"Sir, we have lost contact with the helicopter we sent for reconnaissance," reported the assistant, who had been the one responsible for sending the order of dispatching the helicopters for reconnaissance.
"What do you mean by that? Didn't we send six of them? How the heck could all of them lose communication at the very same time?" Logan asked, his tone clearly indicating that he was breaking from the inside. He finally started believing that even if they were unlucky for the first time, they couldn't be so ill-fated now as well and have lost all the helicopter's communication despite being well-prepared with counter measures.
"No, sir, they didn't lose communication at the same time, rather, all of them were shot down," the assistant clarified his report as he put down a computer and played the audio recording right before the helicopters were gunned down.
"Understood, Home Base. Standing by till fur…BRRRRRRRRRRRR" The audio came to an abrupt halt with white noise, indicating that the helicopter was certainly lost.
"Fuck" the President swore, realizing that now they had to buy new helicopters to replace the currently downed ones. He wasn't concerned about the loss of soldiers at all since they could be replaced at any time, however, the money needed to buy the helicopter couldn't be refunded and that meant he would be having a little bit less money to embezzle.
"So, we failed to get any information about what is really going on on the borders?" asked the representative, causing the entire room that was filled with whispers to return back to complete silence.
"No, we have managed to get images from the land base before the helicopters were shot down, however, the one sent over the waters was shot even before they could send us any images back," reported the assistant as he started handing a folder which had the pictures that were sent by the Recon-1 before it was shot down.
"Holy mother!" Logan blurted as his eyes widened as soon as he laid his eyes on the picture, despite being an incompetent general, upon seeing the crater near the base, he could still deduce that whatever had exploded at this place was massive ordnance, carrying quite a heavy power with it.
"So, what are we going to do with this?" Samuel wondered as he put the folder down, knowing how unpopular he was going to be after this news reached the citizens and relatives of those that were sent to the base.
"It might not be as bad as we think, if you look at the explosion, there are only a few body parts scattered around it, meaning that more than seventy percent of the soldiers might be still alive and are only captured. However, the problem is, we don't have the images of what happened at the other location," Logan said, bringing into view that most of their problems were only due to them being starved of information.
"Then how about sending fighter jets for reconnaissance this time?" Samuel asked.
"We can't do that, with them shooting the six helicopters at once; it clearly indicates that they already have a very robust anti-aircraft defense system established," Logan said, shaking off the President's idea.
"I can get you the satellite images of the battlefield, but no matter the outcome comes from the picture, you have to remember the deal, you are not to stop until you have reached one of the milestones stated in the contract, or else you will be the ones who will need to worry about your lives. If the situation on the ground is worse than expected, we will be supporting you with both manpower and even the technology to take down their infrastructures, but for those assistances, our deal will have to be rewritten and increase the share of the pie we will be receiving when everything is over," said the representative, even threatening them to not even think of the idea of giving up.
"We should get those images first and then decide what actions we are going to take following that, but if things are as bad as what we can extrapolate from what little information we have, we will have to be as much prepared as we can and also need to send a massive amount of vehicles and other resources." Samuel agreed, feeling that his money was getting further and further away from him.
"So, how are we going to respond when Eden makes an announcement about this?" Samuel asked after a moment, taking a look at everyone in the room.
"We just have to prepare different responses and choose one based on how Eden reports the incident, that would allow us to understand what they are planning to use their victory at the moment," the representative said before taking his phone from his pocket and leaving the room to call his supervisor for the request to provide him with the satellite images of the ongoing events at the border between Eden and Esparia.
...…..
When they received the satellite images, they finally were able to see the full extent of the war's outcome.
On the land, there were two craters: one massive, which lay in the place that used to be the artillery squadron's location of firing the shells and the second one which was caused by one of the Esparia's special forces after it fired on the ammunition depot, resulting in the depot's explosion, thus forming the small crater.
As for the water, where the other part of the battle had taken place, there was nothing but a calm ocean. No boats or their wreckage could be seen, however, there were still many bodies that could be caught sight of if one zoomed in, this was enough to give them the missing part of information they needed to know what exactly had happened to their navy fleet.
Their entire navy fleet was completely wiped out!
However, when they looked at the next image, they saw some of their boats being docked in a small military port with tents being arranged at the base, giving them slight reassurance knowing that at least some of their soldiers were alive. This would reduce the amount of backlash they would be receiving from the family members of the soldiers and the general public for the huge losses they had suffered had it been a complete massacre of their navy fleet.
"It looks like we have lost round one and Eden should be bragging about it tomorrow morning, but that should turn out to be helpful for us as now that they had won, they would loosen their vigilance and when we return after preparing for over a month, we should be able to pay for this humiliation," Logan spat as he crumpled the papers on his hands in anger, he had lost his chance of winning a battle and get himself a medal, which could have been the start of his journey on etching his name among one of the best generals in the history.
"Are we going to negotiate with them for the release of our soldiers in the midst of our preparations?" he asked after putting down the now crumpled paper on the table.
"Yes. Right after they make their press conference, we will respond that it was a misunderstanding and they were the ones who attacked us first and tell the family members of the soldiers that we will be negotiating for their release, while behind Eden's back, we will still be preparing for the second round of the fight," answered the President's assistant with a starry light in his eyes.
But what happened the next (Thursday) morning was nothing that they had prepared themselves for.
The spokesperson of Eden's ministry of defense just informed the public about Esparia's attack on both land and water, while they never talked about them winning the war or anything related to it, they just said that the fight was still going on and that they will do their best to protect their sovereignty, that's all.
No talks about winning the war or anything to hint at that, they even portrayed themselves to be the ones on the losing side and put themselves in a worse condition and even causing worry among the public where they could have been bragging about their one-sided beatdown that they had dished out to Esparia, flipping the table on almost all of Esparia's plans that were made with the expectation that Eden would be bragging about their win.
"SHIT" cursed the President and the general in unison as they watched the press conference.
They were taken aback by the unexpected turn of events and Eden's unexpected thick-faced nature.
