Alden Lesterod sat in the Command Center for the Confederation Defense Forces, rubbing his aching temples.  It didn’t really matter that he be there; the Command Center had already been evacuated to escape from the advancing Enemy legions.  It wouldn’t be very long until the Enemy had control of the entire city, and with it, the armored bunker that sheltered the Confederation military’s brains.

       Lesterod had volunteered to stay behind.  As Second Aerospace Marshal, he wasn’t vital to the continued function of the Defense Forces, but he was senior enough to know the access codes that would allow him to scuttle key components of the Command Center, Top Secret elements and information that the Enemy must not be allowed to discover.

       Setting about his work, Lesterod had to laugh at the idiocy of it all.  In the ten years of war, the Enemy had learned all it needed to know.  A few more secrets wouldn’t help—not with the Confederation’s capital within their grasp.

       Ten years of fighting, he thought.  Thank God we even lasted that long.

       Ten years ago, he’d barely been a major in the Civil Aerospace Services, back when the military ranking was a mere formality.  The CAS had been tasked with the transportation of government goods to the various Member Worlds; war had been eliminated centuries before that.  The people of the Confederation had learned the terrible cost of the tendency of their species toward warfare against itself; weapons had been abolished, and the warships of the Fleet had been converted to vessels of exploration, furthering the knowledge of the people, rather than their bloodlust.  Petty differences had been set aside practically overnight.

       It only took the deaths of forty billion, and two planets, to make that possible.

       The Confederation had enjoyed a new era of peace.  Its economy boomed as trade opportunities opened up with its neighbors, alien races no longer intimidated by the Confederation’s inclination toward war.  The Confederation had spread, colonizing and bringing in dozens of new members.  Over a quarter of the galaxy had been explored, and whole new civilizations had been discovered, wonderful technologies brought back to the Homeworld.

       When the first exploration ships had encountered the Enemy, it had been different.

       The Enemy was not interested in negotiation, as the others had been.  Lacking even minor defensive systems, save their particle and radiation shielding, the first three exploration ships had been blown apart.  Before a follow-up fleet could investigate the disappearance, the Enemy had attacked, taking Marwynn in a day—a day!  And most horrifying of all, they had used nuclear weapons in the assault on the world—and there had been only token resistance!  High Command had been shocked, and had wondered what new horror these alien menaces would wreak upon the Confederation.

       The populace had also been horrified.  Calling for desperate measures, the government had sponsored crash research programs to create weapons with which to combat the invaders.  Meanwhile, the Enemy cut a swath through the Confederation’s outer worlds, angling directly for the Homeworld.

       (The theory most popular with the High Command was that an exploration ship had been taken intact, and a complete chart of the Confederation and the surrounding worlds salvaged from its computer banks.)

       Lesterod had found himself pressed into military service, training quickly in the operation of the weapons the Confederation’s best minds had devised and constructed.  By the time the first Confederate warships had met the Enemy in battle, they had already advanced a hundred and fifty light-years into the Confederation, and held a hundred major worlds.

       The Fleet had made its stand at Soralan, meeting the Enemy’s assault with twenty of the new warships, and eighty-four non-military starships that had been hastily converted and mounted with the new weapons systems.

       It had been a slaughter.

       Only three Confederate ships had returned to make the report, only one of them an actual warship.  The Enemy’s weapons had nearly twice the range of their own, and even when Confederate ships had managed to close, their lasers had just boiled paint, their missiles easily struck down by the Enemy’s point defense.

       It seemed that all was lost.

       Lesterod remembered when he had first heard the news of their supposed salvation.

 

       “Lesterod!  Lesterod!  Hey, Alden!”  The impatient calls of his friend brought Lesterod’s head up from the requisition form he had been diligently filling out.

       “What is it, Vikrot?” he asked.  Vikrot Emarcans, another major with the Aerospace Defense Forces, stood at the door of his office.  Vikrot was often bothering Lesterod with the details he had gleamed from the Defense Forces rumor mill.  The oldest military tradition of scuttlebutt between soldiers was alive and well in the Confederation’s new military.

