Pacific Time: April 21st, 2077 — Evening.
Location: San Francisco, Coastal Periphery.
...
The Vela Adelheid Carrier Battle Group was shifting its tactical formation as it cruised toward the bay for a routine resupply and diplomatic visit to reinforce alliances.
Red paint, suspension cables, four crossbeams, and twin lattice towers—alongside the neon advertisements glowing vividly in the dimming sky—together outlined the towering silhouette of the world-famous landmark, the Golden Gate Bridge, gleaming in all its cyber-era grandeur.
Across the bridge, countless airborne vehicles—hovercars, media skiffs, drones—wove through the airspace.
To welcome the arrival of the Arasaka Navy, the twin 390-meter bridge towers were adorned with new holographic displays. Gone were the loud, gaudy ads—replaced with "Free State Unity" themes: Arasaka's logo, the flag of San Francisco, the flag of Northern California, banners celebrating the "Unbreakable Alliance of the Free States," and polished ads promoting Arasaka's security services.
Along the coastline, the beaches were packed with onlookers.
Some cheered, some cursed, everyone had something to say about the approaching "black ships."
Where there's a crowd, there's conflict. Disagreements quickly turned into shouting, shoving, and then all-out brawls. Fights broke out, shots fired, chaos spread—until police stormed in swinging batons and electro-cudgels, subduing, kicking, beating, arresting, killing…
Laughter and screams blended together, apathy and anxiety painted the same scene.
And with the floating steel island of the Arasaka fleet glowing crimson in the sunset behind it, it was—ironically—a breathtaking picture of life and motion beneath the dying light of day.
But the peace of that evening was destined to be short-lived.
Whoosh—!
"What the hell?!"
"Shit!"
"Kuso!"
"Damn it!"
...
Sudden cries of shock rippled through the crowd, one after another.
At that very moment—Fwoooosh—!Whizz!Whoosh!
Accompanied by sharp, shrill whistles, several long, slender missiles shot skyward, their tails carving streaks of white fire across the deep blue twilight, blazing toward the east like shooting stars.
Every San Franciscan watching the Arasaka fleet's arrival froze in disbelief.
Inside the bay, at the military deepwater port, Northern California's political leaders—who had gathered to formally greet the visiting fleet—stared at the streaking trails overhead and the red alerts flashing from Bay Area Air Defense Command with expressions like they'd just been hacked by a cyberpsycho.
Fuck! Are the Arasaka bastards double-crossing themselves?!
But the thought was gone as soon as it came.
In the ensuing uproar, the mayor's security aide forced his way forward through the chaos. His face was pale, but his professionalism held firm as he delivered a rapid-fire briefing:
"Confirmed missile strike. Preliminary trajectory analysis indicates the launch points originate from the border region between the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada Mountains—eastward. The target is the Arasaka fleet approaching San Francisco Bay. Strike pattern: saturation bombardment. High probability—White House authorization."
Before he could finish, an official shouted in rage: "I knew it! That bitch in Washington!"
"Martial law—declare martial law in San Francisco—no, all of Northern California!"
"This is war! Report immediately to Sacramento! Get in touch with General Katsutoshi Murata and make our stance clear!"
"Where's the Bay Area Air Defense Command?! Organize retaliation—now!"
And just then, west of the Golden Gate Strait—Whirr—BOOM!Whoosh—BOOM!
A dozen more anti-air missiles launched into the crimson sky, trailing long plumes of smoke.
The sun bled into the horizon, the roar of engines and missile trails screaming through the sky.
Air raid sirens blared across the city. The SFPD mobilized en masse. Corporate militias scrambled to full alert. In seconds, the entire city of San Francisco erupted into chaos.
No one stopped to question who had started it. Citizens pointed skyward, journalists snapped photos furiously, columnists typed until their keyboards smoked, subnet and intranet admins scrambled to reroute bandwidth, and shrewd investors—sensing what was coming—hurried to log into their stock accounts to pull out fast.
Even the city's decadent cyberpunks—half-asleep and lost in their braindance highs—were jolted awake by the shock.
Of all the chaos that erupted, none were more terrified than the unfortunate drivers caught on the Golden Gate Bridge and along both sides of the strait. Panic exploded among them—shouting, cursing, screaming, scrambling in every direction.
Damn it! Who wouldn't panic? Every disaster film they'd ever seen flashed through their minds—those classic "targets" that always get blown to hell first—and now, watching real missiles streak past overhead while the Arasaka fleet shifted into combat readiness, their warship cannons elevating toward the east—shit! The Golden Gate Bridge was about to get obliterated!
