Video Storm

April 7, C.E. 71, third-floor conference room of the 811 Institute.

The projection terminal on the table played the complete footage of Black Iron's first battle. The images came from an external recording unit mounted on the mech's chest cavity, the angle low and heavy, the shaking violent. Every time a Bombard Round left the barrel, the footage jolted fiercely.

Ma Chongshan replayed the frame where the Vanguard Short Sword was shot down three times.

He was sixty-one, chief of staff of the East Asian ground forces. He had fought in two border conflicts and was missing half the ring finger on his left hand. He had dragged his chair to within two meters of the projection screen, leaning forward with his eyes nailed to the footage.

"This shot." Ma Chongshan pointed at the instant the round struck the screen. "How long from firing to takedown?"

"One point eight seconds." Han Zheng sat at the other end of the long table, the zipper of his flight suit pulled up to his Adam's apple, elbows braced on the tabletop.

"How deep did the warhead penetrate?"

"Nineteen millimeters. It didn't go through."

Ma Chongshan's brow furrowed.

"It didn't penetrate, so how did the pilot die?"

"Shockwave transmission." Lin Yuan's voice came from the far end of the conference room. He leaned against the wall, holding a ceramic steel cross-section analysis report Xu Yanqiu had just submitted. "The core detonated within the inner layer of the armor. The kinetic shockwave traveled through the armor structure into the cockpit. It didn't need to penetrate. Broken bones and internal trauma were enough to make the pilot lose control immediately."

Ma Chongshan switched the footage to the segment where the second Short Sword was destroyed. The slow-motion shot of its backpack thrusters being blown away looped repeatedly across the screen.

"I have no objections to the firepower."

At last, he leaned back in his chair, resting his palms on his knees as he slowed his speech.

"But I do have objections to this mech's speed."

"Go on." Lin Yuan closed the report.

"It's clear in the footage. While the six Short Swords were circling it, your Black Iron stood in place and twisted at the waist. Twisted at the waist." Ma Chongshan tapped a fingernail against the armrest. "If those six weren't mass-produced Short Swords, but a ZAFT commander unit making a high-speed close-range approach, could your waist-turning speed keep up?"

"It couldn't." Han Zheng answered directly.

Ma Chongshan glanced at him.

"The pilot himself says it can't keep up. Then here's my second question. Ceramic steel armor weighs 2.7 times as much as Phase Shift Armor. Every joint actuator needs reinforcement, and power consumption doubles. The logistical support required for one Black Iron is equivalent to how many Short Swords?"

"About three." Sheng Lan spoke from the observer section, flipping through a logistical support estimate sheet.

"Three." Ma Chongshan chewed on that number for several seconds. "That means equipping one battalion with Black Irons creates the same logistical burden as three battalions of Short Swords. Supply lines become more than twice as long, battlefield mobility suffers, and the area covered per unit of time declines."

His gaze shifted to Lin Yuan.

"Director Lin, I admit this thing can fight. But war isn't about a single mech. You build a hundred iron lumps and consume the logistical resources of three hundred units, while your front line becomes narrower instead. How do you balance that equation?"

The conference room fell silent for several seconds.

Lin Yuan walked to the projection terminal, shut off the footage, and brought up a new slide.

An organizational diagram appeared on the screen.

"Chief of Staff Ma, what you saw was one prototype fighting six Short Swords. That isn't Black Iron's final combat configuration."

He opened the second layer of the diagram.

"East Asia won't use Black Iron to imitate the United Army's high-mobility small-unit tactics. Our path is a heavily armored battle line. A standard combat unit consists of twelve Black Irons arranged in a line abreast. With tactical AI-assisted fire-control locking, their Bombard Guns create overlapping fields of crossfire. Once enemy mechs enter the coverage zone, no matter which direction they attack from, they will face the firing arcs of at least three or four gun barrels at once."

Ma Chongshan's fingers stopped on the armrest.

"You mean you won't pursue individual mech mobility. You'll make up for it with formation firepower density?"

