Another Worldly Summons

Chapter 70: Intermission of New Conflict

Inside the ASEAN Secretariat, it had been a month since the incident in Grameus occurred. The news of a medieval city withstanding a nuclear strike with an unknown powerful sci-fi like shielding and futuristic weapon, resembling a gigantic railgun that are capable of firing Mach 20, 8 tons of rod from a 1,500 mm barrel according to rescued stranded personnel there, had thrown the government into a frenzy. From the back to the front seats, everyone, including the Chairman of the Country's Transition Government of the Federal Republic of Southeast Asian Nations, was having trouble running in and out of the building. They were reinforcing the destroyed airbase on Topa by deploying several air defense systems and sending icebreakers to make the sea there accessible for ships to bring back the troops and aircraft out of the area. They were preparing for a possible attack from unknown enemies that had yet to materialize.

"Chairman, are you really going to ignore the suggestion of implementing a preemptive first strike policy on the unknown underground facilities in the so-called Kingdom of Esperanto? We already have ballistic missile transport erector launchers in position, as well as two squadrons of Strike Eagles armed with JDAMs on standby." The Minister of Defense asked in a low tone. He and a few other ministers were asking for some time to decide what to do about these abnormally advanced facilities that were unearthed after the Annonrial Empire's attack. Some were suggesting taking over the facilities militarily and negotiating, but the general consensus was that if they could not be brought under the ASEAN or at least made friendly, all threat factors must be destroyed.

After a moment of silence, the Chairman sighed heavily before responding.

"Preemptive first strike policy should be a last resort, and we cannot simply attack without proper intelligence and understanding of the situation," firmly replied the Chairman. "We don't even know who our enemies are, let alone the full extent of their capabilities. We must gather more information before taking any action. Negotiations are still ongoing, and if necessary, we will take military action."

The Ministry of Defense and other officials nodded in agreement, recognizing the importance of intelligence gathering before making any decisions. However, some officials are dissatisfied and were still advocating for a military takeover of the Esperanto kingdom's facilities. There's also the issue of large chunk of territories on south of Esperanto being chartered by ASEAN, and likely be put in negotiation on how to deal with it.

"We cannot invade another sovereign nation without provocation," added Chairman Ahmad in response to their dissatisfaction. "We will continue to pursue diplomatic channels and see if we can negotiate access to those facilities for research or establish a cooperation agreement. For now, leave them alone. How is the identification of the unknown attackers coming along?"

Then, Chairman Ahmad asked about the identity of the attackers who launched a standoff missile saturation strike on the airbase, resulting in over 150 casualties with 86 fatalities on the ASEAN side. In response, ASEAN's airborne unit virtually annihilated the attackers in a matter of minutes using their fleet of F-16 and F-15 in mostly BVR engagement that made the battle as if a massacre.

Ministry of Defense Secretary Jude Hartono stood up and approached the microphone. "Chairman, I can answer that question. As you may be aware, our primary suspect for the airbase attack was Milishials. However, upon further examination of the dead pilots of the enemy aircraft, we discovered that all of them had wings on their backs, which is not a feature of the dominant elf-based civilization of Milishial. This makes them appear innocent, but it's not completely ruled out, as there is a sizable minority in their country that consists of winged individuals. Therefore, Milishials are not completely off the hook yet. Our second suspect, after this discovery, is another modern civilization in the southern world," Jude paused before uttering the name, "the Annonrial Empire."