The captain shook his head again, and laughed somewhat shakily before continuing in a quiet tone, “I saw the report you had on this Lana Wilson. She is dating Admiral Hamilton’s son. He has personally seen her posted in the Atlantic Fleet Submarine Command in Georgia. That puts her two promotions away from US Missile Command. Plus we have a trainee Rafale fighter pilot taking the French army by storm, the most dangerous terrorist the world has ever seen living in New York, and god knows what their Chinese and Russian cousins are up to right now.”

The colonel placed his hand on the captain’s shoulder. It was a gesture of friendship and reassurance he had never felt the need to show before now. “Jack, I know. I know what it looks like. Trust me, I have wrestled with this for even longer than you have.”

Barrett took a deep breath, and decided to give it to the young man as straight as possible: “The chances are that we won’t be able to save everyone. And I’ll be frank, even if we actually manage to launch a trillion dollars of our country’s military hardware into space and our attack is successful, then our own government will probably be more willing to go after us than they are John Hunt’s seven deadly friends.

“But for what it is worth, don’t forget that one of those plane-lifting bad-asses is on our side,” he smiled and the captain laughed momentarily, meeting the colonel’s eyes and nodding, “and Jack, our friend Lieutenant Hunt has something they don’t; he knows who they are, but they don’t have any idea who he really is. As long as that is true, and as long as our efforts stay secret, we have a chance. I believe that. Really I do.”

Speech made, his tone changed back from patrician to officer. He lowered his arm and he said to the young man, “In the end, we have a mission, Captain Toranssen, and though difficult, our objective is clear. Are you with us?”

The captain saw the question in the colonel’s eyes and filled with determination. The call to arms seared through his veins. This was not just a mission; it was the most important thing any of them would ever be part of. As the captain filled with determination, the colonel saw in the young man’s taught frame and set face that he would, indeed, give his last drop of blood to stop the coming storm.