To deplete their forces here and now would risk placing them back under the control of that enemy, and they would never permit that. Never again.

So, for the moment, the debate raged among the ship minds while below them the war burned across the world they sought to destroy.

For one Eric Stanton Weston, fighting for his life and the lives of everyone around him in the middle of a city far below the alien armada in orbit, the question of what to do was a simple one.

Fight or die.

He and his hastily thrown-together squad were tired, exhausted really, by the time the Sun was setting west of the city. Fires burning across town cast ugly shadows, but they didn’t have the luxury of rest just then. For every battle they won, it seemed that they were faced with a dozen more, and they all had many miles to go before they slept.

Still, they paused as the last Drasin fell to their guns, and slumped where they stood for a time. They rested when they could, because none of them knew when they’d get another chance.

In over twelve hours of fighting, the group had grown into a solid fighting company composed of regular infantry and light and heavy armor, all working to support Eric’s quickly assembled corps. They’d cut down around ninety percent of the Drasin working openly in the city and were now reduced to using earthquake tremor sensors to track down the ones that had buried themselves deep.

He had five squads out, still working to find those nests. When they did they would make a judgment call. Either the rest of the group would be called in to take the nest out or, preferably, an air strike would be summoned to end them in one fell swoop. It was dirty, tiring work, even when it could be passed off to the eyes in the skies, and for now they just wanted to collapse.

The munitions train would take a few minutes to get to them, and they needed bullets and hydro-cells, so for the moment they were going no farther.

Eric stood alone, perched above the battleground as he looked out at the city beyond and tried to remember a time when he wasn’t fighting.

He knew that there had been such times. In fact, he knew intellectually that he had spent more time at peace in his life than he had at war.

Why then, can I only remember the war?

The rumble of the heavy tanks and assault landers carrying their munitions shook him from the dark reverie, and Eric got to his feet and dropped from the building to the ground. He landed easily, now practiced the hard way, and proceeded to walk over to the vehicles.

“You okay, kid?”