The USS Connecticut, flagship of the Great White Fleet, plowed eastward across the vast, empty expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The immense flotilla of sixteen battleships and their escorts was a traveling city of American power, but in the admiral's stateroom, the mood was not one of triumph. It was somber, heavy, and deeply secret. The air was thick with the scent of strong coffee and the unspoken weight of a changed world.
President Theodore Roosevelt had convened his war council. The men gathered around the polished mahogany table were the only men in the world, besides the President himself, who held all the pieces of the terrifying puzzle. Admiral Taylor, the pragmatic Director of Naval Intelligence, his face grim. Dr. Wu Jian, the ghost from the machine, looking thin and frail but with an intense, burning light in his eyes. And Gunnery Sergeant Jedediah Stone, his battered body a testament to the brutal reality of their new war, his gaze steady and hard as iron.
This was the official debriefing, the after-action report on a series of missions that had failed in every objective yet had succeeded in uncovering a truth far more important than any of them had imagined.
"Gentlemen," Roosevelt began, his voice a low, serious rumble. "We have returned from the dragon's lair. Now I want to know everything it cost us to get out. Sergeant Stone, you will begin. Report."
Jedediah Stone stood, his posture rigid despite his injuries. He delivered his report in the stark, professional cadence of a career marine, his voice devoid of emotion, allowing the brutal facts to speak for themselves. He recounted the perilous journey of Operation Archimedes: the infiltration onto the coast, the first bloody contact with the Qing patrol, the agonizing decision to leave Corporal Miller in the care of a disgraced doctor in Wuhan. He described the firefight at the shrine, the loss of Corporal Hayes, the desperate last stand in the canyon against the terrifying, impossible landship, and the final, humiliating capture.
Then, he delivered the piece of intelligence that was, for Roosevelt, one of the most crucial. He described his capture and interrogation, not by the Emperor's men, but by Viceroy Yuan Shikai.
"He kept us as his private prisoners, Mr. President," Stone stated, his eyes fixed on a point on the far bulkhead. "He executed one of my men, Corporal Johnson, right in front of me, just to make a point. He wasn't trying to get intelligence about our mission. He was trying to understand our value as a bargaining chip. I got the distinct impression he intended to use us against his own people as much as against ours." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "The rivalry between him and the naval commander, this Admiral Meng Tian… it is not just professional. It is a deep and venomous hatred. They hate each other more than they hate us. The Viceroy's entire command structure seems built on personal loyalty to him, not necessarily to the Emperor."
Roosevelt and Admiral Taylor exchanged a significant glance. This was intelligence of the highest order. Stone had not just survived; he had identified a critical fracture line, a deep, structural weakness in the heart of the Qing regime.
"Thank you, Sergeant. Your men fought with a courage that will be honored by their nation," Roosevelt said, his voice thick with genuine respect. He then turned to the frail scientist. "Dr. Wu. Your turn."
Dr. Wu rose, his hands trembling slightly, not from fear, but from the lingering effects of his ordeal and the sheer weight of what he had to report. He spoke not as a spy, but as a physicist, his report a lecture on the nature of a god.
"Mr. President," he began, his voice soft but clear. "For years, we have operated on a theory, a hypothesis based on anomalous energy readings. The theory was that the Emperor possessed a form of power that influenced the physical world. I can now report, with absolute certainty, that this theory is correct."
He explained his desperate gambit: turning the landship into an antenna, broadcasting a wave of electromagnetic "noise" on a frequency he had calculated would disrupt the Emperor's unique biological energy field.
"The reaction was immediate and definitive," Wu explained, his eyes glowing with scientific fervor. "He responded with a massive, omnidirectional burst of his own energy to destroy my devices. I was caught in the feedback loop. The energy is biological in nature, but it interacts with the electromagnetic spectrum in ways our current science does not understand. It is not magic. It is a different kind of physics."
He then delivered his most critical finding. "But the most important discovery is this: the law of conservation of energy still applies. His power has a cost. A profound, debilitating, physical cost. My attack, though brief, clearly caused him immense pain and disorientation. The anecdotal evidence from our agents regarding his 'illness' after the anthrax incident, your own direct observation of his weakness after he moved the boulder… it all points to the same conclusion."
He looked directly at Roosevelt. "He is a battery, Mr. President. A biological battery of almost unimaginable capacity. But he is a finite one. Every god-like act, every miracle, drains him. He can be exhausted. He can be weakened. He can, I believe, be… depleted."
He had given them their Achilles' heel. The god could bleed, and the scientist had just explained the nature of the wound.
Roosevelt stood and began to pace, his mind a whirlwind, processing the new, terrifying, and exhilarating reality. The debriefing was over. The time for strategic formulation had begun. He stopped and faced his council.
"Gentlemen," he said, his voice low and intense. "We are no longer in a competition of industry or ideology. That game is over. We are now in a quiet, secret arms race. But the arms are no longer measured in the tonnage of battleships or the caliber of cannons. We are now racing to find a way to cage a god."
He laid out the new grand strategy for America, a two-pronged approach born of the lessons learned in the fire.
"Publicly," he declared, "we will pursue a policy of what I am calling 'Cordial Containment.' We will praise the Emperor's strength. We will engage in the cultural and economic exchanges he desires. My Great White Fleet will complete its 'goodwill' tour, and we will toast to a new era of peace in the Pacific. We will honor the letter of our new, secret agreement. We will give him no public reason to suspect our true intentions."
He then leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "But secretly, we will wage a new kind of war. I am hereby authorizing the creation of a new, top-secret intelligence initiative. Its name will be Project Prometheus. For the man who stole fire from the gods."
He looked at each man, assigning them their roles in this new war.
"Dr. Wu," he said, "you will be its scientific director. I am giving you a blank check. I want the best physicists, the best biologists, the best minds in the country. Your sole objective is to understand this power. I want you to replicate the weapon you used. I want you to find a way to detect this energy from a distance. I want you to find a way to shield our own people from it. You will write the new rules of physics."
He turned to Admiral Taylor. "Admiral, you will lead the intelligence-gathering arm. I want every asset we have, every spy, every friendly merchant, every missionary, focused on one thing: the Emperor's health. I want daily reports on his public appearances, his schedule, his diet. I want to know every time he seems tired, every time he cancels a meeting. We will track his energy level as if it were the stock market. We will find his limits."
Finally, he looked at Jedediah Stone. "Sergeant. Your mission in China is over. Your new mission is to create a new kind of soldier. You will form and train a new special operations unit, a permanent force. Men who can go anywhere, do anything. Men who are trained not just in combat, but in operating against an enemy who can bend the very laws of nature. Because one day, I may need men who are capable of hunting a dragon in his own lair."
A heavy silence fell over the stateroom. The mission was clear. The stakes were absolute. They were no longer just defending American interests. They were preparing for a conflict that would determine the future course of human history.
Roosevelt walked to the porthole and looked out at the endless, churning blue of the Pacific. "He thinks he is a god," he said quietly, more to himself than to the others. "Our job… is to remind him that he is mortal."