Read Novel Full Chapter 664: The Imminent Death Of Giants
Chapter 664: The Imminent Death Of Giants
The executive boardrooms, defense ministries, and global logistics headquarters had spent days preparing for the impact. For forty-eight continuous hours, military strategists, logistics titans, and economic analysts had built predictive models trying to map out the physical footprint of Nova Express.
They had fed every piece of available data into their supercomputers, desperately trying to project how the company would structure a terrestrial delivery network.
Yet, none of them could run their projections with genuine confidence. Every model felt like a blind guess against an entity that operated outside standard physics and economics.
And when the official announcement finally appeared across the screens of Earth, what they saw completely shattered the boundaries of what they had thought possible.
Everyone knew that Nova Technologies’ space shuttles could fly from the far side of the moon to Earth in under an hour, dropping through the upper atmosphere without a single hint of turbulence.
But reading that an autonomous consumer drone could deliver a package door-to-door across intercontinental distances in a matter of minutes was pure, terrifying madness.
Inside the high-security war room of Global Logistics Corp, the silence was suffocating.
Senior vice presidents, fleet directors, supply chain strategists, and corporate lobbyists sat completely frozen around a massive glass conference table.
Across the main wall displays, the stark, non-narrative pricing table and operational parameters of Nova Express were highlighted in glowing text.
International Consumer Delivery: $5.99 for packages under 1kg. Delivery time: minutes to a few hours maximum.
"Minutes," Chief Executive Officer repeated, his voice barely above a raspy whisper. He sat at the head of the table, his fingers laced tightly together as he stared at the screen.
He looked at his Chief Operating Officer, his expression carrying a mixture of profound shock and total disbelief. "We charge forty-two dollars for standard three-day international air express through GLC Express, and our planes have to endure tarmac refueling, air traffic control holds, customs inspections, regional sorting hubs, and last-mile courier handoffs. Nova is offering door-to-door intercontinental delivery in minutes for six dollars."
"It’s not just the speed or the price," the COO replied, his hands trembling visibly as he tapped on his tablet. "Look at the operational architecture. No collection hubs. No drop-off distribution centers. No sorting facilities. No human pilots, no human handlers, no ground vehicles, and no regional warehouses. No human presence at all. Every single vehicle in their fleet is airborne and fully autonomous."
Mercer pressed a key, bringing up a real-time global tracking map of GLC’s physical infrastructure across six continents. Thousands of glowing icons appeared—cargo planes, distribution centers, container ports, sorting hubs, and tens of thousands of delivery trucks.
"Our entire asset portfolio—our planes, our ships, our sorting facilities, our vehicle fleets—represents over ninety-five billion dollars in physical capital," the COO continued, his voice cracking under the weight of the realization. "As of ten minutes ago, every single one of those assets ceased to be a competitive advantage. They became an unbearable financial liability. We are maintaining trillions of dollars in real estate and human labor. We cannot compete with an airborne fleet that operates with zero ground friction, zero fuel overhead, and zero human labor costs."
"What about legal options? Political leverage?" a senior board member demanded, leaning forward, his forehead glistening with sweat. "Can’t we lobby the Federal Aviation Administration? What about international airspace sovereignty? No sovereign nation is going to allow millions of unmonitored off-world drones and cargo craft to saturate their domestic skies without air traffic control clearance!"
The head of legal affairs let out a dry, humorless laugh, shaking his head slowly.
"Lobby with what leverage?" the lawyer asked plainly. "Look at section fourteen of the release. Nova Express isn’t asking for regional flight corridors or domestic air traffic permits. They are operating from an off-world infrastructure. Their drones drop through the upper atmosphere at hypersonic speeds and decelerate using localized dampening fields right at the confirmed delivery address.
If a national government tries to declare its airspace closed to Nova Express, how do they enforce it? Shoot down a delivery drone carrying a civilian gift? And what happens when that same government’s citizens realize their leadership is intentionally blocking door-to-door five-dollar shipments to protect legacy courier companies?"
He pointed his pen at the screen. "Look at the public sentiment on LucidNet already. Six billion people are actively celebrating this. Any politician who attempts to block Nova Express within their borders will be ousted in the next election cycle. The public views this as a fundamental human right to instant transit. State sovereignty over low-altitude airspace died the second that announcement went live."
