and associated energy, which translated into correspondingly greater difficulty in producing a coherent emission in the gamma ray range. The highest frequency lasers in production use, with production being very specialized research, medical, and industrial applications, were x-ray lasers. Publicly, no country had yet succeeded in building of a working gamma ray laser. That alone made Project Kusanagi not just the crowning jewel of the Itami Group, but of Japan.

"The same can be said with your Blue Dragon rockets." Hayato grinned, he swept his hand towards the giant structures in front of them. "America's best rocket… at least, according to you."

"They're the best IN THE WORLD!' Musk assertively declared.

At 155 m long and 24 m in diameter, Blue Dragon was the largest, fully-reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, nuclear thermal rocket ever built.

Nuclear-powered thermal rockets are more effective than chemical thermal rockets, primarily because they can use low-molecular-mass propellants such as hydrogen.

As thermal rockets, nuclear thermal rockets work almost exactly like chemical rockets: a heat source releases thermal energy into a gaseous propellant inside the body of the engine, and a nozzle at one end acts as a very simple heat engine: it allows the propellant to expand away from the vehicle, carrying momentum with it and converting thermal energy to coherent kinetic energy. The specific impulse (Isp) of the engine is set by the speed of the exhaust stream. That, in turn, varies as the square root of the kinetic energy loaded on each unit mass of propellant. The kinetic energy per molecule of propellant is determined by the temperature of the heat source (whether it be a nuclear reactor or a chemical reaction). At any particular temperature, lightweight propellant molecules carry just as much kinetic energy as heavier propellant molecules and therefore have more kinetic energy per unit mass. This makes low-molecular-mass propellants more effective than high-molecular-mass propellants.

Because chemical rockets and nuclear rockets are made from refractory solid materials, they are both limited to operate below ~3,500 °C, by the strength characteristics of high-temperature material. Chemical rockets use the most readily available propellant, which is waste products from the chemical reactions producing their heat energy. Most liquid-fueled chemical rockets use either hydrogen or hydrocarbon combustion, and the propellant is therefore mainly water (molecular mass 18) and/or carbon dioxide (molecular mass 44). Nuclear thermal rockets using gaseous hydrogen propellant (molecular mass 2) therefore have a theoretical maximum Isp that is 3x-4.5x greater than those of chemical rockets.

On Earth, the Blue Dragon can lift more than a thousand tons into geostationary orbit but on Falmart, even this monster of a rocket can only carry 100 tons to Low Falmart Orbit. But that's enough for today's payload, the Amaterasu V satellite weighs 101,500 kg.

With the setting sun before them and the base lights starting to turn on behind them, Musk looked towards the spot by the airfield where the USAF had finished deploying the Blue Dragon. The angular front part had completely detached itself from the trailer, which was in the process of doing something remarkable. A long boxy section was rising up from the rear section, rotating to vertical as if it was on some giant hinge. Within a few seconds, it was pointing directly up at the blackening orange sky.

The operator checked her watch and said, "Okay, we are one minute away from launch. Right now the airmen on the ground are finishing their pre-flight checks. When they're ready, they will close an electric circuit, and the rocket will start. If all goes well, we'll be recovering the second stage of the rocket tonight and have some wonderful pictures from space by tomorrow evening."

The operator looked up at the Director for confirmation and, after listening to his radio for a moment, he first held up one fingers, then all five, and finished by pointing down at the ground. Now.

"Okay everyone, count down with me! Ten, nine, eight…"

Itami was no longer giving attention to the scene, completely absorbed by the launcher on the field below. "Three, two, one-"

The enormous boxy canister burst open at the end and a black and orange rocket flew a few feet into the air where it seemed to hang for a fraction of a second. And then the first stage ignited with a jet of flame to put even ancient dragons to shame, followed by the noise.

Tuka Luna Marceau had never heard anything like it, not from the Earthquake that had struck her hometown over a century ago, not from the Tu-688 while flying low with their engines alight, not from the strongest spell caster or biggest army she had ever seen. The noise of the massive rocket rising on its pillar of fire was an endless thunder that seemed to force its way through her ears and bones and teeth.

Even as she grasped her ears to protect them, she followed the trajectory of the rocket as it continued up, ever and ever higher, far past the furthest of the fighter jets. Even as the tower of smoke began to dissipate and the rocket dwindled to just another star in the early evening sky, Tuka knew that she hadn't just witnessed a rocket launch, but a whole new frontier of warfare. Humanity had defied the heaven.

How willl the Empire respond to this provocation? What if their world was about to change?

No, it was too late, their world had already changed.

Not knowing what else to do, she dropped to her knees, faced into the wind, and prayed.

May the Gods have mercy on us all.

She would not be the only one that night. At the noise, hundreds of thousands people in Lemuria poked their heads out of their windows and doors, pointed up into the sky from the streets and balconies and squares, and desperately scrambled to make sense of the new phenomenon.

Capital Sadera, Azjania, Falmart, Early March

Desperate times required desperate measures. A nation must stand together in times of national crisis. Even in the glorious light of the Eternal Empire and the Holy Church there still exists dark corners in society and in these dark times the line between light and darkness was often blurred.

Prince Ainsworth entered the Church of Hardy, and crossed himself before the altar before he turned to the men gathered there, about ten in all: the heads of the Falmart's largest crime syndicate. He spoke first, taking charge, as always, in an adolescent voice. "Gentlemen. You are not stupid; you know why I've gathered you here today."

They all nodded with varying degrees of alacrity. Ainsworth continued. "Now, our way of life faces a threat greater than anything it has ever faced in its past. We – I and all of you – face not just foreign invasion, but also heresy-infestation. This is now our reality."

He paused to evaluate what he saw in their faces. Blank, hard, determined – they share the vision, he reminded himself, just like every living falmartian now. "Therefore, in return for amnesty from prosecution for any crimes which may have been committed prior to the Great War, I would like to request that all of you cease from any illegal activities in which you may now be engaged that isn't requested by the state."

There was a small stir in the room. One, a fat man with an unlit cigar drooping from his lips, spoke. "Your Highness, with all due respect, why do you take us for criminals."

As he spoke, Ainsworth fixed him with a lidless stare until the other man dropped his gaze. "We are not stupid, you nor I. You know that I called you here today; you know that I am aware of who you all are in actuality and where you may be found. These things are not unknown to the government."

"Then why are we guaranteed amnesty?" They grimaced.

Ainsworth crossed his leg, looking amused. "Because the fabric of society must not buckle during this war. All of you are hard men; we need such men to help prepare our society for the terrors of a war on the forces of the Terran heretic. Your "goods" and "services" will be needed to ensure the stability of society. And we will need such men to administer Terra's territories once it has been conquered. "

"Prince Ainsworth...Your want the State... to sponsor smuggling activities and potions production ?" A thin smile began to spread on their faces.

Return them with a smug expression, Ainsworth replied. "I'm asking you all to be a respectable patriot, but I'm not asking you to lose profits."

That seemed to seal it for most of them. As he walked away, Ainsworth allowed himself a thin smile. Ainsworth would show the world what he was capable of, and the criminals would play their part in fighting against the terran's heretic corrupting influence.

---

Ula Pianca (Imperial Subterranean Castle )

An emergency meeting was not unusual in times of war but this was the first time such a meeting had been requested by Princess Pina since she became the Lord Protector of Lemuria. Pina's impatient nature meaned she wouldn't waste her time on trifles, which meaned the topic of the meeting is of great importance.

"Pina, why did you call this emergency meeting?" Molt released a puff of smoke from his mouth as he tapped his pipe.

"Your Majesty, members of the Royal Defense Council, I have called this meeting to bring your attention to an urgent matter," the crimson-haired princess in scarlet stola delicately embroidered in gold, point her delicate fingers to the screen.

"About 21 days ago, Astronomy Director Santiago and his colleagues sage Gustavo and Arturo from the Royal Astronomy Academy in Italica while performing their regular inventory of the skies for new phenomena, had discovered a fiery spark appeared above the Alnus Hill direction and started to climb. This is the image they took."

"That is-!"

"Yes, that is a giant rocket!" Pina confirmed.

"A rocket? But that size!" Prime Minister Diabo awed by the size of the rocket.

Pina shook her head. "The human of Earth are capable of forging and forming large metal panels into huge machines that can fly high without the use of magic. It is not impossible for them to create such a machine. And this isn't the only rocket the human launched. Since then they have launched more than 60 times, for an average of one every four hours."

"What are those rockets for?" Asked Crown Prince Odysseus.

"They're launching artificial stars or the humans called them satellites." Replied Pina. "This is an image taken yesterday in by a small group of astronomers in Persae."

On the screen there was a line of evenly spaced white dots across a starry sky above mountains like a train of stars moving across the darken sky. There was an eerie feeling running down the viewers' spines.

"I assume you already know about this, Brother." Pina turned to look at her elder brother, the Minister of Defense.

"Yeah, early warning radar in Persae and Aegyptus had detected these launches. The astronomers in Rondel have discovered that those rockets are lauching 3 different types of satellites into different altitudes. The satellites on the highest orbit, we name them AS-1s, are also the biggest, up to 13 meter in length, according to the snake people, those machines emit high energy. The ones on the middle are slightly smaller, we name them AS-2s, only 12 meter in length, but their orbits worriedly fly over our major industrial zones. The satellites on the lowest orbit are the smallest, only half a meter in length, but they are the most numerous, for every AS-1s in orbit there are 100 AS-3 satellites. The Air Force are now tracking more than two thousand objects of concern on the sky." Zorzal calmly said.

