CHAPTER FIVE
High Alert

The White House
Washington, DC

United States vice-president Julian McNair was not having a good day.

It began at 4 AM. He was an early riser, usually up and about by five thirty, but not under such circumstances. The rude awakening came courtesy of a late autumn storm outside and a three-year-old who was afraid of thunder. After half an hour, he couldn't get Emily to stop, so he reluctantly woke up his wife. Keanna was already in a bad mood from an argument they'd had the night before, and pregnant on top of that, so her raging hormones were significantly altering how she responded to stress. When Emily still wouldn't stop crying, everything became Julian's fault, at least as far as Keanna was concerned.

"She doesn't even know who you are anymore!" the Second Lady had exclaimed, bordering on hysteria. "You're gone when she wakes up, you don't come home until after she's gone to sleep-"

"I'm the vice-president, Keanna," was his tired excuse. "We knew this wasn't going to be easy."

"You promised me, Julian!" she'd fired back. "When you asked me to marry you, you swore that no matter how hard things got, you wouldn't neglect your family!"

"I know, and I'm sorry, but I never imagined I'd get this far, and you know I couldn't have done it without you."

She'd glared at him through her angry tears and held the child close to her, as if protecting Emily from her husband. "Good to know we've satisfied your political agenda, Mr. Vice-President."

That was the point where he'd given up on arguing with her, hastily thrown on a suit, and told his head of security that he was going to work. In the backseat of a luxury sedan, he dwelt on the argument all during the thirty-minute commute to the White House. He should have just kept his mouth shut and let Keanna's tirade run its course. The last comment he made was what really set her off, and though he'd meant it as a compliment, in hindsight he saw how she would have taken it as a blow.

Two years ago, when Nevada senator Vincent Powers won the Democratic presidential bid and was looking for a running mate, Washington's ex-governor Julian McNair was the only name on a short list of candidates that was sure to win over both the public and the party. The name had first been dropped by the newly-instated NASA administrator, Dinakar Tempas. He'd grown up with McNair and was in good standing with Powers, whom he adamantly supported thanks to the senator's endeavors to procure funding for Tempas' quantum computer. The more Powers learned about McNair, the more determined he was to have him on the ticket. They were very like-minded, and McNair's good-guy image easily made him popular with the voters. The biggest hurdle at that point in the race was getting the party to agree to the candidate, and the Democrats were sure to accept a man with no federal experience for one reason and one reason alone: the fact that his wife was the widow of Dr. Robert Wynn, one of the party's biggest financial backers of the decade. McNair befriended the Wynns five years before the doctor's death, when Robert helped finance Julian's gubernatorial campaign. His suicide shattered his pregnant wife's world, one she never could have reconstructed without the help of her friend, the governor, who consoled her, supported her, treated her daughter as his own, and eventually, fell in love with her. McNair's treatment of Keanna, still a very staunch and vocal Democrat as Robert had been, captivated the hearts and admiration of the party. Her connections effectively bought her husband the vice-presidential nomination, and by extension, the election. Political power was never Julian's intent when he married her, but he should have known that it could not be avoided, or that his motives would one day be questioned.

On top of that, the White House was in a frenzy over the pictures NASA's Palenque probe snapped of something that looked like a spaceship fleet in orbit around Jupiter. Tempas gravely assured them the pictures were not a hoax, and the Powers administration was divided over the course of action that should be taken. Do they alert the rest of the world? Do they cover it up? Do they do nothing and pray that these – he could barely bring himself to believe it – aliens want nothing to do with Earth and then just continue on their way? Was this a sign that the human race was about to see its last days?

Right now, the order was that they keep things quiet. Three days ago, after Dinakar first sent Powers the pictures, the president called a meeting with the NASA administrator and the National Security Council in the White House situation room. He instructed that until further notice, no one outside these walls was to have any knowledge of the images... not their departments, not their deputies, not even the rest of the president's high-ranking staff members. Though confidentiality was nothing new or strange to them, most of the people on the Security Council didn't operate under absolute secrecy. The vice-president, in particular, was pained by the fact that he was working longer and harder than ever before and couldn't give his neglected wife so much as a hint why.

McNair glanced at his reflection in the tinted, bulletproof glass that made up the window of the sedan, and turned away in disgust. He couldn't even look at himself. He was helpless as a vice-president and a failure as a husband.

At five twenty-two, McNair walked into the West Wing. "Good morning, Mr. Vice-President," the on-duty security officer said in greeting. Matching pace with the vice-president as he walked in the direction of his office, the man commented, "You're here early. Everything all right?"

