Chapter 12 – The Briefing

The Situation Room was silent except for the faint hum of projectors. A wall of screens showed graphs, orbital maps, and blurred telescope captures, each more unsettling than the last. The air was heavy with unspoken dread.

The President leaned forward, clasping his hands on the polished table. His voice was steady, but carried the weight of expectation.
“What is it?”

Elena drew a breath, feeling every eye on her.
“It’s not a comet,” she said. “It’s a vessel.”

The words cut through the room. Chairs creaked as advisors shifted uneasily. For a moment, no one spoke. Then the President broke the silence.
“Explain. What do we know?”

Elena tapped her slate. A new series of projections filled the screens.
“It was first detected in early July, between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn. At the time, the reflected light gave us a wide range of possible sizes—anywhere from three to five kilometers… up to fifty or more. We now believe it’s much closer to the latter.”

She paused, letting the weight of her next words fall slowly.
“Roughly the size of the island of Kauai.”

Gasps rippled through the room. Someone muttered under their breath; another jotted notes furiously. The President’s jaw tightened.
“Continue.”

“Chemical signatures are unlike anything we’ve seen,” Elena said. “An unusual amount of nickel without iron. That shouldn’t be possible in nature. The gases it emits are equally strange—high in CO₂, without the corresponding presence of CO. Again, not a natural profile.”

A general leaned in. “Trajectory?”

“It entered the system along the solar plane,” Elena answered. “At first, it was moving at 150,000 kilometers per hour. That’s fast, but not extraordinary for an interstellar object. What is unusual are its flybys. It passed suspiciously close to Mars… then to Jupiter. Not random paths, but navigational choices.”

“Controlled flight,” another voice murmured.

Elena nodded grimly. “And then there’s the tail. At first, it had none—no coma, no gas plume. But in recent weeks, we’ve observed a distinct green tail, rich in cyanide and other exotic compounds. The tail points inward, against its direction of travel. Like thrust.”

The President’s eyes narrowed. “You’re telling me this thing is slowing down.”

“Yes. Before it disappeared behind the Sun, we measured it at roughly 120,000 kilometers per hour. Either our initial estimates were wrong, or it has deliberately decelerated. In either case, the data doesn’t add up with what we’d expect from a comet. It should have accelerated as it approached the Sun.”

One of the Joint Chiefs shifted uncomfortably. “And the image?”

Elena hesitated. The screen changed to show a grainy photo stamped with the emblem of the Ares Reconnaissance Satellite. Angular structures glimmered against the blackness of space—impossibly straight, unmistakably artificial.

“Clearly technological,” Elena said. “This is not crystalline growth, not sensor artifact. It is… constructed.”

The room went utterly still. The President’s face was unreadable.

“We’ve kept the photo under wraps. To the public, it’s dismissed as AI-generated clickbait. So far, the cover holds.”

“And Mars?” the Secretary of Defense asked.

Elena’s tone hardened. “All of our Mars satellites have been disabled. Whether it was intentional hostility, or interference from radiation or jamming… we don’t know. The timing is too precise to be coincidence.”

The President exhaled slowly, then leaned back in his chair.
“So, we are blind.”

“Yes, sir. The object—3I/Atlas—is on the far side of the Sun. We can’t observe it again until early December, assuming solar activity is low enough. December 5th, perhaps. Until then, we wait.”

Silence hung over the room like a shroud.

Finally, the President stood. “Thank you, Dr. Park. Your work is… invaluable. Joint Chiefs—plan for contingencies. I want a briefing in forty-eight hours. Defensive options, offensive options, worst-case scenarios. Whatever we can put on the table.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” came the replies.

Elena gathered her papers, her heart heavy. Offensive options, she thought bitterly. As if there were any. We can’t reach Mars, let alone something halfway across the system. There is nothing we could do.

She walked out of the room with the weight of futility pressing down on her chest. Behind her, the leaders of the most powerful nation on Earth were already speaking of plans and war rooms, but in her mind, the truth rang clear:

Humanity was not in control.