"That many!?" The Prime Minister were suprised by the sheer scale of the enemy satellites constellation.

"But what they're for?"

"I'm not sure what the AS-1 satellites are for but according to our American POWs, the AS-2 are probaly Ronald Reagan nuclear warhead orbital platforms, each platform yields 8 city buster missiles tipped with 5 nuclear weapons per missile; and the AS-3 almost certainly are Blackjack multipurpose (spy, position, navigation, timing, communications relay) satellites." Pina shared what she learned after hours of interrogation.

Well, that was bad!

Her brothers were silent, not knowing what to say. The humans had the ability to observe and attack them from space. This would give them a huge advantage over the Empire, who could only rely on direct visual comfirmation.

Finally, Molt cleared his throat. "Can we shoot those things down using your A-9 missiles?"

"Unfortunately not, Your Majesty," Pina shook her head expressing her disappointment. "Aggregat-9 doesn't have enough thrust-to-weight ratio to reach orbit. Even if they have, those satellites are moving at orbital velocity between 13 and 14.5 km/s (46,600–52,200 km/h ), hitting them using Aggregat-9 is, to all intents and purposes, impossible."

Suddenly Pina looked at her father confidently and announced. "But there no need to worry, Your Majesty. I have come up with countermeasures for the enemy space weapons."

"Oh..really!" Molt gave a triumphant but well-concealed smile.

"It is an undeniable fact that the enemy orbital supremacy over this planet will give them a huge advantage over the Empire. We won't be able to challenge their power for at least 40 more years but we don't need to, the enemy already give us the answer for this troublesome problem. Do Your Majesty know about the Kessler Syndrome? "

"The Kessler syndrome ?" Molt frowned, expressed curiosity.

"Yes, Your Majesty this is an Earth knowledge, the Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect, collisional cascading, or ablation cascade), proposed by NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a theoretical scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) due to space pollution is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade in which each collision generates space debris that increases the likelihood of further collisions. One implication is that the distribution of debris in orbit could render space activities and the use of satellites in specific orbital ranges difficult for many generations." Pina carefully explained the concept to her father.

"In order to win we must close space, the ultimate high ground, to our enemies. We will do this by launching vast numbers - in the hundred of trillions - of pieces of gravel into low-Falmart and geosynchronous orbits around Falmart , making these regions of space very unsafe for satellites in even the short term. Although the subset of this space-denial debris which is in low Falmart orbit is gradually re-entering and being lost, there is still a great deal of it, and the debris in higher orbits will persist for a very long time."

"But how will we do that ?" Molt asked impatiently.

"Using a giant cannon, which I named Volkanone, Your Majesty." Pina answered.

"The velocity necessary to reach the Low Famart Orbit (essentially the orbital velocity of the Falmart) could be calculated easily using Newtonian mechanics. By incontrovertible calculations I find that a projectile endowed with an initial velocity of 13,500 meters per second. The resistance of the air is of little importance. The atmosphere of this planet does not exceed 120 miles. Now, with the given rapidity, the projectile will have traversed this in 12 seconds, and the period is too brief for the resistance of the medium to be regarded otherwise than as insignificant..."

"13,500 meters per second! Is that even possible, even your Vergeltung-3 super cannons with enhanced magic only get 3500 m/s." Diabo doubted the feasibility of Pina's proposal.

"Of course, ordinary titan gunpowder would not do. That's why the latest invention, metallic hydrogen, would be used as propellant, as when enhanced it with runes, it imparts to projectiles a velocity four times superior to that of gunpowder.

To maximize the acceleration while reduces pressures on the projectile, Volkanone operated on the multi-explosive charge principle.

The basic idea of the multi-explosive charge concept is that in a traditional single-charge gun the pressure in the barrel is at its peak when the charge is fired, and then continually dwindles to some much lower value as the shell travels down the barrel and the combustion gasses expand. This requires a traditional gun to be much heavier at the breech end in order to successfully contain this pressure, and as the gun grows in power, the weight becomes untenable. The multi-charge concept uses a low-power initial explosive charge and continues adding more explosive charges as the shell moves along the barrel, resulting in a much more constant pressure as the shell moves. This reduces peak pressure and the need to have a heavy breech, as well as providing smoother acceleration.

It must evidently be a gun of great length, since the length of the barrel will increase the detention of the gas accumulated behind the projectile; but there is no advantage in passing certain limits. My calculation indicates a barrel 1300 meters long, with 100 side chambers filled with explosive charges will communicate an initial force of 13,500 meters per second to a shell of 120 inches in diameter, weighing 220,000 kg.

Base on the Vergeltung-3 model, the new Volkanone would be emplaced in the earth as mounting a mass like that upon a carriage would be quite impracticable. I think of sinking this engine in the earth alone, binding it with hoops of wrought adamatine, and finally surrounding it with a thick mass of masonry of stone and cement. The piece once cast, it must be bored with great precision, so as to preclude any possible windage. So there will be no loss whatever of gas, and all the expansive force of the powder will be employed in the gun would not be rifled as we require an enormous initial velocity; and you are well aware that a shot quits a rifled gun less rapidly than it does a smooth-bore.

In place of 1600 tons of titan gunpowder, we shall have but 400 tons of metallic hydrogen; and since we can, without danger, compress 4000 kilograms of metallic hydrogen into twenty-seven cubic feet, the Volkanone will only need 100 one meter by one meter side chambers.

In this way the projectile will have more than 1280 meters of gun bore to traverse under an average acceleration of 5,600 G before taking its flight toward the Low Orbit."

"Hold on," Zorzal stated. "Wait a second, a 1300 meter-long cannon, assuming the thickness of the tube is six feet, using the only material can withstand the heat of metallic hydrogen when detonated that is Orichalcum, will weigh about 250,000 tons. And at the cost of 1800 Suwani per ton, it will cost three hundred and fifty million Suwani." He pointed out.

With a self-satisfied smirk, Pina proclaimed. "You're correct about the cost of Orichalcum, Brother. But you are wrong about one thing, Orichalcum isn't the only material that can withstand that intense heat. There is one material that is 1000 times cheaper and even regeneratable hence never wears out."

"Such thing exist!?"

"Of course! it's ice."

"Ice...!"

"More precisely, Frost Giant's magic permafrost." She added.

"We will use magic permafrost for the gun barrel, permafrost costs 1000 times less than Orichalcum; it is lighter, easy to make, has extremely low thermal conductivity, is easy to manipulate, at once economical of money and of time. Magic permafrost possesses great resistance to shock and self healing ability as long as there is water nearby. The heat from Volkanone's firing will melt the barrel but it will refreeze almost instantly with some simple magic.' Pina explained.

Her number still didn't add up.

Zorzal continued. "So you said size of the projectile would be 120 inches in diameter and weight 220 tones. To keep the room for the space-denial debris, the projectile would have to be hollow. If we follow out the regular proportions, diameter of 305 cm would require a thickness of at least 66 cm. The weight of the hollow shell alone will excess 220 tones."

'True,' Pina conceded on that point but she countered. "But you see we are not making a shot for piercing steel plates; it will only require sufficient thickness to withstand the pressure of the gas. But, as we must reserve room for our for the space-denial debris, I propose to limit the weight of the hollow shell to no more than 20,000 kilograms."

"20,000 kilograms!" Diabo El Caesar screamed in horror whereupon he traced some rapid algebraic formulae in his head: x, y, and z followed each other in quick succession. He appeared to extract a certain cubic root, and said. "That mean even if you use magnesium for the hollow shell, its sides will only be 1.5 centimeter thick."

"Will that be sufficient?" asked the Crown Prince, doubtfully.

"No,' replied the Minister of Defense.

"There is no material light enough to make that hollow shell and preserved its structural integrity. "

"That is where you're wrong, brothers." You could almost felt Pina smugness radiating from her. "There is such material."

"What is it?" asked the Crown Prince.

"Aeroserebristium," answered Pina.

"Aeroserebristium?" cried the Minister of Defense.

"Certainly, my beloved brothers. You are aware that an illustrious dwarven alchemist, Thorin Oakenshield, succeeded in the year 41,854 in producing a new ultralight material by extracting the liquid component of serebristium through supercritical drying and freeze-drying. This allows the serebristium to be slowly dried off without causing the solid matrix in the metal to collapse from capillary action, as would happen with conventional evaporation.

The result is a solid material with extremely low density and extremely low thermal conductivity.

Aeroserebristium is a material that is 99.9% air. Aeroserebristium have a porous solid network that contains air pockets, with the air pockets taking up the majority of space within the material. The dearth of solid material allows aeroserebristium to be almost weightless. The lowest-density Aeroserebristium nanofoam weighs 3,000 g/m3. The density of Falmart's air is 7000 g/m3 (at 20 °C and 6 atm).

Aeroserebristium is a good thermal insulator because it almost nullify two of the three methods of heat transfer – conduction (it is mostly composed of insulating gas) and convection (the microstructure prevents net gas movement). It is good conductive insulator because it is composed almost entirely of gases, which are very poor heat conductors. It is good convective inhibitor because air cannot circulate through the lattice.

This valuable material possesses the whiteness of silver, the indestructibility of adamantine, the tenacity of orichalcum and seems to have been created for the express purpose of furnishing us with the material for our projectile."

