One Last System

'Ten hovers, that's the force we should be wary about,' Daniel thought while squinting his eyes.

The wait for the reply from the intelligence bureau was quickly turning into another source of worry.

"Normally they wouldn't take so long to answer a damn call…" Daniel muttered under his nose, stopping himself from analyzing the scenario before he would get all the data he could work with.

Trying to figure the situation out from the little that he knew at the moment would only lead him down the path of early assumptions and a natural desire to match them to reality rather than keeping his mind open for any new variable.

"This is seriously taking too long," Alice whispered while staring blankly at the flashing diode on the phone indicating that the phone was still trying to connect the call.

"Thank God, finally some connection!"

The voice suddenly exploded with a sound.

"We thought you guys were already dead!" the panicked voice from the other end of the call filled the room.

"Fill me up, what's the situation?" Daniel immediately requested.

"It's a mess," the voice instantly replied. "We are under attack at every site of the western frontier!" the operator quickly gave out the most important news. "And we've detected the activity of their launch sites!"

"Wait, whose?" Daniel pulled his eyebrows together.

'We shouldn't be significant enough for any of the nuclear powers to consider us a threat yet,' he thought, quickly running down the list of the planned activities of the organization for the foreseeable future. 'Yeah, we should be flying under the radar for at least three more years!'

Daniel closed his eyes.

"It's BlackRock…"

Boom.

A sound of a distant explosion reached the operator's phone.

"Shit, they are hitting us, they are hitting us!" the guy cried out in panic.

He was working for the organization's intelligence, not on the front lines. And while he clearly was stationed in one of the outposts closer to the site of the actual operations, no intelligence quarters should be anywhere near the range of any of the other groups!

'It can't be artillery, not at this distance,' Daniel quickly ran the math in his head.

And no, there wasn't even a single model of artillery that mercenary corps could get their hands on that could shoot at a distance necessary to hit any of the intelligence sites!

'Rockets we would detect, same with drones,' Daniel continued to scour his brain. 'Wait, what if they used hovers…?'

There were obvious logistic challenges that came when it came to the vast expanses of desert.

Basically, no force of the old type could cross it without either following the natural paths for supplies or dragging every last bit of fuel along.

The first option made any attempts at bringing artillery close enough to rain fire upon the organization's interior blatantly obvious. After all, all of those potential roads for the use of logistics were closely monitored!

Then, came the other option. To haul all the fuel and supplies necessary for a military raid along with the fighting unit. But such a resolution would massively bloat the size of the raiding party, making it impossible to avoid satellite detection.

'But none of that matters if they have hovers!' Daniel realized.

Hovers.

A technology that was both the best and the worst.

It was the best as it allowed for fuel-free transportation of any quantity of goods and troops. The energy cost of moving a hover-based vehicle was so tiny one could realistically forget about it.

After all, hovers relied on the power of the anti-gravity generated by their engine. All the movement of the vehicle based on a hover would come from small, external engines aimed at changing the momentum of the floating vehicle.

It was near impossible to accelerate them beyond the speed of mere twenty kilometers per hour. But, once set in motion, hovers wouldn't require any fuel at all until someone would want to either switch their direction or stop their float.

And those qualities made them perfect for deep raids into enemy territory while avoiding all the encumbermeant that came with the older type of logistics.

'Did they haul artillery on hovers?' Daniel finally arrived at an idea that allowed him to realistically explain the ongoing situation.

"If I'm right, then it's still manageable," Daniel muttered as he took a step closer to the phone. "Soldier, I only have one order for you," Daniel announced.

"Yes, sir!" the voice on the other end of the phone changed a little.

'Is the ethos of the military making him act with a little bit more courage?' Daniel thought, recalling the recent screams of fear of the kid.

"I want you to call in the blue alarm," Daniel requested.

"Wait, sir, for that…" the voice on the phone filled with hesitation.

"You will need my authentification code," Daniel muttered as he nodded his head. "Get your fingers on the keyboard, I will recite it."

The phone turned silent.

Daniel could still hear the explosions slowly getting closer to the other end of the phone… but its operator remained silent.

"I understand, sir," the voice finally returned. "I'm ready, sir."

"Good. It's one, Bravo, Oscar, Sierra, Sierra," Daniel started to recite. "India, Alfa, Mike."

The noise of keys clicking followed.

"I've confirmed your authority, sir," the phone rang with the voice of the kid.

It was surprisingly… calm.

"I hereby declare, a blue alarm is in effect," Daniel used the official form of the order.

Given the other party's insistence on following the authentication procedures, he was more than willing to humor him.

After all, the bureaucracy of the organization was far scarier than some bombs falling nearby.

All that a bomb could take was one's health and maybe life. Bureaucracy, on the other side, could take everything else.

"Is the shit going down early?" Alice asked once the flashing diode suddenly died, announcing the call breaking off.

'So they pushed the first phase already,' Daniel thought.

A massive EMP discharge washed all over the area, killing every conduit that wasn't secured in advance.

And the civilian phone they were using didn't fall into the category of the equipment everyone within the organization's frontier would now change too.

"Let's hope not," Daniel muttered, pulling out two backpacks from one of the huge wardrobes stacked against the wall of the metal box they were in.

He then pulled out a small, fist-sized, and ball-shaped device before pressing one of the three buttons engraved on top of it.

"We have enemy forces that likely broke through the desert interior and are shelling out core facilities," Daniel gave the announcement to the inner, military line of the organization. "There are reports of nuclear arsenal getting activated. Begin stall four and  clear three procedures!"

Daniel put his device back into his backpack before pulling out a compact cube that contained all of his armor and personal weaponry.

"So the shit is going down…" Alice whispered, staring blankly at Daniel for a second before shaking her head and reaching out for her own backpack.

The blue alarm was only around the middle of the escalation ladder of the organization's response. And while it meant the beginning of an all-out war with an enemy organization, it was still below the level of a national response.

"Well, we are about to shock the world with the true extent of our means," Daniel muttered as he pulled on a vest before strapping it firmly to his body. "And that means we can either throw a bucket of cold water on everyone and start a few more years of an arms race," Daniel muttered only to turn silent as he secured the strap of his helmet below his chin.

Daniel then closed his eyes and lowered his head.

"That, or we might create the spark that will set this one massive bomb of a world on fire."