Nothing was all right. McNair didn't want to give away that he was going to pieces, but neither did he want to tell an outright lie. Refraining from mentioning was something else, though, and he figured he could get away with pawning off current state solely on his marital woes, which were hardly a secret around the White House. "Storm woke up my little girl," he said, and after racking his brain for the officer's name, added, "Mark." The vice-president was rarely in the complex when the current shift of officers was on duty, and had only seen Mark four or five times since Powers took office. "Kea and I couldn't get her to stop crying, and things just escalated from there. I hate not being there for them, but..."

"I'm sorry, sir," Mark sympathized. "I know I can't say 'I know how you feel' since I'm not the vice-president, obviously, but I am a father."

McNair halted outside the break room, gave the guard a small smile, and placed a friendly hand on his shoulder. "Then you know how I feel."

He excused himself, and Mark continued on his round with a bit of bounce in his stride that was absent before his talk with the president's understudy. Inside the break room, McNair made himself a cup of coffee and then sank into a recliner, pondering the day he had to face. Most of it would probably be spent in a mahogany-paneled room with the National Security Council, arguing over the latest report from NASA. Tempas hadn't presented anything to the group yet, but an official statement had been made to both Powers and the Secretary of Defense, and he confided in his friend McNair the same thing: there'd been another sighting two days ago, this time by the radar on the Olympus station. Although they couldn't know for sure if there was a connection, odds were it wasn't anything else. He'd lied to the astronauts and dismissed the readings as a technical glitch, but he was sure they didn't believe him. Tempas feared the implications and what it could mean for the days ahead, and McNair was right there with him.

Just then, he heard a ringing in the distance, so faint it would have been undetectable if the West Wing hadn't been all but deserted in this early hour. McNair strained to hear it, and as he listened, thought it was coming from the Oval Office. Who would be calling Vince at this hour? he wondered.

Why not begin the workday by finding out.

Coffee cup still in hand, the vice-president exited the break room and set off at a brisk pace in the direction of the ringing. He stopped at a corner and slid aside a panel to reveal a keypad. He entered his seven-character key code, then leaned forward and removed his glasses for a retina scan. The ringing was indeed coming from inside the Oval Office. Once the retina scan finished, he glanced at the small screen above the keypad. Access Granted – Julian McNair flashed up in green letters, and a lock disengaged. McNair slid the panel shut and then pressed on the entire wall, and a door-sized section swung open, allowing him to step right into the legendary presidential workspace.

Being inside the Oval Office wasn't a novelty to Julian. All the high-ranking members of the president's staff had access to it. He was in here almost every day – albeit usually with Powers in there too – and had even served as acting president twice already in nineteen months it had been since their administration took office. The only thing that made him feel awkward about the situation was the fact that he was about to pick up the president's phone and see what the person on the other end wanted, as if he was a desk receptionist.

McNair shrugged it off and picked up the receiver. Anything this caller had to say to the president, they could say to him. That was the agreement he and Powers had, and their administration worked very well with the two of them holding each other in such close confidence.

"This is Vice-President Julian McNair." As he waited for a response, he checked the origin of the call. It was being made from the US embassy in Astana, Kazakhstan. Unusual, though not unheard of, for an embassy to speak directly to a head of state.

"Vice-President McNair!" The voice was deep, resonant, and carried a thick, Russian-sounding accent. "It is good to hear your voice. I apologize for the inconvenient hour, but this could not wait. This is Nikolai Kovolsky."

McNair knew the voice was familiar and placed it after listening to the caller continue, but was baffled as to why he'd made the call in the first place. Nikolai Kovolsky was the secretary-general of the United Nations. Why would he be trying to reach Powers directly? This was highly irregular. "Dr. Kovolsky," McNair said, hoping he didn't sound as surprised as he felt. At least that explained the time; if his math was correct, it would be mid-afternoon, around three thirty, in Kazakhstan. Kovolsky's official residence was in New York City, but there were plenty of reasons for him to be in his home country. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"I know this is not the way things are normally handled, but protocol is a luxury I cannot afford now," Kovolsky said. "I had to go to your embassy to make this call, since I did not come to Kazakhstan thinking I would need to deal with a UN emergency of this magnitude. It was the only quickly-accessible place that had a secure connection to the White House."

That explained the source of the call. "What happened?"

