"This is Task Force Alpha at Half Moon Bay ABP, authorization code: Zulu Tango." Astrid picked up the intercom and said, the weather was foggy, the sea conditions were not good, even though the patrol boat was already slowing down, the inky waves were still hitting the portholes, crackling. A precursor to a storm? Astrid thought, but she rejects her own idea, the eve of the storm is calm, it will be as naked as it is now?

"Roger, cleared in." Mayport Naval Base responded. Soon, a transport boat guided the Typhoon-class missile patrol boat, which Lieutenant General William had chartered for Astrid, into the waters of the base. It only took three days for Astrid to pass the combat status test, she didn't bother to pay attention to those stupid physical fitness tests, the recorder who didn't know if she was lucky or unlucky has been doing her errands for the past few days, after all, she received a Luger P08, which is enough to hire the recorder for more than ten years.

It was only Astrid and the captain on the bridge, and the crew was on duty at the firing position of the patrol boat, as did the transport boat, staring warily at the foggy sea with poor visibility. It's not all about the regulations. Astrid has finished reading the hundreds of pages of the "Atlas of Marine Mutant Organisms in the Southern Gulf" in the past few days, since it is a full-scale nuclear war, the empire will naturally not let go of the Federation's offshore oil production platform in the Southern Gulf, except for the underwater drilling facilities controlled by the Half Moon Bay base, the rest are gone. Nuclear radiation polluted the oceans, and by the way, mutated a large number of marine life. Maybe the next moment a cavity dragon will emerge and swallow this three-hundred-ton warship. Oh, it's a mutant of the shark. The mouth is just swallowing a patrol boat. At least, in this day and age, megalodons aren't very competitive, and Godzilla doesn't have much visual stunning.

Speaking of mutant creatures, Astrid is most interested in mimic jellyfish, which are much more formidable than the variable cloaking camouflage she's going to seek. This gauzy jellyfish will simulate its prey, creeping up and then enveloping and devouring it, even if the prey is in groups, because there is no way to find that there is no human being. Yes, before the discovery of mimic jellyfish, surveyors were the most dangerous job in Poseidon.

In the center of the steering wheel is engraved Poseidon's trident coat of arms. Frankly, Astrid prefers to think of it as three sailing arrow tracks. Every evening, Lieutenant General Wilhelm invited her to dinner, and there was always a lot of common ground between teachers and students, and the general explained why the army was reorganized after the war as "Poseidon".

"A war is over, a new war is coming, this war has no enemies, but all opponents are our enemies, and we have only one purpose, to establish order, to build prospects for the Federation, to ensure that humanity continues to survive and develop until eternity." The lieutenant general said.

The general thinks differently from people, and Lieutenant General William does not consider this a trident. "Three-headed dragon, the joint meeting is full of old men of my age, and being a soldier all my life will inevitably follow the rules, I don't want you to be like this." For the sake of beauty, Astrid still stuck to her personal thoughts. Since the war is going on, it is indeed very appropriate to use the power of the ancient gods to re-tame the sea and enslave the sea beasts.

Maybe in a few decades, when I became a gray-haired old woman, Poseidon was upgraded from one of the twelve main gods to Zeus, the god-king? From generation to generation, in the end, Gaia, the mother of the gods?

So, after all, the world is a woman who wins, both in name and in fact? Astrid thought.

The sea fog gradually reveals the outline of an artificial breakwater. The lights of the harbor lighthouse led to two boats, the patrol boat crossed the lock, and the layers of anti-submarine netting were hidden under the inky water, of course, there would certainly not be any German U-boats sneaking up on the royal oak trees these days, but there were plesiosaurs, or giant mutant moray eels, which often made the nets tremble on stormy nights. The breakwater is more of a permanent fortress group than a wave protection. On both sides of the sluice, there are two machine-gun bunkers. Behind the embankment stacked with caisson boxes, there were several separate armoured turrets, which Astrid recognized as MK47 five-inch 54-diameter naval guns. The high-powered searchlights dispelled the morning fog, and she saw a Richard Spencer-class destroyer in the dock, the ship's guns and phalanx were gone, and it was self-evident where it went.