"Pursuing individual mobility is the Coordinator style. They react quickly and have strong spatial awareness. One person can handle threats from seven or eight directions at once." Lin Yuan switched to the third layer, a simulated battlefield projection. "East Asian pilots are natural humans. The solution I'm giving them is to reduce their decision-making burden to the absolute minimum. Tactical AI handles friend-or-foe identification and ballistic correction. The pilot only needs to do one thing."

"What?"

"Stay alive and pull the trigger."

Ma Chongshan stared at the simulation for a long time.

Twelve dark gray square icons formed an arc. Red fan-shaped zones marked the fire coverage, their overlapping areas so dense they seemed to block out all light.

"Your system has a prerequisite." When he spoke again, his voice no longer carried challenge, but calculation.

"Go on."

"AI assistance. You just said tactical AI would handle identification and ballistics. Do you have that already?"

Lin Yuan glanced at Sheng Lan.

Sheng Lan turned to a fresh page in her memo, her voice clear.

"Director, Zhou Boyuan's transfer order arrived this afternoon. The Electronics Research Institute has released him. His deputy will take over the United Army communications upgrade project."

Ma Chongshan connected that name with what Lin Yuan had just said. He leaned back and asked no further questions.

After the meeting, Sheng Lan followed Lin Yuan out of the conference room. At the other end of the corridor, Ma Chongshan's adjutant was waiting for him, and the two headed toward the elevators.

When Ma Chongshan passed Lin Yuan, he paused for a moment without turning his head.

"Director Lin, let my people see the mass-production plan once it's ready."

Then he left.

Only after the sound of his footsteps vanished around the corner did Sheng Lan open another document in her hands.

"Director, the disassembly report on the Short Sword wreckage is out."

"Go on."

"Of the two shot-down Short Swords, one crashed into the sea and wasn't recovered. The other came down near an abandoned runway. The wreckage recovery team found an anomaly in its cockpit communications module."

She handed him the document.

"The active transmission module of its identification beacon had been manually shut down. It wasn't a malfunction. Someone deliberately turned it off before sortie. The shutdown command's timestamp was four minutes before takeoff."

Lin Yuan turned a page.

"An order from the carrier?"

"Uncertain. But manual shutdown requires a captain-level authorization code. Short Sword pilots don't have that authority."

Lin Yuan closed the document.

"Public protest?"

"Would it be worth it?" Sheng Lan countered.

"It wouldn't. The Atlantic Federation would claim a technical malfunction, drag out a joint investigation for three months, and finally issue a vaguely worded report. A waste of time."

"Then how should we handle the wreckage?"

"Send it to the 811 Institute for disassembly. I want complete data on the Short Sword's joint actuators and fire-control modules. Also, have Ye Qingluan's people archive the authorization-code structure in the communications module. The United Army's captain-level command system may prove useful later."

Sheng Lan made two notes in her memo.

"Director, there's one more thing."

"Mm."

"Zhou Boyuan arrived this afternoon. Has his project been given a codename?"

Lin Yuan reached the elevator and pressed the button.

"It has. The Divine Machine Project."

The elevator doors opened, and the two stepped inside.

Sheng Lan pressed the floor button and turned her head toward him.

"Director, I looked into Zhou Boyuan's background. He's a top engineer at the Electronics Research Institute, specializing in control theory and artificial intelligence, with more than forty published papers. But one note is worth attention."

"What is it?"

"At an academic conference three years ago, he said that once AI developed to a certain stage, it might exhibit quasi-conscious phenomena, and that an ethical framework should be established in advance. The United Army Technical Cooperation Committee spoke with him afterward."

The elevator reached the underground level, and the doors opened.

"What was the conclusion of that meeting?"

"No conclusion. But his clearance on the United Army communications project was reduced by one level."

Lin Yuan stepped out of the elevator.

"Keep an eye on him. Not surveillance—make sure his work remains controllable."

"Understood."