“We were just starting to talk about the message from Archidamus,” Kilmer replied.
“The crossing of rivers. Have you made any progress on figuring out what he meant by that?”
“I keep thinking it has to do with Caesar’s crossing of the river Rubicon—when he broke with precedent and marched his armies into Rome. But I don’t know what to do with that. Sill suggested that it could refer to Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War.”
The three of them discussed both possibilities, and what they might mean, until Whitman took her leave about twenty minutes later.
“Feel free to stay up and chat, kids, but remember that tomorrow’s a school day—and you have to be up early.”
Kilmer and Silla continued to talk until nearly 1:30 a.m. When she said goodbye, Silla considered giving Kilmer a kiss on the cheek, but decided against it at the last moment. Kilmer noticed the hesitation but tried not to let on—nor to show his disappointment. Silla caught it—and smiled.
“What are you smiling about?”
“I just noticed something about you, Kilmer.”
“What’s that?”
“That you notice things about me.”
“I hear that’s why I was brought here—I tend to notice things. It’s what makes me special, apparently.”
“No, Kilmer. Noticing things is what makes you valuable. It’s not what makes you special.”
“So… then… what makes me special?”
Silla forced a grimace. “Wow. This is kind of awkward, Kilmer. I didn’t even say you were special. And now I need to come up with something just so you won’t feel bad. What to do?”
“Before you try to answer, I should tell you that I’m on the verge of feeling really, really bad. So you might want to take that into consideration as you come up with something to make me feel better.”
Silla made a show of thinking about it.
“Okay. I have an answer. About what makes you special.”
“What is it?”
“First, close your eyes. And don’t open them until I tell you.”
Kilmer did as he was told.
“What makes you special, Kilmer, is that you are always you—no matter what.”
He sensed her moving closer to him… and then he felt the kiss on his lips. It lasted only a second or two, but it left him feeling like he might lose his balance and fall over. He couldn’t help the smile on his face.
Ten seconds later, he heard her voice, coming from the hallway.
“You can open your eyes now.”
Kilmer opened them, knowing she would not be there. But his smile persisted.
There’s always tomorrow.
~ 118 ~
Day 59.
On Day 59, an international task force reported on its preliminary findings regarding the squadrons.
According to the report, none of the spacecraft had ever moved faster than the speed of sound. If they continued to fly below Mach 1, they could be easy targets for SAMs and fighter jets. The spacecraft flashed a blinding light in all directions before they attacked, shielding them from view for up to three seconds. It was unclear what kind of bombs were dropped; nothing was detected hurtling toward the ground before the explosions took place. The spacecraft that attacked military installations moved significantly slower than those that attacked oil and gas installations, making them easier targets. It was possible that the aliens were trying to hit more precise targets on military bases, and they could not do so at higher speeds.
There were three additional attacks that day, all on military installations—in England, Israel, and Russia.
Day 60.
The first attack in the United States took place on June 26—Day 60. The target was a military base in Texas, and over 2,000 people were killed. Calls for retaliation ratcheted up significantly across the country. The governor of Texas demanded the impeachment of President Whitman if she refused to respond militarily. Three other governors, eight senators, and a few dozen members of Congress made similar demands. After lengthy discussions with her advisers, the international alliance, and Congressional leadership, Whitman decided against ordering an attack.
That afternoon, Kilmer sent another message to Archidamus.
Archidamus did not respond.
Soon after, Whitman sent a warning to ET-1, but she did not draw any precise red lines. “I am well aware,” she told her team, “that failing to issue a clear ultimatum will reduce the credibility of our threat. But I don’t want to paint ourselves into a corner when we’re not ready to follow through with a retaliatory strike.”
The message asked for there to be dialogue, and read, in part:
We have been patient in the belief that misunderstandings, grievances, and legitimate concerns are best addressed through dialogue, and not through retaliatory attacks. But there are limits to our patience, and to our ability to give the benefit of the doubt. We ask that you cease your attacks on all nations of Earth to avoid a situation—which draws nearer—in which we must fight back to defend ourselves.
ET-1 rejected the request for dialogue and responded to Whitman’s warning:
…As to the threat you have made, we refer you to the guidance we offered in our earlier message. We continue to act in accordance with our laws and consistent with our legitimate interests. We ask that you not interfere with these activities.
Kilmer and Silla talked until 2:00 a.m. that night. Silla was sure that, by now, she had told Kilmer everything he had known about her life before he entered ET-1. It was strange to have done it twice, but Kilmer was just as fascinated the second time around. Kilmer’s attempts to tell Silla about his life were becoming a bit of a joke. He would start a story, and then pause to see whether she could finish it. He was amazed to discover just how much old-Kilmer had told her—and what she already knew provided compelling evidence of just how close their relationship had been.
“I feel like the guy who tells the same jokes at every party, and people don’t know how to tell him to stop. If this gets annoying, will you let me know?” Kilmer asked.
“Okay. Well. In that case—it got annoying a few days ago.”
