I would like to thank Sable Cold for taking on the impressive job of being the Beta Reader for this book. As always reviews are welcome. If you find this is easier to read and follow. Thank Sable Cold and all of his hard work

I do not own Battlestar Galactica or have any connection with them, other than I have seen the shows. And it was a long time ago. I also do not own or have input into the game of Rifts. I don't even play the game. But I do own copies of some of the books, and I have used them for this story.

Chapter 42: Stressful nights and days for the world

Earth End of Oct 2019

Over the next few days and weeks, things quieted down in that part of the word. Well, no one was shooting large numbers of cruise missiles again. So it was at least that kind of quiet. It was still very tense, but still quiet nonetheless. The area was searched and searched again by search and rescue planes, helicopters and surface craft from many different nations from around the globe. The nerve center for this effort at first had been out of Tahiti but soon they were overwhelmed, and the larger command center in Pearl Harbor had to be used to effectively do the work.

Each and every craft's search pattern was first sent to the Colonials for approval if they came within the twenty-mile limit they claimed as a military exclusion zone. They never vetoed a search plan from Tahiti and Pearl Harbor. That didn't mean that they were not keeping an eye on things. More to the point, they were letting the locals know that they were keeping an eye on things that were going on around them. Three hundred lives were saved by these search patterns, and not all of them had been part of the attack.

The Chinese junior and senior leadership were not talking to anyone publicly after the Colonials told the world that they had beaten off the attack. When the only known surviving warship that had been part of the attack made port in Tahiti, the news caused tensions to flare up again all around the world. Seeing a warship being towed into a public harbor with its stern completely blown off? That kind of proof made it hard to deny one of the major story points. Images of ships moving around the open sea could be interpreted many different ways.

When a fleet of 18 ships flagged or otherwise known to belong to the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy were photographed dropping anchor off Ford Island, the story blew up all over again. It seems that a lot of people did not like the idea of over 40,000 armed to the teeth Chinese military personnel inside a US military base. They outnumbered the total army and marine personnel on the whole island chain by almost 4 to 1. When it leaked out that the president had okay'ed the idea but barred the transfer of additional US or Allied military personnel into the area or the whole state for that matter, the rumblings started and quickly turned into a tidal wave. A very blue state of Hawaii was now not supporting the blue head of office in DC. Even the battle between the Department of State and the Department of the Interior had mud being thrown everywhere.

After three court filings from different states and a few offshore governments, the President ordered the Chinese personnel and equipment to be sent back to their country. That was what she had wanted to do in the first place and now she felt she could get away with this directive, even if it was against the wishes of half a dozen of her usual supporters from around the world. It was what her contact with the Chinese government had wanted, anyway.

When that made the rounds in the news networks not even a dozen hours after she had given her people their marching orders, the Colonials publicly threatened to never trade with the United States again. This had not sat well with Henna and she didn't care this time what the polls said. She reissued the orders. Then the leak of her reissued orders happened again, along with information about her repeat order on the transfers of troops and ships to that state. It started a minor firestorm on a few political news shows.

That was when the Battlestar Pegasus showed up in the patch of space used as jump point by the transports coming to and from the island. This had not gone over well with the governments, militaries, academe, and general public of Earth. Backyard telescopes showed the new arrival slipping into an orbit that made the huge warship glow even in the daytime. The idea of an almost two kilometer long space going warship parked in orbit over one's home, now that has a way of getting the point across that someone is not very happy with someone else who lived on the surface. It also was one that did not need any particularly special skill or equipment to understand. As it turned out, that was only the beginning of the statement the Colonials were giving to certain people on the planet.

The upgraded Mercury-class battlestar was carrying Laura Roslin to the blue planet while the Admiral stayed with the rest of the fleet and its refugees in the slowly growing system that held New Kobol. She demanded a meeting with the whole UN Assembly. She made it a point to say that she, and the warship, were not going to move. At least, not until this meeting she was demanding happened. It was just 'bad luck' that the general assembly was on vacation when she arrived.

It was going to take almost a week to get everyone back to New York City. That took some explaining but in the end, Laura agreed to the delay. She was still not going anywhere though. And no, she was not going to move her warship to the dark side of the Moon while she waited for the UN to gather its flock. She wanted the whole planet to know that the Colonials had a big hammer if they chose to use it. To date, the Colonials had been mostly carrot, now it was time to show off part of the big stick. How much stick was going to be shown? That would depend on the governments on the planet's surface. More than a few worldwide news shows would start their broadcast with the number of first the hours then the days that the huge warship was sitting over their heads.

It did not take long for everyone to get used to seeing the massive warship hovering over the planet day and night. The massive ship could be seen on a clear night by about a third of the population of the whole world. Her mere presence caused both a run on telescopes and long-term storage supplies at the same time. Then things changed again, and hearts stopped beating for the people who either saw what happened or knew about it as it was happening.

That was the day China decided to launch a Long March 4B out of the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center without letting anyone know about it beforehand. It just showed up on one satellite pass over the launch tower, with its covering in place to protect both the launch vehicle and its attached satellite. The craft had been preparing to launch a Chinese resource satellite and a Shijian communication satellite, but the recent actions in the South Pacific had put that launch on hold for the time being. That was all publicly posted information, and it was wrong. It was very much a surprise launch of a forty-five meter tall liquid fueled beast.