"Much of my morning was spent talking with Hayashibara Katsu, in Japan. He says he has received reports of a strange aircraft sighted over his country, and since your country is the strongest military presence in the area, it was speculated that it may be an American construct."

"Why didn't Hayashibara contact us?" McNair asked. He knew the name – Hayashibara was Japan's prime minister. "Why did the UN get involved?"

"Because the UN is involved," Kovolsky replied. "Before I even found out about this confirmed aircraft sighting, I had to dispatch peacekeeping forces to not only Japan, to the Philippines as well. Rioting had gotten out of control, with all groups claiming we were being invaded by aliens and the government was not doing anything to protect them."

"Aliens?" McNair repeated, and his voice cracked in the process. He faked a chuckle to disguise it. "There's no such thing as aliens."

"I know, Mr. McNair, and that is why I thought of your country's military once Hayashibara told me an unidentified aircraft had been detected by four airports in the greater Tokyo area two days ago. Their readings were consistent with each other. Furthermore, after making some calls, I found it also matched data retrieved by air traffic controllers in Manila."

"Were there any photos?" McNair asked.

"No; it was all radio. The Japanese detected a smaller vessel at ten thousand meters, and two hours earlier, over Manila, a very similar-sized craft at altitude ranging from twenty-five thousand meters. It was almost out of their range, but still visible on radar."

McNair opened the top drawer of the president's desk and retrieved a pen and pad of paper. He hastily scribbled down the information Kovolsky was giving, intending it to run it by Dinakar Tempas and his information from the Olympus. The timeline was right for a possible connection.

"There is more," Kovolsky continued. "The prime minister said word had reached him of an actual sighting in Hokkaido. Somehow, word got out about this, mixed in with the reports from the other countries... We do not know exactly how it spread, but we think a conspiracy theorist website based in Tokyo is the likely culprit."

That would make sense, especially if the thing buzzed Tokyo. "What happened in Hokkaido?"

"A man named Sikora claimed to have seen four people, two men and two women, on a small, rocky beach on the southern part of the island, where he apparently goes to fish a few times a week. Mr. Sikora claimed they went inside a craft that was roughly the size and shape of a boxy helicopter, except there were no blades. It rose straight up using jet thrusters, to about forty or fifty meters, and then... I should warn you, this is very strange. A bright light appeared at one end of the craft, ran down its length, and then there was a flash and it disappeared."

That was more than "very strange." That was something straight out of science fiction. "I... I don't know what to say about that," said the American politician. "Is it possible things were, well, exaggerated, or lost in translation?"

"It is more than possible; it is likely," was the reply from the Kazakh diplomat, "but Hayashibara played a recording of Sikora's statement for me, and according to his family, he is a very honest man, and it is not in his character to let his imagination get the better of him."

"Doctor, I can all but assure you the United States had nothing to do with this." At least that much was true. "I know it's a hot spot, but no military craft would be in range of civilian radar without a very good reason, and we certainly have nothing that would be capable of the actions in Mr. Sikora's statement."

Kovolsky thought McNair was showing an awful lot of interest in the events for claiming to have no idea of what could be going on, but he did not remark on it. "There is one more thing," he said. "Hayashibara has... put me in a difficult position. He adamantly believes that the Americans are behind this, and he is taking it and making it about opposition to your country's military presence in Japan, specifically on Okinawa."

If half of what McNair heard about Hayashibara Katsu and his foreign policy was true, this was hardly a surprising move. "Let me guess: you need us to step in and make a statement to help smooth things over."

"You are quick to catch on, Mr. McNair," said Kovolsky, amusement resonating in his voice. "It may be the only thing we can do in this situation. The UN would appreciate your help."

McNair could use some help of his own. Any statement regarding military operations would have to come from the Secretary of Defense, Sebastian Tegler, whose personality was eerily similar to that of Japan's Hayashibara. Furthermore, the two men were exactly the same age, and despite the fact that they lived in different countries, had nothing similar in their ethnic backgrounds, had never met, and didn't looked the least bit alike, McNair had not quite written off the idea that they could be twins separated at birth.

"Any time, Dr. Kovolsky." As he spoke, an aching sensation arose somewhere in his gut. He knew the feeling: it was his conscience. He wondered if keeping the secretary-general in the dark about everything NASA unearthed was right. With the events in Asia likely connected, they could no longer keep things under wraps, and Kovolsky was involved now. He had a right to know. "Doctor..."

"Yes?"

"When will you be returning to New York?"

"I was going to fly back this evening, but I think a visit to Tokyo would be wiser," the secretary-general answered. "Why do you ask?"

