The End is Near

Chapter 25

17 July 2045 – Council of War – Military Base - Houston

Mitchell was accustomed to watching from a distance, but he figured that watching from within a situation couldn't be that different. You just had to try your best not to get knocked over. He had been in the room when they brought in the mysterious Mickael and the humans whom Mitchell had watched for so long.

They had made him go over, for the hundredth time, all that he had seen and experienced in the last three days. Had it only been three days? So much had happened in that time. When they tired of hearing about those three days, they interrogated him about everything he witnessed while watching the scientist. He didn't know why they bothered. It was all there on the tapes if they wanted to see it.

He realized they must all be very frazzled, because he wasn't dismissed after he finished yet another account of how he had met Mickael. Met? Ha!

He was then moved to the side and ignored after that. So he was as stunned a witness as everyone else when the full truth of what was really going on lit up the screens. He watched with mouth open as military might was unleashed and consumed. He cringed when they ordered Mickael to bring his sister before them and was not surprised when the four just 'poofed' and disappeared.

That was when trying not to get knocked over really became necessary, as the level of activity in the room tripled. Maybe it was because he had no military training, but he didn't really see the point in some of the running around as aides rushed here and there, answering phones and pressing knobs on screens. It would be an accurate summation to say that order had fallen to pieces. The President was yelling, the world leaders on the screens were no better.

Commander Stephen Grey stood up. Mitchell saw him catch the President's eye and shake his head slightly. The President cut off in mid-sentence and sat down. One by one the world leaders quieted. Mitchell had heard of this Commander, he had been legendary before he transferred into space exploration. Everyone had called it a waste of a brilliant tactician and the last of a different type of hero. He wondered if the Commander thought that Fate was playing him. He imagined that he would feel that way if he had tried to escape war by going into space exploration and the Universe turned around and sent him an invading alien ship.

"I believe that may have been very badly handled. However, it does seem as though our potential ally left us an opening." His voice was mild.

The President's voice was tightly controlled, "We have a person of unknown origin disappear from amongst us, with one of our top scientists, and you think that he was an ally."

"Yes," the Commander's tone was unapologetically certain as he continued. "I think we have nothing that can stop this threat. You have not been listening to what Roger Corelli was saying. He was witness to what this enemy leaves behind. If you cannot believe him, believe the evidence of your own eyes. Those warheads were the best we have."

He left that sentence to sink in.

"Now, we are not going to argue and we're not going to send any more of our people out there to be slaughtered."

"What are we going to do then?" the President asked tersely, his question muttered by leaders the world over.

"We are going to solidify our communications network, individually and collectively. Everyone who can be called in will be, even the units and services that "don't" exist." His gaze swept the room and then the panel of monitors, so it was clear that he was directing his comments to all of them.

"Then what?" the President asked.

"We wait. It won't be long. My estimate is two days tops, because on the third day those things will be close enough that it won't matter anymore."