Welcome to Ark No. 17 (2)
A meeting. And not just any meeting—the colonel who contacted me was among the highest-ranking officers in that grade. A man commanding six thousand troops was still only a colonel; even at minimum he should have been a brigadier general. That alone suggested this would not be a pleasant conversation. Still, I could hardly turn away an officer of that rank. What could he possibly want to say to me? My curiosity stirred.
I accepted the request for an audience with Colonel Alfonso Hayek. Roughly twenty minutes later, a man roughly my own age entered the office. His face was haggard. He had eaten and showered before coming up, so there was no stench or filth, yet the exhaustion pooled beneath his sunken eyes and the torn combat uniform still radiated a despair so heavy I could scarcely bear to look at it.
He hesitated for a moment, then gripped the hem of his coat and spoke.
"Colonel Alfonso Hayek, sir. I commanded the 46th Regiment. Or rather, what was left of it."
His low, gravelly voice lingered in my ears—the stiff, military tone every soldier knew, yet crushed beneath a weight of helplessness I had never heard before.
"Good to meet you, Colonel Hayek. I was told you wished to speak with me. What is it?"
"Words will not suffice. It would be better if I showed you directly. Please look at this."
He produced a PDA from his pocket and projected a hologram. On the vast map centered on Ark No. 17, clusters of green dots flickered. In the southern sector, however, the dots pulsed an ominous red.
"...What is this?"
"Civilian shelter locations. The 46th Regiment was tasked with guiding the civilians from those shelters to Ark No. 17. As you can see..."
"You no longer had the strength to do so. Is that it?"
"Y-yes... ugh! Uuuurgh!"
He doubled over the table and retched violently. The act was rude, yet the psychological wounds he carried were obvious. I did not reprimand him. Instead I ordered a service robot to clean the mess and bring warm tea.
Soon the vomit was gone and a cup of tea was placed before the colonel. The bitter liquid soothed his acid-burned throat; Alfonso Hayek seemed to regain a measure of composure.
"To continue... the 46th Regiment, along with the 37th Brigade, the 55th Battalion, the 96th Division, and local police, attempted to evacuate civilians. Most units were annihilated. Only my six thousand men remain. All of this happened within sixteen hours of the operation's start."
"That must have been brutal."
Entire brigades and divisions had vanished in less than a day. The apocalyptic horde that had routed armored and air units equipped with the most powerful weapons imaginable was terrifying beyond words.
"We succeeded in locating every shelter in the southern sector, but the other units were completely destroyed. Every senior officer except myself was killed. As the ranking survivor on site, I judged that preserving the remaining force took priority. We made our way here while conserving what strength we had left."
"I see. Thank you, Colonel. Now I know exactly what must be done."
"You intend to search for the other shelters?"
"I do, but not yet. The artificial intelligence reports no distress signals within a hundred kilometers. Communication equipment is usually mounted externally for efficiency; it may have been destroyed by chance, or the survivors may simply not have thought to transmit yet. Either way, the probability is low. You understand what that means, don't you?"
"Of course... sir."
The colonel's face darkened rapidly. Even in this hopeless situation he still tried to fulfill a soldier's duty; he was clearly a man of rigid principle. His presence would be a great asset in the future administration of the Ark.
"You may go. I believe we have said all that needs saying."
"Then I will take my leave, Your Excellency."
"Mm."
After saluting, the colonel departed. He had already transferred every scrap of data from his PDA to the Ark's artificial intelligence. The green dots still blinking on the map sent a chill down my spine. Whether those lights would turn red depended entirely on the decisions I made.
> Frequency tuning complete.
"Good."
I activated the external broadcast system. This was not for internal announcements. It was to inform any survivors outside the Ark that operations at Ark No. 17 had begun. I had no idea how many other Arks were functioning as intended, but the communication array here could intercept any transmission within a hundred kilometers—even encrypted ones.
"This is Ark No. 17. I repeat, this is Ark No. 17. I am Controller Lim Hyuk-soo. Control code 171. Any survivors who can hear this broadcast, make contact immediately. I repeat: this is Ark No. 17. All survivors capable of communication, please respond. This location is safe. We have space, food, medicine, and other necessities sufficient for a large population, and we are ready to receive survivors at any time."
I was desperate. Were there truly no survivors beyond the 7,400 people already inside? Were those flickering green dots destined only to turn red? The longer the silence stretched, the more my anxiety grew, until it finally hardened into anger.
> No response.
"Damn it!"
I switched the speaker off with a sharp motion. I did not forget to set the broadcast to repeat automatically every three minutes. Given the hellish conditions on the surface, expecting an answer was foolish. At least we were not hearing only screams and static.
"What weapons do we currently have inside the Ark?"
> 400,000 standard-issue rifles, 16,000 combat walkers, 30,000 40mm autocannons for walkers, 50,000 105mm rocket launchers, 200,000 15mm heavy machine guns, 300,000 8mm light machine guns, and 150,000 35mm anti-armor rifles are in storage.
"Plenty of weapons. The problem is manpower..."
Every Ark had been stocked with an enormous quantity of arms so it could function as a military stronghold if necessary. The politicians had not lied when they called these facilities humanity's final bulwark. The real issue was that we lacked the personnel to use those weapons. Six thousand combat troops were barely two regiments. Moreover, the military would never have relied solely on infantry; they would have deployed far more powerful systems than what the Ark itself stored. The fact that even those forces had been overwhelmed told me everything I needed to know about the surface.
According to the original design, each Ark should have housed at least ten fully equipped divisions. The catastrophe had struck so suddenly that no one had time to divert entire divisions to the Arks. If any military units remained, their priority would have been defending critical infrastructure, not reinforcing facilities meant for the extinction of mankind. In that light, the initial 7,400 evacuees made grim sense.
"Haah... If only we could operate the combat walkers unmanned."
> Unmanned operation of combat platforms is strictly prohibited under the Ixion Accords.
The artificial intelligence answered my complaint without a trace of tact. A Controller's authority far exceeded what ordinary citizens imagined. Every facility in the Ark answered to my commands; if I ordered the life-support systems shut down, everyone except me would die. That was precisely why autonomous war machines capable of replacing an entire army had never been brought inside.
"I know. I know."
Yet even in this dire situation, the conclusion remained the same: we simply did not have enough people. I had no idea how sturdy the civilian shelters were, but they could not be stronger than the Ark itself. Monster attacks, supply depletion, system failures—every hour that passed would exponentially reduce the survival chances of anyone still trapped in those shelters. We had to extract them as quickly as possible.
Ideally I would have preferred a full week to plan, but Colonel Hayek had already pinpointed the shelter locations. The rescue operation would have to be moved forward.
"Three days from now we will launch the civilian shelter rescue operation. Artificial intelligence, notify all personnel."
> Understood.