Colonel Silva had apparently been badly shaken by the news. He picked up the wheat soda Yu Lian had ordered and gulped down half the bottle before finally calming down enough to sigh. "Whew. Too bad it isn't rum... If nothing else, whiskey would do."
Their senior, a man who wasn't much of a drinker, sounded as if he wanted to get himself drunk.
By then, Rozers had used his access privileges to enter the Defense Committee's internal database. In the latest intelligence section, accessible only to officers of colonel rank or above, he found a report that had been posted less than an hour earlier.
Then even he, a man renowned for his composure, lost his cool. For a moment, he thought either some low-level administrator at the Defense Committee was playing a tasteless prank by posting a movie CGI, or—well, the Committee employed plenty of temporary clerical staff. If someone was owed a bit of back pay, they might pull something like that.
Of course, the Defense Committee's website might have been hacked. But at this point, it was worth thinking things through. This kind of military intelligence site required authorization to log in, but it was, essentially, just a service for providing intelligence to senior officers. The information on it might count as secret to ordinary citizens, but to the intelligence agencies of various nations, it was little more than public news.
It wasn't important enough to warrant the services of a top-notch hacker.
Rozers glanced across at Colonel Silva, still looking doubtful. Only when Silva nodded firmly, his expression grave, did Rozers' face grow more and more horrified. He couldn't help asking in a trembling voice, "That enormous ring... Honestly, I can't imagine what kind of power it would take to build such a cosmic marvel.