While the coalition fleet was headed toward their launch coordinates, a secret meeting of eight global leaders was taking place via conference call. They were discussing a crucial matter that would change the global landscape, both literally and figuratively.“So you want to send everyone’s entire nuclear arsenal to deal with Eden? You know you’re risking nuclear winter by doing that. Plus, my science advisor says it’ll affect the tides and weather forever if we wipe out an island chain the total size of Australia. Besides, did you forget that just Russia and the US alone have more than enough nukes to use on them?” Putin asked, adjusting the reading glasses he had added to his wardrobe a few weeks earlier.“That won’t be a problem,” Trump replied. “We think they’ll take out more than 70% of anything we send them, if not more. And even if a third of our nukes get through, we can always activate the kill switch on some of them. Besides, even if we don’t kill most of what slips through,

Already knowing that the remaining satellites were currently unreliable due to all the jamming and other electronic warfare happening in orbit, the missiles had been programmed with strict courses. Thus, the accuracy should be decent enough to saturate such a large target; the total area they were aiming at was the size of Australia, after all. So the missiles were using initial position determination. The blanket of shrapnel orbiting the planet prevented most forms of celestial navigation from working, so the missiles had to rely on IPD, which was made possible by accelerometers and gyroscopes working together along with knowing the initial launch coordinates to determine where the missile isn’t, thus telling it where it is.(Ed note: See more on how missiles navigate without GPS here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZe5J8SVCYQ - it may seem confusing, but if you can grasp the logic, it makes more sense. Just watch it a few times and I’m sure you’ll figure it out... and if you do, p

As the retaliation strike was underway, huge troop movements were taking place back in Avalon Island and on each of the Edenian carriers in the fleet. The Aeolus Air Force had mobilized its entire transport fleet and was even printing more; massive ET-14 Argo transport jets, based on the Antonov An 126 airframe, were rolling out of the hangar one after another. They only stopped to load full complements of troops in each jet.After the jets were loaded, they immediately took off and headed toward the carriers in the distance, where they landed, disgorged their troops, and immediately returned to Avalon Island to pick up another load.At the same time, amphibious landing craft were also loading up and bringing full complements of troops to the enormous aircraft carriers. The fleet was still relatively close to Eden, at only roughly 500 kilometers away, so the trip was short enough that the landing craft were heavily overloaded for the trip.As the troops were being transported, a major

Somewhere over the coast of California.Edwards Air Force Base and Naval Air Station North Island had both scrambled all of their pilots and put everything in the air that had guns. Some of the crop dusters in Southern California, being retired Navy and Air Force veterans, had heard the news through the grapevine as well. And being infected by a greater-than-normal amount of “good ole’ American YEEHAW” had volunteered to strap guns to their civilian planes and join the war effort.All of them, active duty and volunteer alike, were in the air like a swarm of bees as they awaited the arrival of the EV Beowulf. Not that it would do much good, really, considering that the Beowulf had a much higher flight ceiling and cruising altitude than any current-generation aircraft, whether military or civilian. Even the vaunted Dragon Lady could only reach a cruising altitude of around 21 kilometers, a far cry from the Beowulf’s 60.Still, they would pose an issue to the invasion forces that would b

Fort Bragg, North Carolina.Members of the 82nd Airborne, one of the United States most elite infantry brigade, were rushing to set up defensive positions. Though Fort Bragg was where they trained and they had already-existing defensive positions set up for mock battles, those were nowhere near the things they actually needed to defend. That design philosophy was coming back to bite them in the ass at this very moment in time.The EV Beowulf had already landed troops between Fayetteville and the storied fort and, having learned their lesson from the air assets in California that had survived for a staggering six seconds, the jets and hastily armed civilian aircraft at Simmons Army Airfield and Pope Field had been grounded until the enormous carrier had passed. Thus, pilots were still sitting in their aircraft in their hangars, awaiting a go order that would unleash what they thought was all nine levels of hell upon the Edenian invaders.This was AMERICA! This was THEIR country! THEIR