“Really?”
“No. I’m just kidding.”
“Good.”
“Well… maybe a little.”
“Really?”
“No. Still kidding.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Good, because—”
“Well… pretty sure.”
“Stop it, Silla.”
Silla gave Kilmer a big hug. “It’s not annoying at all, Kilmer. It’s wonderful. It doesn’t matter if I already know something about you. What matters is that you want to tell me.”
Day 61.
There were six attacks on Day 61—including, for the first time, an attack on a military base in North Korea. Chinese President Zhao was asked to ensure that the North Koreans did not retaliate, and he assured Whitman that North Korea would not act unless the Chinese government gave it permission.
A second and third attack also took place in the United States—one in Florida and another in Colorado.
That evening, Strauss argued strenuously for a change in approach. “We need to respond, Madam President. Even if we shoot down only one spacecraft, it’s essential that we let them know we have both the ability and the guts. And this isn’t just about deterrence, either Think about what we might learn if we can get our hands on the wreckage! It could be a game-changer. Ideally, we get NATO to support us. Or we ask the Chinese or Russians to join. They will, I think. Or we just go it alone. After all the damage the aliens have done, we have not only the right, but the responsibility to act. At the very least, Madam President, you must issue an ultimatum. Let the aliens know that their next attack will lead to retaliation. If we can’t even do that much… then with all due respect, I don’t think I can support what this administration is doing much longer.”
It was a
heated conversation—but professional. Whitman seemed to take no offense. She saw the merits in Strauss’s argument, and she asked Nielsen, Garcia, and Kilmer to draft specific language for an ultimatum. She then asked Strauss and Allen to draw up at least three separate operational plans for a military response.
She would decide how to proceed the following day.
~ 119 ~
Day 62. 9:00 a.m.
The team met in the Oval Office at 9 a.m.
“I am deciding between two options,” Whitman announced. “Option one is to issue an ultimatum, warning the aliens that their next attack on a US target will lead to retaliation. Option two is to skip the ultimatum and move ahead with the least aggressive attack option that Strauss and Casey have proposed to me. This entails shooting down a spacecraft that is approaching a military installation. Either way, we’re one move away from retaliation, and that means we need to inform the international alliance. I’ve already told our NATO allies where I stand. They will support us—but they’re worried. The French, Germans, and Canadians don’t believe we have passed the threshold of pain that would warrant a retaliation. They think we should wait. Strauss tells me the Russians are on board. The Chinese haven’t rejected the idea, but they worry about what happens if we launch an attack and it fails. Do we look even more vulnerable?”
“Between the two options,” General Allen said, “I support the ultimatum, because it has some chance of eliminating the need to follow through with an attack. But there is a tradeoff. We are more likely to actually hit them if we don’t let them know that their next attack will lead to retaliatory measures.”
“I agree,” Strauss said. “And yes, the Russians are on board. They’ve even offered to launch a similar attack against a spacecraft in Russia. I don’t think the Chinese will do that yet. They feel more vulnerable because they launched the initial nuke in space—which did not go over well with the aliens.”
Nielsen preferred an ultimatum. Druckman preferred not to give warning. Art, Silla, and Perez didn’t weigh in.
“Professor Kilmer?”
Kilmer was unsure. All he could think was that no matter which option they chose, everything was about to change. “Before we decide, can we go over the logic again? Let’s revisit what we know and don’t know. One more time.”
Over the next twenty minutes, they reviewed the evidence. The aliens had attacked both military installations and oil fields without warning, and without any obvious provocation. The military installations were disproportionately those that were best equipped to carry out an attack against the aliens. This could mean that the aliens were trying to slowly chip away at Earth-side capabilities, and if so, it might mean the aliens were not as formidable as had been feared. Furthermore, either because of the limits of their technology, or because they believed they could act with impunity, the alien spacecraft weren’t moving very fast. This could make it easier to take them out—unless they had defensive capabilities that had not yet been demonstrated. In their message advising humans not to retaliate, the aliens had given no indication what the consequences would be if Earth-side fought back, but that could simply have been because a bureaucrat, and not a military strategist, had composed the language.
“I don’t see anything that makes me worry excessively about escalation,” Kilmer admitted. “I agree with General Allen that if matters escalate, things could go terribly wrong. But nothing here suggests to me that shooting down one spacecraft that is on its way to launching another attack—after they’ve already killed tens of thousands of human beings—would be the kind of thing that would trigger significant escalation. That’s especially true if we’ve first issued a warning. If the aliens stand to benefit from continued attacks, they’ll launch them regardless.”
“I’d take it a step further, Professor,” Strauss added. “Their behavior suggests they might be worried. They ask us not to fight, but they don’t issue a specific threat or announce what the consequences will be if we fight back. Their attacks are chipping away at our capabilities, but only a little at a time, as if they are the ones who are trying to avoid escalation. Maybe they know that if they attack too viciously, we’ll be forced to fight back, so they keep things just below that threshold. Maybe they’re hoping that when the damage is done—one base at a time, for however long they can keep it up—we really will be too weak to fight.”
