April was happy to see their shattered front door finally replaced, when she went home. The weld around the frame was still unpainted and a hot metal smell still lingered. After a cleanup and meal, she joined most everyone in the temporary command center, at the Lewis cubic on the hub.
Allen and Heather were conferring about something and called everyone to look.
"These are all separate images we correlated," she explained. "Allen looked at these sort of helicopters and fan platforms, because they are used to ferry VIP's out of the city in emergencies. He went back over the times immediately after we started shooting and cataloged all the vehicles like this, an automated search could find on the memory." She showed a pattern of green dots over North America. "Now some of them if you project their flight path are going to a known airbase." Perhaps a third of the dots disappeared as she said it. "A number of them are going to sites we fired on, in our first few passes. In some cases we even see them later on the ground, beside the target, or nearby at a hospital."
Most of the other dots disappeared. "Now, of those left, a few go to something we could identify. This one for example," she drew a yellow circle around it with a cursor, "It went to the small New England town, known for having the cottage of the Vice President. We doubt he would go there in an emergency, so we are guessing he sent his wife and family home as a safe haven. They are certainly not a valid military target. If we eliminate all of those, it leaves these."
The map now had a dozen dots spread far apart. "A couple we see landed and have no idea why. Maybe they broke down. A few disappeared and we have no idea where they landed. They must have been hangared quickly out of sight, in barn, cave, or something. I suspect a few were stolen by crew, to go AWOL. These three however," she drew a circle around them, "are closer together than all the rest, disappeared at the end and they are all converging on a point where there is nothing."
She hit a few keys and there were three dashed lines crossing over an area of wooded mountain. "The interesting thing is, if you examine this area there are just a few homes and farms we can see, but none of them in about a twelve square mile area have any cattle or current cultivated crops, or active items like farm machinery working. There are a few vehicles near buildings, but they don't move at all. The buildings have no thermal signature." She drew an outline of the area. "There are however several points, at which we occasionally see heavy vehicles, which must be military recon, or big four wheel drive trucks." She peppered the valleys, with a necklace of small purple icons.
"What it looks like to Allen here, who assures me he is a genuine West Virginia hillbilly, is this ring of hills all forms a perimeter." She drew a smaller circle inside the larger one. "So the patrols on the inside, are not visible at all to the world outside the ring. You would have to penetrate past the ring of hills to encounter the patrols and it would be very unlikely to do so in innocence."
"Allen assures me, that although it may only be two or three kilometers in a straight line, the terrain is so difficult it would be three times that distance and up and down hard grades to penetrate from any outer point to a patrol. All this means we can assume a very important deep bunker for something, is inside the central hill."
"We are proposing, that when we restart bombardment, we saturate this hill just as we did Cheyenne Mountain. We don't have the capacity to put a bolt straight down through every square meter, so we propose to start walking lines through it from the horizontal, as we can see it to aim, starting at the valley floor level and walking up. They probably have an entry down at the patrol road level and excavated from the road level up in the mountain, to avoid having to keep it pumped out."
"Sounds reasonable," Ajay agreed. "What else are you going to hit, that will be different than what you've already done? Especially to force some acknowledgment they even have a problem. They're starting to irritate me with this 'You're not worth noticing,' attitude. They may regret pushing us to make a point they can't ignore."
"What do you folks suggest?" Allen asked. "If we destroy refineries and power plants and dams, it's almost winter and without heat or power civilians will die. We already have damaged their economy badly, taking the satellites out. We can't do much more, without killing far too many innocent people."
"We should continue destroying commercial aircraft just sitting on the ground." Jeff said. "Not as a primary target, but when we don't have anything else in sight to hit. If people can't get a flight they notice, but there are just so many planes, it's hard for two ships to hit enough secondary targets, to cripple such a huge system. I'd refuse to hit them in the air, even if it wasn't against the Geneva Conventions. Even on the ground tell the gunners to try to hit the wings, so we don't hit civilians in the cabins. They may be loading, or have workers servicing them."
"What is symbolic? What can we remove that will have little real impact, but inconvenience them and shame them?" Jon asked.
"Knock down every bridge on the Mississippi river," suggested Steve Lewis. "It would cut the country in two and they'd have to load stuff on boats to go across. People just take bridges for granted, even when they need to cross them every day to work. A big river town usually spreads along both banks, because they cross so easily. It will really hurt the local economy and be a wakeup call, but not kill anyone if you announce it. Nobody has to be on any of the bridges, unless they are amazingly stupid. Let them try to hide that," he challenged.
"There are a couple bridges which are the defining feature of an area. They are artistic or historic." Jeff suggested. "Take down the Golden Gate, the Brooklyn Bridge, cut the Seven Mile Bridge in the Keys and the Mackinac in Michigan, maybe the Tampa Bay Skyway too. Nobody will starve to death from it, but it will change their lives."
"I think we should ask them to surrender first," Heather offered, looking at Jon.
"I've got no problem with that," he replied, feeling accused by her look.
