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deluded into believing that their jobs were important to the survival of Earth. There was

nothing they could do, but they remained at their posts transmitting orders, forwarding

reports, filing forms, and monitoring the destruction outside.

In the midst of this, Jommy, Kathleen, and President Kier Gray were escorted under heavy

guard to the main command-and-control center.

On the main display screens radar blips showed the swarm of invading ships. The size of

the battle group was breathtaking. The enemy had been planning this assault for years,

decades, even generations while they quietly assumed positions of power on Earth. The

tendrilless had long held an impossible grudge against both true slans and humans, and they

meant to wipe out their rivals.

“Give me a status report!” Petty called. His people inside the control room snapped to

attention.

“Sir!” said technician Clarke. “We’ve tried to rally our forces, but it’s mass confusion out

there. We can’t establish contact with our main power centers. The landing zones are

hopelessly muddled, and we can’t even launch most of our ships. The Air Center control

towers are off-line. News stations are making their own announcements without even waiting

for official word from us, so the public is completely confused.”

The slan hunter regarded the President as if this were somehow all his fault. For years,

staged air raids had sent the citizens of Centropolis into frenzied evacuations. Anti-aircraft guns

mounted to skyscraper rooftops prepared to open fire against imaginary slan spaceships. “I

thought you had defensive armaments and response squadrons in place.”

“That doesn’t help if the tendrilless have infiltrated our radio towers, the Air Center, and

the news media. One or two disloyal commanding officers can easily sabotage the entire plan.”

Clarke looked harried and dismayed as he stared at the readouts. He pressed a bulky

padded headphone against his ear, listening to reports as they came in from the field. “Half of

our rooftop anti-aircraft guns are non-operational. Several squads assigned to fire at the

attacking ships have deserted their posts. Sixteen of the main batteries have failed

disastrously—the big-bore guns exploded the first time they were used. Outright sabotage.”

“That is the taste of betrayal,” Gray said to Petty with a bitter smile. “I’m very familiar with

it myself of late.” He looked pointedly at the shackles on his wrists.

“We have to fight fire with fire.” Petty stalked back and forth in the command-and-control

center. “Launch Earth’s best military forces—now.”

“They still don’t respond, sir.”

“Then shout yourself hoarse.
Make
them hear. Make them respond. Find a way to get us

out of this trap.”

Gray stepped up next to Petty as if he could simply resume his role as President. “What

about our ground forces? Have the tendrilless landed yet? We need to keep them from getting

a foothold.”

“A foothold?” Petty blinked at him. “They’re blowing up every defense we have. We don’t

have any way—”

“Contact our space division. As President I set up a full-fledged military force with orbital

and even interplanetary combat abilities. I planned ahead.”

The slan hunter raised his dark eyebrows. “A space division? But we don’t have the

technology for—”

Gray looked at him mildly. “I’m the
President
. I have access to technologies that the public

doesn’t necessarily know about. Even your secret police couldn’t keep watch over everything.

Use this command authorization.” He spouted a string of code phrases and numbers. Seeing

nothing else he could do, Petty told the technicians to do as Gray suggested.

Across the continent, special sharp-winged ships rose up on lifting platforms from hidden

underground bunkers. Heavy circular doors slid aside from unmarked paved areas to expose

launchpads. The new ships carried the best weapons that humans had developed over the past

fifty years.

During his administration, President Gray had secretly used black money in the budget to

build defenses against the threat that he knew was out there, the threat he could never admit

publicly. He trusted very few people, but he did use a handful of slan advisors and he did

control the strings of many classified programs. While he staged enemy air-raids, while he

pretended to receive communiqués from the mysterious leaders of underground slan forces,

Gray had built his own space fleet. Just in case.

Wide-eyed, John Petty watched the live images piped into the command center’s screens.

He was both astonished and delighted to see hundreds of well-armed spaceships ready to

launch.
Earth
spaceships.

Gray was pleased to note the man’s surprise. “I knew you were spying on my every move,

whether I was protecting Kathleen or maintaining the constant state-of-emergency. But I also

knew how you were prone to the abuses of power, Mr. Petty. I wasn’t going to let you in on all

of the emergency preparations.”

“Abuses? I did what was necessary.”

“If we’re supposed to cooperate for the time being, then let’s not mince words. I had no

choice but to take precautions without your knowledge. I needed some assistance from my

small circle of slan advisors, and they designed these ships. It’s decent technology, but

probably not good enough. Our knowledge is out of date, compared to what all the tendrilless

scientists have developed over the years.”

As they watched, the heroic human spacecraft leaped into the sky like a school of angry

fish, weapons primed and ready to take out the tendrilless vanguard. On the radar screen, the

new set of blips rose toward the myriad targets still in orbit.

Jommy was thrilled to see this unexpected fleet of defenders. “For so long, we’ve been

stuck on the ground with our space program decimated. That was why I built my own ship

and used it to spy on the tendrilless preparations. I thought I was the only one who could

figure it out.”

The slan hunter shook his head, seeking a target for his anxiety. “Listen to the boy genius.”

Jommy’s eyes flashed. “This boy genius has flown away from Earth, infiltrated the enemy

headquarters on Mars, and dealt with their representatives. I knew more about this threat than

you ever imagined, Mr. Petty. That’s why I came back here with a warning.”

