The meeting dragged on, with each of the president's advisors giving reports on their areas of responsibility, until we got to the issue on everyone's mind; the Kristang on Earth. They had survived because they were in hardened underground bunkers that couldn't be harmed by the weapons Skippy had selected in our initial strike. The only weapons capable of reaching them were either human-built nukes, or the railgun aboard the Dutchman. A single tactical nuke wouldn't be powerful enough to reach down far enough in Skippy's estimation, we would need to drill a deep hole, drop the nuke in, and detonate it above the lizard bunker. We had plenty of drilling equipment, although it would take months to get the equipment in place and tunnel down that far. Skippy cautioned that using nukes on a habitable world, including Earth, were against The Rules anyway, rules humanity was now bound by, as we had participated in the war. If either side of the war ever reached Earth and discovered that humans had used nukes against the Kristang here, the consequences would be dire, as if we didn't have enough trouble already. That left the Dutchman's railgun as the only option. Which was a problem at two of the sites, one was close to the city of Lyon in France, the other just west of Hangzhou in China. No way could we use nukes so close to those cities anyway. The third site, their main base, was under a mountain northwest of Durango, Colorado.

The president clearly didn't like the idea of recommending the French and Chinese governments evacuate their cities so that Skippy could use railgun penetrators as bug spray. "Mister Skippy, is there any possibility the Kristang will, after a while, surrender? They must know their situation is hopeless."

"No, they don't know that." Skippy explained patiently. "I cut off their communications and shorted out most of their electronics. All they know is a Thuranin star carrier jumped into orbit, their frigate jumped away, and they were attacked by their own missiles and satellites. As far as they know, this is a commercial dispute between the White Wind clan of the Kristang and the Thuranin, which could be as simple as the Thuranin being upset about late payments for shipping services. It's happened before. Not on this scale, but the Kristang wouldn't be entirely shocked. The lizards hiding down in their holes are probably figuring they will stay there a while until the Thuranin have figured they made their point, or get bored, and go away. Then the lizards can come out and resume being bad guests."

"Damnit, that's not going to work." General Brenner growled. "Any way we can talk to them, show them how screwed they are?"