"Since yesterday in the day. After the second meal you take, but before the general's afternoon briefing. I entered from the ceiling through the door while the guard directed a visitor. The lock was insignificant. It was, as you discovered, readily manipulated through a magnetic pick. The general has had fifteen visitors and seventy-eight phone calls in the last eighteen hours. He has been present for fifteen of those eighteen hours. His visitors were, in order, his aide, Lieutenant Colonel William Jackson, on the subject of his canceling a previously scheduled social engagement. The second visitor—"
"Excuse me, Himmit Rigas, but I need to hold an initial briefing for Sergeant Major Mosovich." The general smiled politely, having already become used to the Himmit's characteristic volubility. His smile carefully did not reveal teeth.
"Certainly, General. My tale can wait to fully unfold."
Jake slowly turned back to the general and collapsed onto the couch. He refused to watch as the Himmit flowed back into camouflage against the wall.
"The background brief is in here." Trayner finally tossed Jake the purple file. "Read it here; it doesn't leave this room. Then start thinking about a team to take off-planet for a reconnaissance mission. The world will be Earth-like, swampy and cool. You'll be preparing here and there extensively with the Himmit. When we get done with the initial operations order I'll send you back to Bragg. Set up a team, but you don't brief them until you've decided on the final group. After that they go on lock down, that's from NCA too."
"How did the Pres. become involved?" asked Mosovich, not yet opening the file.
"They called him on the phone," answered the VCA.
"Really?"
"Really." The officer shook his head. "They just called him from orbit on his direct line, along with the heads of the G-7, China and Russia. That was three days ago."
"Fast work for Washington." Jake took another sip of his coffee, opening the file as he did so. As he did he noticed that the whole file was constructed of slick flash paper. This was being held awfully close to the vest if the VCA was handling a flash file. The file felt greasy and cold in his hands and he had a premonition that the mission was going to feel the same way. "Okay, but I'll need one other person to help recruit the team."
"Who?" asked the general, suspiciously.
"A sergeant first class named Ersin."
The general thought about it briefly then nodded. "Okay, you can brief him in on my authority. Understand, right now this is as closely held as anything I've ever heard; it's all on the old boy network. Do not reveal anything to anybody else."
"I don't even tell myself half the things I do." Jake said with a smile and, with one last glance at the Himmit retracting into camouflage, he began to read the file.
3
Ft. McPherson, GA Sol III
0931 EDT March 18th, 2001 AD
"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Admiral Daniel Cleburne and for those of you who don't recognize me, I'm the Chief of Naval Operations." The secure auditorium was about half filled with a mixture of uniformed and civilian personnel, mostly male. Something about most of the civilians made Mike suspect they had once worn blue or green. Apparently others besides General Horner had dipped into former commands.
"I was chosen to deliver this address to communicate the gravity of the information and because I could disappear more easily than the other Joint Chiefs. For the record I am currently sailing in the Bahamas.
"As covered in your agreements, each of you should have already contacted next of kin and informed them that you agreed to be locked in for a period of two to four months. You are working with a former colleague on a secret project and you will be home soon. Please, in your future communications, downplay the severity of this situation as much as possible. That a project has shanghaied a number of civilians will, inevitably, come to the ears of the press, but the longer we can stonewall the core information, the better for the nation and the world. We prefer to release it timed with other countries and in such a way as to minimize . . . uncontrolled reactions.
"My wife hates the old `good-news-bad-news' routine but here goes:
"The good news, for most of you science fiction buffs anyway, is that first contact has been made with a friendly alien species."
He waited for the muted reaction to die down. Most of the people had been playing the "what's-this-all-about" game and had reached at least that side of the answer. A few had guessed the rest. Now time for the other shoe.
"Bad news: they're in the midst of a multiplanet war."
This time the buzz of conversation went on for some time before he raised his hands.
"Please, we have a lot of ground to cover and not much time, so I'm going to make this fast and dirty. I want everyone to have a general feel for our goals and constraints. You will all be issued briefing papers," he gestured to a number of officers moving down the aisles and passing out files, "and there will be alien advisors," a stir started, "and technologies," and grew, "to draw on. At ease! We don't have time for this, people."
He referred to the papers before him. "First a little background. For the last hundred thousand years or so there has been a political entity, for purposes of translation we are referring to it as a federation, occupying the habitable planets surrounding Earth. They're all peaceful races, apparently, because all the warlike races had wiped themselves out before they discovered deep space flight. For those of you Sci-Fiers," he grimaced, "who have been pondering over the `Drake Equation,' whatever that is, they're the reason we haven't been getting any mail. Until now, at least.
"About one hundred fifty to one hundred seventy-five years ago the periphery of the Federation experienced an invasion by a new race called the Posleen. This species is about as vile as anything you SF guys ever came up with. Basic information on them is included in the briefing papers and more detailed information will be on the planning team net. In general they are four-legged sort of centaur-looking omnivores that lay eggs. Their technology is about equivalent to the Federation's and generally similar in scope, but they don't seem to use it very effectively.
"However, being totally nonviolent, none of the Federation races have any history of conflict. In addition, they have some difficulties with engaging in or even discussing violence, even after having been in a war for nearly two centuries. They have only two races that are able to `pull the trigger' so to speak and those races have some problems with it. Because of their problems, they have been unable to slow the advance of the enemy. They've tried to create artificial intelligence devices—self-willed combat robots—to handle the problem but after one disastrous experience when the robots tried to take over they outlawed that approach."
With the exception of the rustle of paper, the large room was now totally silent as hard-faced men and women started flipping though the explosive documents in their hands. Mike smiled grimly at the layout. The document was subdivided into categories: Introduction, Threat, Friendly Forces, Mission and Appendix. It was the most succinct document of its kind he had ever seen.