President Trump quickly collected himself; he couldn’t possibly allow a subordinate to see him as anything less than perfect, after all.
He put aside the issue of Admiral McConnel for the moment and would deal with the intelligence failure first. Soon, the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats entered the Oval Office alongside the Secretary of Defense, General Mattis.
Trump slammed both of his hands on the resolute desk and stood up, leaning over the surface of the historied piece of furniture. “How the fuck did you manage to fail this hard? I mean, really, how fucking dumb do you have to be to not notice a ship that’s a kilometer and a half long!? And there’s even TEN OF THEM!” he screamed. The man in front of him was absolutely useless... no, he was beyond useless. Everyone around him was useless! All they ever did was fail, fail, and fail some more, leaving him to take the blame! He was furious; how dare they taint his legacy with their idiocy!
He forcibly calmed himself and his breathing returned to normal, but his bloodshot eyes would take a while to fade. “Well? I’m waiting. Tell me how you managed to fail this hard.”
“Sir...” DNI Coats began, but trailed off as he was unable to come up with a believable explanation. He was as flabbergasted and confused by the American intelligence community’s failure to detect the Edenian supercarriers as the president, who was currently just a hair shy of literally frothing at the mouth as he stood in front of him.
“Are you going to tell me they’ve been hiding those in a warehouse just like the rest of their navy? You were caught off guard by their battleships, too! Do you remember the idiocy you fed me when that happened?” The president was quickly becoming agitated again.
“No, sir. We sent agents to every one of their known naval bases that we identified through the keyhole network. We’re absolutely sure we found all of them. There’s zero chance that we missed any of them, but those ships... no port in the world can handle even one of those, sir. Let alone something that massive being hidden away without a leak or appearing on satellites at least once!” the director answered. The situation of the mysterious supercarriers was completely absurd, and he had to make the president realize that absurdity if he wanted to keep his job. After all, at the moment, the White House was like one really big game of musical chairs, and everyone knew that if they displeased President Trump, they would soon be thrown far away from the seat of power. And if that happened, no one could save them—they had all offended far too many people on their climb to where they currently were.
“So did they just fucking... appear out of thin air then?” Trump threw his hand in the air as he said that. He wasn’t in the least pleased by Coats’ response.
“That’s more believable than them being able to hide them from all of our satellites and every operative we sent to their shithole country. The CIA, Homeland, NSA... they’re all the absolute best at what they do, sir, and it’s absolutely impossible that they missed something like those supercarriers.”
“They also managed to sink an entire carrier group with a single fucking tugboat!” the president yelled. “Do we really have to tell ourselves that they have fucking wizards or something, too?” Trump sneered, completely not realizing just how close he had come to hitting the mark at that moment. “Are you telling me that they’re better than we are at everything?” he continued, beginning to lose his cool again. Carrier strike groups were the symbol and extension of American might, and now everyone in the entire coalition knew that they couldn’t stand up against a single frigate! Every single member of the world coalition punitive expedition had watched the sinking of the USS Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group live and in high definition; it was a huge embarrassment and slap in the face to the nation that everyone on the planet agreed was the strongest, most powerful country on the planet.
He stood there, bent over with his hands planted on his desk, panting and struggling to bring himself back under control. Eventually, he succeeded in calming himself and asked, “So what do you suggest we do now?”
“Sue for peace, sir. They won’t let us end the war while they’re at an advantage, but at the same time, they can’t possibly attack everywhere at once. They don’t have the forces available, we believe. In fact—” General Mattis began, but was cut off by the president.
“You believe? You believe!? YOU FUCKING BELIEVE!?” President Trump roared. “Every time you tell me you believe something, you’re wrong! Everything you believe is WRONG!” He stared at the men in his office, his eyes bloodshot and veins popping out in his neck.
General Mattis was a combat veteran and able to keep his cool in the face of the president’s anger. He simply continued from where he was interrupted, saying, “In fact, sir, they can’t attack our homeland unless they have an assurance in place.”
“What assurance?” the president growled in a hoarse voice. All the screaming he had done had put him on the brink of losing his voice.
“Our nukes are keeping them at bay, so they’ll have to take those out of the equation first. As long as they send an ICBM toward us, or hell, even an airstrike or cruise missile from any of their ships, we can retaliate with nukes, sir. All we’ll have to do is claim that they nuked us first, and our second-strike policy automatically kicked in,” General Mattis explained.
Before the president could continue the conversation, the Chief of Space Operations of the newly created Space Force burst into the Oval Office, followed by the president’s secretary.
The secretary began, “Sir, I tried to stop him but—”
The Chief of Space Operations cut her off and said, “We have a problem, sir.” He glared at the secretary, who had tried to prevent him from entering the president’s office.
“What now?” the president asked in a dangerously calm, even tone, his hoarse voice notwithstanding.
“We detected irregularities in Eden’s satellites, sir. They’ve all begun maneuvering to higher orbits,” he reported.
“And just what the fuck is that supposed to mean?” President Trump asked. He didn’t quite see the relevance of the shithole’s actions.
“Well, if it was us, it would be a precursor to a war in space. We think they’re planning on taking down some, if not all, of the satellites below theirs in orbit,” the CSO explained.
There was an extended silence in the room as the other three men, plus the secretary, were dumbstruck by the implications of Eden’s latest move.
Then, someone in the room couldn’t help but say, “Fuck....”
That one word expressed everything that everyone in the Oval Office was thinking at that particular moment.
