WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 217: The End of April (4)

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The radio crackled to life before dawn. It was the additional supply drop they had been waiting for so long. They seemed to have chosen the dark hours to avoid exposure to the mutant horde.

A relatively small aircraft crossed the sky over the village several times, coming from different directions. It looked like a lead plane equipped with night observation gear. After that, numerous transport planes appeared in a line, spaced far apart. They were flying low, ignoring EMP safe altitude. Under the faint moonlight of a cloudy dawn, the black-painted transports slowed against the headwind. Then they began dropping parachute cargo in clusters.

Some descended even lower. The broad open ground at the ranch was suitable as a field landing strip, despite the rough undergrowth. The sea breeze crossing over the mountains helped them descend steadily.

‘Biplanes?’

Every transport plane Gyeoul could see was a biplane. The fuselage resembled the Wooden Wonder, but it was much larger, and the wings had an unusual shape, with two pairs joined at the ends. It was a structure known as a Tandem-Wing.

It was his first time seeing one in this world, but it was not unfamiliar. More wings meant more lift. That meant the distance needed for takeoff and landing was sharply reduced. It also left more room to respond even if the engines shut down midflight, since the powerless glide distance was longer. It was humanity’s wisdom for facing the apocalypse.

Judging from his accumulated experience, the control surfaces probably ran on pure hydraulics too. Compared to fly-by-wire, that would make the aircraft heavier, but it had the advantage of preserving control even if an electromagnetic pulse went off. It fit a situation where living electromagnetic bombs roamed the ground.

Barker’s platoon and Escamilla’s platoon formed a perimeter along the fence.

Unexpected armed troops came running out of the ramp door of the first aircraft to land. They looked around in every direction, then spotted this side and changed course. The officers of Baker Company saluted the highest-ranking officer.

“Lieutenant Han Gyeoul.”

These days, everyone pronounced the boy officer’s name clearly. Fame had that effect.

“You must be Captain Langford.”

The sharp-featured Army colonel looked over Baker Company’s officers without expression.

“Good to meet you, all of you. I’m Cole Rogers. I trust you can guess why I’m here.”

In the end, the Department of Defense’s decision had not strayed from Gyeoul’s prediction. They planned to gather the troops here and deploy them into an operation. The scale seemed to be somewhat larger than expected, though. Everyone who had come with Colonel Rogers was an officer. They were probably the staff needed to establish a new unit.

“Captain. You have done good work so far. As of this moment, your Company falls under my command. Any objections?”

The colonel’s dry voice never rose or fell. Colonel Rogers was the type who made everyone nearby tense.

“None, sir!”

“Good. Finish receiving the supplies, then I’ll take a status report. You oversee the process.”

Even after taking over command, the colonel still did not know the details of this place. Until a proper system was in place, it was better to keep things running the old way. Captain Langford might have felt relieved to have the burden of decision-making lifted from him, but instead, he supervised the work with a tense look that seemed to sour his stomach.

As landings and takeoffs repeated, all kinds of boxes piled up in heaps. Firearms, ammunition, combat rations, and more. Even though they had sent word through Luke that they had enough food, the fact that they were procuring it through hunting must have left command uneasy. This was a supply push they had committed to in earnest.

There were only two of them, but small patrol vehicles, FAVs, also came out. Each was armed with a heavy machine gun and a high-speed grenade launcher.

No defensive ability could be expected. The driver’s seat did not even have a door. It was little more than a frame with an engine, wheels, and weapons attached. Because it was that light, it was more useful than a Humvee now that fuel supply was precarious.

When indigo began to mix into the sky, the colonel called Gyeoul over.

“Lieutenant.”

“Sir.”

“Congratulations on your promotion to Major.”

“...?”

“McGuire. Whatever this is, get it over with quickly.”

At Colonel Rogers’s irritated gesture, one staff officer stepped forward. Gyeoul knew him. After giving the colonel a brief nod, he led Gyeoul to a spot a short distance away.

“Captain?”

“I’m a Major now. It’s been a while.”

Nils McGuire from the Department of Defense public affairs office. They had first met over the Santa Maria promotional video.

“I never thought I’d see you here like this. What an amazing coincidence.”

“Coincidence? I’m not sure about that. There aren’t that many public affairs personnel dispatched to the blockade line command. Half of them are attached to the quarantine war Tactical Support Group, at that. Not many people would come all the way into a combat zone.”