       “You’ll never believe this, Alden!” Vikrot said.  “They actually captured an Enemy scout!  It was poking around in the New Doralen System, and, well, they ambushed it and took it intact!  It was unmanned—robotically piloted—but word is that the memory computers paint quite the picture of Enemy territory.  And imagine the things we’ll learn from it!”

       “Vikrot,” Lesterod said angrily, “your crap is really getting to me.  Get out of here and don’t come back until you have something relevant to say.”  He got up from his desk and started for the door, fully intending to slam it in Vikrot’s face.

       “Wait!  Alden, wait!”  Vikrot stepped back, his eyes widening as he realized that Lesterod was perfectly willing to bruise his nose.  “Turn on the holoviewer!  It’s all over the news!”

       Lesterod stopped.  Vikrot had never before offered to back up his claims.  He reached over, flicking the power switch on the tiny HV that he kept in the office.

       “—reports have been confirmed that the Confederation Fleet did indeed manage to capture an unmanned Enemy scout today in New Doralen.  This is excellent news according to First Aerospace Marshal Orcus Havelin, who we have with us here today.  Marshal Havelin, let me thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.”

       “The pleasure is mine, Mr. Kredlock,” Havelin, always contentious of the public eye, said with a smile.  “I’m just glad you went to the source rather than settle for scuttlebutt and rumors.”

       Lesterod shot a glare in Vikrot’s direction.  The look did not go unnoticed.

       “Marshal Havelin, what can you tell us about the capture of the Enemy scout ship, and the implications it will have for the Confederation?”

       “Well, Mr. Kredlock, I think it’s no secret that the Confederation’s military is technologically inferior to the Enemy.  However, we have taken one of their ships intact, and by reverse engineering—which is fancy lingo for figuring out how to build something by taking it apart—we will be able to close the gap, and refit the Fleet to win battles against the Enemy.”

       “Can you tell us what kind of technology you hope to salvage from the scout ship?”

       Havelin shifted in his seat.  “Well, at this time, it’s still too soon to tell, exactly—we did just capture the thing.  We know that it has at least rudimentary weapons, for self-defense, and we know that its role as a scout vessel necessitates some pretty heavy-duty sensor equipment.  The computer core was taken intact, and we hope to learn even more from that.  Perhaps we’ll even discover the reasons for this war, and we’ll be able to reach a peaceful settlement.”

       “Anything else you can tell us, Marshal?” Kredlock asked hopefully.  Havelin shook his head.

       “I’m sorry, that’s all I can say.  It’s just really too soon to tell.  I can say, though, that we’re going to be looking at some serious changes, and soon—and I don’t think the Enemy will like them one bit.”

 

       In the end, the Enemy scout ship hadn’t been the savior it had been presented as, but it had given the Fleet a much-needed boost.  Lesterod had to be honest; without it, the war would likely have been lost years earlier.

       The High Command had failed to mention that it had cost the Fleet four of its battlewagons to capture the scout ship.  Of course, that was written off as an unimportant detail, and Lesterod had only learned of that detail upon his promotion to Second Marshal.

       Fleet warships had received upgrades to their engines that allowed them to keep pace with Enemy ships (until the Enemy had introduced new drive systems of their own, of course).  The scout ship’s weapons had revealed great secrets to the Confederation’s scientists; the prototypes developed were exponentially more powerful than the current arsenal, but they were prohibitively expensive to produce, especially since their workings were not well understood.

       And, contrary to the initial reports, the scout ship’s computer core contained little information about the nature of the Enemy.  It did note the location of its home base, but that was a Confederate system under Enemy occupation.

       Most importantly, the capture of the Enemy scout ship had given the people of the Confederation hope.  Hope was something that would come in short supply in the years that came.

 

       General Lesterod shifted idly from foot to foot, rocking back and forth in the elevator of the warship Righteous Fury.  With the general pins on his collar only days old, he was still uncomfortable with being saluted by nearly everyone in a Confederate uniform.  Only a few officers aboard the Fury outranked him, but that was the way it was intended, being that he was Third Marshal Tonikan’s chief of staff.

       Stepping off the elevator, it was only a short walk to the bridge.  The Righteous Fury was the Confederation’s newest defense cruiser, equipped with the latest from R&D.  It and three more ships like it formed the backbone of the Confederation’s newest task force.  In a few days, it would be leading an attack against the Enemy fleet occupying Mastare.

