Chapter 387 Oops


    As the retaliation strike was underway, huge troop movements were taking ce back in Avalon Ind 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 fullplements of troops in each jet.


    After the jets were loaded, they immediately took off and headed toward the carriers in the distance, where theynded, disgorged their troops, and immediately returned to Avalon Ind to pick up another load.


    At the same time, amphibiousnding craft were also loading up and bringing fullplements of troops to the enormous aircraft carriers. The fleet was still rtively close to Eden, at only roughly 500 kilometers away, so the trip was short enough that thending craft were heavily overloaded for the trip.


    As the troops were being transported, a major operation was underway inside the carriers. The carriers were overengineered, and the researchers working on them in Lab City had designed them so as to take advantage of the low crew count. Thus, most of the space inside them was actually empty and could be set up in a number of configurations. Requiring only two hundred sailors to crew each carrier at full capacity, the remainder was dedicated to engines, capacitor banks, reactors, and the configurable cargo area.


    The cargo area could be switched at any time to one of three primary configurations: aircraft hangars, fleet transport and drydock, or troop transport. Currently, they were set to the “default” configuration, with cavernous aircraft hangars upying most of the space.


    An rm suddenly rang out on the EV Beowulf. Three long horn sts were followed by a repeating announcement by the ship’s AI: [All hands, prepare for reconfiguration. Repeat: all hands, prepare for reconfiguration. Sixty seconds to reconfiguration. Fifty-nine... fifty-eight....]


    As the announcement repeated on the 1MC, the crew of the Beowulf headed to designated safe zones, where they wouldn’t be affected by the atomic printers that were about to sweep through each hangar, dposing everything down to the decks and bulkheads. Once the printers finished their sweep in one direction, they reversed course and headed back the way they came, printing angr teardrop-shaped objects at precise intervals on every deck inside the newly cleared cargo area.


    On deck, thendings and takeoffs continued, a synchronized aerial dance where one jet wouldnd, disgorge itsplement of 400 troops, then take off again. All four of the flight lines were in continuous operation, averaging one jetnded on each flight line every minute. Over the course of the next hour, each carrier loaded almost 100,000 troops by air alone.


    The remainder were in transit in their amphibiousnding craft, which were estimated to arrive in about five hours.


    Those five hours weren’t wasted, either. The atomic printers were hard at work printing the equipment the troops would be issued. Power armor, pulse carbines, rail rifles, fusion torches, atomic decouplers, back-mounted drone systems and rocketunchers, pulse shotguns, sma projectors, multirole grenades... the list goes on. Every weapon designed by the mad geniuses in Lab City was at every soldier’s disposal, and they were experts in all of them after the vicious training Athena put them through in VR.


    Once the transport ships reached the carriers, enormous doors slid back, exposing the newly configured troop transport decks for thending vehicles to unload their troops into.


    Altogether, each of the enormous carriers now held almost 250,000 troops.


    Once the troops were loaded, the enormous exterior doors slid closed and each teardrop-shaped object on every deck simultaneously opened like a blooming flower, the walls bing ramps that the infantry marched up squad by squad, taking their ces and preparing for transport.


    After the drop vehicles were loaded, a siren sounded on the carrier’s 1MC and through speakers on the flight deck. [All hands, prepare for liftoff. Repeat: all hands, prepare for liftoff. Liftoff in 60 seconds... 59... 58....]


    Once the countdown reached zero, the ship’s AI announced, [Liftoff.]


    A deep, groaning rumble sounded throughout the Beowulf and the lights flickered as the capacitor banks emptied themselves and the reactors went to full military power. Deep within the ship, the bast tanks were being pumped empty and filled with air, increasing the buoyancy of the vessel.


    Soon, four enormous, stubby wings appeared above the water as the increased buoyancy lifted them out of the briny sea. After they breached the surface of the sea, they lifted up on tracks and locked in ce level with the flight deck.


    Each stubby wing had a ducted six-de rotor that spanned fifty meters in diameter, and each rotor was rapidly spinning up to speed. As the rotors spun up, the enormous carrier finally broke free of the ocean’s grasp and began gaining altitude.


    1000 meters... 5000 meters... 10,000 meters.... The Beowulf, joined by its nine sister-ships, halted its ascent near the far edge of the stratosphere at 60 kilometers above the ground and the struggling reactors dropped to normal safe output and the capacitor banks began charging again.


    Once the carriers reached their cruising altitude, they broke off and headed in different directions. Their main initial targets were China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Israel, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Eight of the carriers headed to those countries, while the ninth headed to Central Africa, and the tenth headed to South America.


    The unification was about to begin.


    ......


    In the ARES Virtual Command Center.


    [Oops,] Nova giggled.


    Aron raised an eyebrow and nced at her. "What happened?"


    [I may have ''identally'' let a satellite feed of our carriersunching slip through the jamming we''ve been filling orbit with,] she snickered.


    "Why?"


    [I want them to know what''sing for them, and know that they can''t stop it. Besides, there''s no hiding our carriers anyway, so a visual won''t really matter.]


    Aron grunted his assent and turned his attention back to the main viewscreen.