The quarantine war Tactical Support Group was the place that had sent Gyeoul a recruitment offer too. On paper, it was an elite group of war heroes. In reality, it was nothing more than a unit specialized in shooting morale-boosting videos.

“What do you mean, I’m a Major?”

“Captain through regular promotion, Major through position-based promotion.”

McGuire answered as if there was nothing complicated about it.

In other words, Major was a temporary rank meant to sort out the chain of command. It was different from an ordinary two-rank special promotion. Even while being treated as a Major, he would be paid as a Captain, and once the situation was settled, he would revert to his normal rank.

Still, promotion to Captain alone was already an extraordinary exception. As Major Bliss, McGuire’s superior, had said before, Gyeoul was ignoring every regulation and unwritten code regarding time-in-grade requirements. No matter what anyone said, it had not even been a full year since his commissioning.

“Is that possible? There should be minimum service periods and all sorts of other requirements...”

“There’s no issue with the regulations. Congress resolved to award you a second Medal of Honor. Normally, you would be promoted on the first day of the month after the award date, but if it’s already confirmed anyway, there’s room for flexibility. It’s wartime.”

Gyeoul tilted his head slightly. The double Medal of Honor award that had been discussed so much before seemed to have finally been confirmed. In American history, the number of people who had received the Medal of Honor more than once could be counted on two hands. And as Major Bliss had once complained, Gyeoul was the first since the end of World War I.

“What matters is the reason for the decoration.”

Major McGuire drew his attention back.

“I hear you’re protecting a group of embedded press.”

“Yes. I rescued them a few days ago.”

“Did you, by any chance, tell them anything about Operation Fair Strike?”

He was asking whether Gyeoul had hinted to the reporters about his activities aboard Pequod, with Orca Black. It felt like he was asking something too obvious, but the public affairs officer’s expression was serious, so Gyeoul shook his head.

“No. I didn’t tell the other members of the Company either.”

The Major looked relieved. Gyeoul asked,

“What is the reason for the decoration?”

“For saving the lives of Hawthorne’s citizens and other service members from nuclear terrorism.”

“What does that...”

“They’re saying the nuclear warhead failed to make a direct hit on the city because you seized the Beidou satellite.”

It was a reason he had never expected. Joanna had explained that Shangjiang Yang Yongbin had probably chosen a target from the start where a miss would still be acceptable. In other words, considering the state U.S. forces on the California front had ended up in, Shangjiang Yang Yongbin’s nuclear attack had achieved its objective perfectly. The Major was distorting the facts.

“Understand it that way.”

Of course.

“Shouldn’t you be used to this by now? It’s a script from the White House. They need material to dilute the people’s despair. We have to stop the nation from splitting apart at a time like this...”

The public affairs officer sighed and changed his tone.

“Anyway, it isn’t a blatant lie. It’s true that you took control of the satellite and lowered the ballistic missile’s accuracy. Without that, the city really might have vanished. The troops stationed at the ammunition depot might not have evacuated in time either. This is closer to the truth. I heard they pulled out by a hair.”

“I understand. That must be uncomfortable.”

“You’re stiff. An ordinary person would have been happy. The treatment of refugees is tied up in this too, so let it go. Once you see what it’s like beyond the blockade, you’ll understand there’s no helping it.”

He did not need to see it in person. All kinds of racial crimes would be rampant. Even before this, Chinese Americans, and Asian citizens mistaken for Chinese, had already been suffering. It had not even been two months since Daniel Kwan’s death. The president’s memorial speech saying America must not destroy America no longer meant anything.

But one element was missing from this script. Team Leader Chadwick. Depending on the situation, that could become a very useful tool for the president.

‘Politics can’t only be clean. It’s something people do.’

If someone kept growing numb to filth, one day they would confuse ends and means. But in this world, with this current president, there should be no need to worry. This was the president’s second term.

“Major, I have something to report to the White House regarding this issue.”

McGuire caught the oddity in Gyeoul specifically saying the White House. Normally, it should have been the blockade line command, or the Intelligence Agency that had overseen the last operation. Though his field was different, a public affairs officer was still someone who handled secrets that could not be made public. He asked as if confirming.

“Let me be clear. Is this something I shouldn’t know?”

“For now, yes.”

“For now...?”

The Major rubbed his chin, then nodded.

“I’ll get permission to use satellite communications. Do you need anything else?”

“It would be good if we could connect a computer for data transmission. We have evidence material. The reporting party isn’t me, but FBI Supervisor Gibson.”