"When you do, see if you can make room in the near future to come to Washington."

A pause, and then, "Is there something you are not telling me, Julian?"

"There are a lot of things I'm not telling you right now, Nikolai, one, because it's not the matter at hand, and two, because I can't give you more information until we have some. Again, let me reiterate that the United States is not behind this, but... this is a long shot, but we may be on to something."

The silence was disconcerting; finally, Kovolsky spoke again. "Thank you. I will be in Washington as soon as I can. In the meantime, do not let leak whatever information you may have. I do not want to see in your country what I am about to face in Japan."

He could not agree more. "Godspeed, Doctor."

McNair hung up, then, with a heavy sigh, sank into the president's office chair and buried his brow in his hands. The sun hadn't even risen yet, and already he was wondering how the day could get any worse.

The vice-president allowed himself a few minutes to wallow in self-pity, then pushed aside his despair to make room for determination. He walked at a brisk pace in the direction of the president's bedroom, ready to give the commander-in-chief an awakening he would not soon forget.


Within two hours, the National Security Council was assembled in the White House Situation Room. There were ten of them present. Eight were the usual suspects: the president, Vincent Powers; the vice-president, Julian McNair; the Secretaries of State, Viola Rayleigh; Defense, Sebastian Tegler; and the Treasury, Tom Freeman; the National Security Advisor, Whitney Lopez; the Director of National Intelligence, Tarek Ansari; and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Orin Manec. The other two were Adlai Stanton, the White House Chief of Staff, and Dinakar Tempas, the NASA administrator. It took McNair about half an hour to fully recount the conversation he had with Nikolai Kovolsky that morning, mostly because he was constantly being interrupted. Things only got worse when Tempas took the stage and informed the group of what only Powers and Tegler were fully aware of regarding the Olympus. Both speakers understood why they would have so many questions, but it seemed like every one they answered produced two more that they could not. They were in the room nearly ninety minutes before all their information could be placed on the table.

When Tempas was finished, the others directed their attention to Powers. Remarking on the situation before their president had a chance would feel inappropriate to the Council. To their relief, he didn't take long, and jumped straight to the sole thought on the minds of all present. "Well... this is a problem."

"Yes, it is," concurred McNair. That was putting it very lightly, but it was also direct. "What do we do now?"

"I don't see why 'we' have to do anything," said Freeman. "These events didn't have anything to do with us."

"What 'we' have to do, Tom," interjected Rayleigh, "is be diplomatic. We assure Japan that we had nothing to do what was seen, and for the sake of appearances, have a formal inquiry. It sounds like Kovolsky believes Julian, and he just wants us to say something to get Hayashibara off our collective asses." She cast a wary look at Sebastian Tegler and Orin Manec, who were sitting next to each other and directly across the table from her. "There aren't any classified operations taking place in civilian airspace in that region, are there?"

"No," the two men chorused, and Tegler added, "We've launched several unmanned vessels in the last few weeks for nuclear surveillance photos in North Korea, but none of them dipped below ninety thousand feet, and they're specifically designed to not show up on radar."

"A civilian airport wouldn't know one of our UAVs was there if it buzzed their control tower," Manec commented. Something told the other members of the Security Council that he wasn't exaggerating.

Several minutes of circular debate followed, ending with an interjection from Tempas. "Point of clarification: we are involved with this, beyond Hayashibara and his 'squeaky wheel gets the grease' propaganda. We're accountable for the information we have from the Palenque and the Olympus."

"There's no reason to volunteer this information until we can make sense of it," argued Stanton. "We can't be sure it's connected."

"No, but it would sure be a hell of a coincidence if it isn't," chimed in McNair.

"Julian's right," said Rayleigh. "I think we should treat the situation as if all three events were connected: the images from Palenque, the radar reading from Olympus, and the sighting in Japan."

Again, a discussion arose, this time going on for a good ten minutes before the president, who'd spent the entire meeting in quiet contemplation aside from his understatement after the NASA administrator's spiel, silenced the room with voicing his stance. "I agree with Viola. We need to treat these events like they are connected. I think I can safely say the consequences for that case would be far greater than any other. Orin, Sebastian, I need to know if our military detected the same bogey that Tokyo and Manila did. What's our best bet?"