“And you arrested him,” Kathleen said accusingly.

Jommy nodded. “You spent far too much time chasing pebbles while I was trying to stop a

whole avalanche.”

Petty seemed embarrassed. “I’d watch what you’re saying, slan boy. You’re still my

prisoner.”

“Only until the palace blows up around us,” Kathleen muttered.

Jommy emphasized his point. “The tendrilless have taken over interplanetary space, and I

know they’ve placed traps there. I ran into a deadly mine field myself during my explorations.”

He spun to the President. “Mr. President, you should warn your forces about the mines. The

tendrilless won’t allow you to simply—”

With a cry of shock, Kathleen pointed to the screen. The blips showing Earth’s defensive

spaceships began to flicker and flare. Over a quarter of them winked out in only a few seconds.

“Looks like they found the mine field,” Petty said.

Jommy groaned. “Even I didn’t think the tendrilless had distributed so many. They knew

we had no real space program. What could they have been so afraid of?”

“Slans,” Gray said. “They’re worried about how much the hidden slans will fight back.

They’re not concerned about humans.”

Jommy stared at the afterimages, knowing that each set of glowing phosphors represented

a fully armed ship, now destroyed. Over a thousand human vessels had just been wiped out in

a single blow!

But then the Earth forces fought back, blasting away with weapons built into their fleet.

Even the human pilots did not know that some of their defenses were secret slan innovations;

at the moment, they probably didn’t care. Once the pilots learned how to detect and avoid the

space mines, they launched into an incredible dogfight, plowing into the vanguard forces. It

looked like a snowstorm of symbols swirling in incomprehensible patterns. Ships clashed with

ships, and many of the tendrilless vessels were damaged or wrecked.

But not enough of them.

Knocking Clarke aside, Petty seated himself in the technician’s swivel chair, as if he didn’t

believe his knees would continue to support his weight. To their continued horror, the blips

showing the tendrilless fleet looped around and went after the remaining human defenses.

Many of the Earth ships’ weapons failed, inexplicably. Their pilots shouted that navigation

systems had just shorted out. They flew blind, but still pursued the numerous enemy vessels.

Engines gave out, armaments failed to fire, guidance systems died, leaving the Earth space navy

helpless.

“Do the tendrilless have some kind of jamming system?” Kathleen asked. “Can we get

them on line again?”

As he listened to the cries of surprise and frustration—then the static of

destruction—Jommy could only conclude that the answer had to do with sabotage. “If you

kept this fleet secret from Petty, who was in charge of it?”

“Jem Lorry. My chief advisor.” Gray looked deeply troubled. “Who has now vanished.

Could he have been a tendrilless spy? Could his shields have been so powerful that even I

didn’t suspect him?” He could not tear his eyes from the screens.

The fleet from Mars still outnumbered Gray’s surprise space force more than three-to-one,

and the battle swiftly turned into a rout. The Earth ships fought to the last, knowing that they

could not surrender. On the screens, blip after blip vanished.

The sweep of the radar arc showed little detail, but Jommy didn’t need any explanation as

the pinpoints of human spacecraft brightened like stars going nova, then faded into darkness.

Dozens more of the tendrilless attack ships were destroyed, and then the Earth defenders were

gone. Completely gone.

Gray looked astonished. “It’s a massacre. I didn’t think … I never knew the enemy was so

powerful. Our best defenses are no more effective than leaves blown in the wind. The

tendrilless have undermined us, disconnected our weapons, sabotaged our plans.”

Kathleen put her arms around her father. Gray’s shoulders drooped. He found a seat by

one of the empty diagnostic stations and slumped into it, brushing aside the torn rolls of

printouts, ignoring the chattering computers that still attempted to analyze the situation. “I

have failed us all.”

With the ground forces neutralized and the last vestiges of the Earth space navy annihilated,

the tendrilless ships were ready to complete their destruction. The inbound ships came down,

unhindered now, and streaked across the skies of the capital city. Earth was completely at the

mercy of the tendrilless.

Jommy barked his words so loudly that even the stunned technicians and disoriented

leaders took heed. “The grand palace is sure to be a target. Now that our defenses are gone,

they’re going to turn this entire place into rubble.”

“The palace is the most secure structure in all of Centropolis. We’re ten levels underground,

and these rooms are reinforced against any aerial attack,” said Petty, though he didn’t sound

convinced.

“Not reinforced enough. The tendrilless can level this whole structure. Once they’ve

decapitated the government, they won’t even need to bother with negotiating peace terms.

They’ll want to stand victorious on the rubble of the great government center.”

Kathleen stepped close. “Jommy’s right. We’ve got to get out of here, all of us.”

Despite his handcuffs and his disheveled appearance, Gray still looked presidential. “There

is no defeat while we still live. We must escape from the palace—now. We can become a

government in exile.”

“A government of what?” asked Petty.

“That is for us to define.” Looking at his frantic rival, Gray extended a hand, letting it hang

there in the air. “I suggest an alliance, Mr. Petty. I know of your plan to overthrow me. I know

of your power plays with the secret police. But right now we face an enemy greater than either

of us.”

Kathleen chimed in. “It’ll be the humans and the true slans against the tendrilless.”