"What about commercial freight?" another director chimed in desperately, searching for a single lifeline. "The heavy industrial sector! The raw materials, the heavy machinery, the automotive supply chains! Drones can’t move fifty-ton industrial turbines or bulk steel!"
The COO gestured toward the Heavy Freight tier of the release. "They aren’t using drones for heavy freight, Julian. They are using autonomous spacecraft. No weight limits. No dimension limits beyond physical cargo hold capacity. An industrial manufacturer can submit an automated spec request through the portal, receive a quote in minutes, pay in USD, settled directly through LucidNet, and an off-world spacecraft will land directly at their industrial pad to move multi-ton heavy equipment across the planet in under an hour."
He leaned back in his leather chair, looking completely defeated. "Maersk-Maritime spent half a century building a fleet of massive container ships that take three weeks to crawl across the Pacific Ocean, bleeding fuel costs and port fees every mile. Nova just rendered ocean shipping completely obsolete with a single paragraph. Maersk-Maritime, TransGlobal Air, FedEx Courier, UPS Express—every single logistics brand on Earth is facing total extinction."
"So what move do we make?" The CEO asked, his voice sharp as he slammed his fist lightly onto the table. "We are sitting on ninety-five billion dollars in physical assets and employing three hundred thousand couriers and pilots worldwide! We cannot simply sit in this room and watch the company dissolve into bankruptcy by the end of the quarter! What is our play?"
The room fell into a heavy, agonizing silence. The executives looked at one another, but no one had an answer.
"There is no counter-move," The COO said quietly, staring at his tablet screen. "If we lower our prices to match their six-dollar international rate, we go bankrupt in forty-eight hours on fuel and labor costs alone. If we try to buy their hardware, we can’t—Nova doesn’t sell its drones or spacecraft to corporate entities. If we try to sue them, we can’t serve a summons to a lunar base on the far side of the moon."
He looked up at the CEO. "The only move left for a commercial business is listed right here in section eight: apply for a Nova Express Business Account. We stop trying to be a logistics provider. We liquidate our fleets, sell our warehouses for whatever scrap value remains, fire our logistics teams, and integrate our remaining client contracts directly into Nova’s network to take advantage of their fifteen-percent volume discount. We become reselling middlemen on their platform until our clients realize they can just cut us out too."
The reality of the COO’s words hung in the cold air of the war room like a death sentence. An ninety-five-billion-dollar corporate giant was being forced to consider total liquidation ten minutes after a text file dropped from the moon.
***
While the executive boards of legacy logistics corporations stared into the void of their own destruction, the global reaction across LucidNet was an explosive, uncontrolled wave of celebration.
The six billion daily active users were dissecting every single clause of the Nova Express release in real-time, their posts moving in a continuous, blinding cascade of text, videos, and live reaction streams.
*Five dollars and ninety-nine cents for intercontinental door-to-door delivery! FIVE DOLLARS AND NINETY-NINE CENTS! I can literally order a handmade jacket from a small artisan in Kyoto, and an autonomous drone will drop it onto my apartment balcony in Berlin before I finish my morning coffee! The world is literally microscopic now!*
*Look at the personal shipping section! You MUST be a verified Lucid device user to send a personal package! Once again, Nova Technologies elevates the device holders! A Lucid holder doesn’t have to fill out a single customs form, print a shipping label, or stand in line at a local post office. You just tap your dashboard, set the recipient’s address, set the package on your patio, and an autonomous drone picks it up instantly. The Digital Aristocrats get another massive lifestyle upgrade!*
*The package scanning protocol is terrifyingly advanced! Look at section ten: "Molecular and biological level across every package processed."
That means if someone tries to ship illegal firearms, explosives, controlled pharmaceuticals, or invasive biological species, the drone’s sensors detect it at the atomic level before collection is even confirmed!
The drone won’t even lift off if the scan doesn’t match the declaration. They just completely eliminated international smuggling, drug trafficking, and bio-hazards in one stroke!*
*Look at what this does to Lucid Market! A small business seller in a developing nation can list their product on Lucid Market, have a buyer purchase it in USD, and Nova Express will collect and deliver it to another continent in under an hour for pennies.
Small businesses can now compete directly with massive global conglomerates on equal footing. FedEx, UPS, DHLx, and Maersk-Maritime are probably holding mass weeping sessions in their boardrooms right now.
Nova Technologies didn’t just launch a shipping service; they rendered physical distance and geographic isolation entirely irrelevant!*