In the command center of the great Colonial battlestar every head came up and turned to the nearest screen. "Large missile launch, from the restricted area!"

Lee Adama did not look at Laura standing not far from him. He only shot a quick look to his second in command. "Action stations! And get the birds out of the barn." Lee did not have to raise his voice for it carry to the needed ears.

With the orders given, Lee took the few steps he needed to close the distance to his boss. "Looks like they didn't believe Colonel Bellamy's statement that China was not to have access to orbit. Do I go with my orders?"

Laura just gave a slight nod, and Lee gave a tight lipped nod in return. With a slight turn of Lee's head, he nodded to an officer standing a few feet away. That was all that needed to be done for the published orders to be followed. They were going to show even more of the stick to this planet. It was hoped that it would not be taken as a threat, just that the Colonials should be taken at their word when they said something. The light carrier was still hiding behind the moon with her full strike package. She would have to come off station soon to give her crew a break. That was going to cause a break in space coverage for at least a few months.

With the great warship throwing out Vipers and Raptors at a full combat rate, it was going to be the first time that the people of Earth would see a part of the firepower of a Colonial battlestar. Images and recordings had already flooded the internet with what a few dozen of these small craft could do. They had images of sinking warships and very detailed images of blasted missile silos and burned out missile support bases. All of that damage had been done by a small handful of Colonial combat craft.

Now, a solid looking wave of Vipers supported by larger Raptors was filling the local space at an amazing rate. The numbers of combat craft were enough to have made a Cylon Basestar uncomfortable. What it did to the locals below who only had seen what a few dozen craft total had done to a major military power on the planet was significant. There were a lot of people who were now feeling a lot worse than uncomfortable as they watched. There were a lot of people holding their breaths as a level of firepower that they could barely wrap their minds around rushed into view on screens around the world.

It was one of these Vipers that popped the now much smaller upper stage of the Long March rocket like a zit on teenager's forehead. Just to be sure, the same Viper pilot took out the burnt out first stage as well. It was still in a lowish orbit around the planet. The last shot was just in case the Chinese were playing a game with it. When the energy bloom had dissipated from the two orbital bodies, there was nothing big enough to track on the largest or most sensitive of devices known to man in orbit or on the planet's surface. It was like they had never been there. The only proof of the incident was on all of the tracking radar data tapes, larger flashes of impacts, and the images of the launch and orbital flight. It was going to be a very well-studied event in what not to do against the Colonials when it came to space combat.

When no additional high-powered launches were detected coming from the half dozen different sites all around China after that, things calmed down a little. Still, a full twenty Vipers stayed on CAP around the massive warship. This amount of firepower was always kept out there as long as the battlestar was in orbit. Besides covering the warship, they were keeping a close eye on what might be going on all around the planet below them.

There was many a world leader who was worried about the craft overhead. More than a few of them would take the opportunity to visit their nearest deep underground bunkers whenever their militaries or intelligence services told them of a pending overflight by one of the smaller Colonial craft. Little did most of those leaders know, the craft were using a special piece of kit to make sure that that the locals knew they were overhead.

This did have an effect of lighting a fire under governments that had been dragging their feet about coming back for the UN General Assembly. Laura had wanted to just broadcast her statement to the UN, but at the last minutes she changed her mind. She would be giving her statement in person to the political players and the press all at one time. The two Raptors that separated from the warship were escorted by four Vipers in close. They were never farther than a quarter of a kilometer from the two larger Raptors. Another group of four Vipers were a few kilometers away from the lower group acting as their own CAP.

The two Raptors were able to land on top of the UN building. One was filled with black body armored and oddly armed combat troops. Only half of them were to stay on the roof and protect the rides home. This did not make the security people at the UN very happy but the Colonials could care less about their feelings. Half a dozen protectors walked with the President off of the roof and deeper into the building.

Laura walked to the podium without a noticeable armed escort. As soon as she seemed like she was ready to make her statement, the Russian and Chinese ambassadors walked out of the room in protest of her people's actions. It was supposed to be insulting to the speaker, but Laura could care less about them. They did not matter to her.

She looked levelly around the room and spoke in English. This sent the first shockwaves around the room. "I would like to thank the Secretary General for recalling you all to this meeting. As has been reported, my people were attacked by a member of this body. It was also supported in that attack by other members of this body." She had just slapped them in the face with the gauntlet. It had the effect that she was going for.

Laura had to stop talking as what she said was translated to the different members. When she felt enough time had passed, she continued. "As a result of this massive act of aggression done to us by a political group on this planet, we now must take additional precautions against any future attack by any other local group. The attack was defeated without any loss of life among my people. That does not mean that we did not take damage from the thousand missiles and aircraft that were launched at us."

