Chapter 1182 Yokota Air Base
Fusō Islands, Honshu Island, Yokota Air Base
Unlike the "order" that was painstakingly rebuilt on ruins in the Kyoto settlement, the Yokota base presents a different kind of post-apocalyptic scene.
This place was once an important strategic foothold for the US military in Japan and even East Asia, but now it is more like an isolated and increasingly rusted steel fortress struggling to survive.
The outer defenses of the base were far more "industrialized" than those of the Kyoto settlement: continuous barbed wire, automatic minefields, and remote weapon stations every hundred meters equipped with heavy machine guns and the "Hellfire" automatic tracking system formed the first, chilling ring of death.
Inside the defensive line, most of the once wide runways are now idle, with only one main runway being carefully maintained, like a gray ribbon extending into the outside world filled with unknown threats.
The hangars and bunkers were mostly closed, and traces of the battle could be seen in many places—charred explosion marks and scars from steel plates torn apart by some enormous force and temporarily welded together.
The number of soldiers in the base was noticeably small, and most of them looked tired. Although they were still wearing digital camouflage, their clothes were obviously old, and some were even patched.
They maintained the qualities of professional soldiers in their actions, but their eyes lacked luster, showing only a numbness and caution born from long-term pressure.
Inside the base's core command center—a command post buried deep underground and capable of withstanding a nuclear strike—the atmosphere was oppressive and somber.
The old fluorescent tubes hummed with electricity, illuminating the control panel covered with various slightly outdated screens. The air circulation system carried a lingering smell of metal and machine oil, mixed with sweat and a stifling atmosphere.
Most of the screens displayed surveillance footage of the base's perimeter, sparse radar echoes, and status data from the internal life support systems.
When the apocalypse broke out, Yokota Base survived thanks to its tight defenses and relatively independent supply lines, but at a heavy cost.
After repelling the initial onslaught of infected individuals from both outside and inside the base, they were plunged into a long period of isolation.
Connections with the homeland were also severed when the apocalypse broke out.
The base's supreme commander was Brigadier General Marcus Thorne, a gray-haired veteran with eyes as sharp as a hawk. With his iron fist and pragmatism, he integrated the remaining American troops and some Japanese personnel who were willing to cooperate into the "Yokata Community," which was based on military survival as its highest principle.
They barely managed to keep running by relying on pre-war reserves, limited local cultivation (using open spaces on the base and reinforced hydroponic workshops), and occasional daring scavenging trips. However, the shortage of resources, especially fuel and precision parts, was always a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads.
Brigadier General Thorne maintained a fragile and wary cooperative relationship with the "Reconstruction Society" in Kyoto.
The two sides communicated irregularly via encrypted radio and occasionally engaged in barter transactions (the U.S. military exchanged some expired medical supplies or technology for small amounts of fresh food or rare metals collected locally by the "Revival Society").
But Thorne never truly trusted those former Japanese elites who, in his view, "could not change their rigid hierarchy and hypocritical nature even in the apocalypse."
He knew that once the base showed obvious signs of fatigue, the "Revival Society" would not hesitate to try to annex it and acquire the advanced equipment and technology that remained on the base.
At this moment, Thorne was sitting in the command chair, listening to the logistics minister's report that fuel reserves had once again fallen below the safety line, his brow furrowed.
at this time--
"Waaaaaahhhhhh!!!"
The piercing, highest-level air defense combat siren suddenly blared throughout the command center!
The sound was so sharp it seemed to tear at one's eardrums, completely different from the alarms used for testing or dealing with small-scale mutant harassment. This was an alarm that was only sounded when a strategic-level aerial threat was detected!
Everyone in the command center, whether they were drowsy operators or officers giving reports, was jolted awake as if by an electric shock and instantly entered a state of maximum combat readiness!
"What's going on?! Where did that alarm come from?!" Brigadier General Thorne suddenly stood up, his voice booming like thunder.
The technical sergeant in charge of the strategic early warning radar was deathly pale, his hands trembling slightly on the control panel from extreme shock and fear. His voice trembled, almost breaking into a sob:
"General! AN/TPY-2 radar... has detected a high-trajectory, high-speed target! Confirmed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile!"
"What?!" Thorne rushed to the radar screen, almost unable to believe his eyes: "ICBM?! Where did it come from?! Ballistic parameters?!"
"Launching point...based on the ballistic trajectory, it originated from deep within Zhou Bang's inland territory!!" The technical sergeant's voice was shrill:
"Target...target trajectory prediction...God...the target is...it's Honshu Island, Japan! Kyoto area!!"
boom!
This news was like a mental bomb dropped on the command center!
Everyone was stunned!
Intercontinental ballistic missile? From Zhou Bang? Target: Kyoto?
How can this be? !
"Are you fucking sure you're not mistaken?!" a colonel shouted in disbelief.
"What time is it?! The apocalypse! The whole world is fucking wiped out! How could Zhou Bang possibly launch an ICBM?!"
"System...the system has confirmed it repeatedly! Ballistic characteristics, velocity, radar cross-section...all match the characteristics of an ICBM!"
"And it's... an ICBM model we've never seen before. The database has absolutely no match for any existing data!!" The technical sergeant's voice was filled with desperate confirmation.
Another female officer in charge of signals intelligence analysis also looked up, her face filled with disbelief:
"General...we...we've detected a faint fragment of command signal accompanying the missile's flight...the encoding method...confirmed to be a unique pattern never before seen..."
Silence, a deathly silence, enveloped the command center.
Only the air raid sirens continued their tireless wailing, highlighting this suffocating reality.
Brigadier General Thorne swayed, gripping the edge of the control panel tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.
His brain was racing, trying to understand this completely illogical situation.
why?
Why would Zhou Bang launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at Fusang in a post-apocalyptic world where civilization is on the verge of collapse and all of humanity is struggling to survive amidst mutations and existential crises?
Could it be... could it be that the situation within Zhou Bang's territory is completely different from what they imagined? Not only have they not collapsed, but... on the contrary, they have, to some extent, restored order and industrial capacity?
What he couldn't understand even more was—why?!
Why now of all times? And why Japan as the target?
“Have they…have they gone mad?!” a young staff officer muttered to himself, his voice filled with confusion and fear.
"Before the apocalypse...didn't the Zhou state always claim...claim to love peace? They...they even provided so much aid to other countries..."
Another senior sergeant spat, his face turning ashen: "What a load of rubbish about peace! They're all liars! Faking it all!"
"If they truly loved peace, they couldn't explain how, on the battlefield years ago, they gave my grandfather PDST, a condition that causes him to tremble at the mere mention of brass instruments! He still hasn't fully recovered!!"
"They've even dropped the pretense now!! They're directly using ICBMs against us... no, against Japan!!!"
"This is utter destruction! How could they be so ruthless?! Not even a single negotiation or warning?!"
"Or is this catastrophe orchestrated by those Zhou Bang people in their quest to rule the world?!"
...