"Three cheers for Aeroserebristium!" cried the Prime Minister, always very noisy in his moments of enthusiasm.

"But, my dear sister," said the Crown Prince, "Isn't Aeroserebristium very expensive?"

"It was,' replied Pina; a short time after its discovery a kilogram of Aeroserebristium cost from 26,000 to 28,000 Suwani; later on, it fell to 17,000 Suwani, and today it costs only 900 Suwani a kilogram thanks to new scientific knowledge from Earth.

'But 900 Suwani a kilogram," replied the Minister of Defense, who was not easily beaten off, "will make a tremendous sum."

"No doubt, my dear brother, but not an impossible one."

'What will the projectile weigh?" asked Diabo.

"Here are my calculations," replied Pina. "A hollow shot 120 inches (305 cm) in diameter and 15 centimeters thick, would weigh, in Mithril 315,900 kilograms; in Aeroserebristium its weight would be reduced to 351 kilograms, far excess the goal of 20,000, thus will cost only 351,900 Suwani. Well, what do you think of Aeroserebristium?' asked Pina.

"Accepted!" replied the three members of the Imperial family.

In conclusion, the Volkanone cannon will be poured into a 1300 m deep well, with a bore of 120 inches. Its side chambers were filled with 400 metric tons of metallic hydrogen. This was supposed to propel the 305cm diameter shell to a velocity of 14 km/second. After deceleration going through the Falmart's atmosphere, the shell would have a residual velocity of 13.5 km/second, sufficient to reach the Low Falmart Orbit. The cannon shell was to be constructed of Aeroserebristium, with walls 15 cm thick.

Each shell carrying 90 cubic metre of gravel chunks, weighting 200 tonnes, divided into one cubic centimetre chunks, would put 90 million such chunks into space. [ For comparison in the real world there are some six hundred thousand objects of one centimetre or larger in Earth orbit.] The debris was designed to be as hard to detect as possible, so it is, as much as was possible, black and of materials that gave a small radar return.

One thousand of the Volkanone cannons could be make in 60 days (30 earth's day) and each cannon would fire 1000 shells in 24 hours. The mathematics were simple and effective. There would be one thousand Volkanone cannons. Each cannon fired 1000 shells. Each shells had 90 million space-denial debris. 1000 x 1000 x 90,000,000 = 90 trillions chunks. With this gigantic number the entire Low Falmart Orbit would be covered by a destructive cloud, destroying all satellites and denying the human access to the-ultimate-high-ground.

"Excellence Pina! As expected of the Empire's prodigy. You have thought it all out." The Emperor proudly declared.

"It's my honor, Your Majesty."

"What about naval rearmament?" Molt changed the subject.

"All well and good, Your Majesty.

In naval terms, new shipbuilding is continuing at only a slightly reduced schedule with new construction providing far greater firepower and capabilities than the sips they are replacing. We will be reaching the desired force level of 1080,000 warships by this time next year. By integrating mass-produced golems into the naval personnel system, this allow us to reduce sailors requirement by up to 90 percent. We would have done so this year but a large part of the budget are being spent on the Deus-class Aerial Battleships and the Korabl Leda-class floating gun platforms.

Of the 200 Deus-class Aerial Battleships were ordered last year, at the cost of 100 millions Suwani per ship, the first 100 have been commissioned into service in the Zeroth Combined Fleet, the rest will be delivered to the navy no later than next month.

The Imperial Navy also launched the first Korabl Leda-class, HDES Nova Habakkuk, floating gun platform into the Sea of Chipangu yesterday. It will be the flagship of the Zeroth Combined Fleet.

The Korabl Leda-class represents a revolution in Imperial naval doctrine, transitioning from direct-ship or visual range combat to beyond visual range strategic bombardment. From its very inception, the Korabl Leda-class wasn't design as a warship but a vast, relatively fast, largely unsinkable, floating artillery base disguised as a naval vessel with the goal of maintaining Imperial control of the world oceans.

Boasting the length of 2400 meters and a width of 400 meters, Korabl Leda-class ships built of magic reinforced ice, displacing some 22 million tons. The size of the ship made it almost impossible to sink except by a directed hit by a nuclear weapon. The hull of the ship is 25 to 30 m thick and can regenerate by absorb seawater, means it's can withstand torpedoes, anti-ship ballistic missiles and even "bunker buster" bombs.

Korabl Leda present an enormous increase in range and capabilities for the Empire Navy. Its main armament is 50 Vergeltung-3 dual-purpose superguns in ten five-gun stacked clusters making the vessel basically a floating Vergeltung-3 Artillery Complex. With the maximum range of 3000 kilometers, and a theoretical maximum rate of 300 shells per gun per hour. This allows the Korabl Leda platform to strategically bombard city-size targets with up to 21,000 tons of high-explosive shells in an hour. An ability only a human "thousand heavy bomber raid" could match.

"And the Imperial Air Force?"

"Everything is on schedule, Your Majesty. From the experiences the Imperial Air Force had gained in the past five months, we concluded that the UEADF have very powerful air-defense system but they are expensive, to take advantage of this we're designing low quality mass-produced aerial beasts like wyverns and microdragons to overwhelm their air defense.

All three projects, Vimanas (to obtain a long-range strategic bomber ), Warsitz (to obtain rocket-powered interceptor), and Havajahaz (to obtain manned rocket-powered suicide missiles) are on their prototype phase. We can expect mass production in one to three years.

The Vimanas-225 Terrabomber: an aircraft with similar role to the American B-36, although with a much bigger bomb load (200,000-kilogram) and with even greater range was indeed "a bloody big bomber". The skyship sported twenty defensive magic guns and cannon, six light-discharge air compression magic engines and, with a wingspan some thirty-eight FEET greater than the B-36 bomber and twenty feet longer than the Antonov An-225 Mriya, and a range of over 90,000 miles, would be the largest operational bomber in the HDEAF for 20 more years.

Developed in considerable secrecy, the Terrabomber was supposed to "bring the Earthlings to their knees" by exposing their civilian populations to strategic bombing. While the probability of knocking the UEA out of the war was remote, the effect of having Earthlings dying on their home soil would have, unquestionably, been dramatic.

The Terrabomber was able to achieve its magnificent range at the cost of performance in other areas, with airspeed, being limited to 657 mph during its long over water flight and a maximum speed of only of 951 mph at full wartime emergency power with a service ceiling of about 51,300 meters on Falmart and 17,100 meters on Earth atmosphere. Terrabomber used the Tear of the Wind God stones to draw in air, while using purified red magic stones to produce combustion and thrust. Basically they are using two magic spells to mimic the function of a primitive jet engine.

The Vimanas-349 Silbervogel: was a design for a metallic hydrogen-propellant rocket-powered sub-orbital bomber. It is also known as the RaBo "rocket bomber". The design was a significantly risky one, as it incorporated new rocket technology and the principle of the lifting body, foreshadowing Princess Pina's remarkable obsession with rocketry.

The Silbervogel was intended to fly long distances in a series of short hops. The 300-tonne craft would be accelerated to 500 m/s using a sled running along a 3 km track and powered by five or six RKDS-1000 rocket engines. Separation velocity would be reached 11 seconds after ignition. After separation from the sled, the craft would climb using its main RKDS-1000 rocket engine and two wingtip-mounted ramjets, which would accelerate it to an altitude of 66 km and a speed of over Mach 13.

The rocket would continue working after the ramjets had flamed out at high altitude and continue to climb to an altitude of 405 km, at which point it would be travelling at about 32,700 km/h (20,250 mph). It would then gradually descend into Falmart's stratosphere, where the increasing air density would generate lift against the flat underside of the aircraft, eventually causing it to "bounce" and gain altitude again, where this pattern would be repeated.

Because of aerodynamic drag, each bounce would be shallower than the preceding one, but it was still calculated that the Silbervogel would be able to, from Sadera crossing the Indyjski Ocean, deliver a 40,000 kg (88.000 lb) bomb to the Lemuria Peninsula, and then continue its flight to a landing site somewhere in the Chipangu archipelago–in Spokojny Ocean, a total journey of 88,000 to 90,000 km.

The Havajahaz VII Ohka air-launched piloted hypersonic cruise missile (the direct descendent of the german V-1 and bigger brother of the A-6b missiles that had caused so much headache for the UEADF High Command ) designed for use as a "stand-off" missile for the Vimanas and other large Imperial bombers. Liquid fueled, the Havajahaz VII had a range of over 1000 miles and could reach a top speed of Mach 7 at 58,000 metres (but not if it was fired at maximum range). Originally meant to carry a 2,000 kilogram conventional warhead, the weapon was now equipped with a larger version of the cluster bomb unit warhead, with each bomblet containing 1.5 liters of Red Dawn nerve gas. While a finicky weapon, the rocket's warhead could, under ideal conditions, spread Red Dawn over a 40 square kilometer area. Primitive by modern standards, Ohka lacked any sort of sophisticated guidance system so to compensate this weakness it use a disposable Homunculus slave as its navigation system.