Laura was given a notice on the teleprompter by a UN staff member to give the translators a few extra seconds to catch up to her speaking. She made eye contact and waited for a few seconds again. "Now how will we do this? At first, we had only asked for a twenty nautical mile military exclusion zone around the islands we control. And even this was violated many times. Now I have ordered my onsite commander to enforce a one hundred nautical mile exclusion zone around the island, and that no warship, military airplane, or drone would be allowed to sail or fly through that area. Not unless it belongs to one of the local governments in the area. They will be cleared by a local government and they will be responsible for their other actions or as approved by the local Colonial commander. If anyone or anything crosses that line, the Colonial military has been ordered to shoot first and ask questions... maybe later."

Now Laura could tell who had understood her, and who really needed a translator. She knew that her statement was not what this group was used to hearing. Laura looked over her glass at the room and allowed a cold smile to come to her face. When she could tell that everyone understood clearly what she had just told them, that her military had been given a shoot on sight order against anything that was remotely military within a huge distance of their territory, she tilted her chin up and now let them understand where this body stood in her eyes. "It is up to the UN to pass a resolution, and I don't care if you back us or the people who attacked us. This is the way it is going to be."

She slammed the flat of her palm on the hard wood top, and it sounded like a gunshot across the room. "My people will be taken care of. If we have to do it ourselves? Well, we have done something like that before and we can do it again. And the UN can go fly a kite or cry in their beers. I do not care which one you do."

The whole assembly was now quiet. All eyes were on her and she was not done yet. "I should be directing this to a certain two ambassadors, but they seem to have had a pressing need to go to the bathroom. The Russian submarine Arkhangelsk and the Chinese submarine numbered 407, she is a Type 093 class, need to get out of our already claimed waters. Before they need to start doing checks in their hulls for sudden occurring leaks." Roslin was now in full on head chopping mode, and she let them have it with both tubes. She kept going with her verbal assault, transmitted live to a few billion people around the planet.

The whole UN was stunned at the remarks she was giving to them. She had gone after two of the largest and most powerful of this world's powers. Both just happened to be armed with hundreds of nuclear weapons. She had just told them to back off or her people will blast them not only out of the water but anywhere else. By the tone of voice she had used, she thought that they could do it too. When she walked off the stage a pin drop could have been heard in the huge room. Over the next few hours, several of the smaller power block countries around the world let it be known that they supported these Colonials of Kobol after her speech.

Laura and her staff were not able to return back up to the building's top deck unmolested this time. Someone in the UN had taken a nice little bribe to leak out the path the Colonials were using as they exited the UN building. That meant that the press was waiting in ambush for their elusive prey when she walked off the stage and headed back to their ride home.

One of the more environmentally focused internet 'reporters' was the first one in their path and he jumped out in front of the group of Colonials forcing them to stop in their tracks. He did not know how close he had almost come to being the first known reporter killed in the UN building. Tory's Cylon quick reactions worked out that he had a microphone in his hands instead of a weapon. All before he had even opened his mouth to say a word.

That did not mean that he almost didn't get shot a second time for the dumb question that then flew out of his mouth. Tory's opinion put him in the category of people so dumb they should not be allowed or even given the chance to try to procreate. If she had been a little more tired, she might have done just that. Then again, she had been told that she had mellowed some over the last few years.

"What is the Colonial government going to do about cleaning up the mess that they made in the ocean near their claimed waters?"

The sweaty, long haired man in baggy clothes shouted and tried to shove a felt covered a mic in Laura's face. He had to snake it around the iron strong arm Tory had thrown up as a blocking maneuver. The maneuver had not worked as well as he had hoped it would. Even his hat mounted camera's view was blocked by the other woman.

Troy stepped in front of the 'reporter' a little more to block his renewed attempt to get access to her boss. It was her job to handle the press, and it didn't matter if it was on this planet or Colonial. So, with a sweet smile she countered the question that had been yelled.

"By mess, I take it you're referring to the Chinese ships that attacked us?" She gave the man a level look and waited to see how he would move next. She had a good idea what his next move was going to be, but one never knows with people this dumb.

The sweaty man was trying to get his microphone away from the unknown woman blocking him and to his real target. The target that he knew would end up paying his bills for the next few months. That is, if he could get her on tape with any kind of statement. But every way he tried to twist, the dark-skinned woman was already blocking that route. It was almost like she could read his mind and acted before he could finish moving. And he was running out of time before others of his kind found them. Finally, he voiced his reply to the woman. He was hoping that while she was distracted, he could get at his real target.

"No! I'm talking about the environmental damage that your actions are causing to our fragile oceans!"

Tory's smile was picked up by a second news crew that had just showed up behind the quicker web reporter. Now it was time to hammer him flat. "Why don't you ask the Chinese Government? They're Chinese ships, and they fired first on us. I know that I have not seen their environmental impact statements. So I have no idea how the Chinese will fix this Chinese caused problem in the planet's oceans around the Trading Outpost."

The reporter was doing the dead fish thing with his lips. He had not expected this response. Then he opened his mouth again. "But, but! You have to do something! The oceans!"

