By afternoon the misunderstanding had legs — and boots. The Portland International Jetport — “International” meaning a hopeful Nova Scotia flight — hummed with the deep patience of jet engines. C-17s shouldered in like visiting whales. Marines jogged past bewildered tourists clutching paper cones of blueberry ice cream. Air Force crews erected a tent city on the far side of the tarmac and named the main pathway Pierogi Avenue in a doomed attempt at geopolitical accuracy.
The Coast Guard, already in Maine on account of Maine being mostly coast, reinforced itself with an armada of cutters. They parked them across the channels like heroic doorstops. The ferry to Peaks Island idled, horn hiccuping, as a Petty Officer waved semaphore at a lobster boat named Claw & Order.
“I’m gonna go set my traps,” the lobsterman yelled.
“There’s a federal security perimeter,” the Petty Officer yelled back.
“Ayuh,” said the lobsterman, and set them anyway. Lobstermen and lighthouses are not easily bullied.
Space Force established a Forward Space Awareness Unit in the old planetarium at the Children’s Museum. The staff was polite about it but refused to take down the constellation decals. A captain in a crisp uniform pointed a laser at the domed ceiling and said, “If the drones try a high arc, we’ll know.”
“How high?” asked a docent.
“Up,” the captain said, drawing a circle generous enough to include Mars, Venus, and the gift shop.
At Fort Williams Park, the Army unfurled miles of camo netting so gracefully that tourists applauded. Soldiers posed for selfies at Portland Head Light and then politely asked the lighthouse to assume a defensive posture. It declined. Some things exist only to endure the weather.
Word of the deployment outran the deployment itself. Back in Washington, the Press Secretary faced the briefing room. “We are moving decisively to protect Portland from foreign intrusion.”
A hand shot up. “From Poland’s airspace violations?”
“There you go again with your labels,” she said. “What matters is resolve. We’re sending a clear message.”
“To whom?” another asked.
“Everyone,” she said — which, to be fair, was true.
Someone leaked a photo of the President on the phone with the Governor of Maine. He was leaning back, chin forward, the confident posture of a man conducting an orchestra of facts he had never met.
“You’re welcome,” he told the Governor. “We’ve got Marines, Air Force, Army, and the Coast Guard. Even Space Force — great guys, very orbital. The whole enchilada.”
“Clam chowder,” the Governor said, because some corrections are civic duty.
“Right. The whole chowder.”
The Governor, who had handled hurricanes, ice storms, and a legislature that behaved like weather, took a patient breath. “Mr. President, Poland is in Europe.”