Manec and Tegler exchanged a glance, an unspoken gesture that developed from their mutual respect. The Joint Chiefs chair was an airman who served in the Pacific for much of his long and distinguished career, and had a personal perspective on their military power in the region that not only bested that of everyone else in the room, but most of the minds in Washington. Manec wouldn't say anything if he thought Secretary of Defense wanted to offer his two cents on the matter first, and Tegler wasn't going to let a little thing like the chain of command slow down the response of the man he knew was the better authority on the subject. Tegler nodded and leaned back slightly in his chair, yielding the floor to Manec, who was only too happy to lay out their options for the president.

"Kadena's the hub of our military power in the Pacific, but they're on Okinawa, a little out of the way to pick up something that flew over Manila and Tokyo," Manec began. "The Naval Air Facility at Atsugi is the next largest, and they're near Tokyo, but they don't usually have their eyes to the skies. There are a few more installations in and around Tokyo, but after Atsugi, I'd say the only other one likely to detect anything would be Yokota."

"All right," said Powers. "And what about Hokkaido?"

"Japan has an air base at Chitose, but we don't have any prominent facilities on the island," Manec said apologetically. "You can see Hokkaido on a clear day from the high air traffic control tower at Misawa Air Base, but it's still on the main island, and we don't know where on Hokkaido the sighting was."

Powers spent a minute or two thinking, and then, in whispers, exchanged words and handwritten notes with McNair and Stanton. When he was satisfied with weighing his thoughts against that of his vice-president and chief of staff, he addressed the group. "Thank you, Orin. Here is what I propose we do. Viola, you and Julian will take care of Prime Minister Hayashibara. Give our statement, including assurance that there will be an inquiry, and advise him to keep Chitose on alert. Whitney, Tarek, you're in charge of the inquiry. I'll expect a report in forty-eight hours. As far as our military goes, yes, it's true we haven't been involved, but that's about to change. We have the means to keep the region secure, and if our people need to rise to the occasion, they will. Sebastian, who and where is our ranking officer in the region?"
"Major General Bagalayos, the commander at Kadena, is the closest to these events," the Secretary of Defense answered. "Vice Admiral Burnett is the ranking officer in the Pacific, but his command is based at Pearl Harbor, too far away to handle things if a situation arose in the same area as the reports."

Tegler's voice held an unmistakable trace of disdain, which the perceptive president immediately picked up. "Something wrong, Sebastian?"

Manec took the question, being a player in the underlying issue himself. "General Bagalayos is... a point of contention," he explained, carefully choosing his words. "Secretary Tegler initially vetoed the general's appointment at Kadena last year, but it was overruled by the Joint Chiefs."

"Can Bagalayos be trusted?" Powers asked.

"Completely," said Tegler, with slight reluctance. "The veto was on the grounds of character flaws, not professional. I prefer the admiral, honestly, but Orin and the Joint Chiefs raise a valid point: Bagalayos won't hesitate to make a tough call, and sometimes the 'ready, fire, aim' approach is what needs to be done when time is of the essence."

"Very well. Time is of the essence, so from this point on, General Bagalayos knows everything we know. I'm putting our forces on alert, and the one who will be making the calls needs to know why." He sighed and glanced at Tempas out of the corner of his eye. "Dinakar's right; we are accountable, and that makes the sightings and riots our problem, too. Our military installations in Japan exist to protect the mutual interest of both countries, and I will emphasize that point when I speak to Dr. Kovolsky."

"You're mobilizing troops?" asked Ansari. "Sir, are we looking at war?"

"I certainly hope not, Tarek," said Powers, and added with a tired smile, "They didn't cover alien invasion in Presidency 101. That's a 200-level course."

The president permitted a round of soft laughter from his colleagues to lighten the mood, then continued, "I admit, I don't know exactly what to make of this situation. What happened in Japan is likely something closer to home, but the images from Palenque are... a bit more unusual. Dinakar, I need you to monitor that personally. Are there any other satellites in the region?"

"Four, including Palenque." was the answer. "One is Northrop Grumman's, one is China's, and the fourth is also ours, but it's not staying there. It's due to pass Jupiter in a few days, on its way to Neptune. NASA-Ames operates Palenque, and there are a few people who know about the ships, but they're all sworn to secrecy."

"What are the odds that the the others have picked anything up?" asked Lopez.

"Slim to none, fortunately," said Tempas. The incredible statistics he was about to present to the others were the sole factor keeping him rational in this trying time. "China's probe doesn't have any optical equipment at all; they're operating completely in x-ray and looking at the planet itself. We haven't talked much with them, but we're pretty sure they're going to pull a Galileo and send their craft into the atmosphere. Northrop's Archron mission is similar to Palenque's – looking for water – and the two are comparably equipped, but Archron's emphasis is in the infrared range, and it's much further from this fleet than Palenque."