Tory gave an odd mix of an evil and sly smile. "Chinese choices, Chinese decisions, Chinese consequences. Go ask them about how they plan to fix the environmental damage you are referring to. I would suggest that you list it in detail what you want, but you might need to use small words. We have found out in our dealings with them that something like that works best. Besides we have already been helping with the local environment around our islands. We have stopped the shark poaching and other illegal fishing in our waters. We have even let two of your environmental groups come into our waters to tag and track some of the larger species of water animals. They have even asked to come back, but we have sent them a message that any return trips will have to wait until after things have settled down. We have a fear for their safety. Particularly if another massive missile attack is launched at us while they are doing their work."

The group of Colonials turned almost as one person and pushed their way through the now quiet crowd of reporters and camera people. The Raptors and their escort of Vipers took off and flew back up to the battlestar without further incident. The pair of fifty ton craft stayed low as they flew out of the harbor so that more people could see them. As soon as they were outside of visual range, the group of Colonial craft were soon at a more normal speed.

Lee Adama had made contact with a few select people down on the planet's surface and made arrangements for them to come up and visit the ship. All of those people were pre-screened by Charles's staff a few months ago. Very few people were going to say no to a ride into orbit, much less to a tour of a massive interstellar warship. They would be picked up by Raptors at a not very public area, and they would be returned after the meetings and tours were done to those same undisclosed locations.

One of these people was Ruth and she was allowed to bring a small four person film crew of her choosing. These tours were done so quietly that even that the US State Department did not know that two people from NASA had gone up to the Colonial warship. That is, until a few days after they had gotten back down when they filed their reports about a contact with a foreign power, and then only after the reports had made their way through the good old boys' network. This information made it all the way to the head of NASA, who happened to be the Vice President of the United States during those days. For something the size of NASA, that was almost faster than the speed of light.

Then the Vice President made a mistake and let his boss know about the unauthorized trip of government personnel into outer space. After the first few missions to help the ISS, the President had quietly but very firmly said this type of event would not happen again. The two members of NASA's current astronaut class taking some time off from work on short notice had not gone over well with Henna. Then again, it had been on their off time. The word reached her that they had not been the only ones invited to see the Colonial ship in orbit.

The US President was not a happy woman. She was getting hammered in the polls, and she had to be in this meeting. She had missed this one before, and on most days in fact she would find something else that she felt was a better use of her valuable time. Then somehow, this fact had been leaked to the press and there had been some major backlash. She was still looking to plug that leak. She was leaning more and more towards using the lead or rope kind of plugging as the leaks went on.

More and more people were openly disagreeing with her stance of no support from the US government going to these Colonials. She had stopped all military to military goodwill joint exercises between her military and the Colonials after the Chinese altercation. If she could get out of the mess with the Chinese ships, she would and while trying to keep the details out of the press. The term for what she had ordered done to the Colonials was 'freezing out'. She thought it had worked well for her in the past as Secretary of State. After all, it had worked every other time that she had used this tactic on a person, group, or government.

If she had known that the CIA was heading up the supply runs to those same Colonials she did not like, she would have blown a gasket and might have had someone's head on a platter not long after finding out. All she knew was that the CIA was 'running operations' in the area. The head of the CIA filed this bit of information under, "what she did not know of, she could not hurt". The head of the CIA was appointed by Henna, but his deputy was not. She was the one that kept the details of how they were getting information about the Colonials and other items off the island. She had seen too many operations blown by political appointees in the past. They had no idea that they were kind of working together for the same reason. Sometimes things like that happen in the intelligence world.

The head of the CIA, the whole cabinet, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were in this meeting with the elected leader of their country. He was here to show off what the CIA had been able to get access to and test. All because of the secret support to the Colonials. When the President took her seat, the lights went down and video of not the best quality started playing on the huge screen at one end of the room and on both sides. The video had been taken during nighttime and a firefight could be seen in the background as a black clad person went running by. The camera person dropped behind a kind of barricade and kept filming the black clad monster heading towards the sound of gunfire.

The Director of Central Intelligence started to talk. He had no idea that some of the people in this room had seen this video months before. Those people were wondering how the head of the CIA was going to cover certain points of facts. A few of them had tried to get a sneak peek at his notes, but they still had nothing when he started talking. The video continued playing with the background noise now clearly coming out of the speakers.

"This is a recording of the fifth attack on the Tahiti pier that the supply runs going out to the Colonials transit through. The person is in Colonial body armor, and the same is true of this person's weapons that they had somehow traded for the use of. We think that this was on the premise that they needed it for protection against attacks. They were proven to be right. The armor this person is seen wearing is lighter than what a SWAT or any Special Forces unit currently has on the field or in testing. The incoming fire is from M-16's and AK-47's, and as you can see..."

The briefer stopped talking and then paused the video at a point where there were visible impacts on the front and sides of the dark body armor. The briefer pointed out a few of the brighter flashes on the still image before continuing the playback.

"As you can see, the body armor was hit and the person that was wearing the body armor did not feel the impacts of the repeated incoming weapons fire."

The video showed more and more bullets turning to dust upon contact with the black cloth. They seemed to be just turning into puffs of light colored dust. The battle was seen to last about three minutes from start to finish. Its primary purpose was to show how many different hits the armor could take, and still allow person wearing it to return fire. This was helped by a counter superimposed on the screen ticking off with each puff of dust.

