The Quiet Professionals
The President sat in his seat deep beneath the Pentagon, pondering. He pondered what he was going to do, how he was going to address the nation. This kind of situation was unprecedented. It offered a whole host of possibilities, but none so concerning as the threat to national security now very much real.
All satellite communications were down. No one in any of the intelligence agencies knew what could have happened; they had detected no missile launches, there had not been any sunspot activity lately. They hadn’t been hacked, they could tell that much. None of the ground-based equipment was compromised; just useless without the satellites.
Radio communications still worked perfectly well, further disproving the possibility of interference. He had his generals and admirals check on their armies, fleets, everything to make sure they were good. Thankfully, after the calming down of several hotspots in the world, most of the United State’s forces had been brought home. All sensitive and valuable things in the military, besides the people who were still stationed overseas, were home. Ships, planes, weapon systems, it was all there.
Of course, if they couldn’t be used to maximum efficiency, it was a great time to strike.
A suited man entered the room where the President sat. “Mr. President, we have important information,” he said, sounding grave.
“What is it?” the President asked.
“We just received communications from a border outpost by Canada, and another by Mexico in Texas,” the suited man said. “They want to know where Mexico and Canada are.”
“What?” the President asked.
“They’re gone, Mr. President,” the man said.
The President rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know,” he said. “We need to find out as soon as possible. Get on that.”
“Yes sir,” the suited man said. He turned to leave. “Mr. President, some of the Air Force brass are saying they want to do surveillance flights outside our borders to find out what’s going on.”
“Let me think on this,” the President said. The suited man nodded and walked out.
Canada and Mexico, gone? It made no sense. Where could two countries have just disappeared to? What would the world say, when they saw that the United States, after bringing its full military forces home, that its two neighbors were gone?
Then a thought hit the President.
“Wait… THEY are gone…” he said. His eyes steadily grew larger. “That means…”
The President turned around and looked at a map of the world on a screen in the wall. His focus narrowed in on North America, and he walked over to the map. Tentatively, he took his hand and placed it over the United States to block it, leaving Alaska and Hawaii alone. Twice he blinked, and finally, he understood the gravity of the situation.
“My god…”
He turned around and walked over to one of the phones he had in this room in the Pentagon. It was a red phone leading directly to the Secretary of the Air Force. He impatiently waited for the phone to answer, tapping his feet anxiously and hoping this could be done quickly.
“Mr. President,” a female voice answered.
“Start suiting up some aircraft for Reconnaissance flights outside our borders,” the President ordered.
“Sir?” the secretary replied.
“Just get it done. I need to know what we’re dealing with.”
“Yes sir,” the voice replied. “I’ll get the U2 out there.”
“Can’t we use UAVs?” the President asked.
“Without Satellite Communications, we can’t communicate with or pilot anything in our unmanned aircraft fleets,” the secretary replied.
The President cursed. “Very well. Do what needs to be done.”
The phones were hung up and the President went back to his seat. An important part of America’s intelligence, and in some cases, combat, arsenal, was just rendered completely useless. They still had manned aircraft, but the President didn’t want to risk any pilots on a recon flight that could end in disaster.
But it didn’t matter now; the last U2 was going out to tell the President what exactly was going on. And when it came back, the news it would carry with it would change the United States forever.
Address the Nation
The President waited anxiously in the bottom level for the Pentagon, now accompanied by the National Security Council, for the news that was about to come in. They had sent out the U2 hours before, and everyone waited with bated breath. The President had discussed with them what appeared to have happened, a conclusion that, however terrifyingly unlikely, impossible-seeming, or insane, actually appeared somehow possible.
With satellite communications down, contacting the U2 from a distance was undoable. And, given the circumstances, they didn’t want to use radio, because it could be intercepted by whatever was out there. The pilot of the U2 was to be brought to them to directly tell them what he found.
The phone in the room rang, and the President ran to pick it up. “What is it?” he asked quickly.
“The package is on its way down now,” the voice from the front desk responded.
“Good. Get him here ASAP.” The president hung up the phone and took his seat at the table.
“Mr. President, what are we even expecting here?” the Defense Secretary asked.
“If I knew that, this wouldn’t be much of a meeting,” the President replied. Normally, he was more cordial, but his nerves were frayed more than any previous president’s had ever been.
“What do you think it means for us?” the Secretary of the Treasury asked of anyone. “This is unprecedented in all history.”
“We think it is,” the President replied, falling into his seat with a thud. “Imagine if the settlers from Virginia, those ones who carved Croatoan into a tree; imagine if they suffered the same fate?”
“But they were a group that disappeared, probably just died,” the Defense Secretary said. “They weren’t an entire landmass.”
