“Yes, seven, and if they’re equipped as I’ve been informed . . . they’re about to raise all holy hell. I wouldn’t want to be in a Drasin ship right now, Lyssa . . .”

Still, he sighed. “But the Drasin could lose the battle and still win the war . . . that’s why we have to get ready for a fight, and be ready to move. We could be shipped out of New Mexico in an instant, and go anywhere on the planet. We can’t leave a single one of those things alive and active on this world.”

He turned back to his work on the EXO-13.

“Not a single one.”

President Conner was looking at the map of the world, a tactical display showing enemy landings, and felt quite sick. The arrival of reinforcements from outside the system had triggered an Armageddon response from the enemy force, something he supposed could have been predicted but still managed to take them all by surprise.

It was clear now that the enemy had been holding back significantly, something they’d feared for a while, which left him with the decision of exactly how to respond to the current situation. He wasn’t certain if the Drasin were aware that the human militaries on Earth had been holding back just as much, or if they’d care if they knew, but the truth was that they had been.

No military leader wanted the responsibility of unleashing strategic weapons, none who were remotely sane at least, so none had yet done so. Oh, he had authorized kinetic strikes on Mexico City and Detroit, but those were practically conventional weapons compared to some of what was sitting in his nation’s armories, and that said little of what the Block was sitting on.

The Drasin action was going to put them all to the test, however, because they were going to have to make a hard decision on that very subject . . . a decision compounded by the fact that each of them was going to have to choose whether to strike their own territory.

Conner glanced up at the agent standing at his door. “Simon, call outside for the football, if you please.”

The agent swallowed hard but nodded before stepping briefly out of the office to follow his commander’s orders. Conner couldn’t say that he’d made the decision yet, but he knew that when the time came he wouldn’t be able to wait for everyone to get ready. It was time now to break the news, because when he gave the final order he wanted no confusion or hesitation.

The literal fate of the planet may well be staked on it.

The universe had a warped sense of irony at times.