Christopher Nuttall: Invasion

He looked over at General Hastings. “General, I want you to start mobilising our forces as quietly as possible,” he continued. “For the moment, we’ll call it a drill and I’ll brief the Press and the Speaker of the House to that effect; later, once the news breaks, we can explain that it’s a simple precautionary measure. Colonel James…?”

Paul nodded. “Yes, Mr President?”

“I want you and your people to coordinate the response and to expand our defences as much as possible in the time we have,” the President said. “Again, keep it covert until the news breaks, but I want a plan for defending the country — and indeed the world — if it does come down to a fight.”

“Yes, Mr President,” Paul said. It wasn’t going to be easy. The most optimistic alien wargame he’d played had suggested that humanity was in for a hard time. “I won’t let you down.”

“We need to get some of our people onto the International Space Station,” Deborah said, bluntly. “Logically, the aliens will make First Contact on the station itself; they can’t just enter Earth orbit and ignore it. If we lifted a team of representatives onto the station, we would be in a good position to dominate talks with the aliens, without putting too many international noses out of joint.”

“The UN will demand that it takes the lead in talking to the aliens,” Spencer said. “How do we respond to that?”

“If the UN could agree on anything more significant than what to have for dinner, I might suggest leaving it in their hands,” General Hastings said. “As it is, they should come to some agreement a few years after we all die of old age.”

The President winced. Paul could almost follow his thoughts. He was a committed internationalist, but at the same time, half of his voter base would desert him if he considered handing the entire contact team over to the United Nations… and the Senate would scream for his impeachment. Republicans and Democrats alike would scream for his head and they’d probably get it. Even if he survived that, his chances of being re-elected would plummet like a stone; he certainly wouldn’t be nominated for the coming election.

“That’s something to discuss with the other great powers,” the President said, finally. “If the Security Council is in agreement about the issue, the remainder of the UN won’t have a say in it.” He stood up. “General, Colonel, I’ll want to see you two in a few days to discuss defence preparations. Tom, I want you to start looking for a suitable candidate to be our ambassador to the stars.”

He paused. “We will do everything in our power to avoid a war,” he concluded, “but if we have to fight, we will do everything we can to make a good account of ourselves. We have a mandate to defend America and that, my friends, is what we are going to do… or die trying.”

“So, there’s nothing you can tell me?”

Joshua Vote Bourjaily liked to think of himself as an ace reporter, a combination of Woodward and Bernstein, but the truth was that he was just a muckraker. He painted himself as having access to hundreds of sources within the military, but when pressed, even he had to admit that his sources weren’t high-ranking officials, but dissatisfied juniors who had a grudge against the military. It made for a handful of interesting scoops, but mostly… he just picked up rubbish.

“No,” Sergeant Ellsworth said. She’d been passed over for promotion at least twice, according to her, because someone else in her platoon had been sucking off the entire promotion board. Having met her in person — Joshua had learnt, quickly, that meeting sources in person was the only way to gauge their reliability — he suspected that the truth was that she was actually incompetent. “All I know is that we’ve been ordered to report to the barracks in a few days for possible deployment.”

She put the phone down; Joshua heard it click as he sat back in his tatted old armchair. He liked to think of his office as a headquarters, perhaps with a bodyguard and a sexy young secretary, but it was really a converted flat in the low-rent district of Austin City, Texas. A handful of filing cabinets, a pair of old computers — so old that they ran Windows 95 — and a single modern laptop took up most of the space; it had been months since anyone else had entered the office, or even the flat. It was cheaper than hiring a proper office… and it wasn’t as if he had any chance of gaining a proper position with a regular respectable newspaper. His blog might have a handful of devoted fans, but his reputation kept most major producers from even considering him as a source, let alone a regular employee. The newspaper industry was not a forgiving one and someone who had been discredited so comprehensively didn’t have a hope of employment. The fact that some reporters actually survived such an experience only added to Joshua’s hatred of the world. They got away with it because they were politically impossible to fire.

He didn’t see the notes in front of him for a long moment. He was too busy remembering. He’d been so certain of his source, so convinced that the source was telling the truth… and he’d impressed his editor enough to write the article. He should have known better; for three days, he’d been a hero… and then he’d become a laughing stock. The story of torture and rape committed by American soldiers had been detailed; too detailed. It had been easy to prove that the unit in question not only didn’t have any soldiers with the right names, but hadn’t been anywhere near Iraq — ever. Joshua’s memories of the next few days had become hazy, probably because he didn’t want to remember, but now… now he was a freelance reporter whom no one in authority would even consider using. All he could do was pick up titbits and try to pass them onwards.

The notes taunted him as he picked them up and read through them again. Joshua had realised, much to his own private surprise, that more soldiers, sailors and airmen were being recalled to duty than could reasonably be expected, even through there was a war on. His opinion of the military had never been high, even before he’d been used to smear every reporter in the United States, but even he had to concede that there was little reason for them to suddenly call up everyone in Texas. It was possible, of course, that it was just a drill, but Joshua knew that he would have heard rumours about it long before it began… and he hadn’t heard anything. It was as if the United States was, very quietly, preparing for war.

He’d wracked his brains trying to understand the reason why, but he’d come up with nothing. Normally, there would be storm clouds on the horizon, some kind of threat to America or American interests in the world, but there was nothing. Iran was behaving itself, Iraq had been quietening down for years, Russia was concentrating on consolidating it’s gains over the last few years… hell, there hadn’t even been an annual confrontation with China. It was possible that the country was actually on the verge of war, but he knew enough about the political game to know that it would have been leaked by now, by a politician eager to play the political game. The President would need to build up support for any policy… and he hadn’t been releasing warning notes, or insider briefings, or anything.

He looked back down at the notes again. He was careful never to store anything on computers these days; his enemies wouldn’t hesitate to hack into them to remove the data. Paper was inconvenient, but it had the advantage of being secure, unless someone actually broke into his office. He’d traced movements that didn’t quite add up. Additional Patriot batteries had been deployed around the region. Various USAF asserts had been placed on standby. Aircraft at USAF bases and Air National Guard bases were being armed with live weapons. That wasn’t so unusual in the days after 9/11, where everyone knew that one day they might have to shoot down a hijacked airliner before it became a weapon, but there were a lot of them. Army, navy and air force personnel activated suddenly and whisked off into the unknown. The entire country was gearing up for war… and he didn’t even have the slightest idea of who they intended to fight!