“Well, whatever is going on,” the Vice President said. “We’ll know for sure if we’re anywhere near home when we hear about what’s out there.” She received several nods of agreement, and everyone went silent.
Thy remained silent for the duration of the wait, barely even moving. One could hear the chatter outside the office, it was so quiet. The inner sanctum they sat in was well underground, nestled away from the world. The people in the room couldn’t imagine what it would be like when the people of the United States eventually got the news that the world they lived in was gone.
The door, just off in a hallway, opened slowly, and the council could hear a pair of people walk in followed closely by a security detail. When they rounded the corner and entered the main room, the council stood up in greeting the pilot of the U2. The pilot saluted them.
“Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, Madam Vice President-“
“Sit,” the President said. The pilot obliged and took a seat at the side of the table close to the council.
“Mr. President,” the pilot said. “The world is different.”
“How so?’ the President asked. “What did you see out there?”
The pilot went into detail. “Sir, when you had me fly a recon flight, I was expecting to see a fleet of Russian or Chinese ships or something coming out. When I flew over calm, clean waters, I already knew something was wrong. The lack of ships made it clear that you weren’t looking for that either.”
“What about those calm waters did you notice?” the President asked.
“The pacific is never that calm,” the pilot said. “After noticing that, I went on East for about another two and a half hours. What I found out there…” The pilot shook his head disbelievingly.
“What?” the President asked. He and the rest of the council were on the edges of their seats.
“A landmass. A landmass where there was not one previously. Big, big enough that I couldn’t see the end of it over the horizon. Like another continent that appeared out of nowhere.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how it got there.”
“It didn’t get there,” the President muttered.
“Sir?” the pilot asked.
“It didn’t get there,” the President repeated. “We got here.”
“Sir, I don’t follow,” the pilot said.
“You will by the end of tonight,” the President said. “For now, go and get some rest. You’ll be needing it.”
“Sir,” the pilot said, understanding that his role was far from over.
The pilot stood up and was guided out of the room by the same security that brought him in. No one said a word as they left. When they were gone, the President turned to his council.
“This confirms it,” the President said. “America is no longer a global power on Earth.”
“What?” the Secretary of the Treasury asked. “Why?”
“We aren’t on Earth any more,” the Defense Secretary explained simply.
Everyone sat back. “Shit,” the Vice President said. “So what do we do now?”
“We have to nip this in the butt ASAP,” the President said. “I’m going to address the Nation tonight. People who don’t get TV because they had satellite will learn soon if they don’t when I give the address.”
“Sir, shouldn’t we wait?” the Defense Secretary asked.
“This is too significant to hide for any longer than we already have,” the President said. “People are probably already figuring it out. We need to reassure the people out there that this isn’t bad, that we will maintain our way of life and nothing is going to change for them.”
“Except that everything is going to change,” the Vice President said.
“That doesn’t matter,” the President said. “They need to think that it won’t.”
“It won’t be easy,” the Defense Secretary said.
“I know,” the President replied. “There may be chaos. I think this situation warrants the presence of all US Military personnel throughout the country to keep the peace. As long as people don’t break into violence, don’t do anything.” The Defense Secretary nodded his agreement.
The council and President stood up and straightened out their suits and ties. There was no time to wait; they would be acting in their official capacities for an unknown period of time. The way the government they were a part of worked might change drastically. Economies across the nation would change. They had to be ready.
The President looked over his council, glad to see the professionals he could trust and call his friends serving alongside him in this time of national crisis. He had the utmost confidence in their abilities and strengths. After taking one last look, he turned to walk out and do what he took office to do.
“Time to get to work.”
Every person across the country waited in mutual anxiety for what the president was coming out to announce. People had noticed that all satellite TV across the country had gone down, so the natural assumption was that there was either some kind of third world war coming or a critical terrorist strike against US infrastructure. The President’s coming onto TV to address the nation was all over every media available to people, and now, people were crowded around cable television sets and radios and shop windows to see what was to come.
The President stood outside the camera’s view in his presidential suit holding a speech prepared for him by his professional writers. He had told them the points he wanted to get across, and looking over the speech again, he could see that they hit it. But there was something off about it, something that wasn’t that assuring. Maybe it was his personal nerves getting at him.
“Three minutes, Mr. President,” an aid said.
“Thank you,” the President replied. No one who hadn’t been deep inside the Pentagon knew exactly what was happening, and the President could hear the fear in his aid’s voice.
When the time came, and he was called into action, He put on his best poker face and started walking. The carpet made muffled scruffs and shuffs beneath his shoes. Ahead, he could see a massive crowd gathered outside, the press and audience. Cameras were everywhere, pointed at him, at the White House, broadcasting what he was about to say to the nation. His words here would make or break the future of the United States.