"There are still a lot of military targets we have not hit," April ventured. "What else can we do? Go through and clean out all the storage for armored vehicles and robots and other weapons?"
"Trouble is," Jon explained, "if we make them too weak for a war down there on the earth's surface, we will have to guard them from being invaded or overrun by some other Earth nation. There could be civil war easily start in Mexico or Canada. We don't want to install a foreign government there. I don't especially want the duty to have to protect them, because we weakened them too far."
"How about targeting something like a monument?" April asked "What has no real utility, but sentimental value? Something they can't just move, if we announce it as a target."
"Washington monument on the Mall in D.C., Mount Rushmore," Steve suggested. Other piped in and suggested a number of targets. "The Statue of Liberty," suggested Jeff in turn.
Jon and a couple others looked hurt. "No Jeff, we don't want to hurt Lady Liberty. She was a gift from the French. We'd rather restore her ideals, than bust her."
Jeff seemed embarrassed then.
April filled the awkward void. "Did anyone ever thank the Japanese?"
"No. I'm not even sure how to go about it." Allen admitted. "We might cause some problems for them, if we even acknowledge the help publicly."
"Do you mean, there has not been anything in the Japanese media about it? If we could see them firing a beam from orbit, plenty of people had to see it from the ground."
"Oh sure, there were news broadcasts within minutes about a huge explosion in space and comments about the continuing hostilities between Home and North America. But not a word to indicate the Japanese had anything to do with it. I'd say they don't want open hostilities with NA if they can avoid it. I'm surprised they could be getting away with it. Why ruin it for them?"
* * *
"Surely there is a video or radar image somewhere, which shows this weapon in action." President Hadley insisted. "People have their phones everywhere. Amateurs go out and look through telescopes. Every time there is a plane crash it s
eems like there is a video, sometimes two or three, of it."
The officer sent to brief him was a mere Colonel. Everyone else had found reason to beg off, afraid the messenger would be leaving under arrest again. "Sir, we have twenty solid eye witnesses from our military personnel, seeing some kind of connection between the explosion and the ground. We just have no mechanical record. Our optical sat in LEO, which would have covered that, was taken out by someone when the Lewis was removing the higher ones. It went around to the far side of the world and just never came back. There was not even a debris field on radar, when it was supposed to come around again".
"It wasn't the only one. There has been more than one country knocking down the other guys sats, figuring in the confusion they'd never be blamed. We took advantage to kill a few really irritating birds ourselves Sir," he admitted and got an uncomfortable stare back.
"It was early morning there. Not many people out at all. Just enough light to where nobody would be star gazing. Looking from the West the sunrise interfered. Looking from the East it's all ocean, so except for a few islands, so you'd have to be on a boat. It's not like this happened over California. And there was no scheduled event like a satellite pass or meteor shower, to attract observers."
"The event was so brief, if you weren't looking right at the part of the sky where it happened, you didn't have time to turn your head. I'm surprised we had twenty observers. Four of them were air traffic controllers, looking at aircraft in that part of the sky and six were various aircraft crew, on a heading which placed the event in front of them. And most of them were pretty useless for detail. A few said the flash they saw went up to the sky and a few said it came down from the sky. The explosion itself was so dazzling, some didn't even notice any line to the ground underneath. As to an actual bearing, they placed it over a quarter of the horizon, so there was no pinpointing the source. It's unlikely further evidence will be forthcoming," he predicted.
"I'm sure the Japanese had a hand in this. After they recognized these vermin the day before, it's no coincidence," Hadley assured himself. "But I won't say anything to their ambassador without proof. It's useless to make accusations on hearsay. They may even say the fire was coming down on them, not going up and blame it on us."
The Colonel thought, after the Japanese demonstrating a completely unknown weapon of such power, perhaps the course of wisdom would be to find out a little more, before getting in their face about it. He didn't see they needed a second war with somebody else, possessing even more terrible new weapons. But he didn't want to be dragged off under arrest today, so he kept the idea to himself.
Hadley dismissed the relieved Colonel without any more questions and he lost no time in fleeing. He was thinking hard what would keep him from being called here again. If he could just get hurt somehow, badly enough to be relieved, but minor enough to still heal eventually. And believable. It's pretty hard to shoot your foot, when you don't even carry a side arm. But he might prefer to throw himself in front of a bus, rather than have to brief the President again. No, not a bus he thought, just a real low sports car, going slow in the parking lot. How badly could it hurt until EMS got there? Better than disappearing in a military police van in a hood and chains, knowing his parents would get a notice his citizenship was revoked and he had been declared an enemy of the state.
* * *
"I believe I have a conduit we can use to thank them," April said. "Can anyone find the Oriental lady reporter, who has been interviewing people so aggressively?"
* * *
"Excuse me," Margaret inserted herself politely. She waited until the young lady was done interviewing the gentleman having his lunch and then approached her.
"I'm Margaret Detweiler with security. Jon Davis and April Lewis asked me to inquire if you might consent to meet them. They have an interest in contacting Genji Akira and hoped you might help them."
