Gordon Knox glanced at a paper and read, "Supply train hit by Red Hands last August outside of Cheyenne Wells. Ten I.S. agents killed and the train crew. Double that number in Red Hand bodies recovered. In November the garrison at Pueblo took a beating during a night raid by Red Hands. Another dozen people killed and ten more missing, probably taken by the Feranites."
Omar exhaled a ball of smoke and said, "I thought these aliens were of a kind to stay in one place."
Trevor said, "You’re right, Omar."
Omar stuck a finger in his ear, wiggled it, and begged, "Would you mind repeating that, my ears may have not heard what it is you said."
Trevor ignored the quip. "The Hivvans are adding long-range tanks to their Screamers, the Red Hands have changed from stationary tribes to nomads. And here we are, building giant air ships. Guess it’s true, life adapts."
"Got to be a lot them," Dante suggested. "Probably headed into the mountains last winter and are on the move again. I don’t have the manpower to-"
Trevor cut off Dante as he turned to Jon Brewer and ordered, "Handle this. A regular military unit. Can’t have that many of those bastards running around on our territory."
"First Cavalry is on it. Dustin will track them down. It might take a while, but he’ll do it."
"Hey, isn’t this my area?" Dante’s reaction sounded both hurt and angry.
Trevor answered, "That many Red Hands is a job for the military, not Internal Security. You’ve got enough to worry about, like the Tambourine line. What’s the status?"
Dante shifted uneasily.
Gordon Knox offered the answers Dante lacked: "Intelligence’s part of the deal is about done. We’ve finished the last stretch of sonar buoys along the Carolina coast. The stuff south and north of that, you know, has been on line for months. Now the computers are fully integrated, my people made sure of that. The last piece of the puzzle is the final batch of staffing in the control centers and the ground-based radar systems."
Trevor’s eyes went to Dante who explained, "Man, it’s been tough finding the right people for this; tech people. Hell, I don’t even know how half this shit works."
Omar-perhaps emboldened by Trevor having told him he had been right about something-joined the conversation, "Mr. Jones, it is not for your people to be worrying about the bolts and the nuts of this thing. If they have eyes they can see the radar sweeps and listen to the lovely little pings of the sonar."
Brewer said, "The Tambourine line is a big part of our defense program. If that isn’t going to be on line then I don’t feel good sending the Philippan to California."
Dante countered, "What difference does that make? The Tambourine line is an early warning system, it’s not armed."
Gordon pointed out, "Right now the Philippan is part of a surveillance network guarding the east coast until the tambourines are on line. At that point, it can go. But if the tambourine line doesn't become operational we need to keep it here as part of that network." Jones' next excuse: "I don’t have enough staff for the main monitoring station in DC." Brewer answered, "You don’t need a main monitoring station in DC. Just keep it compartmentalized." "I’ve got a bunch of politicians who want it in D.C. And guess what, buddy, they control the financing for this thing."
Knox said, "For God’s sake, tough it out man and tell those politicians where to go stick it. Who’s in charge of Internal Security? Dante Jones or Evan Godfrey?"
Trevor held a hand aloft. When the cross talk subsided he said, "Dante, finish up your end. Quick. I need Hoth’s ship out west. I don’t care how you do it, get it done." Dante opened his mouth, paused, exhaled a quick burst of disgust, then shut his mouth. Trevor pushed things forward saying, "Okay. California. We’re going to war. At least that’s how I’d bet." Dante found his voice again: "That’s it, just straight to war? Did you talk to them?"
"Yes, I talked to them. I made the same offer I made last month and the month before that. Now our troops are at their border. We’ve reached the tipping point."
Lori used a soft, reserved voice, "They don’t want to go through the runes? They refuse?"
Stanton ran a hand through what little hair he had left and observed, "Now wait, isn’t there a log jam on going through those? Don’t we still have Hivvan and Duass prisoners?"
"We’ve got another three months, at least, to go before all the prisoners we have are through," Dante, told them. "We take them in small groups because I don’t have enough people to provide security for large groups. Probably another six or seven thousand sitting in prisons in Pennsylvania and Maryland."
Trevor did not want to get bogged down by talk of the runes. Everyone at the table knew the two mystical pillars had been retrieved from the Arctic Circle by Jon Brewer almost five years ago, an action that had shut down the alien gateways while the runes themselves still offered a one-way ticket home for those same aliens.
The runes were not the issue. The Cooperative was.
"The people in charge over there have their heads so far up the Witiko’s asses they can’t see daylight. There’s no choice. I’ll issue an ultimatum and then we invade. Jon, break it down, what are we facing. The big picture, not the details."
"We’ll be facing a combination of human and Witiko forces. The human groups have Witiko advisors and officers. We’re thinking about thirty combat-ready air superiority fighters and one small company of helicopter gunships, mainly Super Cobras."
"On the ground?"
"Between twenty and twenty-five thousand troops broken up between garrisons and rapid deployment forces. The Cooperative’s ground forces have a strong center core of law enforcement and National Guard troops but they also have a nice chunk of raw recruits."
Lori said, "A lot like us."
Jon defended, "Yeah, well, we’ve been fighting for ten years now, we’ve got two academies, and good training programs. The ground troops in California haven’t been well trained and their equipment is getting old."
"Of course," Trevor told them. "The Witiko don’t want the human armies becoming too strong. The fewer, the better. Less of a threat. Might just bite them in the ass now, though."
Brewer continued, "They don’t have a lot of heavy weapons or armor. Most of that was wiped out when they were fighting the Witiko. Bottom line is that the ground forces aren’t going to be a big deal. First Corp by itself could probably do the deal on the ground. Throw in Prescott’s Second Corp coming in from Arizona and we’ll be able to overwhelm them."
Jon’s words spoke of an easy victory. His eyes told a different story as he glanced at Knox. The Director of Intelligence grasped another page in a stack of papers, coughed, and began his report.
"The Witiko have a dozen Stingray cruisers in their arsenal. We believe two of these are non-operational and are being farmed for spare parts. On the ground, the Witiko have small infantry units integrated into human battalions. They also get a kind of close air support from their Skytroops."
He glanced around the room as if to ensure everyone heeded his next words.
"Skytroops are individual soldiers who use jet back packs. It sounds funny, but you won’t think it so when they launch an anti-tank or anti-air missile at you or drop a grenade on your head before disappearing behind a building. Most Skytroops are officers, are heavily armed and capable. There are reports of individual Skytroopers taking out Blackhawks and even attack choppers during the California war."
Although Trevor already knew most of the details, he told Knox to, "Go on."