IT WAS an irritated, headachy General Young who went into the conference room in the wee hours of the morning to report to his Commander in Chief via a secure line to the White House. The president looked almost as tired as the rest of them, but he was alert and listened to Young with an unhappy frown.
“You think termination’s the only way?” he asked when the general had finished his analysis.
There was an undertone in his voice that tripped all of Young’s alarms
—the backstabber ones. He’d spent enough time swimming in the murky, shark-infested waters of Washington politics to know the scent of unsolicited interference. As annoying as it was, though, there were dance steps to be performed before you could get to the heart of a matter, rules to be followed, and one of them stated that you couldn’t tell the president of the United States something about his questions smelled fishy. Young didn’t know the enemy yet, so all he could do was stick to his guns and wait for the reveal.
“Yes, sir,” he said, meeting the dark eyes of his superior with unwavering conviction.
The president glanced down, looking at something on his desk, then back up at Young. “Killing is a rather permanent solution.” It wasn’t a “no”
yet, but it sure as shit wasn’t the go-ahead Young had expected. “We make a wrong move here, we might end up regretting it for a long time to come.”
“We don’t make a move, sir, we might end up losing a lot more than two dozen American soldiers and a civilian with bad timing,” Young reminded him coolly.
“We know how to kill it.”
“No, sir, we know how we killed the other creatures,” Young countered, a hint of sharpness in his tone. “The entity we’re talking about
was hit with the same type of missile and is apparently alive and well.”
“And yet you believe you can destroy it,” the president said mildly.
Young shrugged. “Doubling the firepower usually does the trick. It hasn’t had much time to adjust or evolve yet.”
“I read the updated autopsy reports, General.”
Young’s jaw clenched. Butler. Had to be. He should’ve known the woman was going to cause trouble. Independent thinkers usually did. As a rule, Young considered the ability and readiness to take initiative a plus, but when it got him hit by friendly fire? Not so much. He shouldn’t have left her out of his sight. She must’ve sent this new version of her report while he’d been interviewing the survivors, and apparently she’d changed her mind about how to proceed. Hadn’t come to him, because… well, probably because she’d known he wasn’t about to risk his men’s lives so she’d have something to study and write papers about.
Oblivious to the fact that he’d already betrayed his source, the president continued, “This thing isn’t just armor, Nick. If we could study it, recreate parts of it, the benefits could be enormous. Applying the principles of this defense system, we might be able to counter the effects of osteoporosis, eliminate cancer, compensate for damaged nerves with paraplegic patients….”