96: Chapter 96: War Room Preparations, High-Level Strategy

Biden lowered his head and looked at the pile of documents on the table.

He did not pick up any of them immediately, but simply used his thin, aged hands to slowly drag the document closest to him—the Department of Defense thermal imaging summary—in front of himself.

He looked down at the thermal imaging sector on the paper, covered in countless bright spots, and kept his head lowered, not speaking for a long time.

When he finally looked up again, Chief of Staff Madeleine Rasmussen instinctively took a small half-step back!

It wasn't because she wanted to retreat. It was because she saw something else in those gray-blue eyes that had been clouded for too long.

Those eyes were no longer clouded! They were still aged, still surrounded by wrinkles and sagging eyelids, but the focus within them had suddenly become extremely precise, extremely sharp, and extremely cold!

Like an old dagger wrapped in layers of time and aging, it had suddenly been drawn from its leather sheath after being sealed away for too long.

"If there really are two hundred thousand Aliens in a fleet appearing above the Hoover Dam... that means the alien technology is real."

He flipped the Department of Defense thermal imaging report over, his fingertip gently tapping the area with the densest concentration of light spots, and then looked at Chief of Staff Madeleine Rasmussen. His voice was no longer the vague muttering from before; every syllable was as clear as if it had just been dragged across a whetstone.

"That liquid zero from Musk really does come from alien technology."

"And this so-called immortality is also real."

Chief of Staff Madeleine Rasmussen opened her mouth. She wanted to say "Yes," but under that gaze, her throat suddenly became extremely dry.

National Security Advisor Ronald Sawyer instinctively straightened his body, his hands hanging unconsciously at his sides, his knuckles tightening slightly.

The two of them—one White House Chief of Staff, one National Security Advisor—realized one thing at this very moment.

The marionette who had stood before them, dozing off and drooling at any given moment, had never truly taken anything they reported seriously.

He nodded, he dozed, he drooled, he soiled his pants in Oval Office, and he never read more than three lines of any document placed before him...

It was not because of cognitive decline, but because he didn't believe it.

He didn't believe in the liquid zero, didn't believe in the Aliens, didn't believe in the Deep State, and didn't believe in anything that fell outside the framework of his half-century of political experience.

But now, he believed.

Because an aerospace fleet of two hundred thousand was hanging in the sky of the Lighthouse Country, not as words in a memo, not as blurry photos in an intelligence briefing, but alive, glowing, and actively engaged in battle, suspended in the firmament above the Hoover Dam.

And when an old man who had worn the mask of a ruthless politician at the peak of the Cold War, hiding his true self for half a century, finally believed in something, he was no longer that drooling puppet.

Biden braced both hands on the edge of the desk and stood up, slowly but firmly.

He looked at National Security Advisor Ronald Sawyer, then at Chief of Staff Madeleine Rasmussen. His tone was flat, but every word carried the decisive power of something that had been suppressed for too many years and was now bursting forth:

"Notify the Department of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council, the Director of National Intelligence, the NASA Administrator, the Secretary of State... all the highest-ranking officials in Washington. Not a single person can be missing!"

"Get to the Situation Room for a meeting within thirty minutes!"

...

Thirty minutes later, in the White House Situation Room.

Both sides of the curved long table in the Situation Room were filled with the top figures of the Washington power pyramid.

The cold overhead lights illuminated the fine beads of sweat and tense muscle texture on every face, leaving nothing hidden.

On the giant screen in front, the thermal imaging feed of the aerospace fleet transmitted from Cheyenne Mountain was playing in real-time.

In the night sky interwoven with gray-blue and dark red, hundreds of pulse beams exploded against shields. Attack aircraft in echelon formations wove through the sky full of light grids, and giant light spears released by the motherships slashed at the enemy's battleship fleet shields, causing them to flicker incessantly.

Everyone present looked at the images on the screen, as if they were nailed to their chairs, unable to move.

Vice President Kamala Harris sat to the right of Biden, her arms crossed over her chest. The expression on her face was a stiff smile, forced to keep her composure after her cognitive defenses had been completely shattered.

Sitting on the left side of the middle of the table, NASA Administrator Glenn Callahan had his fists clenched on his knees, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on the alien hulls on the screen that were suspended out of thin air, completely ignoring the gravity dam, his lips pressed tightly into a line.

Secretary of Defense Lawrence Graves was the first to break the silence.

He pushed the text of the report on the suppression of the mutiny to the center of the table and stood up. His voice was at least two degrees raspier than usual, but the format of his report still maintained all the standard procedures a military briefing should have:

"Major General Stratton, Colonel Holloway, and Colonel Castro have personally arrived at the assembly and standby area to speak directly with the battalion-level command groups on the front line."

"The comprehensive strategy is to convert the mutiny into a standby status, immediately announce the suspension of the originally planned strike, and simultaneously allow each combat unit to retreat while retaining their weapons, and establish a cordon."

"Currently, the morale of the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, and the 75th Ranger Regiment has basically stabilized, and the mutiny has been successfully stopped."

Biden nodded slightly, not making a sound.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table with his hands clasped, shifting his gaze from the face of Secretary of Defense Lawrence Graves to the screen. He then slowly scanned everyone present, his tone steady but unable to hide the underlying shock:

"The mutiny can be contained, but the more critical issue now is that fleet of two hundred thousand in the sky."

"Who exactly are they, and what do they want?"

National Security Council Chair Evelyn Strauss picked up the intelligence summary in front of her that had not yet been fully compiled, then put it down, her tone fast and cold:

"Judging from the current engagement situation, they seem to be divided into two fleets of equal size, attacking each other."

"Looking at the hull silhouettes, formation methods, and firepower projection patterns, the weapon systems on both sides appear to be of the same origin technology, but they are not exactly the same."

"In other words, they are killing each other."

"And we are currently still outside their engagement radius, which counts as a very brief vacuum period."

Secretary of State Victoria Monroe withdrew her gaze from the screen from across the table. Her tone was calm, but her speaking speed was noticeably faster than usual:

"Killing each other."

"If it really is infighting, it is actually the most favorable situation for us to maneuver."

"All currently known intelligence points to the same group of people:"

"Edward Warren, Elon Musk, Philip Moran of the FBI, CIA Director Richard Heinlein, and the three military-industrial families behind the scenes: Hopkins, Remington, and Knox."

"They all gathered simultaneously near that abandoned spillway southeast of the Hoover Dam."

"From the point where Walsh was assassinated, this matter has been revolving around the same axis: Aliens and alien technology."