The patrol boat dropped anchor, and Astrid put on a large-brimmed hat. "Disembark, boys." The vice-captain shouted, and several of the special operators on the deck stood up straight, and Astrid glanced at her teammates, all of whom had not been through the wind and rain, and the deputy assigned to her by the joint meeting, Second Lieutenant Sessions, was worth seeing. It is said that this man had previously been in the surface mapping team and was proficient in dealing with sea beasts.

"Welcome." Maypot sent a lieutenant colonel, dressed in a crisp naval civilian uniform, to salute each other, and Astrid lifted the brim of his hat to avoid shaking hands. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel Jagur Vogus, and I guess you're Major Astrid Josephine?"

Shouldn't people after the war be concise and busy? Astrid thought, and then she replied, "Yes, I was ordered to investigate the Pluto incident. "The freighter had no name or ship number, and with the exception of a black and rusty ship, it looked like a relatively common large pre-war abandoned steamer.

The lieutenant colonel's expression froze slightly, and then recovered. "Come this way."

Astrid automatically ignores the lieutenant colonel's ramblings, such as the famous armored warfare cases of the three wars that he had studied as a student, and made embarrassing expressions with what he thought was clever boasting, as if this would win Astrid special admiration. It's a pity that she is focused on observing the Maypot base.

A typical Allied naval base, with a large number of long-lying warships moored in the dock covered with a radiation protection dome, from the most basic Richard Spencer-class destroyers, as far as the eye could see, she saw about seven destroyers that had been dismantled, and even one aircraft carrier, and the fog became thicker. "USS Lexington nuclear-powered aircraft carrier?" Astrid interrupted.

"Ah, we'll pass by there in a moment." The lieutenant colonel was obviously not willing to give up the current topic, so Astrid took out the superspectral goggles, and after her eyesight was enhanced, she looked at the rusted hull of the castle on the sea, the barnacle shells climbed to the waterline, and the extremely salinity of the sea breeze stripped off the majestic white paint, and there was not a single carrier-based aircraft that once dominated the four seas. She sighed heartily. One of her hobbies is reading, reading the history of the country and the nation, who else can she think of in this scene?

Sister Kuznetsov. After decades of living in the Black Sea shipyards of the Empire, the Federal Navy always makes this a laughing stock, and the feng shui turns around, and the Sea Power Empire is actually afraid of sharks and squids off the coast. Convert all the armament of the ships into ground defense. If Queen Elizabeth had known, she would have woken up with a smile.

The closer he got to the carrier, the more a fire burned in Astrid's heart, and in front of the bow of the ship, humanity was a complete ant in front of the largest machine he had ever built. "Who is she?" Astrid asked a second time. The waste lieutenant colonel finally responded, and he didn't even look at the aircraft carrier.

“CVN-85……”

"Franklin ......" Astrid's tone was more sonorous and somber than that of Lieutenant Colonel Waste, and Lieutenant Colonel did not continue.

"USS Delano Roosevelt nuclear-powered aircraft carrier." The major stopped and stood in front of the statue of the Confederacy's passing seapower, took off her military cap, and gently brushed her white sideburns and short ear-length hair, which could not even reach her blue eyes.

"My grandfather served on the Nimitz, my father served on the Ford, and I, I chose to be a part of the mech unit because I didn't think the Federation needed more Navy, she needed an equally powerful army to thwart the Empire's invincible Blizzard, so, I took you, CVN-85, Franklin D. Roosevelt to the mainland." Astrid whispered to the aging aircraft carrier, and Lieutenant Colonel Waste tried to interject: "Battle of Frankfurt? That's ......"

"Shut up." Astrid said, like training a private. Lieutenant Colonel Waste stepped aside stupidly, although the rank was one level higher, he knew that he was no match for the smugness of Lieutenant General Williams, the chairman on duty of the Joint Conference, in any way except his rank, not to mention that the woman in front of him was an officer, not an officer's mattress. She is the prestigious mecha Valkyrie, Astrid Josephine, the flower of the army, whose name alone can scare off the all-metal slut of the Imperial Mecha Army.

