Chapter 7: A Black Cloud
Chapter 7:
A Black Cloud
A Black Cloud
A
FTER EMERGING
from Euro-II’s clouds, the UN rapid response force had proceeded south, crossing the Tsugaru Strait and reaching the skies above Honshu. To the west, toward continental Asia, they could see the long shimmering streaks of an aurora. After the Lance of Longinus began orbiting the Earth, auroras had become more common farther away from the poles. The Longinus Curtain reflected and focused the sunlight, which heated the air and created disturbances in the electromagnetic field in the upper atmosphere. Rippling sheets of rainbow-colored plasma had descended over the skies even this far south.
On a transport plane filled with soldiers, a crew member checked the status of the plane’s electromagnetic shield. Seeing that the reading was normal, they said, “We didn’t even need to ask the Japanese to employ their electronic countermeasures. This atmospheric disturbance alone would have been enough to hide us. I’d say things are looking up.”
In truth, their deployment had been rushed.
Nerv Japan’s monopoly on, and authoritarian use of, the Evangelions was resented not only by the European nations, but nations all over the world. After Eva production had stalled in America, the Eurozone banded together to usurp the authority to control the giants. The most heavily involved was Germany, whose Nerv branch still keenly felt that Unit-02 had been unfairly taken from them. Then their moment came, or rather, they created one. Working through the UN, they ordered Nerv Japan to investigate the surface of the moon, thereby leaving the base without Eva-02, the most reliable of their Evas and the one with the most field time, and Cinq’s Eva-0.0, which had been brought down from orbit for inspection. Another key component of their plan was manipulating public opinion after the attack on the Lance of Longinus resulted in millions of people across Europe turning into pillars of salt.
Russia was supposed to be their partner in the operation, offering a united front and the use of their military bases. But when the great earthquake occurred beneath the Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia suddenly backed out. To make matters worse, global disasters further confused the flow of information. With the operation facing almost certain delay, the military leadership sent out an advance unit for resupply and reconnaissance. But then Super Eva had appeared unannounced on the plains of northern Hokkaido, which was supposed to be the European forces’ beachhead. Had their plot been leaked? It appeared that it hadn’t, but happenstance had left the Hakone caldera even more understaffed than before. Information and orders became muddled up and down the chain of command. In ordinary circumstances, this might not have been too much to handle. But the world was in chaos. For one, the Longinus Curtain had begun setting fire to places all over the globe. When a portion of the European forces mistakenly thought they’d been given the order to launch the assault, the rest saw no option but to commit.
But even though the operation began in confusion, it was proceeding along the planned timetable, and with Super Eva pinned down by Euro-II, the mission was going even better than expected.
The guided missiles coming out of the Hakone caldera were all being jammed, and the unguided rockets were being shot down. The mixed air battalion flew low, staying out of the path of Eva-00 Type-F’s ultra-long-ranged shots. Mount Fuji towered to the west; all that was left was to cross the backcountry and assault Nerv Japan and Tokyo-3.
One by one, the European pilots noticed a most peculiar sight. A black cloud had begun to spread across the west with unreal speed, almost as if in a time-lapse video.
The attacking forces had arranged for electromagnetic jamming to conceal their invasion, which precluded the use of their own radar systems, but they’d known what weather to expect.
Any use of active detection systems, including sonar, radar, lidar, and infrared beams, was the same as searching for someone in the dark by shining a flashlight—the light would always reveal the searcher first. Consequently, the European armada wasn’t using any active detection methods; if the need arose, they would get the information they needed from Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft stationed out of range, and even then, the fleet wouldn’t transmit any acknowledgement in response. There was no sense in needlessly revealing their location to the enemy.
The AEW&C aircraft above the Sea of Japan hadn’t sent any information about the moving cloud. The next scheduled transmission was in—
An object struck the transport plane, followed by another. The inside of the fuselage rumbled with a sound like scattering dirt and sand. The black cloud rose from below, and the aircraft passed inside it. A mass of little blots coated the canopy and left the pilot momentarily unable to see.
