Summoning America

Chapter 195: Risk Assessment

Author's Note: Spent quite some time doing some research here. Hopefully I got everything right. As always, if you're an expert and you wanna share some feedback, please join the discord server. Also doing some experimentation with the style after reading some works from accomplished authors (Sanderson, Tolkien, Orwell, Scalzi, etc) instead of just japanese webnovels. Lmk what you think.

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Bureau of Information, Technology Division
Ragna, Gra Valkas Empire

Naguano took a sip of his coffee, the bitter liquid sliding down his throat like a weak balm against the grim reality that lay before him. The report from the Third Conquest Fleet sat on the table, the dreadful pages staring up at him with cold detachment. He had read it three times already, hoping against hope that the words would change, that the numbers would somehow rearrange themselves into a more acceptable truth. Of course, reality wouldn't be so kind. They remained the same, a damning indictment of the Gra Valkan Empire's technological inferiority.

Across the table, Heimdall sat in silence – a mirror image reflecting the same resigned weariness that Naguano felt in his bones. They had worked tirelessly, pouring every ounce of their knowledge and expertise into the countermeasures that were supposed to turn the tide of the war. As he had long suspected, it was simply a pipe dream. The Americans, with their advanced missiles and their seemingly endless resources, had rendered their efforts futile.

Naguano glanced down at the report again, the words blurring together into a haze of despair. The chaff and flares, the electronic countermeasures, the decoys - all of it had been for naught. The American missiles had cut through their defenses like a hot knife through butter, leaving nothing but destruction and chaos in their wake.

Naguano shuffled through the stack of radar track printouts, the chaff corridor deployment data refusing to make sense. By procedure, the decoy clouds had formed with perfect density - he'd overseen the countermeasure bombardment himself. And yet, the overlaid missile trajectories arced through the clutter unperturbed, beelines to their eventual targets.

He grabbed the thermal imaging stack with a weary sigh, desperate for any glimmer of an answer. Flares - their trusted friend against the old infrared missile seekers. They'd theorized their use against potential Kainian missiles, and confirmed the theory by cross-referencing with American materials. But frame by agonizing frame, the evidence only compounded his team's impotence. Bright heat plumes blossoming from each pyrophoric canister...only for the missile gimbal tracks to abruptly shrug them off like drifting sparks.

Naguano's hands clenched dimly on the table, the knuckles paling. He knew the procedures, the countermeasure doctrine, better than anyone. This debacle defied everything in their defensive scriptures.

Heimdall leaned in, taciturn gaze sweeping over the same damning proof. "Like the chaff had no impact in breaking their missile lock," he muttered, a tone more dire than mere observation.

Naguano nodded, feeling the first chill prickles of dismay. "And the flares..." He shoved the thermal stack towards his colleague. "Just a couple seconds and the missiles are already disregarding and re-biasing away from the plumes."

An ominous pause stretched between them, two scientists intrepidly unspooling the worst thread of revelation.

"You don't think..." Naguano couldn't even give voice to the heresy brewing in his mind. Heimdall's eyes flicked upwards, a similar suspicion already metabolizing behind that furrowed brow.