What was not said, maybe it was because it would have gone over the head of most of the people in this room, was that the current generation body armor was rated to take three to four hits from an AK-47 type weapon in the same area while still keeping the person in a functional state. That meant they might be able to breath but they would not be able to fight after those hits. They saw this armor get hit by battle rifle scale weapons fire way into the double-digit number of times in only a handful of minutes. At no time did the person in black armor try to take cover, or slow down in delivering return fire.

The next images playing on the larger TV's were of a man in the same body armor with the helmet off in a nice, bright, metal walled room. The person smiled a big toothy grin as he patted the armor, in the process sending copper colored dust floating in the well-lit room with each slap of his hands. It looked as if copper colored glitter was already covering every flat surface in the room.

The audio pickup was on and the wearer was saying, "Man! I wished I had this stuff back in Fallujah! It's so light! It like wearing a heavy coat, and it did not restrict any of my movements at all! Hey John check this out! I was hit in the nuts and I didn't feel a thing!" A few people in the black room snickered while a few just did slight squirms in their chairs at the last comment.

There were copper colored smears and white powder all over the front of the armor being wiped off with a brush into what looked like a few dozen sample bags. While the group of very powerful VIP's watched, a strong male voice started talking over the background noise from off screen. "We counted seventy-five impacts points just on the front chest panels, and not one made it through the top cloth layer." This came across the film's audio in a voice that was strong but still carried the amazed tone of someone who could not believe what they were seeing.

The image of the metal room was replaced with an outdoors shot taken during the day in a place that was not anywhere near an island. A sand toned M1A2 tank was in center screen, until a man picked up a strange rifle and fired one shot at the tank about three hundred meters away from the shooter. What happened to what had been the 70 plus ton queen of the battlefield for decades? She just came apart from a single shoulder fired rifle shot. The next set of images showed the Colonial made rifle being loaded with ammunition that looked strange, but still not that impressive to the naked eye. Even so, the people in the room watched the second tank follow the still burning first tank.

The next scene was of what might have been the same black body armor they had seen on earlier. Now it was standing in what looked to be a wide-open field that looked like a weapons range. The president was almost worried that someone might be in the armor. When the target was hit by a blast of something that looked very impressive, many in the room gave out an audible gasp at the images playing out on the screen. When the camera pulled back to give a wide area shot, they now could see a tank was still rocking from the cannon fire it had just done for this round of testing. Then the scene changed again into another laboratory like room, with what looked like a body armored person laying on the metal table.

"The armor was dented in the center chest area. We assess that 120 mm DM23 kinetic energy penetrators and newer ammo types will still kill the person wearing the body armor. This is even though it did not pierce all the way through the front plate of the body armor. The armor now shows significant damage visible to the unaided eyes. The instruments on the test dummy showed over 200 grams of shock damage to the chest and 150 grams to all extremities including the head. This is a more than fatal amount of damage and shock. The M1028 might not prove to be effective at more than 100 meters from the muzzle."

The head of CIA stood up when the lights came on and straightened his expensive tie before talking to the group. The video briefer nodded slightly then left the overcrowded room. When the door closed and was locked again, he pulled out a few small cue cards.

"We have one complete set of body armor, and now two different types of weapons and ammunition that we can test with. From access and data coming from our own testing that we have found and could verify to date, we assess that the average Colonial ground trooper will have lighter body armor than we currently field or even have in the testing phases. Their weapons are of about the same weight as ours, so tactical mobility is about on par with our own ground troops on an individual basis. We think that is due to the small numbers of survivors. We also think that they are going to be weak in large unit maneuvers, or large unit counter maneuvers. In short, they are few in numbers and quantity has a quality of its own as the old saying goes. That ladies and gentlemen is the good news, and that is about all of the good news."

He reached down and took a sip of very good coffee and looked down at his notes. He flipped through two cards before he was ready to continue with his briefing. "The body armor that we have tested so far is what most of the Colonials on the islands have been seen to wear when on alert. It is amazing stuff and it turns out that each of their troopers have armor protection equal to what is on the nose and turret of one of our M2A2 Bradleys or better. This does not make them invulnerable to our weapons. They are just going to be harder to take out of action." He had made a point of not using words like kill when he covered this part of his briefing. He knew that some of the president's staff were very finicky about that word.

"The hand-held weapons are something totally different. What we have been seeing them carry gives each one of the people on those islands firepower that can stop any MBT made on the planet with one or maybe two shots. That is with one shot hitting the tank at up to three hundred meters and less. What is the longest effective range that they can do this? We don't know. One report that has been submitted suggests that the effective range should be in the range of around a thousand meters but to reach that range would need targeting aids of some kind. We also have to assume that they have heavier weapons for ground use. What are the capabilities of these heavier weapons? We again do not know at this time."

"We have images of weapons mounted on wheeled and hover transports, but we have no way to assess their potential. Not until we acquire one or see and record one of them in action against a known target. We also know that they have some ship mounted anti-missile systems that may also be anti-fighter. There are twin turret mounted cannons on their larger ships. We don't know the number, range, or damage output of these types of weapons. We are looking to add more to this information pool but we will need your written approval to do this. Madam President, this is as per your directives." This last part was meant as a dig but he used a submissive tone with his delivery. All so that he could do his job, or more to the point, so that his people could do the jobs that needed to be done.