She remembered the spring from the C-17G transport plane fully armed and airdropped onto the beach of Dunkirk, with yellow sand and blood, mechs and warplanes. The USS Roosevelt's carrier-based aircraft and land-based all-domain fighters did everything in their power to gain temporary air supremacy, and Astrid planted the Union flag on the Gallic coast, which had fallen less than 48 hours later. Above her, hundreds of warplanes swept into the sky. So we need the land, we don't need the ocean. She thought darkly.

She opened her arms, her wrists and palms curved, aimed at her temples, and saluted the lonely warship that had been silent for more than half a century.

Astrid put on her military cap and turned sideways to find that several of her special operators had also joined the commander in a gesture that might have seemed stupid to them. Sessions raised his eyebrows with two fingers in his eyes, his eyes glinting with a hippie sparkle. "Where did you say it?" Astrid smiled in return and asked Lieutenant Colonel Waste.

The core of the Mayport base is located in the submarine cave. These caves were converted into personnel dormitories and supply warehouses, which were not effective for storing military supplies in the open air before the war, and once a radiation storm blows, the armaments that had been accumulated with great difficulty were either swept into the sea or contaminated in excess of them.

The security door of the cave was always closed, and Astrid watched as the original submarine anchorage was mass-produced and maintained with various types of submarines. "Why are so many miniature submarines built?" She asked. Lieutenant Colonel Vogus finally had a chance to show. He pointed to a pocket submarine under the steel bar guardrail and said: "The offshore oil drilling platform in Half Moon Bay is the only oil production facility in normal operation at present, and the frequency of sea monster attacks is increasing month by month, in order to ensure production, we should build these unmanned underwater vehicles at the request of the joint meeting, carry 12-inch small fish/pedoes to drive away and harass sea monsters, and more than 30 ships must be launched every month to ensure safety standards." ”

Leaning on the railing, she watched as a crane lifted a small fish/tordo into the launch tube of a pocket submarine. "It's too wasteful to use large fish/pedoes to deal with sea monsters, a mini submarine can be loaded with up to four 324 mm caliber fish/mines, exactly one cavity dragon at a time, there was only one cavity dragon attack last month, and there were as many as twenty-six cases of mimic jellyfish, and four divers were lost, we applied to add electromagnetic nets to the submersible, but it will shorten the operation time due to energy consumption, and the joint meeting is reviewing." Lieutenant Colonel Vogus obviously has a specialization in the arts, and he still knows his own affairs well. The lieutenant colonel took Astrid on a tour of the fish/pedo production line, and the mechanics who cleared the water finally relieved Astrid a little.

It happened that the delivery cart had come from the depths of the cavern, and Astrid sat in the seat of the ore dump, and the narrow-gauge railroad had traveled for miles to get to the checkcard.

"Documents. Astrid handed over the military/official card and special pass, and the bunker inspection card that was lying across the cave up and down, left and right, the soldiers carefully checked the authenticity of the visitor back and forth, and only after a long time did he salute: "Good day, major." The security door opened, and Astrid realized that this was just the first pass.

After three checkpoints and miles, she reached the shelter lift. "Wait a minute." Lieutenant Colonel Vogus jumped off the tipple and walked to the control panel of the cavern's support pillar and clicked, he picked up the intercom and said to the submarine shelter operator on the other end, "Authorization code: PTR76. ”

The entire cavern trembled, and although it only took up a quarter of the ground, the lifting platform on Astrid Station was still large enough to hold two M1 Marine tanks. "The people inside don't go out often." Vogus said. The platform descended rapidly, and Astrid stared down at the white star on the sole of his boot, and then looked up at the sky closed in an explosion-proof version, two generations born in the Vault and one died underground. Their world can't see the sun.

