treaty, which means that we’ve written them all off for the moment, as long as the oil keeps flowing.”
“Yes, Mr President,” Paul said.
“It’s a degree of
Paul shook his head. “Operation Nightwatch is hardly required any longer,” he said. “I expected that I would be reassigned to some other task within the New Pentagon.”
“I’d like you to take over the United States Space Force,” the President said. “It seems that I can do no wrong at the moment” – he smiled, rather sardonically – “and Congress is rubber-stamping everything, too scared of losing their positions to object loudly. It comes with a promotion to General and a massive budget, as much as we can spare. We need more shuttles, moon bases, orbiting weapons platforms, tactical observation systems…everything we need to defend ourselves if the next High Priest turns out to be less fond of us, or if others turn up from their homeworld.”
“I doubt that we will see any more ships,” Paul said, and outlined his reasoning. Anything could have happened back on the alien homeworld, or the other worlds they’d settled. “Still…I accept your offer, with pride.”
“Good,” the President said. They shared a meaningful look for a long moment. “And the black operations?”
Paul paused. “They’re proceeding,” he said. The mere fact that the United States – and Europe and Russia – was supporting the insurgency in the Middle East could restart the war. It wasn't something anyone wanted to discuss openly. “We should have the time we need.”
“All of this could have been avoided,” the President said, gazing into the future. “History will say that I, or Bush, or Clinton, or Bush Senior, or Reagan should have done something to prevent it. The largest cover-your-ass-and- voting-base budgets in the world won’t make up for history’s judgement on us. The best we can do now is make sure that it never happens again.”
“Yes, Mr President,” Paul said. “I will see to it personally.”