"Madam President, you asked me last week to find out how many alien made weapons and armor plates are in the US. We were already tracking that information and we know that almost two dozen weapons have been brought in. Most of them are of the smaller pistol like weapons and the rest are evenly broken up between shoulder fired rifle class and battle rifle class weapons. There are also almost thirty sheets of armor plates within our borders. They are all currently being used by different companies for internal projects of undisclosed natures or in a few cases private hands. The United States is the top country in trading for Colonial made materials. The Australians are a close second but they have already started field training with and against Colonial supplied devices."

Henna looked around the room and then made a face. She could not understand why people would want items like weapons. "Why not take them? Both the ones in private hands and any that are in the corporate world?"

It was not anyone from the military side that spoke but the whole room was quiet for some time before one of her own staff spoke up. Even then it was obvious that they did not want to speak aloud. "We could but it would not be legal. You would have to get something passed in Congress that bans them or makes them listed as destructive devices. But then no one could get them, not even the Defense department. At least not in any numbers. And it would cut deeply into any R and D being done in our country. That is also where we are falling behind in many areas connected to these types of advanced technologies. Most of the members of the EU and Britain have been helping their local defense industries acquire test articles and are also helping fund a lot of R and D. You put out a directive after the last joint operation between the USS America and the Colonials that the US was not going to take that path."

Henna made another sour face. "Still, have someone look into that. Having weapons in people's hands other than the governments has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever." Henna waved her hand for the briefing to continue.

The head of the DIA was next on the briefing block now that the signal had been given for her to step up. "We have been going over very bit of imagery, and every other type of technical system we have. We are trying to find out what happened, and how they did it or what they did to one third of the Chinese nuclear triad and their fleet. What we do know is that the Chinese blue surface fleet is now little better than what it looked like back in the early 2000's. It's just with a better subsurface capability than they had twenty years ago. We expect that to remain a fact for the near future."

The head of the DIA had to wait until a few snickers and one outright belly laugh had dissipated. It didn't take long for the head of DIA to know that none of those sounds had come from any member of the military. She shot one of the noisemakers a hostile look before getting back to her briefing. If China could lose all of its silo launched ICBM's, then the same thing could happen to them.

"As more of their ships finish cycling through their latest rounds of refitting followed by deployment the numbers are expected to shift upwards. They do have the largest warship production yards in the world. As you all know, they have been working overtime ever since the Colonials arrived over our moon. They had planned to launch over twenty-six Type 52D ships. They still have a dozen in service, and another half dozen more on the slipways. That does not count the six to eight cruisers and three aircraft carriers they are working on. It will not take them long to rebuild and replace the warships that they lost. They can do it a lot faster than we could have, but they are going to be short on crews. In particular, they are going to be short on trained aircraft carrier crews. We don't think they will want to repeat what the Russians did in the Med back around November 2016."

The head of DIA put up a slide that showed the current and short term projected blue water navy forces that the Peoples Liberation Army Navy had or would soon have at their fingertips. "They also still have a decent and not slow growing submarine force. They have increased the construction of new subsurface ships in 2 new yards. They have also added 4 new surface warship yards but it will take time to replace the trained personnel. We think they might be looking at maybe taking volunteers from a few select countries that they have closer relationships with to fill some of those crew shortages."

The next image to show on the huge TV's were black and white images of holes in the ground. "Their long-ranged ground-based ICBM force is gone. We think they have about twenty DF-31's and 41's left total, but they do not have any silos or MELs to get them off the ground. We think they will need at least another seven months to get a new MEL built and certified to carry an airframe. After that, they should be able to pump them out at about one new MEL every two months or so. That is barring any other emergency requirements that might come up. We think that they might try to acquire some MAZ 7917's, 547A's, or something of their like on the grey market but we don't know how much modification work will need to be done before the Chinese can use them. So there might be a push on getting outside sources of the right sized trucks. We will have to keep an eye on the only workshops they have left that can do that kind of work."

The head of the DIA was now happy that the room seemed to understand what had happened and how far behind the US had fallen. "They still have a large force of IRBM, MRBM, SRBM, SLBM, a few air launched ballistic missiles, and enough CRBMs to burn down a third of the world but the long-ranged land-based stuff is offline for maybe a year to sixteen months. We will still need to keep our eyes open for any surprises."

The head of the DIA looked at her boss because she knew that the president was not going to like what she was about to say. "As we reported earlier, and now has been proven, the Long March 4 that was launched was not a communications satellite going up as they have been yelling at the top of their lungs. We assess that it was an old fractional orbital bombardment warhead. It was most likely something taken off an old Soviet R-36 or maybe an SS-18. We have no idea where or when they were able to get their hands on that type of weapon in the first place. We think they were going to put it in low Earth orbit and then drop it on the Colonial controlled islands at a later date. Maybe after things had calmed down and the Colonials had let their guard down. The other option was they wanted to ram the Colonial battlewagon with it. We think the warhead was between ten and twenty megatons, and that it would have been very dirty. That is, if it could have hit any target. I would suggest that any tactic like that one be removed from the table as it is now proven to not be viable." She did not even want to think what an EMP on that scale would have done to any electronic device within the ring of fire.

