371: Chapter 371 This era no longer belongs to our America.

The Situation Room was deathly silent.

The President continued, "An opponent capable of deceiving NORAD, hovering a 600-meter-long ship over Washington for four hours, and forcing us to issue even our retreat orders in secret—this proves that our homeland is no longer safe."

"With our homeland unsafe, keeping three million troops spread across more than eighty countries is tantamount to suicide."

"We must pull back. Concentrate our forces to defend the homeland. This is the only thing we can do now."

The Secretary of Defense was silent for a long time.

Finally, he spoke one word.

"Yes."

Just then—

The CIA Director suddenly spoke up.

"Mr. President."

The President turned to look at him.

"Go ahead."

The CIA Director took a step forward.

"That ship is still hovering over Washington," he said. "Two kilometers from The White House. Three kilometers from the Capitol. Five kilometers from the Pentagon."

"Mr. President, should we shoot it down?"

The air in the Situation Room tightened.

This question was one that no one had dared to ask in the past four hours.

It wasn't because they couldn't hit it—the USA still possessed the world's most powerful air defense capabilities.

Domestic THAAD, Patriot-3, Aegis Ashore, and GMD midcourse missile defense—all their firepower covered the skies over Washington.

It was because no one dared to bear the consequences of "what if we shoot it down."

But now—at a moment when the President had already decided to withdraw aircraft carriers and overseas bases—this question had to be asked.

Because if they didn't even dare to ask this question, the USA would completely lose the dignity of an old-era hegemon.

The President did not answer immediately.

He stared at the screen.

Then he turned his head and looked at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"Chairman."

"Yes, Mr. President."

"You answer this question."

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff straightened up.

He was the only military officer in this Situation Room.

He was the highest-ranking military official in the country.

He was sixty-three years old. He was a West Point graduate, had served fourteen years in Iraq and Afghanistan, and had been part of the command echelon for Operation Neptune Spear that took out bin Laden. He was one of the most trusted commanders in the USA military over the past thirty years.

Now, it was up to him to answer this question of "to shoot or not to shoot."

He was silent for ten seconds.

Then he spoke.

"Mr. President," he said, "my recommendation is not to shoot."

The CIA Director asked, "Why?"

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff turned to the CIA Director.

"Let me tell you three things."

"The first thing."

"If that ship were a fifth-generation aircraft, even the most advanced fifth-generation aircraft, we would still have a 100 percent certainty of shooting it down."

"If that ship were a sixth-generation aircraft, even our own most classified NGAD prototype, we would still have a 70 percent certainty of shooting it down."

"But that ship—is not an aircraft."

"It is a super-ship that is 680 meters long and 280 meters wide, capable of hovering motionless in the air, capable of deceiving all radars of NORAD, and capable of lighting up its underside to form a national flag pattern equivalent to the area of forty soccer fields."

"This is not something we can assess."

"We don't know how many missile strikes it can withstand. We don't know if it has an anti-missile System. We don't know how it is propelled—so we don't know how it will fall if we shoot it down."

"That is the first thing: we don't know. And the first principle of military decision-making is—never open fire when you don't know."

"The second thing."

"Suppose we opened fire. Suppose we were lucky enough to shoot it down."

"How heavy is it?"

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff looked at everyone.

"We don't know. But based on its dimensions, a conservative estimate starts at several hundred thousand tons."

"An object weighing several hundred thousand tons falling from an altitude of two hundred meters into downtown Washington—"

"Everyone," he said, "within a one-kilometer radius of the impact point, all buildings would be instantly destroyed."

"The White House."

"The Capitol."

"The Lincoln Memorial."

"The Washington Monument."

"The Smithsonian Museums."

"All. Gone."

"Our capital, which we take such pride in, would turn into ruins within minutes."

"Estimated death toll: fifty thousand to one hundred thousand."

"That's not even counting whether it carries ammunition, what its energy System is, or whether it would trigger a larger explosion or radiation when it falls."

"Most critically—"

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's voice slowed down further.

"This event would be classified as a nuclear-level attack by Daxia on the USA homeland."

"But it wasn't launched by Daxia."

"It was launched by us."

"We used our own hands to personally destroy our own capital."

No one in the Situation Room spoke.

"The third thing," the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff continued.

"Suppose the second thing doesn't happen. Suppose we are lucky enough to shoot it down, and it causes no large-scale destruction, just crashing cleanly into the Potomac River."

"Then what?"

"Wouldn't Daxia have a second one?"

"A third one?"

"Even a tenth one?"

"The fact that we can see this one today shows that Daxia's industrial System already has the capability to mass-produce this kind of aircraft. What they have shown us is what they have already built. And what they haven't shown us might be even more."

"If we shoot this one down, then what will Daxia's response be?"

"Everyone—"

He looked around the room.

"For the past seventy years, our strategic assumption has been: we can strike first at any time."

"But after today, that assumption no longer holds."

"From today on, Daxia can strike first at any time."

"And their way of striking first could be a ship hovering over our capital for four hours and then swaggering away."

"Whether we shoot it or not, the result is a loss."

"Shoot it, and the capital might be gone."

"Don't shoot it, and the dignity of the USA is gone."

"And the capital is obviously more important than so-called dignity."

The Situation Room was silent for a long time.

A long time.

Finally, the President spoke.

His voice was very soft.

"I understand."

"Don't shoot."

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff nodded.

But he didn't sit down.

He stood there, looking at the ship on the screen.

His expression held something very complex.

It was not anger. Not resentment. Not humiliation.

It was a feeling of helplessness.

Subsequently, he spoke and said a very short sentence.

But this sentence fell into everyone's heart in the Situation Room like a stone.

"Mr. President—"

"First, the mechs."

"Then, the mysterious power that paralyzed our Eye of Satan."

"Now, a cross-era aircraft."

"We, the USA, have fallen behind."

"This era—"

He paused, and then he finished the last sentence.

"No longer belongs to the USA."