       “General.  I’m glad you’re here,” said Marshal Tonikan.  Erlia Tonikan was one of the few Fleet officers who had ever defeated the Enemy in combat.  Granted, it was a small battle, and Tonikan’s forces had outnumbered the Enemy ten to one.  However, it had been an important convoy—it had delayed the Enemy advance for six months.

       “I wouldn’t be anywhere else for the world, ma’am,” Lesterod said, and meant it.  For years he had watched his friends go off to fight the Enemy, and come back in body bags—if at all.  Now it was his turn to show the invaders what the Confederation was made of.  Especially now that they finally had a fighting chance.

       “Would you like a tour of the ship, General?” Tonikan asked.  “I’m afraid I don’t have the time to do it personally, but I can detach one of my aides . . .”

       “No, thank you, ma’am.  Hopefully, I’ll be aboard long enough to find my way around.  Right now, I’d like to get to know my staff, if that’s possible,” Lesterod said.

       “Certainly, General.”

       “You can call me Alden, if you don’t mind, ma’am,” said Lesterod.  “Might as well get used to it, if we’ll be working together here.”

       “That’s the plan, Alden.”

 

       With a flash of sparks and a puff of smoke, Alden Lesterod detonated the self-destruct system of the first of the three main computer cores.  He wrinkled his nose, fanning his hand beneath it to clear away the stink of ozone.

       Lesterod walked back to the commander’s console.  The scuttling procedure was meant to be performed by several people, but a single man could do it by himself.  It just took a bit longer, and with the Enemy’s growing progress through the city, he might not have enough time.

       It was inconsequential, really.  Lesterod knew exactly why he had volunteered to stay behind and “pacify” the Command Center.  He was tired of fighting, and if he ran away to some far-off Member World, there to coordinate the defense of the dying Confederation, he would have to keep fighting.

       And fighting made him sick, ever since he had seen it firsthand.

 

       The escape pod was equipped with a small porthole that provided a limited view of the space around it.  It was a novelty feature, really quite useless, but Lesterod was glad for it as he stared morbidly at the unfolding battle.  The Righteous Fury, the best ship the Fleet had, took up most of his field of vision.  Clouds of burning atmosphere streamed out of the ship, the fires extinguishing as soon as they ran out of combustible oxygen.  Behind the Fury was the Virtuosity, Fury’s sistership, its crew still fighting despite the heavy damage it had suffered.  Two smaller ships rode alongside it, soaking up the fire of weapons meant to strike their larger mother.  Unable to bear such a burden any longer, one exploded in a flash that was so brilliant that the filter on the porthole darkened it to total opaqueness.

       By the time the filter faded enough to see out, the Righteous Fury—and the Virtuosity—was gone.  In its place was the angled hull of an Enemy cruiser.  The cruiser was headed right for the cluster of Confederate escape pods.  Lesterod held his breath as it closed . . . and then, it began to fire.

       Lasers were invisible in vacuum, but the results of their impact were quite obvious.  The first escape pod the cruiser targeted exploded in a scorch of expanding gases.  A second and a third followed it, and Lesterod was certain that he was next.

       Suddenly, explosions raked across the Enemy cruiser as a lone interceptor strafed across its bow.  Lesterod never saw what happened to that interceptor, because in the next second, something massive and gray covered the porthole.  It took him a moment to realize that it was a Confederate patrol frigate, one of the few ships to escape the massacre of the battle for Mastare.  In a daze, Lesterod was brought aboard the frigate, his empty pod jettisoned to reduce mass.  After picking up several more survivors, the frigate made a run for hyperspace, barely escaping with three Enemy ships in its wake.

       In retrospect, Lesterod supposed that the pilot of that interceptor had almost certainly been killed.

 

       Lesterod blew the second computer and stood back to take a look at what he had yet to do.  Of course, his first priority was destroying the three computer cores.  At least then, the Enemy wouldn’t know where the military was hiding the president—nor, for that matter, would they know on which planet the Confederation planned to continue its fight.  Lesterod didn’t even know that one.  It was an age-old security measure, of course.  What one didn’t know could not be revealed through any form of interrogation, no matter how excruciatingly painful, no matter how powerful the drugs used were.