The head of the DIA had to stop speaking as the sidebar conversations went into overdrive with that little bit of news. She waited until they were back under control, and that took a while. People just did not have to deal with warheads of that size often. Not even at this high of a level. They normally talked about hundreds of kilotons and maybe ten at time but not something that much larger. This group had gotten used to only dealing with Russian and their own sized weapons. Weapons that size had not been referred to since the early 1970's and mid 80's. It was almost like someone had been talking about science fiction weapons instead of the real world. It was just too strange for a good portion of the people in this room to deal with.

"It would seem that the Colonials were not joking when they said China was out of the space launch business. We don't know if they wanted to make a point when they were taking care of this latest launch from China. This did give us a confirmed data set to work with to compare against what happened on that day. The weapons used on that orbital package and burned out space launcher were just at the sub-nuclear scale in terms of damage. We also think it was not a missile type weapon in the first place. We just don't know at this time. We were just as unprepared for the sudden launch as the rest of the world was. We think that China has had a lot more contact with the North Koreans than we thought they had about weapons technology. They might have passed along a few tricks to the Chinese on how to do a real no notice missile launch. For all we know, the whole TTP might have come out of Korean People's Army Strategic Rocket Forces handbook." She had to take about fifteen minutes of questions, and it was looking like it was going to go longer. That is, until Henna put a stop to any more of what she referred to as nonsense.

When the head of the DIA returned to her seat, and she did not say a word about what she thought regarding the 'nonsense' comment, the head of NASA, who also was the Vice President, took his place at the podium. "NASA has been looking into the attack on the Chinese space based assets by the so called Colonials... with some help from the Air Force Space Command. What we know is that anything larger than a cubesat was removed from orbit. Anything that was connected in any way shape or form to the Chinese government or its military is gone. We were concerned that we would have another FY-1C debris cloud situation or worse. We thought that the debris cloud was going to go from geosynic all the way down to the atmosphere interphase zones."

The room made sounds again that were not pleasing noises. The current eco-threat in the news this cycle was space debris. So everyone in the room was at minimum, somewhat versed in the common vernacular of the threat. They might use it wrong but they had the basics down well enough to be able to make the right faces and mostly say the right sounds at the right times.

"We cannot track anything larger than a basketball normally. That is until the new project is finished. I am told that if we can find another ten billion in funding, they could cut another five months off the current timeline for deployment." It did not take the VP but ten seconds to realize that this was both the wrong time and the wrong place for this subject.

The VP had to look down at his notes to get back on track. "When we went down our list of Chinese operated satellites, they were all gone. They even took out old rocket bodies, dead satellites, and in at least one case, we looked at a loose collection of junk flying that was in a sun synchronous orbit and all of it was gone. Even Space Fence, which can track cup sized objects within a certain arc, they could not find any remains at all. As you know, that does not mean it's still not a threat speeding around out there. Sand grain sized debris are like super bullets. If they hit a satellite at over twenty-six times the speed of sound, I will say that we at NASA have had a lot of sleepless nights after the attack. We kept thinking we had a sand grain sized belt ring around our planet." The VP made a sour face and then went on talking.

"I authorized the ISS to spend some fuel to shift its orbit around some. They were going to do a flyby of an old upper stage of an LM-3. It had gone up in 1994 and NASA had been keeping an eye on it ever since. If it had broken up, it could have been an issue for the station. All we knew was that it was off of ground-based radar, like the other Chinese satellites. We had the crew activate the high-resolution debris avoidance radar on the ISS. We were able to get a lot of data in that pass and we let the computers chew on it for a few hours. We will keep rerunning the data for a few more months just in case something is hidden within the data. You never know what you will find in a blank patch of space."

Most people in the room did not know that he was referencing the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field Photo mission in his last statement. It had been aimed at a blank spot of space for a few weeks, and that blank spot had turned out to be holding a few million galaxies that no one had seen before. The truth was the VP had not known about it either before he took over as the head of NASA. The transition team had used that mission to explain how big the sky was.

He took a few more seconds, he waited to finish up his part of the briefing. He had no idea what was going to happen when he finished this last part of his notes but he was betting that his boss, Henna, was not going to like it. He had been around politics long enough to have dealt with her family before, and they all had one trait in common spread between them. They hated bad news and anything that went against what they thought was the right course of action. With a slight gasp of new air, he dropped his bombshell.

"The four ton object the ISS was looking for was gone. By gone, I'm not talking about having been blown to bits. It was blown into an elemental gas cloud, which was still dissipating around the local orbit. The closest the ISS could get was within fifteen miles of the target's last known orbit. The other systems on the ISS showed only a slightly denser cloud of something that reads like elemental oxygen, iron, and a few other odds and ends. Houston assesses the threat of damage to the ISS to be now down to about one in a million from that object. And by the end of the month the risk will be down to below one in a billion chance of damage to the station. That is well below normal tracking level for Houston."

