“Yes. How did you know?”

“Saw the picture out in the hall. Handsome kids. I bet your youngest gets tired of wearing his older brother’s worn-out clothes all the time.”

“You have no idea,” Leo whispered. He was wearing one of Gareth’s old shirts at that very moment. Gareth punched him again, not as hard this time.

“Well, we’re in the same boat,” the colonel continued. “We get the Aykari’s hand-me-downs. Which was fine when we started. We made do. But we shouldn’t be content with that. We’re humans, for god’s sake. We’re innovators. Edison. Tesla. Einstein. Sure, we’ve had to jump ahead a thousand years with what the Aykari have shown us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t take that knowledge and make something remarkable of our own. Something cutting-edge. Something that uses the resources we have in abundance to help ensure our safety. Do you get my meaning?”

“Perfectly. You’re asking me if I want to come help you build weapons.”

“We’re asking you to serve your planet,” Officer Vonnevich said curtly.

“Believe me, ma’am, not a day goes by that I’m not thinking of the best way to serve my planet. I’ve devoted most of my life to finding ways to help humanity.”

“Which is exactly why we need you,” Colonel Ramsey said with a thin smile. “To help us create an effective deterrent. Two years ago I wouldn’t have worried about it—hell, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. I would have just trusted the Aykari, with their big guns and all of their shiny ships, to be able to fight their own war and leave us out of it. But it’s our war now. And we need our very best minds helping us to do whatever’s necessary to win it.”

“Protecting the Earth and winning the war are not necessarily the same thing,” Leo’s father said.

“I beg to differ,” the colonel replied. “The sooner we help the Aykari end this thing, the sooner we can all rest easy knowing the galaxy is a safer place.” After a pause he said, softer, “I understand you lost your wife in the attack. Grace, wasn’t it?”

Leo waited, feeling his heart skip, listening to his brother’s heavy breathing behind him. If his father made a response, it was too quiet to hear.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Dr. Fender. Truly. But you have to ask yourself, what would you have done, if you had the chance? If you had known it was coming, and you had the resources at your disposal, what could you have done to protect her? What will you do to protect your boys now that she’s gone? To make sure the Djarik never get another shot at this precious planet of ours? To make sure they can’t take from someone else what they already took from you?”

There was another long moment of silence. Leo craned his neck around the corner just in time to see his father standing up. He felt Gareth trying to shove him out of the way to get a better look himself. Leo pushed back with a grunt.