Book 3: Chapter 60: Sneak Attack
Riker
April 2257
Sol
Bill had put up a number of display walls in the moot room. Two hundred Bobs filled the hall, and several hundred more attended remotely. For the first time since he’d built it, the moot VR was maxed out.
The display walls all showed the same image—a graphic of the Others’ projected course into the Solar System, terminating at Earth. At various angles to that approach, with tooltips attached, were our counteroffensive units. We would be taking the battle to them, hopefully before they realized we were aware of them.
“We have to take out as many of them as we can,” Bill was saying, “before they have time to react. They have the size and power advantage in a toe-to-toe. But hit-and-run attacks favor us.”
Thor stepped up and pointed to one group. “Cloaked fusion bombs are going in first. Three minutes. These babies have mechanical backups, so even if they zap them, the bombs will still go off at the preset time.” He looked around. “We hope.”
I looked up at the countdown timer. Less than three minutes to first engagement. The tension in the room was palpable.
Thor continued to point at items and describe the tactics. My mind wandered as I reviewed the last hundred years. A hundred years to the month since I’d stopped the Brazilians from destroying the Earth; a hundred years since I’d first spoken to Colonel Butterworth. I would never admit it publicly, but I’d missed him greatly since he had gone to Vulcan, and even more since his death. I was more grounded than most of the Bobs, since I was the primary contact with our family; but I could understand the feeling of alienation that many Bobs were starting to complain about.