He saw only one nod that might have showed that they understood what he had said. To his surprise it was the Director of the DIA. "To put a point on it, the threat to the ISS now is down to a point where she will not have to use her onboard fuel for about sixty percent of the planned avoidance maneuvers on the books for the next three years." What he did not say was that the Colonials' actions had just saved about fifty million dollars in fuel costs per year.

The military looked like they had been gobsmacked, and then the room blew up with voices. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was an old man, even for the head of the joint chiefs. He was an army guy, but he had a command voice that could drown out a freight train from ten feet away. And he had kept up on weapons technology.

"Sir? How is that possible without leaving larger fragments behind? That was four tons of dry mass."

The VP smiled back to the military side of the table. He liked the old guy, even if his boss just rolled her eyes whenever he tried to suggest ideas about anything. He believed that if the General said the sky was blue, Henna would say it was going to be a different color. "Maybe he could be an ally. Henna's coat tails are not what they used to be."

"General, from what we think and from what we have seen, the Colonials have some kind of high output but short duration direct energy weapon. And it would also seem that those weapons are mounted on their small Viper class craft. We had a high orbit system watching the launch area and tracking the last Chinese lift off, but she was an older bird and did not have what you called military grade systems when she was originally built as a NASA bird. We picked up an energy surge and a visible flash just before the point that we think the second stage was destroyed. We did not get a read on what took out the forward section of the Chinese launch. The cause of delay in getting the data was that it had to be pulled out of one of the servers at the University of Arizona. Houston did not know about it until yesterday and it took some time to make sure of what the data was saying."

The Army General was nodding. He might be old but he was not slow. "Any way we can get an estimated output of this weapon system or any other idea of what it might be?" He was having visions of losing communication in a combat zone or losing other assets in the overhead environment.

The head of the DIA was smiling. "It seems like my people were right about what was used on that bird."

The army was working on two different classes of DEW or directed energy weapon. One was to be an air defense weapon and the other was an anti-mine device. The navy had an anti small boat laser which was good at taking out engines and putting small holes in the hull of a fishing boat. That was about as far as they had gotten before funding was diverted to support other projects. So if someone could come up with a guess as to output, they might be able to work some numbers on how far ahead the Colonials might be in this new department.

The VP shook his head negative. "We have no clue, but it would have to be past the gigajoule level in terms of output. Now, to change the subject some. You all know that NASA has been having budget issues for some time now."

That was not new. NASA had always had those issues and they had plenty of fingers to point at the reason for it no matter who was in office or why this was. The VP looked at his boss. At least, he knew that he could not be fired.

"I know that State is still recovering from burnt fingers from their last attempt to visit these Colonial claimed land masses. But I would like to see if we can get them to help out with getting some backlogged projects into space and save NASA, and in turn the American people, some money. I as well would need written approval to do this from you, Henna. I was thinking of the goodwill and what great press we could milk this for."

He knew that ULA was not going to be happy if this went through. Each space launch was a hundred million dollar paycheck to them, and to lose a few could hurt their stock value. The upside was that ULA could not make rockets fast enough to deal with the projects sitting in the white room now. So, this might put a fire under them to fix that recurring issue. Not even with the help of SpaceX could they put a dent in the number of loads that were ready to go or almost ready to go around the country.

Henna started to drum her fingers on the table. She was feeling old right about then. She had put it down in writing that contact with these Colonials could only be made on her authority. A few people had to find new jobs because of that order. Then she sighed and looked around the room one more time. She knew that she had lost this one and she was tired of fighting. So, she had to bite her tongue and put on a happy face. She would get even soon. After the next election. She would have four more years, then. Then something twitched in the back of her brain.

"What have we been able to get from the limited trading with those people?" She could not help but sneer as she said 'those people'.

The head of the NSA made a face but was the first to speak. "We have figured how to make super strong concrete, without using steel reinforcement. We know that there are about a dozen different mixes that cross the 6,000-psi mark with between six hours and six days of curing. The first lower strength batches hit the market a few months ago. It is going to revolutionize how buildings are made as soon as the zoning commissions catch up."

The VP looked a little sheepish. "The first upgraded solid fueled boosters are going to put up a new one hundred KG ozone monitoring satellite. It will be going up at the end of the month, coming out of Wallop Island. The rocket is about half the size of the normal booster that we would have needed a few years ago."

The head of the Joint Chiefs looked around and then turned back to look at the President. "The new propellant for cannon rounds for both ships and ground units have finished testing. The idea came from the propellant used in some of the Colonial weapons the CIA recovered. As soon as funds are cleared up, we could field them by the end of the year. NATO and a few others will be fielding them with their units by the end of this week."

Henna frowned and then rose form her chair. "Get the memos to me, and I will sign them as soon as they hit my email. Make sure we are not going to lose jobs over this. I have an election to win in a few months." She rose and left the room. This was about as much as she could take of them. Everyone in the room could get copies of the other briefings and do whatever they wanted with them. Henna had a headache she needed to take care of.

Note: As was pointed out. the UN building in NYC does not have a helo pad. I needed one for Plot, so it got one.