Are those…squashed bugs?
The cloud was a tremendous swarm of locusts.
With no time to change course, the European mixed air battalion flew directly into the swarm, which moved freely, changing shape as if it were made of weightless liquid. When the leading aircraft disappeared, having been swallowed by the cloud, the trailing craft lifted the communications ban. But the Japanese military below didn’t get the message right away, and the jamming continued. The convoy attempted to fly out of the cloud, but in every possible direction of escape, the locusts advanced ahead of them.
A few pathfinder squadrons managed to successfully break away to a higher altitude, and the squadrons that followed them were able to escape above the swarm, but the vast majority of aircraft continued to be swallowed by the black cloud.
Post Second Impact, military-purpose engines had been made with a focus on durability over efficiency. Such engines could easily have shrugged off a sucked-in insect or two. But the unnaturally dense swarm of locusts slowly sapped the engines’ outputs, and before the pilots knew it, their planes began to lose altitude. Typically, the wind would have swept away any bugs that struck the aircraft, but they were so numerous that the wipers ceased to move. The active sensors were jammed by the electromagnetic storm, and the lidar and passive sensors had been stopped up or destroyed by insect carcasses. The flood of faulty information left the navigation systems inoperational. Beneath canopies painted over by locusts, the pilots tried to redirect their planes with no instruments to guide them, but by then, the rudders had been rendered inoperative anyway. Within the lightless cloud, the most technologically advanced flying machines of Europe had been reduced to coffins of carbon fiber and aluminum. Some crews attempted to discharge their passengers mid-flight, but their parachutes were immediately shredded by the giant mass of bugs. The planes’ cargos, both human and object, were sucked out and scattered into the sky, where they could do nothing but obey the law of gravity.
The ones who had been lucky enough to fly higher and survive the cloud were pummeled by the tungsten rain from Nerv Japan’s HARM missiles or else lost their engines to self-guided missiles. Still, roughly a third of the original forces managed to change course, heading back the way they’d come, at a higher altitude now. The original contingency plan had been to escape west, but the locust cloud had come from that direction, and the aurora’s electromagnetic storm prevented communication with China.
They had come on a mission but accomplished nothing. Nature cared nothing for the circumstances of humanity.
Adding insult to injury—or rather, injury to injury—the JSSDF anti-air sites, which had watched their approach with tacit approval, now fired parting shots after the fleeing fleet, whittling down the survivors even further.
From Tokyo-2—a.k.a. New Ichigaya—the Japanese government made a show of their renewed allegiance to Nerv Japan by sharing a video feed that revealed Super Eva standing as the victor. But by that time, they’d already lifted the ECM and satellite disruptions, and Shinji had reported via a public power company’s infrastructure that Euro-II had flown away to the north. For the time being, Nerv Japan didn’t know the exact scale of the disaster the black cloud had wrought, and they had no way of knowing why the European airborne forces had called off their invasion. The locusts would continue to swarm for several days.
“I don’t understand what just happened…” Toji said.
Misato contemplated, “I wonder if the attack is over.”
“And how are we gonna settle this?” Toji asked. “Politically, I mean.”
Misato let out an exhausted laugh but said nothing.
“I don’t understand it at all,” Toji repeated.
It wasn’t people or Evangelions who’d dashed Europe’s hopes of seizing control of Nerv Japan’s facilities, the subterranean Chronostatic Sphere, and Hakone’s current stock of Evas. A separate and overwhelming force of nature had done it. The resolution that had given approval to the mission was abandoned. In the end, its only result was to further complicate an already messy situation.
“Commander, when you go to negotiate with the Europeans, I wanna—” Toji stopped to rephrase his request. “Please, take me with you.”
All humanity could do was keep seeking answers.
“I’ll be counting on your help, Deputy Commander.”