Silla entered the conversation. “I see your point, Secretary Strauss, but it bothers me that we’re suddenly seeing them as being so weak. None of what we’ve seen recently changes the fact that they’ve traveled trillions or quadrillions of miles to get here, and that they have at least some types of technology that we can only dream of. I’d like to remain a bit scared. I don’t think fear is necessarily our enemy here.”
“Does that mean you’re against an attack, Agent Silla?” Whitman asked.
“I still lean toward waiting, yes. But I understand it’s not my call, nor my place to weigh in strongly. I can only suggest that we ask ourselves how many deaths, ex ante, would we have been willing to suffer before we felt that the risk of retaliation was worth taking. I thought about that after the first two attacks, and I came up with a number in the many hundreds of thousands, at least. Maybe even millions. We’re not at that number yet. Perhaps others would have set a lower limit. But if not, we should stick with what we considered wise before stress, anxiety, frustration, and political pressures began to weigh more heavily in our judgments.”
“It’s not just a matter of the numbers, Agent Silla,” Druckman counseled. “Perhaps the fatalities are lower than what we should be willing to endure, but there are now other factors—the fact that they seem hesitant, and the fact that they’re trying to whittle away our capabilities. These are what increase my willingness to fight sooner rather than wait. What a major escalation would do is still terrifying, but the likelihood of escalation is lower if our analysis is correct. And hell, the way these guys are behaving—floating in at a leisurely pace to kill our people and take out our most defensible facilities—they’re practically begging us to punch them in the face. I’m not saying we declare war. I’m just saying we throw a few jabs. And if not now, when? If we’re going to inch toward hundreds of thousands of deaths anyway, and we’ll eventually have to fight back, then I’d like to try to save those lives and employ that strategy sooner—before they do even more damage to our military.”
Kilmer looked at the floor and furrowed his brow. Then he set his coffee cup on the table in front of him—a bit too loudly—and all heads turned toward him. But Kilmer’s mind was already elsewhere. He didn’t notice that everyone was staring at him, nor did it occur to him to apologize for banging the table, or to clean up the coffee that had spilled from his cup.
Someone said something—it might have been Nielsen. Everyone chuckled. Kilmer had no idea what was said, but he smiled, almost unconsciously, as if to reassure the assemblage that he was still part of the conversation. But he was not. He was somewhere else, grappling with something Druckman had said.
Whitman continued the conversation.
“You make a good point, Noah. Now, I want to hear more discussion regarding the ultimatum. Maybe it gets them to back down. Even if it doesn’t, their response to it could provide useful information. And if they alter the way they fly or attack after our warning, that tells us something about their capabilities as well.”
By the time others were weighing in, Kilmer had closed his eyes and completely tuned them out. If there were jokes being told, or new arguments being made, or missiles being launched, he was unaware of it.
…the way these guys are behaving…
Kilmer thought back to their earlier discussion about why the aliens had asked Earth-side not to fight back.
…why not just continue to scare the hell out of us?
His heart started to beat faster.
Lincoln…
Thoreau…
The crossing of rivers…
1846…
In a flash, the entire image snapped into focus.
How did I not see this? I’m sorry, old-Kilmer. My mistake. It was a good clue—I just wasn’t thinking straight.
Kilmer jolted back to attention—he didn’t even know who was speaking when he interrupted. “Wait!”
Everyone turned to look at him.
“Welcome back, Professor. You look refreshed,” Whitman teased. “Zack thought you fell asleep.”
“What? No, ma’am. I was—Madam President—please listen to me. Sorry. I don’t mean—I just—”
“Slow down, Professor. Slow down. What’s on your mind?”
Kilmer took a deep breath. He noticed the spilled coffee and wiped it away with a napkin. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Whitman was right. He needed to get a grip. He refilled his cup, stood up to stretch his legs, and took a few steps.
“Shit,” muttered Strauss. “Here it comes. The Sermon on the Mount.”
Everyone chuckled.
“Madam President,” Kilmer said, much more calmly now. “I think we’re going about this the wrong way. I don’t think we should launch an attack. And I don’t think we should be issuing ultimatums.”
“So, you’re in favor of waiting?” Whitman asked. “For how long? How many more attacks—or deaths—before you would say it’s one too many?”
“I say we wait for however long it takes. No matter the number of attacks. Even if thousands more are killed. Even if it’s millions. I hate to say this, Madam President, but I don’t think we should fight back. No matter what they do.”
~ 120 ~
Strauss looked more shocked and confused than annoyed, but all three sentiments were clearly in the mix. “You don’t want us to fight back—no matter what? A moment ago, you saw no reason for us to wait. Now you’re proposing the precise opposite of that. Is this about the scribble on your arm? Thoreau and Gandhi? MLK and Mandela? I thought we had put that behind us?”
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