Gracen nodded, trusting that the younger woman would hold true to her word. It was going to be a hard job since they didn’t have enough equipment to properly link all of their troops into the Earth forces’ battle networks. That would make things a bit touchy, and probably was going to cost some lives just in tactical errors and blue-on-blue scenarios. It couldn’t be helped. The tactical map the President had transmitted to them was ugly, with Drasin taking over large chunks of the planet, and the Terran governments already considering the very last resorts.

“Sweet Jesus,” Michelle Winger hissed from her station.

Gracen twisted. “What is it?”

“It’s Bangladesh, ma’am . . . The Block nuked it. They nuked their own country.”

Gracen closed her eyes, knowing that wouldn’t be the last time. Nor did she expect that the Block would be the only ones resorting to such tactics.

“Susan, drop the priority of that area. Schedule it for recon once we have time.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Susan answered, her voice ashen and dry.

Gracen didn’t blame her for the reaction, but now wasn’t the time.

“Stay on top of it, all of you,” she growled. “This isn’t a movie and it’s not a game. People are dying and a lot more are going to die before this is done. If you don’t stay on top of it, that number goes up. We’ll have time to choke up when this is over. Am I quite clear?”

They all nodded, a few managing to answer vocally with an affirmative. She sighed. It would have to do.

Colonel Reed grinned as he felt free fall overtake him.

It wasn’t a nice grin. It was, in fact, an ugly one. He didn’t bother to hide it as he normally would have. His direct subordinates knew him well enough not to be put off too badly by it and those who didn’t couldn’t see his face anyway.

“Colonel,” the pilot said, looking back, “we are approaching the drop zone.”

“Very good. Just as we practiced, everyone, yes?”

“Yes Colonel!”

The men were green, but talented. The Priminae had let their ground forces volunteer freely, he suspected because they didn’t actually view them as valuable, unlike their naval forces. That was their mistake, Reed knew, and it was a big one. Almost every first-generation soldier he and his team had trained was packed into the Heroics, along with many second- and third-generations that had been trained by the first group.

Had he been in command of the Ranquil ground forces, he’d have been furious. In fact, he personally knew that Commander Nero had nearly blown a gasket when the council had given that permission. That hadn’t been enough for them to rescind it, however, though Reed half thought that Nero and Admiral Tanner had grudgingly let it go as a gesture of gratitude.