Havajahaz V Sombold: was designed as a parasite aircraft to aerial ramming against the allied bombers. Its front section was a detachable explosive nose with stabilizing fins filled with 500 kg of explosives. The pilot sat in the cockpit near the tail which was in the back section. The plane proper had a wingspan of 5.7 m and a length of 5.3 m. Including the ejectable nose its length would be 7 m. The plane would have been released from a mother plane upon reaching combat altitude. Then it would ignite its single Walter HWK rocket engine and dive towards the enemy bomber fleet at a 45 degree angle. Shortly before contact it would release its explosive nose, equipped with a proximity fuze, into the center of the combat box formation in a way that it would damage as many bombers as possible. Then it would try to get away with the remaining fuel in its rocket engine and finally land on its fixed skid. Owing to the extreme risks for the pilot inherent in the operation of this aircraft, the Sombold is sometimes listed as a suicide weapon. However, it was not intended as such, even though the chances of survival would have been very limited for the pilot of such a dangerous artifact.

Havajahaz IV Panzerfaust: A rocket-powered aircraft with straight, constant-chord wings, the aircraft was to be towed or carried aloft by another aircraft and released when near enemy bombers. The Panzerfaust was a small plane with an armored nose, a v-tail, a wingspan of 4.5 m and a length of 6.0 m. This aircraft would have been released upon reaching combat altitude above the enemy bomber fleet. Shortly before contact with the combat box below it would ignite its six solid-fuel rocket engines, attacking the target bomber by firing two 73 mm RZ 65 air-to-air missiles at an extremely close range or using the 14 nose-mounted R4M 55 mm rockets, before attempting to ram the enemy bomber's wings or tail. The aircraft was expected to survive the ramming of the bomber, owing to the strength of its wing which had a adamantine leading edge. Since after spending the rocket fuel the center of gravity would shift substantially making the aircraft too difficult to handle, the front half of the Panzerfaust —which had the pilot lying in a prone position in the cockpit— would then split from the other half. Both parts would land separately with parachutes, being later retrieved and reused. Owing to the extreme risks for the pilot inherent in its operation this aircraft is sometimes referred to as a suicide weapon.

The Warsitz-III Heinkel is a vertical take-off and landing tailsitter interceptor, design for local defense of important factories or areas which had small or no airfields. The design is particularly unusual. It had no wings, and all lift and thrust were provided by a rotor/propeller assembly 1/3 of the way down the side of the craft (roughly halfway between the cockpit and tailplane). When the plane was sitting on its tail in the vertical position, the rotors would have functioned similarly to a helicopter. When flying horizontally, they would function more like a giant propeller accelerating the plane to Mach 3

The Warsitz-III had some resemable to the infamous Focke-Wulf Triebflügel.

The three rotor blades were mounted on a ring assembly supported by bearings, allowing free rotation around the fuselage. At the end of each was a ramjet. To start the rotors spinning, simple rockets would have been used. As the speed increased, the flow of air would have been sufficient for the ramjets to work and the rockets would expire.

The pitch of the blades could be varied with the effect of changing the speed and the lift produced. There was no reaction torque to cause a counter rotation of the fuselage, since the rotor blades were driven at their tips by the ramjets. Fuel was carried in the fuselage tanks, and was piped through the centre support ring and along the rotors to the jets. A cruciform empennage at the rear of the fuselage comprised four tailplanes, fitted with moving ailerons that would also have functioned as combined rudders and elevators. The tailplane would have provided a means for the pilot to control a tendency of the fuselage to rotate in the same direction as the rotor, caused by the friction of the rotor ring, as well as controlling flight in pitch, roll and yaw. A single large and sprung wheel in the extreme end of the fuselage provided the main undercarriage. Four small castoring wheels on extensible struts were placed at the end of each tailplane to steady the aircraft on the ground and allow it to be moved. The main and outrigger wheels were covered by streamlined clamshell doors when in flight.

When taking off, the rotors would be angled to give lift in a similar manner to a helicopter. Once the aircraft had attained sufficient altitude the pilot would tilt it over into level flight. The rotors continued spinning in level flight, maintaining 220 rpm at the aircraft's maximum forward speed of 3,700 km/h. Forward flight required a slight nose-up pitch to provide some upward lift as well as primarily forward thrust. Consequently, the four cannon in the forward fuselage would have been angled slightly downward in relation to the centreline of the fuselage. A typical Warsitz-III tactic was to fly vertically upward through the bombers at 50,000 m, climb to 77,000–82,000 m, then dive through the formation again, firing as they went. This approach afforded the pilot two brief chances to fire a few rounds from his cannons before gliding back to his airfield.

To land, the craft had to slow its speed and pitch the fuselage until the craft was vertical. Power could then be reduced and it would descend until the landing gear rested on the ground. This would have been a tricky and probably dangerous maneuver, given that the pilot would be seated facing upward and the ground would be behind his head at this stage. Unlike some other tailsitter aircraft, the pilot's seat was fixed in the direction for forward flight. The spinning rotor would also obscure rear vision.

The Warsitz-IV Bachem was a point-defence rocket-powered interceptor, which was to be used in a very similar way to a manned surface-to-air missile. After a vertical take-off, which eliminated the need for airfields, most of the flight to the Allied bombers was to be controlled by an autopilot. The primary role of the relatively untrained pilot was to aim the aircraft at its target bomber and fire its armament of rockets. The pilot and the fuselage containing the rocket motor would then land using separate parachutes, while the nose section was disposable.

The Bachem was designed to be built by unskilled labor with poor-quality tools and inexpensive material. The Bachem had no landing gear, which saved weight, expense and construction time. Consequently, one of the most unusual features of the machine was the escape of the pilot and recovery of the machine.

The proposed sequence of these events was as follows: After the attack, the Bachem might dive to a lower altitude and flatten out into level flight. The pilot would then proceed with a well-practised escape sequence. He would open the cockpit canopy latch, which would allow the canopy to flick backwards on its hinge in the airstream. Next, the pilot would undo his seat belt and remove his feet from the rudder pedal stirrups.

By squeezing a lever mounted on the control column, he would release a lock at the base of the column, which would allow him to tilt the column forwards where it could engage in and undo a safety latch for the nose release mechanism. He would then lean a little further forward and pull a lever hinged near the floor at the front of the cockpit, freeing the nose section, which self-jettisoned as a result of the reduced aerodynamic pressure at the front of the fuselage.

As the nose section separated, it was intended to briefly pull on two cables that released a small ribbon parachute stored on the starboard side of the rear fuselage. The parachute subsequently opened and decelerated the Natter. The pilot would be ejected from the cockpit by his own inertia and as soon as he was clear of the fuselage, he would open his personal parachute and descend to the ground. A parachute was to eject the valuable Walter rocket motor from the rear, which would decelerate the aircraft and eject the pilot with inertia.

"Good, good." Molt nodded express his satisfaction, he remembered the desperate days early in the Great War when some coward were whispering about surrender. The situation was much better now.

"What about the development of Advance Oculothorax Sentinel program?"

"There are some delay over funding but Odysseus and I have resolved the problems, you have nothing to worry, Your Majesty. The 'Mass Production Phase' will be right on schedule. The Army will have their Sentinel Oculothoraxs delivered on time, you have my word."

Advance Oculothorax Sentinel Program was initiated after the failure of the High Performance Guardian Oculothorax Program in creating a creatures can withstand a direct hit from the 152mm main gun of the Type-92 Chamberlain and have enough firepower to penetrate 900mm of RHA with a reasonable price.

The experience in the Lemuria front had taught the Imperial High Command a valuable lesson: If you can't bleed the enemy then just drown them with your blood. Every tanks have a set number of ammunition so just send more Oculothoraxs than that. So in other words, the Oculothorax would advance like a massive insect swarm to overwhelm the enemy.

Oculothorax, sometimes called a sphere of many eyes or an eye tyrant, was a large aberration normally found in the cave. These large, orb-shaped beings had ten eyestalks and one central eye, each containing powerful magic. Powerful and intelligent, Oculothorax were among the greatest threats to the world

The skin of a Oculothorax appeared to be made out of a stony substance, as strong and durable as steel, and just as inflexible. Upon death, the skin would harden further into a stone-like consistency. Oculothorax's bones' were incredibly porous and lightweight leather-like cartilage that was visually indistinguishable from their skin, but comparatively weaker, almost having the strength and durability of iron. Upon death, a beholder's skeletal structure would become brittle. A Oculothorax's mouth was relatively similar to a humanoid's, but on a larger scale, containing soft palates, a muscular tongue and a row of upper and lower teeth (averaging 56 teeth in total)

A lighter-than-air gas was produced inside the bodies of Oculothorax. Some sages called this gas tiusium. Tiusium would collect in chambers in the body, concentrated mostly at the top of the skull, thereby ensuring that individuals would rest in an upright position. A Oculothorax would generate or expel the tiusium autonomically when it desired to ascend or descend. 360° tilting and horizontal movement was achieved through blowing air out of its lung via air vessels leading from its lung to its skin

Their eyestalks were flexible tentacles and could instead be jointed stalks covered in rigid chitin or segmented stalks similar to the bodies of earthworms. The Oculothorax's eyeballs were remarkable things. Hard, solid balls that drew in both light through the pupil and magical energy through the iris, which consisted of some sort of translucent crystal. The shape of the iris could be anything the Oculothorax wished, which granted it's owner both darkvision and exceptional vision in the light - Oculothorax in a brightly lit space had been observed as capable of counting the legs on a minuscule insect at distances of over one hundred and twenty meters.

