Jennifer forced herself to be calm and smile as she waved to the cameras. She looked at Michael who was doing neither. It seemed he was almost as excited as herself. He seemed to not even notice the large sea of reporters, their cameras going off, or their shouts of questions.
Of course the president would want the world to know he had successfully convinced them to join their ranks. Half the world thinks they are heroes and the other half thinks they need an eye kept on them. This way the president can claim he is doing both.
Jennifer of course didn’t care about any of that. She just wanted to see her daughter, who was inside waiting for her. She wished she could just rush inside, hold her daughter in her arms, and ensure she was really all right now. But she knew the importance of this game, so she continued to smile and wave for a few more seconds. At least she didn’t have to talk to the reporters, at least not until after the meeting.
After waving one last time, Jennifer turned and looked for the others. Michael was already inside, and was being forced to wait for everyone else. John was standing next to Rogalia and trying (unsuccessfully) to smile to the crowd.
Jennifer smiled at the site. John was not at all comfortable in this situation, but Rogalia seemed to love the attention. She had a big smile on her face and was waving enthusiastically to the crowd. She was even conversing with random people and giving them hugs, regardless if they really wanted one it seems.
Knowing they would only allow them to go up together, she walked over and forced Rogalia to follow her. It wasn’t until they were inside and away from the crowd that Jennifer realized how many military personnel were around. It was all for show. Their dress uniforms were a dead give away. The real protection came from the secret service agents, who were also numerous, but not nearly as obvious.
Several military officers escorted them down the hall of the pentagon. The building was strangely empty, obviously cleared just for them. The men marched them to a large conference room.
Everyone stood and watched the group walk in. Jennifer scanned the room with her eyes. There were a lot of people, most of whom she knew. The president was the most obvious one. She also recognized her husband, the Dr. Hadley (the national security advisor), the speaker of the house, standing next to a couple of senators from the national security committee, General Mac and several other high ranking generals were on the far end.
Finally Jennifer saw the person she was looking for. Myra smiled at her. Jennifer rushed forward, ignoring the president and senators that had placed their hands out to greet her. She took her daughter into her arms and hugged her tightly.
After a long while, she pulled herself back just far enough to look Myra in the eye. “Are you really ok?” she asked. “I mean are you still seeing…things?”
Myra smiled at her. “I’m fine,” she said. “I promise. Although it did make me sad I wasn’t a twin. I miss having someone I can talk to like that.”
Jennifer was a little hurt by those words, but she smiled to cover it up. It seems it didn’t work. Myra hugged her again saying, “I love you mom.”
“As funny as it would be to see the Generals cry,” the president said. “And I assure you they are nearly in tears after that display, I think we should be getting on with this meeting.”
“Yes, Mr. President. I agree,” Myra said.
“You said you have important information to share with us?” one of the senators asked Myra.
“Yes, I do, senator, but first things first,” Myra said. “I understand there has been a new development with the ships in orbit? Perhaps we should start there.”
The senators and speaker of the house looked at the president, eager to hear the news. “Yes, I think that would be prudent,” the president said. “General O’Neil, can you brief the room?”
“Yes sir,” the general said and went to the head of the room in front of the projector. He indicated to an assistant in the back and the projector changed to display telescope images. In the center of the image was a large white blob. “Here, you can see what appears to be a very large ship entering orbit,” he said.
“What is it?” Dr. Hadley asked.
“We don’t know,” he answered. “It is much larger then the ships we had been previously tracking. Our best guess is that it is some kind of command ship.”
“Does that mean they are ready to invade in earnest?” the president asked.
“We have no way of knowing, sir,” the general replied. “But that is a distinct possibility, one that is made more likely by the next image.”
The image on the projector changed. It displayed another telescope image, this time of several blurry white dots, smaller than the first, but still quite large. “Here we can see several other ships entering orbit,” the general said. “These ships are much larger than the current set of ships, but much smaller than the ship from the previous image.”
“In addition,” the general continued, “they seem to come in two different shapes. One is shaped similar to the other ships, only longer and larger. The other has a small main body and two throngs extending from them. They look like really big tuning forks.”
“How many of them are there?” Michael asked.
The general looked at Michael, as if he wasn’t sure he should answer his question. “Twelve of the normal shaped ones and 7 of the tuning forked shaped ships,” he replied reluctantly.
“What is the purpose of these ships? What exactly are we facing here?” the president asked.
Myra answered before anyone else could, “Rogalia is familiar with these ships,” she said.
Everyone looked at Myra and Myra looked at Rogalia. Soon everyone followed suite. Rogalia hesitated to answer, Jennifer suspected because she was enjoying the attention it brought her.
“Are you familiar with these ships dear?” one of the senators said.
“Yes,” Rogalia replied. “They use the same ships to invade my world, and then the Kult’s world.”
“Perhaps you can help explain exactly what we are dealing with,” the general said. “What are these ships capable of? What weapons do they have?”
“The largest ship has a lot of missiles on board,” Rogalia explained. “They can be fired at ground targets, or at other ships. It also has a lot of shuttles for transporting soldiers to and from the ground. The other ships are similar, only less capable. The tuning fork ships, however, are different…”
“How so?” Michael asked.
“Well they are designed to shoot large rocks to the planet’s surface,” she said.
“So they are going to throw rocks at us?” General Mac said. “That doesn’t sound so bad.” Rogalia looked at him as if he was clearly missing something. Jennifer also noticed John had the same look.
“The effects can be quite devastating,” Rogalia said.
“Did they use this weapon against your home?” the speaker of the house asked.
“No. Not against my home,” Rogalia replied.
“Rogalia’s people are pacifist,” Myra explained. “They would have surrendered, and there fore there was no reason for the Biaz to bombard them. However, the Kult’s are far from being pacifist.” She looked at Rogalia with a slight bit of regret at asking the next question, “I believe you are familiar with the Biaz invasion of the Kult’s home world are you not?”
“Yes,” Rogalia said. She hesitated, but forced herself to continue. “These tuning fork ships…”
“We call them rail guns,” John interrupted. Everyone glanced at him. They then turned their attention back to Rogalia and waited for her to continue.
“These rail guns are capable of destroying an entire city with one impact,” she said. “It devastated the Kult’s world. They destroyed every city great and small on the planet.”
Everyone was shocked into silence. Even those that knew the devastation the rail guns could bring were still horrified at the image of it happening to their own cities. Everyone stayed silent for a long time.
It was the president that finally broke the silence, “How do we stop them?” he asked. The room answered with silence. “There has to be some way,” he said after he was sure he wasn’t going to get an answer.
“We will start working on it immediately sir,” the general said.
“How long do we have until they start bombing us?” Secretary Stone asked.
“Well,” Rogalia started. “Usually they gather the rocks from the local system. It’s easier then bringing them with the ships. That takes some time.”
“How long?” General Mac asked.
“A few weeks usually. It really depends on how easy it is to find the rocks,” Rogalia answered.
“Good, that should be plenty of time to mount some kind of defense,” General Mac said.
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