Two-Hundred-Missile Launch

The Two-hundred-missile launch was a timed, planet-wide salvo of small launchers that flung a cloud of decoys and working payloads into low orbit above Arbre. Planners chose an interval when the Daban Urnud lacked line of sight, so that the visitors—called the Geometers—would initially be unable to watch the ascent and early rendezvous.

Context and Purpose

• Objective: create a cluttered environment—metallized balloons, broad radar-chaff, and numerous small payloads—so that a small team could rendezvous under a balloon and assemble equipment without immediate detection. The operation is described as part of a wider response associated with the Convox and Sæcular coordination.
• Surveillance countermeasures: long-wavelength search (radar) was confounded by chaff, forcing optical inspection. Decoys were salted through the cloud so that analysts would have to distinguish real payloads from balloons by behavior and drag.

Execution (as reported)

• Low-orbit insertion: the missiles placed payloads on near-circular, very low trajectories (about a hundred miles up), each with limited maneuvering capacity. Navigation jamming attributed in-world to the visitors required manual star checks for terminal guidance.
• Shelter and assembly: humans and cargo converged “behind” a balloon during the initial privacy window to collect priority payloads, including a service tender and parts for a reflective shield later known as the Cold Black Mirror.
• Decoy platform: a separate, conspicuous platform—built from lashed-together stages inside an inflatable shell—performed a visible burn and then self-destructed by design, encouraging watchers to focus on apparent malfunction while the covert group slipped away.

Results and Follow-on

• Immediate effect: the cloud of objects forced the Geometers to sift many phototypes for non-balloon signatures and for items that maneuvered. Under cover, the cell brought critical payloads together and activated life-support, then deployed the Cold Black Mirror to mask heat and reflect radar away from observers on the Daban Urnud.
• Initial interpretation by observers: in communications following the decoy’s self-destruction, observers circulated detailed images of wreckage and expressed triumph, apparently concluding that a threatening vehicle had been neutralized; later events indicate the decoy performed as intended while covert work proceeded elsewhere.
• Subsequent observation: during a later night-side pass, witnesses in low orbit saw multiple brilliant rod strikes descend onto major equatorial launch facilities, each followed by a hemispherical bloom of light. In-world accounts attribute these bombardments to the Pedestal; details of outcomes remain unconfirmed here.
• Casualty reported: during ascent and retrieval attempts amid the cluttered cloud, Fraa Jad struck a payload and drifted beyond reach. He did not regain consciousness and later reentered the atmosphere; accounts state he did not survive.

Characteristics

• Scale: two hundred launchers in roughly parallel ascents, producing a broad, expanding nebula of balloons, chaff, and mixed payloads.
• Timing: coordinated to occur while Arbre occluded the observers’ line of sight, with later movements choreographed to alternating exposure and concealment windows as orbits advanced.
• Payload mix: humans on compact upper stages (“monyafeeks”), water and fuel stores, the tender with a compact reactor, and structural packages for the Cold Black Mirror; many additional payloads were fungible to allow for losses.

Status

The salvo achieved its masking purpose as described in-world: covert rendezvous and assembly proceeded under a balloon, followed by diversionary decoy activity and the deployment of the Cold Black Mirror. Further movements are ongoing within the same operational context.