114: Chapter 114 Conventional Interception Ineffective

In the sky, the moment A-Zu's figure broke the sound barrier, a straight rift was torn through the clouds above Manhattan.

His flight speed accelerated from zero to Mach 1.5 within three seconds, trailing a circle of expanding white vapor clouds behind him; he looked like a cannonball fired in reverse from the ground.

As soon as he left the airspace over New York, in the deep underground air defense command center of the Pentagon, a monitor wearing headphones immediately stood up and reported: "Sir! The target is moving towards Washington at Mach 1.5, expected to reach the airspace above the White House in three minutes!"

"Launch." The duty general's hand pressed the red button, his eyes fixed on the moving red dot on the screen. "Execute the Level 1 operation plan against the alien."

Above Pennsylvania, six supersonic interceptor missiles launched simultaneously from mobile launchers in different directions.

Trailing six white exhaust plumes, they drew six arcs that were rapidly converging against the azure afternoon sky.

The missiles' seekers had already locked onto A-Zu's crimson energy field signal, closing in from six angles simultaneously at four times the speed of sound.

There were two directly in front, one on each flank, and two below blocking his descent path.

This interception scheme was a pre-set tactic developed by United States military experts specifically for A-Zu, with a theoretical interception success rate of over ninety percent.

A-Zu did not slow down. The red light in his eye sockets jumped from iron-red to scorching red the instant the missiles entered his field of vision, and then he performed a maneuver that no missile guidance program could have predicted.

At a flight speed of Mach 1.5, he suddenly began a vertical climb. The two missiles below brushed past the soles of his shoes; unable to turn in time, they collided and exploded into a fireball several dozen meters in diameter.

The shockwave pushed out visible circular ripples in the air, but A-Zu had already cleared the ripple's expansion radius the instant before the fireball exploded.

The two missiles directly in front corrected their trajectory, re-locking onto his new position.

A-Zu flew straight toward them. At the very last moment before impact, he turned his body sideways and slipped through the gap, less than two palm-widths wide, between the two missiles.

The missiles' exhaust scorched his tunic with a burnt smell, but his flight path did not waver in the slightest.

The two missiles crossed behind him, their seekers simultaneously losing the target and locking onto each other's heat signatures, exploding into a second fireball behind A-Zu.

The last one attacked from the left flank, the distance so close that A-Zu could clearly see the model number on the missile's warhead.

He did not dodge again. Instead, a flash of red light shone in his eye sockets, and two crimson beams shot out, precisely hitting the missile's warhead.

The missile exploded in front of him, the shockwave carrying thousands of scorching metal shrapnel fragments sputtering in all directions at supersonic speeds. Any single piece of this shrapnel hitting an aircraft would be enough to tear open a fighter jet's skin or penetrate the top armor of a tank.

But A-Zu didn't even look at the shrapnel; he maintained his original flight speed and flew straight through the center of the explosion.

The shrapnel hit him like raindrops on a stone floor, making a dense, crisp clattering sound, but it did not cause him a single scratch. Although his tunic was shredded with dozens of cuts, his skin remained completely unscathed.

He reached up, plucked a still-hot piece of shrapnel from his shoulder, and crushed it with a casual flick of his hand. The debris scattered into silver powder in the wind and drifted away.

——

In the underground wartime command center of the Kremlin in Moscow, a military observation satellite in geosynchronous orbit above the equator was focusing its lens on the airspace over Pennsylvania, transmitting the entire process of A-Zu intercepting the six interceptor missiles back to the ground, frame by frame.

The Leader of Mao Xiong placed the cigar he never lit onto the table, clasped his hands over his stomach, and knitted his thick eyebrows together until they almost formed a single line.

Behind him stood a row of generals in uniform. One of them, an air defense expert with graying hair, was pointing a laser pointer at the frozen image on the screen and speaking rapidly:

"The interception trajectory computer had all six evasion modes pre-set, including sharp turns, serpentine maneuvers, dives, and heat decoy releases."

"But he didn't use any of them. Instead, the change in direction he executed in a fraction of a second exceeded the physical limits of any active-duty fighter jet or missile."

"More importantly, when he passed through the core of the explosion, the kinetic energy of the shrapnel swarm at supersonic speeds was theoretically sufficient to penetrate half a meter of homogeneous steel armor, yet he remained completely unscathed."

He turned off the laser pointer: "Conclusion: Conventional interception is completely ineffective. The theoretical success rate of tactical nuclear interception is below thirty percent, but the strike range would cover at least three hundred square kilometers of densely populated area in Pennsylvania."

After listening, the Leader of Mao Xiong moved his gaze away from the screen and turned to the four other leaders beside him: "Old Dong, how is it on your side?"

The President sat in his chair with a heavy expression: "Rest assured, I had already relocated as soon as that A-Zu started killing people in the streets."

"What should we do next? Should we initiate the nuclear interception plan, or the political contact plan?"

The leader of France was the first to shake his head: "Conventional interception has just been proven ineffective. The political consequences of detonating a tactical nuclear weapon over Washington, even if the interception were successful, would result in casualties and radioactive fallout no less severe than a direct attack by A-Zu."

The leader of John added: "What bargaining chips would we use for political contact? I'm afraid he wants more than just reparations."

"If we speak up now, it's equivalent to telling him that his methods are effective. As long as he flies over every capital, we will continue to make concessions."

At this moment, Dongda suddenly spoke up: "Gentlemen. If this alien reaches the White House and finds the President is not there, what will he do?"

"I think his next stop will inevitably be the imperial capital or Moscow. To reach these two cities, no matter which route he takes, he must cross the Pacific or the North Atlantic."

"There, there are no civilians, only endless ocean."

He extended his index finger and drew two lines on the electronic map on the table.

In the center of the Pacific and the deepest part of the North Atlantic, he circled two red rings respectively.

His index finger rested steadily in the center of the rings.

After hearing Dongda's statement, the Leader of Mao Xiong said: "A Borei-class submarine is currently patrolling the North Atlantic. It carries sixteen nuclear warheads with adjustable yields. The captain was personally promoted by me; there is no need to request confirmation from the Ministry of Defense again."

He tapped the red circle on the North Atlantic on the map with his finger, his fingertip pressing on the position south of Greenland, "Dongda's nuclear weapons can cover the Pacific. If he turns toward Moscow midway, the Borei-class will intercept him on the spot."

The President nodded: "Nuclear weapons are the final trump card of our Blue Star civilization. Regardless of whether it succeeds or not, at this moment, we must exhaust all our efforts. Now, let's hold a vote."

"Agreed. Dongda will be responsible for the Pacific direction, and the nation of Mao Xiong will be responsible for the North Atlantic direction. The timing of the interception will be determined by both parties independently, with no need for further confirmation."

On the screen, the five leaders raised their right hands one by one.

The President nodded: "Then execute! In addition, notify the Human Renaissance Alliance to act according to the plan."

The signals went out one by one, and the screen went black, leaving only the moving red dot on the satellite monitoring screen, which was advancing at a constant speed along the airspace of Pennsylvania toward Washington.

On the satellite screen, a blue arrow was separating from a destroyer formation of the Dongda East Sea Fleet, beginning to maneuver at high speed toward the pre-set interception zone in the central Pacific.

Another blue arrow was surfacing from the depths of the North Atlantic; that was the submarine-launched ballistic missile tube of the Borei-class nuclear submarine, which was opening.