Final Assault (25 page)

There wasn’t just the devastation, the loss of lives, the possible disasters worldwide, and the radiation threats. There were also questions that he had had from the beginning, questions about the new world that had been formed by the alliance between all the countries, by the martial law imposed, by the way the scientists had given away a lot of autonomy to the governments in the name of peace.

So many battles lay ahead. Human battles.

He suspected someone would sue over the nanorescuers, too. Since they never got to be used, and they dusted every major city, someone would see them as a threat. Even though they weren’t. They were harmless to everything except the aliens’ harvesters. In time, Portia assured him, they would break down into their component parts.
The cities will be dustier for a few years, that’s all
, she had said, and he knew she was right.

Britt brought out steaming potpies. They weren’t frozen food like he expected, but some from a local restaurant—or what had been a local restaurant until a few weeks ago. He wasn’t even sure it had windows left, let alone equipment.

The smell of the chicken and sauce made his stomach growl. “How’d you get these?” he asked.

“You said to stock up on food,” she said. “So I stocked up on stuff I knew we wouldn’t get for a while.”

He grinned at her. An impractical solution that had actually turned practical. If the world had ended, these potpies would never have lasted as long as the ones that were full of preservatives and fake vegetables.

He dug in.

“You’re quiet,” she said. “You don’t want me to know how upset you are, do you?”

He looked at her. She was the only person he had ever met who completely understood him. It was a bit disconcerting at times.

“We’ve lost a lot,” he said. “We probably don’t even know yet all that’s gone.”

“At least the human race can get on with life again,” Britt said.

“It won’t work that way,” Leo said.

“Why not?” Britt asked.

“Because we know they’re out there.”

“Yeah, but they’ll be sleeping. Frozen for two thousand years. The ultimate cold war.”

So she was going to get it out of him no matter what. He sighed. “It won’t make any difference,” he said. “We still know they’re there, and that information will eat at us until we do something about it.”

Britt looked out the window at the afternoon sky, then shuddered. “What would we do?”

Cross chose not to look at the sky. Britt was smart. She’d figure out the options. There were only two of them. Either the human race got past this war and decided to share the planet with the aliens, or one of the races was going to be destroyed.

“We have time to figure out something,” Cross said carefully. “And that’s what bothers me the most”

November 13, 2018
5:12 p.m. Central Standard Time

Second Harvest: Fourth Day

Kara stood in front of the picture window in her now-empty home. Everyone was gone except her own family. The house suddenly seemed excessively large for three people.

Her father stood beside her, his arm around her, holding her close. They were watching the sunset.

It had an odd glow. It was redder, darker, gloomier than any sunset she had ever seen before. And a part of her didn’t care. They had used nuclear bombs to save her city. She had seen the intense flash of light that seemed to fill every corner of everything, even inside the house. Then she had heard them explode overhead. The booms were tremendous, shaking everything.

But nothing would have been as bad as melting under those alien devices. No one had to test those nanorescuers. Everything was safe.

Although her mother was already talking about selling the house, and seeing if her father could move his law practice somewhere else. He had tried explaining to her that the radiation was in the Earth’s atmosphere, and that everyone would be exposed, but she wasn’t listening.

She never listened.

Kara leaned against her father. She’d take a world with extra radiation. She’d even take the spots some of her neighbors were seeing because they’d been outside during the blast.

She had looked down the well of having no future. Any future was better than that.

She would always remember that, the feeling of having no future.

She also understood now what it meant to choose between difficult things. If the president hadn’t given the order to fire those nukes, her city might be gone.

She might be gone.

And she might never have seen this sunset, tainted though it was.

Her father hadn’t said much. He didn’t have to. The relief on his face told her everything she needed to know. She felt very secure against him.

Secure, knowing that she’d never see those aliens again in her lifetime. But she felt vulnerable, too. From now on, she wouldn’t see the Earth as an isolated place, but as an island in space, vulnerable to attack.

An island that she was trapped on.

The strangely colored sun disappeared behind a line of black clouds. She squinted, trying to see beyond the orange glow on the horizon. Trying to see clear to the hated tenth planet. Soon, those aliens and their planet would be headed out into deep space, frozen. Yet every night, when she went out and looked up at the stars, she would remember they were out there.

She would remember that they had tried to kill her, and everything she knew and loved.

And she would remember they were coming back.

Two thousand and six years until the next harvest.

THE 10
^th
PLANET

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