"I wondered how long you'd allow me to run around loose," she said with a sneer. "You should be aware the pad here is recording my arrest and transmitting it real time to my agency."
"Oh, I'm so intimidated." Margaret allowed herself a show of teeth, that was not a smile. "They asked me to invite you politely and I have, but no one told me I had to kiss your snotty little ass. If you had any manners you'd have paid attention, to hear it was an invitation, not an arrest. If you don't want to be handed a story and invited into the inner circle of what's happening fine. We'll find some other way to contact Akira, which doesn't involve sucking up to a childish little creep like you. I'm sure the people of your agency," she nodded at the pad, "have seen enough of your golden personality to not be surprised you are such a fool, you make enemies when there was no need," she turned and walked away.
"Wait!" she called, "Perhaps I misunderstood what was happening. Can we talk?"
"No we cannot discuss your misunderstanding," Margaret snarled at her, spinning around. "You insult me and my nation and then try to blow off the fact you act like a damn spoiled child as a misunderstanding. By tomorrow you will be referring to it as our misunderstanding and by the next day it will be my failure to understand."
"They didn't drag me out of the cabbage patch yesterday youngster. I know how people like you manipulate both words and people. You want to start over? You can apologize decently to me and we'll take it from there. Otherwise you can go to hell. I won't take you to Jon, or especially April, because I suspect if you talk to her like you did me, she'll cut your ears off to make you reflect on your manner, while they're growing you new ones."
Adzusa looked back at the pad on the table. Margaret was not stupid. She was keenly aware she was thinking the pad was still in range to hear her voice and even worse the camera was pointed their direction. Everything she said would be transmitted below for all her coworkers and she'd have to live with it forever.
She looked like she had a mouthful of something very unpleasant, but swallowed it and moved forward. "I was badly mistaken about your intentions and your honor. Please forgive my hurtful words and let us start again with a restoration, by my apology," she said. And she bowed rather formally, with her hands clasped before her.
"Thank you. It's as nothing then. I'll forget it ever happened." Like hell I will, she thought, but she made nice-nice as well as she knew how and even did as good a bow as she could imitate, trying not to skimp on it for the camera.
"If you want to record or transmit our meeting and conversation, for your protection feel free. But the things you see might be so hot, you'll worry about keeping them on your pad. Do you have a really good encryption program, the North Americans are not going to crack, in not just a few days or hours, but in the next few decades?"
"I'm assured by the technician that produces such things for our agency, that the sun will grow old before anyone reads our exchanges."
"He sounds like our Heather," Margaret nodded, accepting her assessment. "Come on then," and gave a beckoning jerk, Earth style, with her head.
After they hard wire plugged Adzusa's pad into the com console to use her proprietary protocol, Akira himself answered his com from Adzusa's call, his hand still extended over the keyboard, when his image came on the screen. He was dressed casually in an open necked white shirt. A small smile of amusement or pleasure formed on his face. "Miss Lewis, it's a pleasure to see you. I hope you are well. It is a trying time now for your countrymen."
"Mr. Genji. I wish I could use your language properly to thank you. A weakness I will have to correct. But I know from your articles your command of English is masterful. We have a file we'd like to share with you first." She nodded to Adzusa, to feed it to him. "And we ask you to quietly convey our thanks also, to those in your government who have befriended us."
His eyebrows went up at the clear picture he received, showing a glaring thread of energy, connecting Southern Japan with the destruction of the missiles, but he said nothing about the image. "I simply said what was true. Some others would have been offended at me breaching their privacy. I'm glad
you're not. I'm starting to see irritating the Lewis or Singh families is a very bad thing to do," his broad smile made clear it was not meant as disapproval.
"We feel you had a hand, in presenting us in such a favorable light they decided to aid us. So again, thank you." She had her toes hooked in the take hold, in front of the com desk. So despite the zero G she could end by bowing deeply, with downcast eyes and holding it indefinitely. It was a much better bow than the last she had given him.
"He's gone." Jon said in a moment. "He made a bow back to you, we can replay for you, but when he saw you holding, he decided not to spoil the moment and just quietly left. I think you made some points there."
"Are you allowed to share with me what is happening in your clash with North America?" Adzusa asked them. Standing to the back, Margaret noticed she seemed to have assumed a more respectful manner.
It had been April's idea, but she hesitated now that the woman was here. Jeff hovering in the background spoke to Adzusa with perfect Japanese and she responded with a shocked look. Whether at his use of the language, or what he said they didn't know.
Jeff observed them all attending their conversation and explained. "I don't mean to be rude. What I wanted to know I could express much more precisely in Japanese, but now I have to phrase it in English anyway," he said with a wry smile. "I asked her if she had been voting in the proposals. She said no, she didn't think she'd be here permanently and it didn't seem a proper thing to do and it might be difficult for her to pay the tax. I asked if she might not consider dual citizenship and it seems an upsetting idea to her right now.
Are you going to tell her what we're planning? What do you think? If we make our next communication with the USNA public, will it hurt or help?" Heather asked.
April Page 58