       After the third computer was scuttled, he would have to go about destroying the control panels and anything else that he thought might aid the Enemy in its conquest.  For the first time that day, he allowed himself a smile, glancing sideways at a large black chair, the one reserved for the Deputy Commander—a position he had held for the last three years.

       It was a damned uncomfortable chair.

       And it would pay for its offenses, just as soon as Lesterod blew the last computer core.

       Lesterod shook his head as he began to enter the activation codes for the computer’s self-destruct system.  Even three years ago, he had known that the Confederation was finished, but it had all seemed so surreal that he had accepted the posting.

 

       “General Alden Lesterod.  Defense Forces officer for seven years, entered the Aerospace Force as a major.  Prior to that you spent eighteen years in the Civil Aerospace Service.  You’ve got high recommendations from all your previous superiors, including Marshal Tonikan.”

       Lesterod listened as First Marshal Iled Borthosant outlined his career.  After the debacle at Mastare, Lesterod wasn’t expecting that this was going to be a pleasant conversation.

       “I understand,” said Borthosant, “that Marshal Tonikan had to order you to leave the Righteous Fury, on threat of charges of insubordination if you did not comply.”

       “I was reluctant to leave the flagship, sir,” Lesterod said, eager to explain himself.  Borthosant cut him off before he had a chance.

       “Why was that, General?  Were you afraid?”

       “Was I . . .”  Lesterod shrugged.  “Of course, sir.  I believed that I was going to die.”

       “In an escape pod?” Borthosant asked.

       “In the Mastare System, period, sir.  I believed that the situation was hopeless, and that there would be no survivors.  I suppose I knew I might be in even greater danger in an escape pod, but I felt that my place was with Marshal Tonikan aboard the Fury.”

       Borthosant nodded.  “Understood, General.  Now, tell me.  As one of the survivors of the Battle of Mastare—and the only survivor of such high rank—I’d like to have your input on something.  Why did we lose?”

       Lesterod frowned.  He had thought it over a number of times during the trip back to the capital.  Really, they ought to have won that battle.  Their fleet had outnumbered the Enemy, they had an experience commander, and they had the technology needed to finally damage the invaders.

       “I think,” he said finally, “that we have forgotten a key part of war.”

       “And that is?”

       “We have forgotten that the Enemy wants to win, too.  They don’t realize that we see them as the holovid villains; for all we know, they consider us to be the worst monsters to ever grace this universe.  And because the Enemy wants to win, we cannot hold back when we fight it.  And we cannot forget that as our technology advances, so does the Enemy’s.  For one thing, their ships were obviously more resistant to our new weapons than we had predicted that they would be.  For another, sir—with all due respect to Marshal Tonikan, who was probably the bravest person I ever knew—I don’t think we were fighting to win.  I’d go so far as to say I know we weren’t; I was one of the people planning it.  We weren’t planning on how hard—or how well—the Enemy would fight.”

       “What can we do about that, General?” Borthosant asked.

       “I really don’t know if there’s something specific, sir,” Lesterod admitted.  “I suppose we make the training scenarios harder.  Stop convincing our troops of our inherent superiority through our of their invincibility and start telling them the truth.”

       “What is the truth, General?” Borthosant asked.  Lesterod suspected he already knew the answer.

       “The truth, sir, is that we’re losing the war, and we’re going to lose it if we don’t start winning.”

       “Bluntly put,” Borthosant said.  “Perhaps a little bold, coming from an officer of your relatively junior standing.”

       “Yes, sir.”

       “However, General, it is a statement that I happen to agree with.  Very much agree with, in fact.  You’re right, Lesterod—we are losing.  Badly.”  Borthosant glanced at some of the holopics on his wall.  One was of him exchanging a handshake with Erlia Tonikan.  The holopic had been taken in a simpler time; they were still wearing the uniforms of the CAS.  “Erlia knew that, too.  I think maybe that’s why she never made it off the Righteous Fury . . . she didn’t want to live to see our defeat.”

       “Sir, defeat is not definite,” Lesterod said, hardly believing he was contradiction the Commander-in-Chief of the Confederation Defense Forces.  “We still hold the Confederation’s core systems, including most of the industrial centers.  Despite recent losses, the Fleet is still strong.”

