>>6131918“So. How are we fighting back? The Admiral made it sound like we’re on the brink of collapse.”
“He’s right that we’re stretched razor-thin, but it’s not as bad as all that,” Raleigh says. “The first couple weeks were bedlam, but once the initial shock wore off we pulled together with our allies in Europe and elsewhere - to think, France and Germany, allies! - and hunted down all the big fleets. Now trade’s getting through on the regular and has been for a while, attacks are way down globally, successes down further; the high seas are still a no-man’s land, but there are safe corridors across the North Atlantic and North Pacific, the Baltic, Black, and Red Seas and Persian Gulf are free of anything but the occasional new manifestation, and the Med is nearly there.”
“But?”
“But, these new Abyssals are coming at a real bad time. It’s been eighteen months of relentless hunting between the stragglers and the newborns. Well over half the fleet’s down for maintenance or battle damage or both. A lot of other navies and air forces are spent; others just plain gone. Production is ramping up, but it’s coming off a real low base - we were down to just four public shipyards when the war broke out - and building out the capacity to build is taking longer than anyone expected, what with the global supply chain tying itself in knots, and training new crews can only happen so fast anyhow. In another six months or so there'll be a whole lot more personnel, more planes in the air, hulls hitting the water… but, well, in another six months.
“And now, with guided missiles in play, we can’t safely patrol like we were. Casualties are already mounting. I don’t mean to make it sound like we’re suddenly hard on the back foot, but… back in May, we thought we were winning. Now? No one knows. It’s put a lot of plans on hold, including reoccupying the Marshalls and other remote islands.
“There are some other looming problems, too. Something like two billion people around the world depend on food imports by sea, and many of them living one shipment to the next; there’s still plenty of grain to go around, and it's mostly getting where it's needed, but a lot of people in poorer countries can’t afford what’s coming through. The blue-water fishing industry being dead in the water isn't helping matters a bit- some places there’s no seafood to be had for blood or money. Where there’s hunger, there’s war, and where there’s war there’s more hunger. Pakistan is the most concerning, for obvious reasons, but there are desperate folks, refugees, and chaos all over.”
“Where are our adversaries in all this? I can't imagine they're suddenly playing nice and working for the common good of humanity.”
