The Devil’s in the Cloud, Part II: New Year's Day, 2023

In the faint light of the pre-dawn hour no one would notice as the doors in the bows of the ships swung open, because all lights had been extinguished inside. The only indication that something unusual was afoot would be the sound of the drones – hundreds of drones with muffled engines – that emerged one at a time from each ship before pursuing its unerring course towards its target, flying only a few hundred feet above the water, and then the land.

Some of those targets were only a few score miles away, while others were many times more distant. It hardly mattered, though, because the United States and Europe were at peace. In the modern world, only the United States, with its many carrier fleets, could project real military muscle against distant enemies. Why, then, would any First World nation need the types of coastal or anti-aircraft defenses that were the order of the day before the nuclear age? These fortifications had long ago been abandoned and fallen into ruin.

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