Oculothorax eyes also had up to twelve lenses, all capable of movement and rotation independent of the others, which was what granted them control over the aiming of their eye rays. Further inside the eye was a mass of nearly invisible strands called evocularies. This nervous tissue transmitted both light and magic into the three retinas at the back of the eye. The retinas then transmitted the sensory signals and magical energy to the brain. When magic was needed to power a ray, the brain would send the magical energy back into the eye via the retinas.

An Oculothorax's eyes each possess a different magical ability; the main eye projects an anti-magical cone, and the other eyes have different spell-like abilities (disintegrate objects, transmute flesh to stone, cause sleep, slow the motion of objects or beings, charm animals, charm humans, cause death, induce fear, levitate objects, and inflict serious wounds).

Because their entire body was covered in eyes, Oculothorax had the capacity to see in all directions at once, making it nearly impossible to ambush them while also giving them an unusually high degree of perceptive ability. Although Oculothorax lacked the capacity to see color, they had the ability to perceive even in the most darkened environment, under conditions in which a human or similar creature would be rendered blind

To sum up, the Oculothorax performance was roughly equal to the M60A2 tank, at least in terms of firepower and protection, so they were hopelessly outmatched by the Type-92 Chamberlain tank but with the ratio of 50 to 1 even the monster Type-92 Super Heavy Tank would be subdued.

The Maligai Vanam Project to revive ancient beasts was also on schedule.

We have successfully revived Jovis Oculus and Oculothorax Lord.

Jovis Oculus are one of the mightiest atmospheric beasts in Falmart of interplanetary origin. Built as the ultimate predator, Jovis Oculus can consume any and everything in its path in an instant. In their default form, they resemble typical flying saucers almost 110 meters in diameter that bear grey skin with a metallic texture, with a tiny dark slit on its rim that appears to be an eye. They bear no other visible features aside from a large, gaping, circular mouth about two school buses wide, which leads to a into the dark bottomless abyss.

Jovis Oculus hunts by generating extremely powerful gravity pull from its mouth orifice to suck up prey from the ground. The mouth is connected to a 'Hungry Space' which consumes anything that enters it on an atomic level (thus causing any power that manipulates atoms to be rendered useless). Its 'Hungry Space' can also operate as a sort of shield around it, as anyone who may attempt to attack it after the former had activated 'Hungry Space' would be consumed in the process.

While having no wings and no biomechanical engines, Jovis Oculus in saucer form can fly nearly silently and with incredible speed, and can survive in space. When mating, Jovis Oculus will unfold their bodies into a strange, somewhat amorphous kite-like form, which drastically lowers their speed and mobility. In their kite forms, Jovis Oculus somewhat resemble jellyfish or thrones, and appear to be trailing at least four large, flat tendrils, connected to their central bodies.

Oculothorax Lord is significantly larger, 60m in diameter, and is the most dangerous of the known Oculothorax, rivaling the power of an ancient dragon. They have 13 tentacles, each of which ends in a bud that conceals an eye; one of these tentacles forms the top spine, and three yammering mouths surround the spine. There are eight thorny, vine-like tentacles that are used to grasp tools and for physical defense.

Oculothorax Lords are covered with a fungus which changes color as the beast, commonly mottled green, gray, and brown. The powers of their 13 eyes are as follows: Cone of Cold, Dispel Magic, Paralysis, Chain Lightning, Telekinesis up to 2500 tonnes of weight, Emotion, Mass Charm, Domination, Mass Suggestion, Major Creation, Spell Turning, Spell Immunity, Temporal Stasis.

April 30th, 2030, White House, Washington D.C.

If all of human history could be compressed into a single idiom, it would probably be "Playing with Fire." On the one hand, mankind has always prided itself in advancement through pushing boundaries, whether social, technological, or geographical. On the other, fire can and will eventually burn you.

This was also the idiom running through Supreme Commander Nuttall's mind as he sat on one of the Oval Office's couches and considered the request from the 'leader of the free world' sitting across from him.

On the 28th of April, the United State of America, the most powerful nation on Earth, suffered the greatest naval defeat in its history with over 100 ships and 90,000 men in the famous American Fast Carrier Force meet their end in an alien sea.

The attack on Task Force 58 immediately united a divided nation.

Public opinion had been moving towards support for using nuclear weapon during spring 2030, but considerable opposition remained until the attack.

Overnight, Americans united against the Empire of Twin Dragon in response to calls to "remember 58!"

This humiliation could not go unanswered.

The Empire'd been given the chance to surrender and had failed to take it, which led to Global Security Council's decision to use nuclear weapons.

It was decided by the UEADF leadership that a very strong message had to be sent.

The sites have been chosen to maximize damage to infrastructure and Empire's casualties and while minimizing the exposure of the Allies' ground forces to radioactive fallout dispersed by prevailing winds.

・・・

On May 6th, 2030, hydrogen bombs set to airburst simultaneously detonate over more than three dozen major cities across Falmart: Bosuton, Nyūyōku, Firaderufia, Detoroito, Mineaporisu, Nyūōrinzu, Darasu, Hyusuton, Sanfuranshisuko, Rosanzerusu, Parizh, Bryussel', Amusuterudamu, Gamburg, Keln, Frankfurt, Shtutgart, Myunkhen, Praga, Vena, Moskau, Reningurado, Gorki, Kasan, Kuibischew, Magunitogorusuku, Tscheljabinsk, Swerdlowsk, Perm and Wladiwostok, Toronto, Monreal, and Vankuve; Grande Bretagne, Lundun, Bóminghan, Manchesite, Tokio, Ito, Kosaka.

With the warning from Italica, Global Command Center was watching carefully and so when the first thermonuclear device donated over the city of Amusuterudamu, which was the home of several shipyards, a rocket factory, two motor transport plant, a steel mill and three submarine pen.

"Yield estimate?"

"Oh Emroy… Sorry M'lord… Estimation is 25 Megatons."

Nuclear fire blossoms above these cities, resulting in the instantaneous deaths of two millions of people, with a million more to die later due to radiation poisoning.

May 9th, 12 more weapon were dropped over Esson Community, home to a major Mithril and Adamant producing centre in the western industrial area and the location of a major missile factory. The resulting of twelve 5 to 25 megaton in yield explosions devastated much of Esson and heavily damaged the missile factory; civilian casualties were "only" 120.000 dead and 250.000 wounded because the bombs didn't explode over a residential area and surprisingly deep tunnels system below.

Despite the catastrophic losses, the Empire are very far from out of the fight yet.

Given the obstinate refusal of the Empire to surrender, the American 13th Bomb Squadron dropped 10 weapon over Duisburgum Union on the 21st. Duisburgum was a major logistical centre chemical, steel and iron industries as well as mining. Ten 5 to 25 megaton nuclear explosion ruined the nation's use as a logistical centre and heavily damaged its other industries, also once again entailing massive civilian loss of life.

Even after over 60 atomic bombings, Molt was no closer to surrendering, but had in fact decided to retaliate with his own weapons of mass destruction.

On May 28th, a salvo of 12,000 A-6b attacked Military District 4, the location of an important garrison. Only 20 warheads filled with a total of 120 kg of nerve gas, mostly Quite Night and some of it Red Dawn, were successfully detonated near the base. It proved to be a day with good circumstances for dispersal. Around 3000 people died agonizing deaths while over twice that number was turned into homicidal maniacs as Red Dawn heavily affected the main portion of the hosts' brain cell then driven by insanity and probably even paranoia before dying themselves, shocking the Allies to their core.

The Allies had no idea what they were dealing with and were shocked that the Empire possessed a weapon with such destructive potential.

The late symptoms of exposure include: nervousness/restlessness, contraction of the pupil, a runny nose, excessive salivation, difficulty in breathing due to bronchoconstriction/secretions, sweating, slow heartbeat, loss of consciousness, convulsions, flaccid paralysis, loss of bladder and bowel control, apnea (breathing stopped) and lung blisters.

Royal Resort Castle, Le Brias, Altaras Principality, Western Gringolia, Southern Hemisphere.

Further north, the climate was a lot more agreeable to be in, especially in winter making this an excellent place for winter break. Given the temperate oceanic and subtropical climate that much of the island of Altaras is under, it was still undeniably a cold place to be in during the early months of the Imperial Calendar. Situated in the subtropical forested regions of the northern coastal lowlands on top of being near the mouth of the island's largest river, the port city Le Brias was a shining example of economic development under the Empire's superb management. Silver spires reaching the skies glinted in the afternoon sun while impressive domes of all sorts of sizes lined the many rooftops of the city.

At the center of the city stood the Tower of Prosperity, an office building housing Darwinian companies and the first skyscraper in the region, beating the White Clock Tower in Esthirant by a year. To the east of the city lay its gigantic port, the volume of trade passing here as well as the number of ships entering its harbor managing to beat Esthirant's numbers by a margin.

Then, as if to signify the enormous power held by the Empire over the region, a colossal, 20m tall metal statue of a muscular, armored man striking a menacing pose; its stern expression, ominously extended blade, and uncomfortably detailed decapitated heads of rebel leaders under his feet as if to intimidate all insurrectionists.

At the royal castle, a grand walled-off complex of alabaster white stones, sat the absolute monarchs that helmed the Empire, of which Molt Sol Augustus was the present occupant. Unlike the countless orichalcum statues built all over the city, emphasizing his good looks, calm demeanor, and all-encompassing compassion for the commoners, he was on the verge of throwing a tantrum amid a high-level meeting with his ministers.

