Rather, they had come and were destroyed to the last, but for the Earth it had been a long and painful war. One that seemed without much of a victory to cheer for. The world was ravaged, with millions dead at least, and the death tolls still to be tallied in most places. Cities had been razed, either by the aliens or by the defenders in an attempt to cleanse them, and infrastructure had been demolished beyond repair.

The governments were a shambles, aside from the Block and the Confederacy and a very few key allies.

President Mitchell Conner suspected that now was the time to unify, if ever there was such a time. He swore to suggest it to his successor, for after the orders he had given he felt no right to sit behind the desk he’d once claimed as his own. New elections would be held, soon, and he’d stay on until then . . . but only then.

He looked out over Washington, and was surprised as he had always been by how untouched the city was.

The defenses around Washington had topped anything almost anywhere else in the world, and they’d served the people there well.

I just wish we’d done the same for other places.

The President of the Confederacy looked up from the balcony of the White House, eyes on the massive bulk of the ship that was visible even in orbit. It was the Atur, the flagship of the Priminae colonies, and the savior of the Earth.

How the tables turn. We save them, they save us. I think . . . I hope, this is the start of a beautiful friendship.

He’d spoken with the admiral, an approachable man for a flag officer. He rather liked all the Priminae he’d met so far, though he was required by the nature of his office not to trust them entirely. He wasn’t sure it mattered if he did, though. Whatever their intentions, they held all the cards.

They had the infrastructure to build more of the Heroics. They now had many . . . though not all, the key technical secrets of the Confederacy . . . and they had ten more warships in Earth orbit than the Earth had.

He just hoped to God that they were as friendly as they seemed, because it would be some time before the Confederacy . . . or the Earth . . . was ready to meet another foe.

Speaking of foes . . . I have a few duties left to deal with.

“Welcome, Mr. President.”

Conner just nodded at the greeting, walking forward and making the man in the lab coat walk along with him. “Is it here?”

“Yes sir,” the man said, gesturing. “Right this way.”