She was smirking, looking satisfied with herself. “Blood is everything to you people,” she said. “It would have to be, or you’d have figured out a better way than sailing across the stars to get it. Hungry, hungry alien invaders, and we’re a whole world of ration packs. It only stands to reason that you’d do better with it than without it.”

“My God,” breathed David. “They’re going to be unstoppable.”

Toni rolled her eyes. “And as far as anyone’s concerned, we’ve chosen their side over our own species. So calm down, shut up, and listen. Lucas?”

“Eight people went into the desert to find out what that shooting star was,” said Lucas, stepping into the room and closing the door behind himself. “Only one of them made it out. The sheriff’s nephew. He was raving about squid from space, and how they’d ripped everyone apart.”

“Not squid, but I can sort of see where you’d make that mistake,” I said. “Vines can look a lot like tentacles.”

Lucas shuddered and continued, stone-faced, “This wasn’t the only falling star. They’ve been coming down all over the country, and wherever they land, people have been dying.”

“The people in the desert brought guns when they came to investigate an astrological phenomenon,” I said hotly. “They were the ones looking for a fight, not us. They shot the senator. We didn’t have any weapons. We didn’t do anything to them. They were happy to kill us anyway.”

“And your scout was happy to kill them,” said Toni. “When you’re the invading army, you don’t really get to claim the moral high ground when you have weapons carrying themselves into the territory you’re hoping to occupy. I get that you’re siding with the people who didn’t strike first, but you’re also siding with the people who slid themselves into someone else’s backyard with a big ‘try me’ written across their faces.”

“How many dead?” asked Tahlia.

“No one’s sure,” said Lucas. “If you listen to the man at the convenience store, hundreds. The entire Midwest in flames. If you listen to the talking heads on the news, there have been no confirmed deaths as yet, and the president is already dispatching troops to the landing sites to keep order. If you listen to the internet, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Turn off your phones if you’ve got them, by the way. Once the Army gets involved, the words ‘martial law’ are likely to be next, and then the NSA is looking for anything out of place, like the cellphones of a bunch of Washington residents pulling data in Arizona.”

“NASA never gave my phone back,” I said.