"I see…"

Molt muttered in a deep, dismissive tone as his bloodshot eyes pointed downwards. He had just heard about a report regarding the casualties and damage from the latest human nuclear attacks on their cities; and the subsequent enormous task of locating, extricating, and providing initial medical stabilization for the surviving victims trapped inside their bunkers. A task so overwhelming to the resources of local authorities that only the Holy Order's Emergency Management Agency had experts in specialized fields to coordinate the response.

Molt had wanted to send warships to the Persae sea to send another message, but the humans already evacuate all their force. His mind out of options, he broke the silence with a scream.

"GODDAMMIT!"

His sudden outburst reverberated across the opulently built meeting room they were in, causing his ministers to cower in their seats as he stood up and threw his heavy, hardwood chair off to the side. They knew that it was best not to speak up whenever Molt was angry, but without any good ideas to put forward, he was not going to calm down–there was even one incident where he stayed mad for five days straight. Be that as it may, if they don't come up with any soon…

"Any of you have any ideas in mind how we will 'shove it' in the humans' asses?"

The Emperor now directed his violent aura toward his ministers, the sound of his intense breathing single-handedly adding tension to the air. Just as they began silently eyeing one another, hoping for someone–the unfortunate sacrificial lamb–to offer themselves up on the altar of Molt's anger, the ecclesiastical affairs minister spoke up.

"If I may, Your Majesty–"

"You may."

The ecclesiastical affairs minister was cut by Molt's prompt and impatient reply, causing him to pause for a moment before continuing his statement.

"We've received word from His Holiness in St. Darwin Temple about our appeal regarding the use of Apocryph to prevent nuclear attacks on our cities."

"Well?!"

Molt's impatience got the better of him once more, cutting off the minister just after he paused.

"They've accepted it, Your Majesty."

"Well… That's great!"

For the first time since the meeting started, a genuine, non-sarcastic smile emerged on the Emperor's face.

Apocryph or "The Mist of Nothingness" is the deadly shadow-like mist of Dark Matters originated from the Void that sucks the energy out of any thing comes into contact with. Apocryph is prophesied to consume the world of the living when the gods left the world, at which point the entire world would be turned into primordial chaos. Any living things or even soul being near the Apocryph will slowly having their energy sucked away. Coming into contact with mist directly will cause everything to be completely frozen up and becoming absolutely fragile like dipping an object into liquid nitrogen. As Apocryph capable of destroying the soul completely thus preventing reincarnation, using them against sentient being is a major sacrilegious crime by the Church's edict. Now that the Holy Order had accepted the government earnest request, there was much work to be done.

"But how do we get this good news to strike back at the humans?"

To this, the military intelligence minister raised his hand and spoke.

"Your Majesty! The Imperial Reconnaissance Means have identified three ICBM missile fields as of this time. Field 1 is in eastern Wukelan. Field 2 is in western Porando. Field 3 is in Ostland. Each field has 50 underground launch silos. Payloads are 4 MIRV with 900 kiloton yield warheads or single 6 megaton yield warhead for a total of 500 warheads.

From radar returns besides a large number of above ground facilities there are also large numbers of underground facilities. Of special note about each location is there is large pyramid shaped structure, most likely in concrete. Evaluation is that the structure is a radar array. Because of location the radar building estimation is that it is part of point defense missile system, most likely Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) in nature.

Above ground launch facilities have been identified at two locations Peenemünde and Sevuasutopori. Of the two Sevuasutopori is much larger and far more well developed. The ABM nature of these six sites is only suspected at this time and no interceptor missile silos have been located as of yet. Searching for additional ICBM fields also continues.

According to our intelligence, the backbone of the the UEADF first and second-strike capability has been the heavy bomber force of the UEAADF. Not counting aircraft in the material reserve and not flight ready there are 3600 low observation low altitude penetration bombers, 710 supersonic penetration bombers and 12,200 legacy heavy bombers. All of the heavy bombers are able to carry either cruise or gravity bombs depending upon the mission requirements. There are 90,000 warheads available to be delivered by the bomber force ranging from 25 MT – 100 MT Kaiser gravity bombs down to 5 KT on the Mark 92 variable yield warheads.

Variable yield, or dial-a-yield, is an option available on most modern nuclear weapons. It allows the operator to specify a weapon's yield, or explosive power, allowing a single design to be used in different situations. For example, the Mod-10 B61 bomb had selectable explosive yields of 0.3, 5, 10 or 80 kilotons, depending on how the ground crew set a dial inside the casing when it was loaded onto an aircraft.

A large number of UEADF airfields locations have been identified.

See appendix A for a comprehensive list. Each field is still being evaluated for possible military, civilian or duel use. What is noteworthy are the size of the airfields. Paved runways of 10,000-meter length have been identified near Berurin, Hanburuku, Mosukuwa, Sevuasutopori. With another dozen airfields of 5,000-meter or larger length.

Four especially note worthy aircraft have been imaged at airfields. Image one is at the Sevuasutopori 10K meter field. Estimated size of the aircraft is 100 meters' length and 60 meters width. The shape is a long central fuselage 5+ meter in diameter. Wings are narrow in size and centrally located with large pods at the ends. Image two is at an airfield located in central Pōrando. Estimated size of the aircraft is 25-meter length, 60-meter width. Shape appears to be a fling wing with a noted delta appearance; unknown if the wing is tailless. Image three and four are delta wing aircraft at Berurin airport 90-meter length, 50-meter width with long narrow fuselage.

More information is still being gathered on the UEADF space presence. Multiple satellites and all of the UEADF space platforms mount radar. The AS-1 space stations have a very powerful radar array and combined with amount of waste heat the station has been identified as a possible source of the UEADF space based missile defense. Astronomical Society have identified 25 Ronald Reagan nuclear warhead orbital platforms each have 8 city-buster missiles tipped with 5 re-entry vehicles, for a total of 1000 variable yield warheads, with variable yield from 10 kiloton to 500 kiloton.

I believe a massive preemptive strike using Apocryph-tipped shells on these airfields and ICBM missile fields if carefully coordinated with princess Pina's Volkanone orbital attacks could be eliminated up to 90% of the enemy's first-strike arsenal here in Falmart."

The smile on Molt's face became even wider as he laughed and clapped his hands at the military intelligence minister's suggestion.

"I like that! Let's proceed with that plan of yours!"

Molt and his generals then began to carefully construct a plan of the preemptive strike, which they hoped would hurt human for their transgressions. After a long afternoon of heated debate, the final draft for the preemptive strike had been created, which, later that night, Molt would put his signature on, officially putting the plan into effect.

---

"We will sweep the enemy from the skies, My Emperor!" Princess Élodie Valadon's statement brimmed to absolute confidence. It was feeling that was pure theater for public's benefit, but utterly necessary as civilian morale was plummeting. Reports from all over the Empire indicated that people were fearful that their city could be next, that they wished the war would be over.

Élodie had taken full advantage of the post H-Bomb attacks to showed on her Air Force. The Imperial Air Force had, finally, overtaken the Praetorian Guards in production priority, dropping the ground forces to the bottom, behind even the Navy

The Imperial Air Force had also altered its priorities, to the detriment of the Army, with the only new dragons being born were some of the air-superiority Night Furies and protypes of the Vimanas Bomber programs the rest of its resources being dedicated, not even to long range dragon with a ground attack capability, but to huge numbers of short range pure interceptors, blazingly fast, but without the sort of endurance to escort strong bombing raids against the humans.

June 22, 2030 – Combat debut of the Warsitz-III Heinkel and Warsitz-IV Bachem interceptors against a raid in the AG Wesser Hornet U-Boat assembly bunker in Bremen and Valentin Submarine Pens.

Raids are mainly planned to test performance of the new T15 Cloudmaker "earthquake bomb" and the improved 30 ton "Jumbo" Disney rocket-assisted bunker buster.

Raid results are disastrous, with Empire opposition being far higher than predicted. Despite the two raid packages (16 bombers in each package) and close to 125 fighters providing cover, 15 Tu-688 are lost, nine of them crashing into the sea existing the Valentin target, another near Alnus while trying to make an emergency landing, with other five taking a direct hit over AG Wesser from R4M 55 mm rockets into the bomb bay before releasing either of its Cloudmakers, with utterly spectacular results.

Fourteen USAF fighter are also lost in exchange for 73 rocket-powered inteceptors (19 of these losses due to the landing accidents common to the Warsitz-III Heinkel and Warsitz-IV Bachem rocket-powered point interceptors). The Valentin Submarine Pens are, however, utterly destroyed, with serious, but repairable damage to the AG Wesser assembly bunker.

Pina and Élodie had, indeed, bolstered the Empire air defenses. However, they had done it at the cost of utility. For every actual air-superiority dragon, the Imperial Air Force had built twenty interceptors with range measured in minutes of rocket fuel burn. The loss rate of the rocket planes was appalling. The 11th Princess barely had the rocket pilots trained after crash had started to wipe out her homunculus aces when they were strapped into the dangerous contraptions.

To safeguard the Holy Empire's capacity to continue fighting, Molt ordered key industrial facilities to be moved east into gigantic deep underground caverns in Silesian, Posan, Pomirania, West Grussia and East Grussia, which were believed to be out of reach. Either that or they had to be moved underwater into natural deep sea caverns or man made ones, made by mindless Titan to be accurate.