The backpack of hard disks they had taken from the secret area of Pequod was still intact. Ever since their arrival, Joanna had carefully managed the evidence. Of course, that included preparations against EMP.

At Gyeoul’s request, McGuire narrowed his eyes. He seemed to have gotten a vague idea.

“I suppose we had better hope it’s good news.”

The good news the public affairs Major meant was not literal in the slightest.

He went to Colonel Rogers at once. Even from a distance, Gyeoul could tell the colonel was frowning. Of course. Since they had just arrived, the colonel must have had many things to communicate with command about, but now someone was requesting a long communications session for an uncertain purpose.

Still, it was not as if there was only one communications device. There were several foldable AN/PRC-117s with an entire setup that fit inside one backpack, so in the end, the colonel was only showing displeasure at the feeling that something outside Rogers’s control was happening under Rogers’s command.

‘I wonder if things will be all right from now on...’

That kind of strict personality had clear strengths and clear weaknesses.

A short while later, a satellite transceiver was set up on high ground. It had an upside-down umbrella-like antenna mounted on a small tripod, with a wide cross-shaped receiver attached above it. A signaler who had connected a rugged laptop to the terminal spoke to Gyeoul and the waiting FBI agent.

“This has been modified to quarantine front specifications, so you don’t need to worry about radio leakage. Connect the hard disk to this cable. The transmission speed will be very slow because of the encryption. If you want to send all of that, it might take all day.”

Radio leakage prevention was an option added with the Trickster in mind.

“Thank you.”

Joanna, who had been called over, thanked him.

The person on the other end of the receiver she held changed several times in a short span. She spent more time waiting for the other party than speaking. The rank of the people she spoke to kept climbing higher and higher, until she was eventually connected directly to the president. Gyeoul could feel how tense she was.

“Gyeoul. Take this. His Excellency wants to speak with you.”

After finishing a serious conversation, Joanna handed the receiver to Gyeoul. It seemed she had delivered everything needed, so what was this about? Did something need to be confirmed?

============================ Author’s Note ============================

#Q&A

Q. PleasePickUpSoap: @Stay strong. I’ll share my childlike innocence with you.

A. Thank you. I was just running dry.

Q. Gwangha: The serialization seems a little irregular... Is that related to serialization on another platform? Haha, I want to read it straight through.

A. During last week’s holiday period, Naver was not accepting manuscripts, so serialization was delayed. This novel also does not have a fixed serialization cycle to begin with.

Still, except for last year’s Chuseok holiday, it has never dropped below three chapters a week... but somewhere, people are saying it is a weekly serialization.

Q. HealingInShelter: @I watched it the day before yesterday too, and that was aesthetic? It was gross, so I watched it going ughhh. According to my friend, it shows up less than in the previous movie.

A. I think Alien 2 is the best. If the movie made you go ughhh, please try the hide-and-seek game Alien: Isolation that I introduced before. I’m sure you will be satisfied.

Q. Calpis: @As expected, the author’s brain must be made of childlike innocence. I was too scared to watch that... shudder

A. Alien is not a movie you watch with childlike innocence. It is a movie you watch with dreams and hope.

Q. Sadogun: Author, Sergeant Madeline Weaver is marked as Private. I always enjoy reading the story. Thank you.

A. You are amazing... Sergeant Weaver has only appeared once before, and you remembered her rank... You are better than me, the writer.

Q. Sentinel: Author, if I buy tickets with Mana and read, do you not earn revenue?

A. Mm... Strictly speaking, that is not the case. Noblesse settles payments by dividing the amount left after manuscript fee coupons and Joara operating costs according to the view count ratio. In this novel’s case, I receive about 3 won per view, but if the view count increases, the share will also increase, and unused manuscript fee coupons are also distributed according to the ratio, so it is hard to talk about it simply based on the amount. :)

Q. FlyingDori: @Um, what are the serialization days? These days, I feel like the number of chapters has decreased compared to before!! (It’s all because you write so well that waiting is hard, haha.) I was worried that maybe your childlike innocence had taken a hit and was no longer full, or maybe about three of your legs had been cut off, haha.

A. As I said above, I mentioned from the beginning that it would be 3 to 5 times a week with no fixed serialization day. These days, I am barely keeping three chapters a week. Haha. There are health issues too, and I think I may be tired. Thank you for worrying. You will be blessed.

Footnotes:

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