Christopher Nuttall: Invasion

“I’m afraid so,” the Colonel said. “This isn’t a drill. Ideally, you won’t have anything to do and all of these are just precautions, but if you have to act as stay-behind units, you’re going to find yourselves in the rear lines.”

There were some nervous chuckles. SF34 had been tasked as a stay-behind unit, but it had been generally accepted that they wouldn’t be staying behind in their own country; after all, America was generally impregnable. The war-gamers came up with endless contingency plans, but barring a Mexican invasion or a major civil upheaval, no one seriously expected to be operating behind enemy lines, on American soil. The closest any of them had come to such operations had been special — and highly classified — operations in Iraq. Aliens, on the other hand, might actually be able to invade America directly, something that no nation possessed the power to do.

“Hopefully,” the Colonel continued, once he had fielded a handful more questions, “you won’t have anything to do. However, you will spend the rest of this week working on covert operations procedures in the event of America falling under enemy attack.”

“Madness,” Brent said, shaking his head. “Are you sure it’s not a drill?”

Another soldier had a different question. “When is the President going to tell the nation?”

“We suspect in a few days at most,” the Colonel said. “We want to get as many of the preparations completed, out of the public eye, as possible before it hits the news channels. Once it does, there is going to be a panic , and when that happens…”

He didn’t bother to elaborate. “I’ll hold individual conferences with you over the next few days to sort out final preparations,” he concluded. “If nothing else, this will make for a particularly interesting exercise.”

“The shit’s about to hit the fan,” Deborah Ivey said, cheerfully, as she swept into the Oval Office. “We’ve had calls from a dozen major media outlets and other such bastards demanding to know just what the fuck is going on. I think we’re going to have to come clean about the aliens, chief.”

The President eyed her balefully. Deborah’s ability to swear like a drunken trooper never creased to irritate him. Days spent arguing with various world leaders about disclosure, let alone a united front to confront the aliens, hadn’t done anything for his mood. The Europeans and the Japanese wanted to move to informing the public, while the Chinese and the Russians wanted to keep it to themselves, for the moment. The NSA had informed the President, covertly, that the Chinese in particular were working overtime to block out the news, even to the point of restricting the Internet use rights of foreign-owned companies. He was morbidly certain that the Chinese, and probably everyone else as well, were already trying to communicate with the aliens.

“I see,” he said, finally. Deborah’s intelligence was both an asset and a curse. “How much do they know?”

“They’re pretty much figured out that we’ve calling a covert mobilisation… and that most of the other world governments are doing the same,” Deborah informed him. “No one has actually dropped the A-word yet, but ten gets you twenty that the thought has crossed their minds… and they might even be considering using it in public.”

The President smiled thinly. “How long do you think we have?”

“A day, at most, before it leaks out,” Deborah said. “It’s probably going to leak out from Europe — their security is pretty much crap — but as we brief more and more of our own people, we increase the likelihood of a leak from our side as well. If one of the national governments goes public…”

The President nodded. “Contact the Press Office, then,” he said. “Tell them that I want to reserve a slot on all of the national networks — normal conditions — for this evening. Get in touch with the various Governors and tell them that we’re going public, so they have to put their people on alert for any panic, and then tell Tom that he is to inform the other governments…”

Deborah frowned. “You really think that there’ll be a panic?”

“I don’t know,” the President said. “Young James couldn’t give me any real production, but as far as I am concerned? We’re in uncertain — uncharted — waters… and God alone knows what’s going to happen when we drop this little bombshell on the world.”

“The President and Governor Rollins appealed for calm in the wake of a further set of panic-buying riots and further chaos in the streets of New York,” the talking head said, speaking from a television set into the room. She would have been pretty under more natural lighting. “This has had no apparent effect on the rioters and the NYPD has warned that it might be necessary to call out the National Guard for additional crowd control.”

There was a long pause. “The riots are, of course, in the wake of the President’s announcement, subsequently confirmed by the foremost observatories, of an alien starship heading towards Earth,” she continued, just in case someone had just joined the program. “A wave of panic-buying has swept America, with food, drink and guns being purchased right across the country. Senator Hanks, in response to the crisis, has criticized the President’s decision to inform the country of the alien ship and has demanded that the President face a special session of the Senate to explain his actions. In the meantime, marchers demanding a peaceful meeting with the aliens clashed with marchers demanding military preparations and had to be separated with water cannons…”

Paul picked up the remote control and silenced the television before the talking head — he couldn’t even remember her name — could offer any further inanities on the Meaning Of It All. America — hell, the entire world — seemed to have gone crazy in the wake of the announcement; people were, as the talking head had said, were panicking and rioting. Millions of citizens had fled the cities for the countryside, while millions more intended to remain where they were to greet the aliens personally… and the rest of the world wasn’t much better. The Arab states had attempted to conceal the presence of the alien craft from their people, but the rest of the world knew… and, thanks to the Internet, so did most of the Arabs. Censorship was much harder these days; the Russians and the Chinese had sealed their borders and were mobilising, just in case. The President had been talking to them, trying to get some kind of common agreement on dealing with the aliens, but they were both playing their cards very close to their chests.

He scowled and returned to the reports on his desk. The President’s decision to appoint him defence coordinator for the United States, in the event of an alien invasion, had been an inspired one, in his opinion. If he’d had an unlimited budget and a few years, he could have ensured the entire world’s safety against the alien starship, all one hundred kilometres of it. He had barely two weeks left before the alien craft reached Earth orbit and, in that time, he knew that there wasn’t going to be any new technology for deployment. America — and the rest of the world — had to work with what was on the shelf, and he knew, better than anyone else, that the cupboard was almost bare. It was ironic; he was, in effect, a General… with hardly any forces under his command.

The deployment of THAAD missiles, including the latest configuration designed for satellite interception — as well as a limited BMD role — was proceeding apace. Unfortunately, the United States had agreed to a cap in the number of viable ASAT missiles after China had deployed a working ASAT system of its own, and while production had been intensified, he knew that there weren’t going to be more than a few hundred missiles at most by the time the aliens arrived. Patriot missile batteries and Air Defence Artillery had been deployed around the country, linked into a ground-based communications system that would allow their efforts to be coordinated even if the satellites were lost, but again… he wasn’t convinced of their effectiveness. He’d attempted to get the shuttles rigged up as gunships, but only one shuttle was available and that craft had already been assigned to a role, ferrying the diplomats to the ISS. He hadn’t even tried to have the ISS armed; the consortium operating the station would never have agreed to have it armed to the teeth.