When he came out, he heard hushed conversations quickly shut down completely as everyone looked on in silence. In the faces of the crowd, the President could see uncertainty and even fear in the press officials as well as others present, like the ambassadors of foreign nation who happened to be around when this catastrophe occurred. He couldn’t help but feel especially bad for them; in an alien country, in an even more potentially alien world.
The president set his speech down in front of him on the podium and looked down at it. After swallowing once to clear his mouth and throat, he cleared one time and began.
“Good evening,” he began simply. “Tonight, I come before you, here on the White House steps, to…”
The President stopped. He quickly looked over the speech. He couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t want to continue with this. It was a good speech, but… it just wasn’t enough.
He picked it up and dropped it to the side, getting excited and curious murmurs from the audience.
“America, tonight, I am coming to you to inform you of what has happened. Some of you have noticed a few major changes in our national boundaries. Others have lost communications with loved ones, both at home and around the world. You’re wondering what has happened.
There have been rumors going around that I am going to dispel now. Al Qaeda has not attacked us. ISIS has not made a comeback and taken vengeance. Russia and Iran and China are innocent of any attacks on US satellites and infrastructure. We have not found evidence of solar flares, space radiation, meteors, or any such anomaly.
We do not have an explanation for why this has happened. We will not pretend to. But we will find out.
What happened? Our northern citizens, in states like Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, New York, Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, can’t see Canada. Our southern states: California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas: can’t see Mexico. Where did they go?
They didn’t go anywhere.
This is a scary situation; I won’t color it any other way. We don’t know where we are. We don’t know what we’ll do. We don’t know of any threats, we don’t know what will happen to our economy. We don’t know what awaits us in the future.
But this… this isn’t anything. We are the most powerful nation from Earth. We are the largest, strongest economy in the world. We have the best Army, the best Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and the best defensive systems in the world. We are the most innovative nation in history, and we will always find a way.
There is no country or force out there that can ever keep us down. There is no threat to our security, interests, or freedom that we cannot overcome. Countless times in history, we have proven ourselves to be worthy to exist. Countless times, we have bounced back from what appeared to be impossible odds. Countless times, we have led the world where no on else would or even could.
Our enemies of the old world have disappeared: along with them, our friends. We are not against anything in this new world except uncertainty. But what does uncertainty mean? Uncertainty isn’t bad.
To those who say that uncertainty is a bad thing… they never studied history. Should the English have never come to the Americas because they weren’t certain of what awaited them? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have taken the certain route to the future and let the English rule? Should the French Resistance have refused to fight because they were uncertain of whether or not they could defeat the Nazis?
Should we have refused to chase after Osama Bin Laden because we were uncertain that we would catch him? Should we not have brought our soldiers, sailors, and airmen home because we were uncertain of whether or not they would be needed elsewhere?
No. We never allowed uncertainty to take us to despair before, and we will not allow it to do it today. Not tomorrow. Not in a week, or a month, or a year or decade or century. We thrive in uncertainty; it brings us to our most innovative, our strongest, and it makes us most certain of one thing:
We will not surrender to uncertainty. Not now, not ever.
Because we. Are. America.”
Princess Celestia sipped her tea calmly in her quarters. Tea had always been such a soothing drink. Even though most ponies drank it with sugar, she found it better this way. It kept her mind slow and paced.
Which was what she really needed right now.
There had been some terrible magical disturbance, off in the distance somewhere in the sea. Few ponies had the magical power and capability to detect it; only she, Luna, and Cadence. Twilight might have, but she lacked the necessary knowledge to find it. At least, Celestia hoped.
And it didn’t help that she had seen a strange, rigidly shaped bird enter her national airspace not so long ago.
It was unlike anything she had ever seen. And it made her anxious.
“I hope it isn’t time,” she said to herself.
There had been some odd prophesy long ago that nopony ever took seriously. In the one thousand second year after the defeat of the tyrant Nightmare Moon, two years after her return to the light, a great war would break out with a new contender on the international stage that would dominate the conflict. Celestia knew not of what side this new contender would supposedly be. She did not even know who it was. Maybe it was a dragon, or a group of some kind.
Regardless, she was anxious. Ponies, while technologically well off, were not used to war.
Celestia set her tea down and looked out her window toward where the disturbance had come from.
“If it is time… I need my little ponies to be ready.”
The Princess of the Sun stood from her spot and went to her official desk and started writing up the orders. She knew not what was to come, but she was determined to be ready for it.
But no one in this world could be ready for what was to come.
