“We’re in plenty as it stands,” Conner said sourly.

“Yes sir, we are. However the problem isn’t with the aliens on the ground. We can take them, Mr. President,” Caern said confidently. “It’s the goddamn battle fleet holding our high orbitals that we can’t take. As long as they’re up there, we may as well just roll over and die.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Conner growled, slamming his hands down on the table.

“Didn’t say it was, sir. Just said that we need to take those fuckers out,” Caern said bluntly. “Otherwise, sooner or later, we’re going to run out of bullets down here, and I can’t promise that they’ll run out of troops first.”

Conner scowled, but nodded curtly, looking over to the Air Force general in charge of SPACECOM. “Thoughts?”

General McCullen sighed, shaking his head. “We’ve got nothing right now, Mr. President. We’re half blind. We think that the Enterprise transitioned out of the system almost two days ago, but we can’t confirm. Certainly the Priminae ships went to FTL sometime before that, but we can’t confirm anything beyond that. We have no more military assets in Sol space, sir.”

“Ground to orbit missiles.”

McCullen shook his head. “Nothing but nukes and light conventional payloads. Every report we have on the alien armor clearly indicates that those will be of no value.”

“What about high-velocity missiles?” the President asked, thinking about the weapon systems the Odyssey employed.

“Can’t launch those inside Earth’s atmosphere. Besides the fact that they’d ablate away from friction, we’d destroy the launch site with the shockwave alone.”

“Lasers?”

“We wouldn’t even heat up their hulls at this range,” the general said.

“The Odyssey engaged them from light seconds away!”

“The Odyssey didn’t have to fire through atmosphere, sir.”

The President wasn’t stupid enough to suggest pulse weapons. He was well aware of what the use of antimatter inside an atmosphere would do. He closed his eyes. “What about the new transition cannons?”

“Those . . .” McCullen hesitated. “I don’t know, sir. We’ve never tried to transition this deep in a gravity well, or through atmosphere. They may be feasible, but we certainly don’t have a targeting zero for firing from Earth’s surface and, more importantly, we don’t have any of the tachyon waveguides or their munitions.”

“Then build some. Find an egghead to tell you if you can fire them, build some, and do your jobs!” Conner growled. “We will not go quietly into the night, gentlemen! This is not where the human race ends! Are you listening to me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. Now go get me some answers. Find me something we can use.”

Earth was a blue-white ball in the black of space, hanging in an eternal dance around the blazing yellow of the Sun. From anywhere in cislunar space, the Earth was the epitome of a peaceful icon.