The White House Situation Room convened at noon.
The same room, the same table, most of the same faces. Yuen. Calloway. Briggs. Park. The Secretary of State. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who had not been at the previous meeting but was here now.
The President was already seated when they filed in.
Nobody made small talk.
Yuen set a tablet at the center of the table with the last clear frame of the shuttle before it disappeared. She left it there as a reference point rather than presenting it formally, because everyone in the room had already seen it and the image didn't need introduction.
Marsh looked at it for a moment. Then she looked at the room.
"The Chairman first," she said.
