NOVEL NEXT Chapter 184: Striking Hard
Jayden sat in Charlotte's office long after everyone else had left. The screens around them still glowed with maps, satellite feeds, and lines of code that scrolled like a second heartbeat.
Charlotte was hunched over a terminal, eyes tired but steady. The glow reflected on her glasses, and for the first time since the attacks began, he felt a calmness that was not fear. It was a cold, clear resolve.
That good news from Harper had helped a lot.
"We can't rely on the Aegis V everywhere," Charlotte said without looking up. "There are pockets, remote stations where their Defense Systems are locally hardened. The shield's network is strongest over their cities and major installations. But those weapon bases? They run on isolated nodes. They're shielded against interference, but they are not immune. They are blind spots."
Jayden closed his eyes and let the words sink in.
"So their missiles that hit Western Spring — somebody found those blind spots," he said. His voice was low. He tasted anger and a strange gratitude at the same time. Anger because his people had died. Gratitude because now they had a weakness to exploit.
Charlotte finally turned and met his eyes. "Yes. Whoever designed those warheads found a way to evade Aegis V's standard signatures. They built hardware-level bypasses. But the control nodes? They are centralized in multiple satellite-linked bases. If we take those bases offline, their whole launch chain collapses."
Harper, who had been standing in the doorway half the time and half the night, folded her arms. "We cannot stop at defense. If they want to rain missiles, we must make sure they cannot launch them again. Strike where they build and store. Strike their bases. That will cripple them for months, maybe years."
Jayden stood up. The room was silent for a long second, the kind of silence that holds a decision. He felt the weight of a country on his shoulders, but he also felt something lighter, a sense of rightness.
"Prepare me a list," he said. "Every weapon station, every launch silo, every command node connected to Icelandian launches. Charlotte, map the network. Harper, design the takedown options. Paula, if she need special carriers or strike units, I'll requisition the budget now."
Harper looked at him sharply. "Paula is asleep." Then she smiled. "I'll wake her."
"I'll need the Core on this," Jayden said. "No half measures. No leaks. We go in hard and fast. We hit their sources, not their people."
Charlotte hesitated. "You want this to be surgical. You want minimal civilian casualties."
Jayden nodded. "We do this for the people who died. We do this to stop more deaths. We have to be better than them while we hurt them. We will not become Liam."
They worked through the night. Plans stacked on plans. Maps of Icelandia's coasts, its mountain ranges, the islands where their missile infrastructures were hidden behind false towns and empty ports, thanks to Charlotte's findings.
Some bases were obvious on satellite imagery, clusters of hardened domes, shield grids visible as faint halos. Others were deeper: converted factories, deep rock caverns, mobile launchers that could disappear in hours. Charlotte's fingers moved over the keyboard like she was conducting a symphony of machines.
Harper sketched new weapons, disruptors that could fry guidance systems, warheads that could pierce hardened domes, and most crucially, devices that would neutralize the bypass tech the Icelandians had used against Aegis V, thanks to her discovered theory.
Jayden thought of Katie, the little girl who had lost his family in Western Spring. He thought of the mothers who cried on live television and the shopkeepers and property owners who had lost their life's work. His choice was not about power or revenge. It was about stopping more mothers and shopkeepers from tasting the same pain.
Within twenty-four hours the Core had their plan. It was not a blind strike. It was a coordinated wave. There would be three phases.
"Phase one, Electronic infiltration. I and the tech teams would insert ghost packets into the Icelandian networks, creating false telemetry and confusion at command nodes. Those packets would buy seconds, then minutes. Those minutes would let the strike teams get into position," Charlotte said.
"Phase two, Surgical removal. I, with a dedicated assault squad, would target the physical nodes, the command rooms, the intel arrays, the generators. Precision strikes and controlled demolitions would render launch capability useless without blowing apart towns. The goal is to sever, not to annihilate," Harper stated.
"Phase three, Containment and message. After each hit, I would go on air. I would show the evidence, the links, the logs, the proof that Icelandia had attacked first and that these bases were tied to the assault. I would tell the world that Nortasia did not want to exterminate a nation but would not be passive while its citizens burned," Jayden added.
The decision was made. Orders were sent. Warnings were whispered through secure channels. The Aegis V remained active and bright in the sky, its pillars still humming with light. Jayden watched them as if they were guardians and also as if they were a promise that this would work.
They moved at dawn.
The first strike took place on a rock island to the north, a place Icelandia called Oxelem. It had been the site of the missile station that, by a cruel twist, had become the origin of one of the missiles that returned home. Charlotte's packet reached the island's command array at dawn, and for a breathless minute, no alarms answered.
Then Harper's pilots, steady and trained, slipped three craft under radar, and Paula's new Reapers buzzed like a swarm above. They used precision charges to put the station's launch computers out of service. Strong demolitions, placed in the right places, and the domes collapsed inward without turning into firestorms. There were no towns nearby, just barracks for technicians who had time to evacuate into bunkers once confusion spread.
In the capital of Icelandia the shock was immediate and loud. Alarms rang and commanders swore. They scrambled jets, they launched drones, they called for reprisals. But the first line of missiles never rose. The communication chain was gone, thanks to the satellite hacking.
The second strike hit a mobile launch depot hidden in a series of mountain tunnels. Charlotte's tracers led Harper's team on an impossible night mission, diving into caverns and slipping through sealed doors. They found launch tubes stocked with missiles, but they did not set them off.
Instead, the squad placed electromagnetic dampeners and removed critical ignition modules, rendering the missiles inert but preserved. When dawn found them, the tunnels were silent and empty. The press ran scenes of empty tubes being carted out, and Nortasia's people began to breathe.