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0540 Hours, Polar Time
Underground Republican Stronghold: THERMOPLAE
There was a clank and several clicks as the automated locks disengaged themselves behind and inside the massive Terralloy door. Fleet Admiral Josef Remington removed his hand from the scanning panel and rubbed his eyes, which were recently insulted by a retinal scan.
If this keeps up, I’m going to need a new pair of eyes, he thought, earning a snort from himself.
With a deep breath he entered the large, circular meeting room, the pressure of his footsteps igniting the large light panels in the ceiling. The aged naval officer blinked as the dark room was flooded with white light. He shook his head; his eyes will adjust to it. He walked silently to his seat; his shoulder slightly slumped, and pulled out the leather rolling-chair. Easing his aging body down onto the leather cushion, he interlaced his fingers and sighed, waiting for the others to arrive and fill their seats.
This meeting had taken mere hours to put together. Considering its level of secrecy, its scale, and its urgency, this had been an organizational miracle for the PHANTOM staff members involved. Yet to the admiral, it had gone far too slowly.
He raised his head as the large door clanked and swung open again, this time catching a glimpse of the automated locks at work. General Karl Stinger moved through the door, giving a curt nod to the Admiral. The commander of the Spaceborne Infantry moved to his seat with an unusual tightness on his face. Both men were definitely feeling the tension brought on by the recent development. The two men sat silently, waiting as their colleagues (some hastily awakened from sleep just moments ago) filed in and filled the meeting room. As the last man (Secretary of Arms, Aaron Wilson), the door was sealed and the MP and PHANTOM guards outside stood to attention, their alert status raised to full-on Red.
The room sat in silence for a few seconds before President Montello finally spoke up, his voice hoarse and weary.
“I assume everyone knows what this is about?”
There were muted answers, but the message was quite clear. Of the gargantuan fleet that departed two months before on the so-called “D-Day of this century”, six badly damaged light cruisers had limped back to Earth. The faint hopes that perhaps Task Force Guillotine had completed its mission but was suffering from equipment errors had been utterly crushed. Having tossed over 50 of its strength into this fight, Earth was now terrifyingly alone and weak.
Fleet Admiral Remington turned to the PHANTOM technician who stood at his side and gave a small nod. He acknowledged this gesture and turned to his instrument panel. With a gentle hum, the holo-projector situated in the hub of the round table flickered to life, playing the report PHANTOM has hastily assembled through a jigsaw of recordings from the Light Cruisers and Paratroopers who had survived the operation. The twenty men clenched their jaws together as they watched the greatest military failure in the history of the republic unfold before their eyes…
To explain some things you might not have understood: PHANTOM is sort of like Halo's ONI. It's the military intelligence service. But what's different here is that it also takes care of anything in the military that includes Joint Operations. Such as this big meeting here. So you can say that they're a cross between the CIA and the State Department. 'Kay?