In many other ways, in an improvised fashion, Imperial society also continue to function normally: the mail was still being delivered, the trains were mostly on time, people went to work, stores stayed open, the police maintained law and order, people had food on the table and charity made sure that most of those who couldn't afford it had a decent meal and a place to sleep too in the winter of 52030 as well.

The Allied atomic assault, despite destroying 162 cities so far, was still far from breaking the Holy Darwinian Empire. This was the result of the fact that its absolute leader, Emperor Molt Sol Augustus only considered the options total victory or atomic annihilation and didn't really care about the suffering of his people (besides that, various measures had been enacted to stabilize the regime and secure Empire's ability to fight on). In the Empire's twisted Social-Darwinist views, the laws of nature said that the Imperial citizens didn't deserve to survive if they couldn't overcome these adversities.

Prince Zorzal, Diabo and Odysseus were tasked with the job of keeping everybody in line and making sure they continued to support the war effort, or at least not actively undermine it. Zorzal controlled the entire armaments industry.

The annual drive for the "War Relief" still took place and was highly successful, particularly because Molt himself donated 100 billion Suwani. Though Molt lacked the empathy to actually feel bad about the suffering of his people, he did care about keeping up morale so the fight could keep going. His major contribution to the " War Relief" temporarily boosted morale as well as his high popularity.

Being aware of morale issues, he blocked a proposal by Diabo to introduce alcohol rations. Beer breweries kept up production unimpeded and even saw increased consumption as alcohol consumption was becoming an issue in some parts of the country as a coping mechanism. Other proposals concerning rationing were also blocked or mitigated by Molt.

The Holy Darwinian Empire felt fairly secure. Their own population wasn't about to rise up against them, never mind the vassal states. The security apparatus made sure of that, supported by millions of nobleman that had a vested interest in the continuation of the current regime.

In the meantime, the Holy Empire and the Allies continued to use weapons of mass destruction against each other with no end in sight. After many of their bombers was shot down, the Allies had already reluctantly switched to night time attacks, as mentioned before. They accepted that their attacks would be less accurate as a result (in some cases they were off by 360 meters).

They also undertook other diversionary efforts: disinformation by Allied intelligence, concurrent large conventional air raids, dozens of dummy raids to cover the one carrying the actual weapon, and even painting the planes black so they would be practically invisible to the naked eye in the dark. That many of the dummy bombers would probably also be lost to enemy interceptors was also considered acceptable as long as the bomb got through. Out of the thousands of dummy bombers sent into Imperial territory, hundreds were indeed shot down over the Empire and their crews, if they were captured, were generally ill treated.

At this point both civil and military leader of United Earth Alliance started to realize that Emperor Molt wouldn't be moved by any number of cities destroyed by fusion bombs. After all, over 200 strikes had taken place already. The Allies started to figure that if the Imperial Family was somehow removed from power and replaced by a saner leadership then peace could be made. Prime Minister Shinzō in particular wanted peace. The resolve and resilience of the Japanese people thus far had been extraordinary, but it had its limits: by early January signs of war weariness were starting to show.

For example, an opinion poll conducted in February in Japan asked the question of whether or not the Allies should continue to pursue the doctrine of unconditional surrender as established at the UN Conference in January 2020. A majority of the respondents was of the opinion that if the Imperial Family was removed then the unconditional surrender demand should be abandoned.

The UEADF therefore decided to try and take Imperial Family out by the only means available to them: a multi-nuclear strikes on their location. The question of ascertaining their location would have been a difficult one since no Allied spy had even remotely come close to penetrating the Imperial falmily's inner circle.

There was, however, a certain Imperial intelligence officer known as Bouro Co Igloo. He was actually a double agent of Chaos Insurgency. By January 2030, he was in regular contact with CIA agents and he informed them of Molt's itinerary for as far as possible.

The Allies were informed that the Imperial Family would be in an island somewhere between Groenlandia Isles and Nusantara Archipelago for 3 days from 24 July to 27 July 2030, which led to Operation Götterdämmerung.

---

July 25th 2030, Hanburuku Airfield, Rosenberg-2 Airbase

Zorner and his crew were hunched over their briefing table, working on their flight plan, while all around them the rest of the qualified Valkyrie crews were doing the same. The atmosphere in the room was tense, and there was a definitive undercurrent of, almost hysteria Zorner thought.

The briefing had begun two hours ago when they had all been told that they would be taking off with H-bombs to attack the Emperor, and a short speech from the EU Prime Minister was read out to them. They had been supposed to actually attack the Emperor yesterday; a briefing had been called but cancelled at the last moment due to bad weather over the Europania and North Polarny Ocean.

Zorner and his crew were putting the finishing touches to their plan, they had all the necessary documentation to hand to enable them to plan their attack, it was a question of putting everything together properly and making sure of the timings and waypoints. The timings for the attacks themselves were already set out in the briefing notes that they had, but they had to work out the complex in flight refueling ballet that they and the rest of the strike force would have to undergo to reach their targets and more importantly return to base.

They would carry two 40 megaton Kaiser gravity bombs to Nusantara Archipelago, dropping the first south west of Esthirant on the huge Dodge Esthirant Aircraft Plant. Then they were to fly on south westerly to their next target, the city of Le Brias in Altaras, where they would drop their second bomb.

III/KG4 was assigned to targets in the Nusantara mid west in the islands of Altaras, Bangka, Bunaken, Lembeh and Manado Tua, sixteen individual targets who would be attacked with a total of twenty H-bombs and requiring ten aircraft to attack. Of the nominal thirty one Airbus-464's available to III/KG4 twenty seven were operational and there were thirteen Valkyrie crews available to the unit. The three surplus Valkyrie crews and the other non qualified crews would perform buddy in-flight refueling activities during Operation Götterdämmerung.

As part of the briefing the massive in flight refueling operation being put on by the EUAF was described to the crews - almost every available Boeing KC-277 and Tupolev-410 was involved, as were all the non Valkyrie Airbus-464's and all the Airbus-464's of the latest unit to receive these aircraft, KG 26. This Airbus-464 unit was based in Hanburuku Airfield and would carry out in-flight refueling missions south west of Escandinavia.

Over the Escandinavia Sea there would be a huge congregation of tankers to refuel the thirsty Airbus-464's on their outbound and inbound routes to Nusantara, the main concentration of the Boeing KC-277 and Tupolev-410 tankers would be south of Bjørnøya island, with another smaller group to the east of Jan Mayen island. The western coast of Groenlandia Isles also had several in-flight refueling areas, as did its eastern coast. For the attacks on the Nusantara Archipelago there was no detailed information given at the briefing, only the targets to be attacked and the numbers of weapons to be used.

Zorner would head South East from Rosenberg-2, refueling from a III/KG4 Airbus-464 over the Stygian Sea, before turning onto a Great Circle course that would take him out over the Baltisch Sea, over Escandinavia and the Polarny Ocean before making landfall on the Nusantara itself over the northernmost spur of Groenlandia Isles. Their route would take them out over Hudson Bay and down along Bangka island to Esthirant. They would then fly on to Le Brias in Altaras before returning along a very similar route back to Rosenberg-2, for a total flight distance of 45,607 km and a total of nine hours flying time, give or take a few minutes.

In order to reach their targets at the assigned times they would be taking off in the mid afternoon, around 07:30 hours local time, Zorner looked at his watch, 05:55, there would be time for lunch and them they would get into their flight suits and board their aircraft.

After lunch, which Zorner only pushed around his plate, the crew got suited up and were driven out to their aircraft on the flight line, surrounded like all the Valkyrie aircraft by armed guards. There was a rather tiresome rigmarole of identifying themselves and proving that they had valid orders to board the aircraft, and them they were allowed to carry out their pre flight inspection.

Zorner peeked warily into the bomb bay, were two sleek looking bombs nestled, before moving on to complete the rest of his visual inspection. Originally the Airbus-464's had been painted in various camouflage schemes, now they were painted in a brilliant white, called 'anti flash white'- supposed to help protect them against the thermal flash of their bombs. Boarding with their kit the sealed up the aircraft and began their pre flight checks and thirty minutes later they were airborne, heading southwards.

---

Onboard Airbus-464 5J + SD

From this altitude of 80,000 meters Zorner could see muddy seas and dense, swampy, multistory rainforest of Escandinavia laid out below him, bathed in the blood red fires of the algae lights, which raged above is head like a caged animal. Great streamers of blood red light raced across the heavens, twisting and writhing, breaking apart and merging in great curtains of ruby fire. He had never seem such a exquisite display of bioluminescent algae on the sky as this before, and it only added to his sense of unease and nervousness, he caught a glimpse of the picture of Lieselotte and Carlotta that he had wedged into the cockpit coaming and nearly vomited into his oxygen mask.

How many little girls like Carlotta was he going to kill in a few hours? How many more would the other bombers kill when they dropped their atomic weapons on the near defenseless cities of the Empire?

During the long flight Zorner had plenty of time to think and to become increasingly depressed and anxious, but he could not let this show, in spite of everything he had a mission to carry out and a crew that depended upon him. And so all he so wanted to do was to get back to Lieselotte and Carlotta, to feel the loving embrace of his family - his mind was made up, he was resigning from the Luftwaffe at the earliest opportunity he could and returning to civilian life.

On and on they droned southwards, he could see the dawn start to light the horizon to the east, the flight was utterly routine and boring, all the aircraft systems worked, they kept to their planned routes and times. Where it not for the fact that they were about to start a war Zorner would have marked the flight as utterly routine, they only remarkable things would have been the bioluminescent displays that were dissipating as the sky brightened to the east.