Out at sea west of the bridge, the Vela Adelheid—which had been advancing at cruising speed—suddenly slowed to a halt and began to turn. Its escort fleet immediately adjusted formation. Attack submarines supporting the battle group dove beneath the waves, while surface vessels intermittently launched anti-air missiles, switching from ceremonial parade lines into layered, diamond-shaped combat formations.
The smallest and most agile of the group—four missile frigates—were the first to reach their designated battle positions.
A moment later, their vertical launch silos opened, and volleys of anti-air missiles ignited in sequence, streaking skyward.
The trails of the previous missiles hadn't even faded before new ones replaced them.
The sky—half in light, half in darkness—was soon scrawled with tangled white-hot streaks like chaotic brushstrokes of fire.
[Battle Alert! Battle Alert! All hands to combat stations—Condition One!]
On the Vela Adelheid's bridge, red lights flashed as a cascade of AI warnings filled the air. The ship's automated systems detected incoming threats, while operators, tactical officers, and network engineers worked furiously across rows of holographic tactical displays and instrument panels.
[Carrier Control AI: Detected multiple high-energy reactions approaching from east, northeast, and southeast—340 to 400 kilometers out. Speed: Mach 10 to Mach 12. Estimated time to first-wave impact: 1 minute, 24 seconds...]
Standing with his hands clasped behind his back, Vice Admiral Katsutoshi Murata—commander of the Arasaka Navy's Seventh Fleet—watched the main tactical screen with a grave expression, his brows furrowed as he studied the constantly updating combat data.
The defensive systems of his escort frigates, destroyers, and cruisers were continuously firing and feeding back radar telemetry.
To the untrained eye, the counterattack might've looked sparse—nowhere near the cinematic spectacle of thousands of missiles firing at once—but every veteran knew: in air defense, nine out of ten shots miss.
Precision mattered more than volume. Sustained, layered salvos; tracking, locking, and verifying real warheads; predicting their trajectories; deploying interceptors at the right time—that was the doctrine. Blindly saturating the sky with firepower only worked in movies.
"General, City Hall is requesting a situation update—asking to establish shared combat feeds," the communications officer reported.
"Approved," Murata replied after a brief pause. "Set up a data link and share combat telemetry. No delay."
Then he turned to the network security officer. "Keep the firewall tight," he added firmly.
Allies or not, caution was still necessary.
Even if they weren't sharing the carrier's core system data, sensitive information remained off-limits.
"Has the war alert been sent?" Murata asked.
"Dispatched and received. Night City has acknowledged. Director Vela requests more detailed data—her words were, 'Treat treaty protocol as secondary; prioritize fleet safety.' Tokyo HQ hasn't responded yet... wait—sir, response from Tokyo just came in!"
The officer stood abruptly and read aloud: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Tokyo Tower has formally lodged a protest with Washington. Saburo-sama has just authorized Director Vela Russell of Arasaka Tower, Night City, and Ms. Michiko Arasaka in Los Angeles to act with full discretion in all U.S.-related affairs—empowered to proceed as deemed appropriate."
Every officer on the bridge heard it. Every one of them understood what it meant.
The prelude to official war.
"Phew..." Murata exhaled slowly. "Didn't think the event marking the outbreak of war would happen on my watch."
He clenched his fists lightly.
"Uncle Ozuru... I'll avenge your honor."
Then, in a commanding tone, he ordered, "Accelerate aircraft launch. Command the nearest CAP units to halt their West Coast patrol routes—cross the coastline, enter North American airspace, and neutralize all incoming threats."
The most reliable way to defend against an aerial assault was to seize air superiority. Vice Admiral Katsutoshi Murata knew this all too well. By ordering Arasaka's aircraft to cross the border, he had officially shredded the Second Alvin Treaty of 2076.
Having heavy carrier-based aircraft breach airspace was far graver than the SAT-6's hypersonic missile launch months earlier outside Night City. That could be dismissed as "counterterrorism." This could only mean one thing—war.
But the New United States had struck first.
Political and diplomatic fallout could be handled by the bureaucrats and diplomats trained for it.
"Activate the Yata Mirror defense system! Power up the energy shield! Prepare to intercept!"
Murata's gaze swept the bridge. "Gentlemen, from this day forward, we wash away our shame! For Arasaka's glory! For Saburo-sama—" He paused briefly, eyes flicking toward the glowing shield control console. Logic overrode bloodline prejudice. "—and for Vela."
He raised his arm high.
"For Arasaka!" ×N echoed across the bridge in unison.
Then silence—only the hum of systems responding to commands.
