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“Well, sir, we really haven’t been given any access since the first warning,” answered Argent, as the unofficial spokesperson. Although the other representatives were all “Pentagon Hands” none of them had Argent’s depth of experience or name recognition. His cameraman, another old Pentagon hand, subtly directed his camera towards the general. Although the press conference had not officially been “started” all was fair in a fluid situation like this.

“So I understand,” said Horner with a bleak smile of anger. It was not how he had told the Pentagon Public Information Office to handle information flow. As he had just explained to the chief of information’s replacement.

“To change that, I’m going to assign you Lieutenant Colonel Tremont, my senior aide.” He gestured to the slim, dark lieutenant colonel accompanying him. “He can cut through any red tape you may encounter. We so far have no indication that the Posleen use battlefield intelligence. I’ve already cut half of the red tape out and decided you can report on just about anything you generate while you’re in here. I’m giving you one hundred percent access to my areas of responsibility. You basically have Top Secret clearance and assumed Need-To-Know on anything related to this invasion. If anyone has any questions about that they can direct them to me after they have answered your questions.”

Argent looked momentarily stunned. “Thank you, sir. Are you sure about that?”

“This was the original plan, believe it or not. I have to communicate effectively not only to my troops, but to the citizens of the United States. It is my job, my duty, to protect them and keep them informed of dangers to the best of my ability. The best way to do that is through you,” he gestured at the TV crew, “and your radio friends.” He gestured at the representatives from ABC Radio.

“Pardon me,” he continued, turning to the print journalists and photographers, “but you guys come last.” That got a laugh.

“So, shall we start?” asked Bob.

“What, we haven’t already?” Jack said with another cold smile.

“Well…” Argent temporized. He hadn’t dealt much with the Continental Army commander but he recognized the smile as a bad sign.

“Hasn’t your cameraman been filming the whole thing?” asked Horner, shortly. “And unless I’m an idiot, everybody is taking notes.”

“Okay,” admitted Argent. “In that case: General Horner, it has been an hour since the Posleen came out of hyperspace. What’s happening?” The cameraman lifted the minicam to his shoulder to get a steadier shot.

“There’ve been some space battles between the fighter patrols and the converted frigates that were on station, but this incursion has been outside all the expected parameters,” responded Horner formally. “The Posleen are here in greater strength than we anticipated, they are more bunched than we were expecting not only on the basis of Galactic reports but on the basis of our own experience on Barwhon and Diess. Last but not least, they came out unusually close to the Earth; dangerously close in fact.

“Because of all of this the Fleet has been unable to engage them with any sort of strength. They are coming down more or less untouched, while we have lost quite a few of the fighters and frigates that engaged them. I have to say this, those Fleet people did a hell of a job given the disparity of the forces they faced. Their efforts were just outstanding.”

“Can we get a look at some video?” asked one of the radio personalities.

“We’ll get some of that in from the Operations center in a moment. Having said the other, about total access, I want you to understand that we have a job to do and we need to do it to the best of our ability. Understand?”

“Yes,” replied the reporters, wondering when the hammer was going to fall.

“I don’t have time to draw any of my people off their duties; so we’re going to go into the CIC to meet the players. They are all very busy trying to save our country, so be polite. This is a very quiet, serene place where people concentrate very hard: no disruptions. Think of it like a war library. No shouts for a quote, no flash photography, no camera lights.” He fixed them with a blue, basilisk stare until all of them had nodded in compliance. “If any of you do any of those things in CIC, I’ll have you thrown out of this building by a suit of combat armor. He will have orders to shot-put you into the Potomac.” The river was nearly a mile away. The reporters were fairly sure it was hyperbole, but looking at the grim-faced, cold-eyed general, they were not absolutely sure.

“After the CIC, I’ll hook you up with a couple of our technical people who will try to integrate our systems with yours. I want you guys to know where the landings are going to be as fast as I do. But no disruptions. The American people cannot afford them. Your families cannot afford them. Clear?”

“Clear,” answered the sobered journalists. Never had a situation like this occurred, where the people they were interviewing were in charge of saving not only their lives, but the lives of their families and loved ones. In real time. Usually, rattling a subject or throwing an unanswerable question at them was the best way to get a really juicy quote. Those techniques suddenly seemed like a bad idea. Rattled would be bad. Argent looked around and saw the other reporters coming to the same sobering conclusion.

Horner and his aide led them down a short corridor and over to an MP-guarded door. On the far side was a small antechamber and beyond a large, darkened room filled with a mixture of Terran and Galactic technology. On the far side of the room was a giant Mercator projection showing a number of orbit lines in green, blue and red and five large ovals designating possible landing areas. The outside of the ovals, where they were discrete, was yellow and they shaded inward through orange to red. One was centered on the Atlantic, another on the Pacific, a third on Southeast Asia to India, one on Central Asia and one on Africa. The TV cameramen started filming, not sure if the screens would show well enough to broadcast. The quiet atmosphere reminded him of a surgery, everyone concentrating on their individual tasks for an overall good.

The possible areas for Posleen landings were still vast; the Atlantic oval spread from Chicago to Berlin. The Africa oval overlapped the Southeast Asia oval. The very edge of the Pacific oval overlapped the Southeast Asia oval near the Philippines. In all they nearly circumnavigated the northern hemisphere.

“Full house spread,” whispered a reporter from the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

“This screen used to be covered with satellite tracks,” pointed out Lieutenant Colonel Tremont in a whisper. “The remaining military satellites and facilities are the green tracks, while the blue tracks are remaining commercial facilities.”

“Yeah,” whispered the CNN producer in return. “We’re mainly going out on dedicated landlines to cable operators and on the Internet. Cell, pagers and phones are mostly down.”

“This screen is, obviously, not used for tactical operations,” Colonel Tremont explained. “But it is useful for getting an overall picture.”

“Colonel,” Argent asked quietly, putting on his reporter face, “is the loss of the satellites going to degrade the quality of your artillery fire and command and control? I understand that most development in those areas has concentrated on global positioning satellites.”

“It would, yes, except for the extraordinary work over the last three years of the United States Geological Survey Service. Using a mixture of military, civilian and volunteer personnel, they have put in survey markers across the country, in most areas no more than a kilometer apart. In turn, the location and elevation of the markers have been put into a universal target database. Now, whenever an artillery unit gets into place, they just find the distance and elevation to the nearest UTD point and input that data. That gives them their location to the millimeter. Other units use a similar although slightly less accurate system. So, yes, it will be a pain, but with the UTD we have effectively replaced GPS.”