As they flew south over Polarny Ocean cloud began to build up below them, until ahead was a massive sheet of white and grey cloud covering the ground from horizon to horizon, they would be relying on their Bremen Adler N-5 radar bombsight system and the FuMK Mercator inertial navigation system to find their targets. Crossing over Central Sea and then starting their run down Bangka strait they were dead on track and time, their radar was soon giving them good returns on Esthirant itself.

Zorner looked at the clock on the dashboard "Anti flash goggles on!" he announced and he and Hubert-Rauh put on their darkened, polarized goggles and he flipped a switch that turned on special lighting for the cockpit instruments so that he a Hubert-Rauh could still see them through the heavily tinted goggles. A minute later up ahead there was a bright flash; the 1st thermonuclear weapon had just been dropped on central Esthirant, in the next few minutes several other bright flashes burst ahead and to port and starboard, the atomic offensive was well and truly underway.

The Navigator announced that they were five minutes from bomb drop, Zorner reached down to the controls of the FuG 114 Chrom aiming device and flipped two switches, opening a sealed envelope he set the three rotors to the indicated positions and then turned a dial to the armed position. The Navigator did the same on his FuG 114 Chrom panel and then the Bomb Armed Light illuminated. "Bomb number one armed and showing steady green light" announced the Navigator "Burst altitude set for 800 meters above ground level."

The FuG 114 Chrom was a complicated piece of electro mechanical machinery that used modified redundant Enigma Rotors to ensure that only if the rotors were set to the correct positions could current flow to the arming circuits of the bombs.

The setting of the pilots rotors were different from those of the Navigator/Bomb Aimer and once both 'matched' they completed the circuit that allowed the bombs arming circuits accept input from the arming panel, which activated the arming circuits, un-safed the bomb and set the detonation altitude of the device.

Up ahead over Bangka island three soaring columns of dirty grey cloud were towering above the sheet of white cloud that covered the target area, smoke was also beginning to rise like mist above the cloud tops.

"Navigator to pilot, approaching landfall, make your course 262 now!"

Zorner hauled the Airbus-464 around onto its new course, keeping his eyes glued to the instruments, one in particular occupied his attention - the dial called the 'Pilots Data Indicator' the two needles of the Steering Pointer and the Ground Track pointer were superimposed and the Time to Go pointer was winding down to zero.

"Navigator to Pilot, Release Control to me."

Zorner flipped a switch on the autopilot "Pilot to Navigator, Control released to you."

Now the Airbus-464 we being 'flown' by the Navigator, well technically by a combination of the FuMK Mercator, FuG 245 Bremen Adler N-5 and the FuMC Riemann.

"Ten Seconds to bomb release!" announced the Navigator, who was a little anxious as he looked at the radar screen, the target they were attacking - the Esthirant City Aircraft Engine Plant did not quite look like a target of this size should look. As the bomb cursor travelled over the screen towards the release point he dismissed these concerns and watched the bomb indicator panel, the bomb release would be automatic; he only had to pull the bomb release trigger if this failed to happen.

The Bomb cursor and the release point curser merged on his screen, the bomb release light illuminated, along with the distinctive alarm tone indicating bomb release, and the aircraft bucked upwards as several ten thousand kilograms left the aircraft.

"Bomb doors closed" he announced as the aircraft was hauled around steeply to avoid the coming blast of the bomb. The navigator kept his eyes glued to the bomb timer clock; this gave the predicted time to detonation, its hands swept down to the marker indicating its air burst altitude.

"Detonation!" announced the copilot over the intercom.

"Detonation matches predicted time" he responded back, adjusting himself in his seat he announced "Navigator to pilot, new course 189, course sent to Pilot Data Indicator..Now!"

Twenty minutes later they were lining up on their second target, the city of Le Brias in Altaras. The flight had been punctuated by numerous atomic detonations as the Luftwaffe's offensive had gutted the industrial heartland of the Nusantara Archipelago. Below them the carpet of cloud had begun to break up, Zorner could see his target through a long, ragged gap in the clouds.

Behind him the Navigator had switched over to the Lofte 9D bombsight as conditions were good enough for visual bombing. Setting the cross hairs on the aiming point, the white dome of the Old State Capitol building, clearly visible in superb optics, he tweaked a few knobs to keep the crosshairs centered. During the run south from Esthirant they had armed the second bomb, this one again set to air burst and he watched the tape display in the bombsight roll down to zero and the familiar alarm of a bomb released shrilled.

"Bomb away, visual centering looked good" he announced as once again the aircraft hauled away from the point of impact. He closed over the cap on the Bombsight telescope and pushed himself back into his seat against the G forces of the turn, watching the bomb timer clock wind down. This time the hand swept by the air burst mark and on towards the surface detonation marker, the bomb had failed to detonate at its assigned altitude.

"Detonation!" said Zorner, the navigator responding "detonation matches predicted time for a surface burst. Standby for initial homewards bound course in thirty seconds."

Turning onto course for home Zorner was struck by the number of towering mushroom clouds he could see, great pillars of smoke punched up through the overcast that hid much of the earth below. Headstones, that was what they reminded him of, headstones marking the deaths of millions in a one sided war, no, not a war, a massacre.

Several hours later they nosed their refueling probe into the drogue streamed by another Airbus-464 over Quqertarsuaq Island, gulping down several thousand kilograms of jet fuel. They only took on enough to get them across Escandinavia and to their next refueling east of Escandinavia and midway between the islands of Jan Mayen and Svalbard. There they would refuel from a Tupolev-410 before once again topping up from a Airbus-464 over the Inland Sea.

Flying again over the vast green expanse of Europania, Zorner munched on his sandwich, trying to keep his mind blank of what he had just did, the radio operator had been collating the coded transmissions that each bomber was making once they crossed over into Lemuria aerospace. It looked like things had gone pretty well, the Empire having been caught by surprise, few aircraft reported flaks and fighter oppositions over their targets and on their routes.

The rest of the flight was completely routine, they refueled successfully twice, as they approached Saratov the weather was very good, clear blue skies and nary a cloud to be seen for miles. Let down was the usual procedure, and the landing was easy, several other Airbus-464's were also in the circuit, and as they landed Zorner could hear over the radio the tower marshalling several more in the pattern.

After an extensive debriefing, and the attendance of reporters and camera crews, which were a dammed imposition Zorner felt, he and the rest of the crews had retired to one of the numerous Banya's in the bases gym complex. The heat of the sauna helped to relax tired and strained muscles, Zorner, like he always did, nodded off to sleep in the heat of the room. Hubert-Rauh had to prod him awake when it was time to leave, they parted and agreed to meet the next day in the Officers Mess for breakfast, Zorner would tell his friend of his decision to leave the Luftwaffe as soon as was humanly possible then.

---

Operation Götterdämmerung

Unit: I/KG100

Base: Berurin airfield

Attacked targets in the following islands - Panaitan, Sangiang, Tinjil and Umang.

Dispatched: 19 Aircraft; Lost: 3 Aircraft

Carried 36 Atomic Weapons for attacks upon 30 targets, 29 weapons were successfully detonated against 25 targets.

Unit: III/KG4

Base: Hanburuku airfield

Attacked targets in the following islands - Altaras, Bangka, Bunaken, Lembeh and Manado Tua

Dispatched: 10 Aircraft; Lost: 0 Aircraft

Carried 20 Atomic weapons for attacks upon 16 targets, 19 Atomic weapons were successfully detonated against 16 targets.

One of the five weapons assigned against Altaras failed to detonate.

Unit: I/KG27

Base: Mosukuwa airfield

Attacked targets in the following islands- Buton, Kabaena and Muna.

Dispatched: 22 Aircraft; Lost: 3 Aircraft

Carried 22 Atomic weapons for attacks upon 20 targets, 14 Atomic weapons were successfully detonated against 13 targets.

Unit: III/KG27

Base: Bagerovo airfield

Attacked targets in the following islands- Alor, Gili Motang, Golo Mori, Kepa and Pantar.

Dispatched: 10 Aircraft; Lost: 2 Aircraft

Carried 19 Atomic weapons for attacks upon 17 targets, 16 Atomic weapons successfully detonated against 15 targets.

Unit: II/KG100

Base: Sevuasutopori airfield

Attacked targets in the following islands- Los Frailes, Magalawa and Matalvi.

Dispatched: 5 Aircraft; Lost: 0 Aircraft

Carried 10 Atomic weapons for attacks upon 9 targets, 8 Atomic weapons successfully detonated against 8 targets.

Unit: I/KG4

Base: Neutief airfield

Attacked targets in the following islands- Indagamy, Lean, Lubid , Malcatop and Maligun.

Dispatched: 6 Aircraft; Lost: 1 Aircraft

Carried 10 Atomic weapons for attacks upon 10 targets, 7 Atomic weapons successfully detonated against 7 targets.

Unit: II/KG55

Base: Vozdvizhenka airfield

Attacked targets in the following islands- Narra, Pinget and Poro.

Dispatched: 26 Aircraft; Lost: 8 Aircraft

Carried 33 Atomic weapons for attacks upon 33 targets, 19 Atomic weapons successfully detonated against 19 targets.

Empire casualties: Dead: 7,290,646; Wounded: 12,532,482 ; Total: 19,823,128