If that was their intent, then they should have skirted this system with overwhelming force and demanded the Colonials’ surrender. They certainly should never have committed a total of eight ships in an attempt to reach the planet with their drones.

That left option two, but the sort of racial genocide that the other side of the World War II coin showed wasn’t quite what he was reading from the alien attacks, either. Why destroy all life in that case? Why turn a world into a wasteland?

No, Weston was certain that there was more to the scenario than he knew. More, certainly, than he was being told by the Colonials, but probably more than even they knew.

There was something new here.

He could feel it.

“Captain?”

Weston shook off the line of thought, glancing over to where Commander Roberts was looking at him. “Yes, Commander?”

“A call for you, sir. Admiral Tanner.”

“Thank you.”

He turned back to his controls, accessing the com-channel he knew that Tanner would be calling on. They’d reclaimed the armor from Milla, but he had left a portable terminal with a two-way holo-projector in the admiral’s keeping. It wasn’t rated for combat, but it was top of the line in civilian communications and provided a nice two-way image.

“Good day, Admiral,” Weston said.

“Good day to you, Captain,” Tanner replied. “I understand that you still intend to leave orbit this day?”

“I’m afraid so, Admiral,” Weston said. “I understand that your people need to consider what to do, given the situation, but I can’t risk sitting the Odyssey in a warzone for any longer.”

“I understand,” the admiral replied. “And happily, I have managed to cut through some of the process in order to supply you with the…diplomat you requested.”

“Thank you, Admiral. I had hoped you would.”

“My people are sometimes slow to move, but even we can tell when perhaps speed is a virtue. In this case, I convinced them that it may be so.”

Weston nodded.

“I must admit, however, that your particular restrictions in this matter have made things more difficult,” Tanner went on.

“I expected as much,” Weston said. “However, there was no real choice there, Admiral. Until we have some sort of official relationship, I can’t tell you or any of your people the location of our home system…They’ll have to come with us.”

Tanner shrugged. “I would most likely do the same. However, it was more the problem with scheduling a return that caused serious hesitation.”

Weston nodded. That was a given, he’d known from the moment he mentioned it. However, there was no way to predict how the politicians, or anyone, on Earth were going to react to this situation. Contact with an extraterrestrial civilization was one thing—a huge thing, to be certain—but only one thing, just the same. Having been involved, however shortly, in an interstellar war was not going to sit well with a lot of people.

And God alone forbid that the Block got a hold of the information, though Weston knew better than to believe that it wouldn’t happen. They would turn the entire event into a three-ring circus, just in an attempt to steal a few more points of world favor for their latest position.