       “We can still win, eh?” Borthosant said.  “I’m glad you think so.  Congratulations, Lesterod—you’re the new Second Aerospace Marshal.”

       “What happened to Second Marshal Doan?”

       “Doan is taking my place, Marshal Lesterod,” Borthosant said.  “You said it yourself—the military needs a change.  I suggested to the president that I be replaced.  He agreed.”

       “But, sir—”

       “Oh, it’s nothing dishonorable, Marshal—I sent in my resignation today, along with my personal endorsement of Marshal Doan.”  Borthosant smiled.  “I appreciate your loyalty, Lesterod, but frankly, it’s misplaced.  I’m just not good at fighting the Enemy.”

       After a few more formalities, Second Marshal Alden Lesterod was dismissed.  Before he left, he turned to ask Borthosant one final question.

       “First Marshal,” he said, “I’m curious.  The Enemy—do we know what they call themselves?  Have we even seen one before?  I probably I have the seniority to know, now, if it’s classified . . .”

       Borthosant laughed and shook his head.  “The name of the Enemy, Lesterod?  Don’t worry about that cloak and dagger stuff; we don’t know it.  And no, we’ve never seen one, alive or dead.  Even on the few occasions where we have recordings of fighting them on the ground, they’ve been concealed by heavy armor.  Those tapes are available, to you, now, if you’re curious.”

       “No, sir, I must say that I’m really not.”  Lesterod shook his head.  “It’s sort of funny, really.”

       “What?”

       “The Enemy.  We’re fighting a war with someone we don’t even know the name of!”

 

       Lesterod depressed the large red key flashing on the touch-screen, and the third and final computer core destroyed itself just as grandiosely as its predecessors had.

       Glancing back at the chair he had occupied for three years, Alden Lesterod suddenly felt hot rage boiling up from deep within him.  For a brief moment, that chair stood as a solemn testament of all the sacrifices Lesterod had made in the war with the Enemy . . . and to the utter uselessness of that fight.

       His hand went to the pistol strapped to his hip, unsnapping its holster and bringing it up in one fluid motion.  The safety went off with the flick of a switch, and the indicator light flashed green as his finger tightened on the trigger.  He fired until the magazine was empty, putting eight rounds through the back of the hated chair.

       Tears flowing down his face, Lesterod fell to the floor.

 

       “Marshal!  Marshal Lesterod!  Wake up!”

       Blinking at the harsh white light that had flooded his room, Lesterod sat up in his bed.  “What is it . . . Lieutenant?”

       “Primus-Four went off the air five minutes ago.  Marshal Doan sent me to get you.”

       Any hints of dreariness left in Lesterod’s body were gone when the lieutenant had first said “Primus-Four.”  By the time the lieutenant’s sentence was complete, Lesterod was pulling on his uniform pants.

       “Thank you, Lieutenant.  Tell Marshal Doan that I’ll be in the Command Center momentarily.”  Lesterod slipped on his jacket, hastily returning the lieutenant’s parting salute.  He scrambled to put on his shoes, practically running the short distance from his temporary quarters to the Command Center.

       Primus-Four was the call sign of the Confederate listening station on the edge of the system.  The listening station would be able to detect any hyperspace event up to three light-years from its position, and quickly warn the capital.

       At least, it could detect any Confederate hyperspace event.  It had yet to be tested against the Enemy . . . and if it had been destroyed without knowing the Enemy was even there, it was a good guess that the Enemy had significantly upgraded its stealth equipment again.

       On the other hand, it might just be a communications malfunction at Primus-Four’s end.  Or, though much more unlikely, the comm equipment in the Command Center might be acting up, he thought.  He shook his head.  Alden, he told himself, you don’t believe that for a minute.

       The Command Center was crowded when he entered, which was odd for such a big room.  Marshal Doan must have brought in a full staff for this.  On a mental checklist, Lesterod crossed out the possibility that this was an equipment malfunction.

       “Sir,” he said, saluting Doan, “Second Marshal Lesterod reporting as requested.”

       Doan hastily returned the salute and nodded.  “Very well, Lesterod.  Captain Caldemar will apprise you of the situation.”