Moments later, the shipwide broadcast began its countdown:
"Thirty seconds to impact. Twenty-nine. Twenty-eight. Twenty-seven. Twenty-six…"
Rumble—RUMBLE—
Unlike the sonic crack of missiles tearing the sky, this was the deep, rolling roar of approaching explosions, reverberating across the San Francisco Bay.
The people of San Francisco were losing their minds. They'd been waiting to watch Night City's chaos unfold—and now? Holy hell, why here first?!
Across the eastern bay—Berkeley, Oakland—the airspace was alive with twisting streaks of guided fire, explosions blooming in fiery clusters and thick brown plumes. The trails intertwined, tangled, collided—like a madman's scribbles across the heavens.
White, black, red, orange, gray—threads of chaos exploding into color. Even the white contrails became tinted and burst apart in turn.
From the bridge deck of the Golden Gate, the nightmare was visible to the naked eye—the deadly spectacle drawing closer, louder with every second.
Arasaka's fleet continued to fire anti-air missiles, its close-in weapon systems whirring to life: hundreds of VLS cells opened simultaneously, laser CIWS arrays charged up, electromagnetic railguns flashed with blue-white arcs of light. Meanwhile, the incoming anti-ship barrage from the east showed no sign of letting up.
Those still trapped on the bridge lost all reason.
Vehicles rammed into each other in desperate attempts to flee—metal clashing, glass shattering. No one wanted to die as collateral damage in a corporate war.
Aboard the carrier, the countdown continued: "Seventeen. Fifteen. Fourteen…"
[Distance: 50–60 KM]
That was close enough. Based on known weapon performance, Murata calculated the estimated boost distance for terminal-phase acceleration.
His eyes gleamed. "FIRE!"
Whirrrrr—! Interceptor missiles screamed upward like a swarm of hornets.
SHHHHHH—! Cascades of high-energy beams followed, streaking across the sky faster than the incoming missiles could jink or shift trajectory, piercing through them in bursts of blinding light.
BANG! BANG! BANG! Tungsten needle rounds arced through the night sky, detonating midair as they tore through and destroyed incoming warheads with precision-guided timing.
Finally came the thunder of the conventional CIWS batteries—their programmable anti-air rounds wove spiraling walls of metal storms across the sky, sealing every remaining gap with sheer volume.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM! The sky exploded in overlapping waves of fire and shock. The resulting glow lit the night like day, turning everyone along the strait into silhouettes. Overhead, fireworks bloomed above the Golden Gate Bridge—brilliant, terrifying.
To an observer, it looked like a fireworks festival surrounding the Arasaka Carrier Battle Group.
That image was captured perfectly—by the satellites of every major megacorp.
...
White House, Presidential War Room.
President Rosalind Myers watched intently. Having just silenced her congressional enemies with martial law and Militech's muscle, she now focused all her attention on the Arasaka Seventh Fleet off San Francisco.
"Stubborn bastards," she muttered.
Watching Arasaka's absurdly layered, near-perfect defensive formation, Myers had to admit—since Old America's collapse, since the NUSA lost the West Coast and control of the Atlantic to the EU, their naval capabilities had fallen far behind.
Which only made it more vital to destroy that fleet.
Her gaze fixed on the supercarrier—named after her younger rival. For its funeral, she had prepared far more than just this opening volley.
After half a minute, as the saturation barrage ate through the fleet's ammunition, a few newer-generation anti-ship missiles—slower, sporadic, emerging between salvos—finally broke through. Traveling at over Mach 15, weaving unpredictably in their terminal trajectories, assisted by swarm-network hacking interference, they slipped past Arasaka's escorts and dove toward the majestic hull of the Vela Adelheid.
Myers leaned forward, eyes gleaming with expectation.
But the missiles never hit.
A fraction of a second before impact, the struck section of the hull shimmered—like the carapace of a living creature, glowing faintly blue. Smoke, fire—but no damage.
Bang! Myers' pupils constricted. She slammed her desk.
"Damn it—an energy shield?!"
"Heh... heh heh." A wry smile crept across her lips. "Vela, or Arasaka's tech division... of course. Never underestimate them."
She wasn't surprised—disappointed, maybe, but not shocked. One missile wasn't going to sink that monster, and she'd never expected it to.
Beep.
Without hesitation, Myers pressed the comms terminal beside her.
"Empty Nevada's stockpiles. Use everything we've got. I don't believe that experimental shield can hold forever. And if necessary—deploy the relics from the Unified War arsenals."
She released the button, exhaled slowly, lowering her gaze.
"If I'm doing this... I do it to the end. There's no room for defeat."
—
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