"Better not call it a 'fleet,'" Tegler cautioned. "That has military connotations, and the last thing we need is for people to think there's an alien fleet gathering strength in our solar system with its eyes on Earth."

"Right, because 'alien spaceships' is a much better way of putting it," sarcastically commented Stanton.

"Enough," Powers warned before things could escalate. "Dinakar, please continue."

"The spaceships," Tempas continued, "are holding their position near the Pasiphaë group, over between fifteen and twenty million kilometers from the inner and Galilean moons, where the Archon probe is. Palenque is further out, in the Ananke group, but at any given time, it's still several million kilometers away. Palenque wouldn't have been able to resolve the images at all if its optical telescope wasn't one of the finest ever made."

"I don't understand," said Freeman. "How can a telescope take a picture of a nebula that's halfway across the galaxy, but have trouble with something just a few million kilometers away?"

Halfway across the galaxy was an exaggeration, but Tempas understood why the question arose, and he repressed a sigh. Tom Freeman was among the many who thought of NASA as a glorified science fair, and probably wouldn't be opposed to shutting it down entirely. "You've all probably seen one of the Hubble Space Telescope's most famous pictures: the Eagle Nebula, recognizable by its cloudy pillars." He waited for the universal nod of acknowledgment before continuing. "The Eagle Nebula is seven thousand light-years away. Now consider an object like the moon. It's only a quarter-million miles away. It takes light just over a second to reach the moon from Earth. However, Hubble is incapable of resolving the Apollo 11 landing site, even though on a celestial scale, they're right next to each other. Telescopes are made to look at things that are big and far away, not nearby and tiny. That's why Palenque is so unique: it was designed specifically to look at natural satellites, sort of a 'space microscope,' if you will." His voice was gathering more and more enthusiasm as he spoke; it was clear he was proud of their spacecraft. "From its position in the Ananke group, it can't effectively resolve anything further away than Mars, but we get excellent, detailed views of Jupiter's moons. These spaceships are much smaller than moons; comparing them to, say, our moon would be like comparing a snow globe of the White House to the White House."

"We get it, Dinakar," said Lopez, who was about as effective at hiding her impatience as Tegler. She wasn't alone in being skeptical of Tempas at times. He still bore much of the wide-eyed innocence and thirst for knowledge that made him a great scientist, but hindered his ability to become an exceptional administrator. "What you're saying is we got lucky."

"Well... if you want to call having some idea of what we're facing instead of being completely blindsided by what happened in Japan 'lucky,' then yes, we got lucky,"answered Tempas.

"Truly, ignorance is bliss," said Powers. "Can you acquire use of Northrop Grumman's satellite?"

Tempas pondered it a moment, then said, "Probably, but they'll want a good reason, especially if they don't know what we're doing with it."

"Would funding Archon for the next three years buy their silence?"

"That would certainly convince me if I were Phil Cunningham," Tempas said, referring to Northrop's CEO, "but you'd be looking at a quarter of a billion, easily."

"Write it off as a hammer and toilet seat," the president replied. "Isn't that the standard procedure?"

Again, there was a chuckle in light of the severity. Powers let it die down, then rose to his feet. "Don't worry about something looking strange on a receipt; direct orders from the president tend to hold up in an audit. Just make sure we know what those... spaceships are doing, and let me know immediately if something changes."

He looked around the room at his colleagues and friends, and there was no mistaking it: they were worried. By extension, so was he. These were delicate times, and he had seen what could happen when someone in a sensitive position could not maintain their composure. Fear did things, changed people, made them act in ways they never would. Whatever it took, they needed to remain grounded.

"I know this won't be easy," said the president. "I know it's hard to accept what we've seen. However, the time to write certain things off as urban legend has passed. We have to choose our next moves carefully. Remember your duties, but also remember yourselves and your loved ones. Keep your grip on your humanity."

In the wake of Powers' speech, McNair looked around apprehensively, with the president's last sentence resonating in his thoughts. Keep your grip on your humanity. Some people in the room, particularly Sebastian Tegler, could use some handles for their humanity. Others, like Ansari and Freeman, were questionable, but they weren't going to be directly involved with whatever came of these events. If this was going to be their end, it was just as likely to come from the mysterious strangers in the sky as it was from man destroying himself in his own fear and fury.