"Well, Mr. President, if you will notice here." Netteny pointed his pen at the point in the picture that was supposed to be the mecha. "Then notice this dark spot here. This is the mecha's shadow. And note that the two aren't touching at the bottom."
"Yeah, so?"
"That means it is in the air, sir. And knowing the details of the optical system and its pointing angles at the time and from the angle of the sun and the length of this shadow we can tell how big this mecha is and how high off the ground it is."
"Cut to the chase, Mike."
"The mecha is larger and much higher in the air than the standard drop tank. This is something new, Mr. President." The DNI didn't grin triumphantly but he wasn't still frowning at Alberts either.
"Okay, so the Separatists have a new experimental mecha. Good for them." The president sat up straight and started to close the brief.
"Wait, Mr. President. Look at the image on the next page." The DNI pointed at the briefing. With a sigh the president flipped the page and began to study it for a moment.
"What the . . . ?" he asked. The image showed a squadron of the mecha in nearly the same level of resolution. "How many is this?"
"Maybe as many as thirty, sir. It was hard to tell from this data. But turn to the next page," the DNI offered.
"Okay, I've seen this before right? These three big ships are full-sized Separatist cargo haulers on the ground. What are these dark lines here?" This picture was much clearer. The tag on the bottom right-hand corner of it showed the source of the image was from an orbital spy platform over the Reservation. The lines leading into, or out of, the large haulers ran for a kilometer or so into the side of a small mountain and then vanished. But there was no mecha in any of the pictures.
"Right, sir. Those are haulers. And the dark lines in the Martian grass are tracks from vehicles. Heavy vehicles. Analysts suggest three haulers full of vehicles, Mr. President," the DNI explained. "But the next image shows more."
"Are these footprints?" Alberts asked.
"Yes sir. Mecha footprints. Thousands of them."
"Well, Mike, if they have that many of these new mecha that sure raises a couple of questions that sort of foul up the logic." Alberts ticked off on his fingers. "One is how did they march all those out of that mountain hangar and into these haulers without the CIA and the NRO and the entire space reconnaissance wing of the United States getting a single picture of one of them? Two, why didn't they just land right up next to the mountain and do it under cover anyway. And three, where in the hell could they have gotten that many mecha without us knowing it?"
"It doesn't add up, Mike. I agree with the president," the sec def added.
"Mr. President, in order. Let me see, one, they are invisible, at least to our sensors, or they managed to cover the road between the mountain and the haulers with camo netting. Two, they parked the haulers far enough away that they had to walk over to be loaded in the open on purpose so we would know they were invisible. After all, the Separatists know we have our eyes and ears in the sky above the Reservation." Mike had to pause from the president's reaction.
"What? Invisible? That doesn't seem likely. We've been working cloaking technology for centuries, right? And you're telling me the Separatists developed it first? No, don't go spread that nonsense around. I think the netting idea makes more sense."
"I'm just describing the data, sir. We know that they are at least invisible to our sensor platforms or as you say were camouflaged very well. And finally, the answer to your third question is that they didn't get the mecha from anywhere in the Sol System. Which means, the Colonies."
"It takes a year or more to get to or from the Colonies and you think they've developed those things that long ago. The FM-12s just went into operation six or so months ago and they had the might of the entire military-industrial complex working on them. The Colonies have a few tens of millions of people with limited resources. What do you think, Lake?" The president turned to the NSA, Lake Rostow.
"I think we should check it out, sir. Could prove to be something here. This is either too fantastic to be true or not good for us. Either way I agree with Mike that we should check it out," National Security Advisor Lake replied.
"All right then. Draw up the mission plans and go do something and let me know how it goes. But in no circumstances are we to engage further than the current truce lines. The fighting stays in the gray zone," he ordered.
"Uh. Sir. We are planning to engage deeper than that today for Operation Bachelor Party."
"Who authorized this?"
"Uh. Sir. It has been in the brief for more than six months now." The sec def backpedaled a little. "You told us to get better intel on where the Reservation was getting its resupply and that you would authorize it."
"That's right, sorry, Conner. I do recall this well. If they are buying supplies from somebody in system or out they aren't paying taxes on it." Alberts recalled the brief from the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. One of the manufacturers in his district was certain the Separatists were buying arms, and not from legal vendors in the United States, which was bad for the economy. So the political action committee for the arms firm had their representative check into it. Nearly the entire state of Bolivia worked for that firm and reelection was coming up. "Okay. I remember that. What is happening with this Bachelor Party?"
"We are pushing the lines and attacking the submountains of Phlegra and are dropping-intelligence gathering sources there, sir. Deniable sources, sir."
"Right. And let me know what you find out so we can put a stop to this illegal arms trade and get Congressman Aldridge off my back."
Chapter 3
7:15 AM Mars Tharsis Standard Time
"The haulers are loaded and away, ma'am!" the commander of the air wing informed Elle of their status. The large space cargo haulers lifted lazily off the Umbra Spaceport in the northernmost region of the Reservation, where the Umbra region and the Boreosyrtis region met. General Elle Ahmi stood and tugged at the ski mask she always wore to hide her face. In her position, which for decades had been one of attacking and hiding like many of the great freedom fighters throughout history, keeping your true identity closely held was not only a good idea, but pretty much a requirement for survival. There was nobody within the Separatists—the Americans, as they liked to call themselves—who would betray the great general. But occasionally there had been attempts on her life by the CIA that kept her always on the alert and vigilant of the constant threat.
"Good, Commander." Elle looked up from the computer display in front of her at the control tower and checked the locations of the haulers on the radar. "The cloaking countermeasures are working, I assume." She looked out the window of the tower at the spaceships that were now drifting into the Martian night sky and slowly out of sight.
"As far as we can tell, ma'am, but until they engage the enemy we can't know for certain," he explained.
"Yes, I realize that. Any word from the carrier group?" the general asked.
"Yes. They are poised for hyperspace on your command, ma'am."
"The Exodus?" Today was a day of days and would be long remembered in the history books of the human race—that is, if all went according to plan.
"All is moving as planned, General."
"Excellent." The general pulled at the unruly long dark hair hanging out of the back of her ski mask and tied it into a ponytail, pulling it up through the hole she had made in the back of the ski mask. She often wore her hair in a ponytail if there was a chance that she would be seeing any action. The red, white, and blue mask contrasted against the black hair and pale Martian skin and her tall slender athletic frame misleadingly suggested late twenties or early thirties and an average Martian female, not the great general who held off the Invasion of the Martian Desert with an extremely inferior force in numbers and technology more than thirty years prior.