Four of the Agents that had been attending the virtual Council meeting had been connected to rest of the group via the now destroyed satellite. Back in the virtual meeting room of the Council, those four Agents’ images suddenly vanished. The Council was left with three disquieted members. Pei Leong-Lam, Lana Wilson, and John Hunt stared at each other in silence. The AI spoke without emotion.

<Destruction of Hub Satellite Number 3 confirmed. The agenda of this emergency meeting of the Council is now finished. As quorum is no longer possible with current coverage, this Council meeting is hereby terminated.>

Chapter 53: Consequential

For the key players in the events unfolding across the globe, the next five hours were very strange. For the time being, they stood in something like a calm between storms, the sunny pupil of the hurricane’s angry eye. The conspirators had to wait for all their systems to be brought online, their approvals confirmed by the now all-too-aware president. Then the three remaining satellites had to be allowed to complete another circumnavigation until they were in place.

The first part of the plan had relied on surprise and subterfuge. The unshielded Russian missiles would not have been able to penetrate the defensive lasers of the satellite if it had been allowed to defend itself. But no amount of subterfuge and misdirection would make the remaining satellites sit idly by when they were launched upon. As the next phase of the plan could not rely on surprise, it would rely instead on overwhelming force. And in order for it to work, it needed to be executed at precisely the right moment. That moment was five long hours after the first satellite had been brought down.

For the US joint chiefs, it was a time of impatience. The White House Situation Room was, by the admiral’s recommendation and then the president’s order, on lockdown. No one could be allowed to leave who knew the full scope of what was about to happen. The admiral had now fully briefed them on the situation. A briefing that had been starkly reinforced by the shadow of the huge satellite in the images from the USS Achilles.

For some present it had been nothing more than a strange phenomenon at best, but the team’s earlier meeting with the president and his chief of staff had planted the seed they had required. The admiral had watched both men as the images had come back from the Black Sea. The satellite was there, exactly as the admiral and his colleagues had said it would be. Its existence could no longer be argued, and according to the supporting evidence of the admiral and his team, it was not alone.