Chapter 564: Dread Without Measure
In the center of the American heartland the heavy oak table in the War Department’s strategy room groaned under piles of telegraphs, blurry reconnaissance photographs, and urgent intelligence dossiers.
The atmosphere was electric with worry; a silent dread that no one quite dared voice yet.
A colonel ran a trembling hand through his hair. "Gentlemen, we have the latest aerial assessments. The coastal cities are... leveled. Not shelled. Not burned by ordinary bombardment. It’s as if the very air ignited. Entire districts erased in a single concussion."
Across the table, a Navy attaché tapped the photographs with a rigid forefinger. "Our analysts can’t even estimate the tonnage. They said it must be some new form of high-yield explosive. Look here; the shock patterns run for miles, the internal streets gutted by what they described as... as if a vacuum had torn through."
"Are you suggesting the Germans have developed some new type of blasting compound? Something beyond our own TNT and amatol stocks?" another officer asked, his voice cracking.
"I don’t know," the colonel admitted. "But whatever it is, it forced the Japanese to surrender outright. After only a handful of strikes."
The Secretary of War let out a long breath, the air hissing between his teeth. He reached for a decanter, poured two fingers of bourbon into a glass, and didn’t bother offering it to anyone else.
"So let’s put this plainly," he growled. "Germany just compelled one of the world’s largest empires to bend the knee using a handful of what; enormous aerial munitions? Rockets? A fucking supergun? And this was accomplished by their colonial detachments. Not even the armies they keep on their European frontier."
Silence fell like a coffin lid.
Finally, the intelligence chief rasped, "Sir, if that’s what they gave their colonial regiments, then God help us if we ever come to blows with their homeland divisions."