It took about ten minutes for the group to arrive at the official shelter gate, where the builders carved out the "Meport Military Shelter" in granite. Diamonds are eternal, a character engraved in the tunnel rock can be immortal for 10,000 years, perhaps when humans return to their hometown after conquering the starry sky to see all this, the attitude is the same as that of today's people looking at primitive cave paintings. Astrid thought.

Behind the door was the vehicle parking lot, empty and tight, with only a few commuter cars and soldiers on duty. "Let's go, save some gas for the Navy." Astrid refused the lieutenant colonel's move to drive. "If you stick to ......," Vogus shrugged.

Continuing to transfer to the passenger elevator, it took a few hours for Astrid to get from the port of Mayport to the administrative level of the Mayport Vault. The layout is the same as that of Half Moon Bay. The overhead lamp five meters apart, the milky white tone, the uniform that is much the same, and the civilian staff officers who hurriedly come and go with the copywriter occasionally glimpse Astrid in the afterglow, all of them are surprised. There were very few outsiders, she thought.

The ribbon is only found in the Guards uniform, which is the General's office. As Astrid approached, the guards with ceremonial guns opened the door to the conference room. "Major, you're late." The officers in the conference room roared to their feet, the red axis of the wide breeches and the dark green military uniform, majesty and strength filled the room, many of the military ranks present were higher than her, but out of respect for the mecha Valkyrie, they all stood up, except for Major General Orend, who was at the head of the long table.

"I'm sorry, Rear Admiral, according to the navigation regime, I can't get too far from the coastline, after all, you know, this is not the last century, and the biggest threat to the South Gulf is the alligator." Astrid sent her men to the cafeteria, and bureaucratic habits must not be transmitted to the soldiers, otherwise the war would be lost. She pulled out the last seat opposite the general, and took a night in the patrol boat, she still liked the leather seats in the headquarters, oh, the soft touch of the butt was not the same as the deerskin, it might be some kind of sea animal skin, according to local conditions.

The staff officers clenched their fists and laughed as if her witticism was really deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the general coughed a few times: "It seems that our Valkyrie is not so cold when he walks off the altar." Astrid couldn't tell if it was a joke or a mockery. She didn't care much about that anyway. "Once you wake up from sixty years of slumber, you must not be interested in old-fashioned bureaucracy, so let's get to the point."

I will vote for him at the next joint meeting. She didn't hesitate to smile, Poseidon's supreme decision-making system is that each active military personnel votes for four officers of the base, and the selected ones form a joint meeting every five years, responsible for the normal operation of all affairs. She looked at the previous members, okay, lacklustre.

The personal projection board at the conference table showed the attack on the Marines again. These unlucky soldiers faithfully carried out the regulations, spotted the freighter in the first wave of routine coastal patrols, consulted their superiors, and boarded the ship to search it under the armed forces of the third-class base guards. Dog/sissy Marines. They don't even have eyepieces with hyperspectral functions, and if the command is merciful and distributed, this doesn't need Astrid to deal with, and it's very comfortable to have no dreams for a long night. Astrid sighed, and the command allocated all the exoskeleton equipment to the Rapid Reaction Force and the last mech division. After decades of disconnection with the president, the Marines were completely downstaged, and Astrid suddenly rejoiced that she was a stepmother.

"So, do we have any specific information about Pluto?" Astrid interlocked her fingers, and the projection ended, transforming into a three-dimensional model of a floating freighter, which she fiddled with with great interest, but could not disassemble the freighter to get a cutaway. She asked.

The atmosphere was suddenly awkward, and the staff officer next to Astrid added, a beautiful ponytail, and she said: "The real-time reconnaissance of the elf drone only converges on the night vision infrared eyepieces of the marines, and the signal isolation in the freighter is serious, and we can accept this image as the result of the last marine approaching the upper cabin." ”

"In other words, apart from this image, we don't know anything about who the enemy is, what the enemy wants to do, including the information about the freighter, right?" Astrid said with a smile, the ponytail little staff officer was also a silver silk single star epaulettes, and the little major approached with his hands together, and whispered: "This is the reason why we are seeking assistance from the headquarters. ”