       Doan’s chief of staff nodded.  “Yes, sir.  Well, as you know, Marshal, we’ve lost contact with Primus-Four.  We’ve also had reports of intermittent sensor contacts coming in from the defense perimeter all night.  It looks like we’ve got an Enemy attack on our hands.”

       “How big?” Lesterod asked.  He has suspected as much; now all there was to do was pray that the Enemy wasn’t coming in strength.  The evacuation of the Homeworld was still months from completion, and a major battle with the enemy on the capital of the Confederation this early in the evacuation procedure would result in millions of innocent deaths.

       “It looks like the real thing, sir,” Caldemar admitted.  “An all-out invasion force.  And we’ve gotten a message from Fleet—they don’t think they’ll be able to stop them, or delay them for any great amount of time.”

       “What’s the progress of Operation Exodus?” Lesterod asked.  He already knew the answer; Operation Exodus, the evacuation of the Homeworld, was his pet project.

       “Twenty-six percent complete, sir,” Caldemar answered.  “Given our past experience,” he continued, “we don’t expect the Enemy to make planetfall for another six days—possibly an entire week from now!”

       “A week, hmm?” Lesterod said, doing the calculations in his head.  In a week, they could evacuate a few thousand, no more.  In the grand scheme of things, it wouldn’t matter much.

       “Load the transports to one hundred fifteen percent of their maximum capacity.  That will help us get more off.”

       “Sir, are you sure?” Caldemar asked.  “Respectfully—”

       “Respectfully, Captain, everyone on this planet is going to die when the Enemy lands.  Getting more people off is worth the minor risk of overloading the environmental systems on those ships by fifteen percent.”  Lesterod laughed away the tension.  “Don’t worry, Captain—those transports were built well.  They can handle the strain.”

       “Of course, sir,” Caldemar said, not truly convinced but too much of a staff officer to voice his opinion otherwise.  He knew when a senior officer had made up his mind.

*             *             *

 

       The battle had not gone well for the Confederation.  The Fleet had made its final stand in orbit, buying enough time for the president and his staff to escape to parts unknown.  When the last Confederate ship was reduced to little more than expanding gas particles, the Enemy had started its landings.

       Captain Caldemar had been killed in the first day of the landings.  Doan had sent him to the front to serve as his private eyes and ears, but the Enemy had overtaken the Confederate troops at the front more quickly than had been anticipated.  The captain hadn’t made it out.

       Pulling himself off the floor, Lesterod thought about all of the people just like Caldemar who had died for the Confederation.  And for what?  The Enemy was on their doorstep.  He could hear the sounds of fighting through the walls of the Command Center.

       A large explosion sounded in the direction of the entrance to the outer bunker.  Lesterod felt the adrenalin jet into his blood.  Though it hardly mattered whether he took two or three of the Enemy with him when he died, he resolved to do just that, and jacked another magazine into the pistol.  He put a round in the chamber and fell into a kneeling position, leveling the pistol at the door.

       It was a stupid idea, as he learned when a shaped charge destroyed the door in an explosion of metal splinters, blowing Lesterod across the room and knocking the pistol out of his hand.  Enemy soldiers came through the door in pairs, equipped in heavy powered armor and carrying massive assault rifles.  Lesterod leveled himself back to his feet, ignoring the bits of metal that had pierced his skin and left painful wounds.

       “I am Alden Lesterod,” he said.  “I am Second Aerospace Marshal of the Confederation.”  His entire body shook as he formed his next question.  “I do not know what you, the Enemy, call yourselves.  Would you tell me before you kill me?”

       The Enemy leader hesitated, perhaps confused by Lesterod’s request, or perhaps just conferring with his superiors.  Then, slowly, he removed his helmet.

       Lesterod gasped.  It was more ugly than he had expected—the Enemy soldier (he guessed that it was male) was practically hairless, save for a patch on the top of its too-round skull and rough stubble around its jaw.  Its bare skin was far too pale, almost a sickly pink color.  Lesterod resisted the urge to vomit as the Enemy’s mouth shaped into words.

       “You don’t know?” asked the Enemy, speaking with the aid of some translation software.  “You really don’t know?”

       Lesterod stared at the apparition before him, and slowly shook his head.

       “We’re called humans,” said the Enemy, just before his rifle fired.