Other eyes watched and noted his sacrifice, but they didn’t have time for either mourning or celebration. There were more monsters to fell, and everyone present knew that there would be more sacrifices to make.

The dust slowly settled, the blood soaked into the ground, and elsewhere in New Delhi an explosion gave notice that the battle may be won, but the war continued.

For the ship minds of the Drasin swarm floating above the blue-green world so deeply infected by the red band, the situation had begun as untenable and had not altered even slightly over the period they had been occupying the system. The infected fourth world had already been cleansed, as had the satellite of the third world and several minor outposts dotted through the system.

The third world, however, was stubbornly resisting with every possible weapon at its disposal, plus many that the Drasin had never previously considered to be weapons at all. Only the urging of caution from the lower-generation ships prevented a total and complete obliteration of the planet, despite the fact that such an act would inevitably cripple the Drasin force deep in what seemed likely to be enemy territory.

That said, however, the fighting on the ground was rapidly threatening to enter a scale that practically matched that horrible outcome.

The normal consensus of the ship minds was now split widely on the best method to deal with this world, given the available resources at their disposal. Unfortunately, they were crippled and weak compared to the normal strength of a Drasin swarm, when hundreds of thousands of ships represented a small force. Simply throwing numbers at the world was inadequate, and this world was both poverty stricken and incredibly rich by Drasin standards, further complicating matters.

The materials needed to produce sufficient drones on the world were centered in areas of extremely high resistance, and much of the rest of the planet was poor fare indeed for the replication of the species.

The swarm had little desire to sacrifice more low-generation drones or ships, but it was becoming clear that the higher generations used to this point were fatally flawed and unsuited to the endeavor. That left the swarm with few options, and it appeared that total war was the only acceptable choice from a long list of bad options.

The decision, however, was far from made as the ship minds continued to debate the wisdom of leaving themselves crippled amidst such enemies as these.

There were many more of the red band nearby, plus those that had enslaved the swarm, and they all had to be eradicated. No exceptions. The death of the swarm was only acceptable if the red band died first.