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said. “Seriously, I think God is looking down on these refugees and helping them out. I just hope he’ll be on our side when we start attacking.”
    “You still believe in God after all this?” Rich asked quietly.
    “Sure,” Jack said. “Why shouldn’t I?”
    “It seems like a lot of crap is going on. Have you heard the saying about how there are no atheists in a foxhole? I don’t know if that’s strictly true. This war doesn’t make me want to go to church—it makes me want God to step in and smite the wicked. But I know he won’t.”
    Jack paused. He could think of a handful of scriptures that might apply, but he knew that he was in over his head. He wasn’t prepared to have this kind of conversation—did that mean he didn’t truly believe?
    “I don’t know,” Jack finally said. “Maybe God will smite the wicked. Maybe he’ll send them all to hell when they die. I don’t know how it’s supposed to work.”
    “Neither do I,” Rich said. “Maybe God doesn’t help out either army. Maybe he just helps the refugees.”
    Jack closed his eyes and prayed. He didn’t know if it would do any good. He drifted to sleep thinking of Aubrey and of right and wrong, and whether he should go AWOL to go home to be with his family.

SEVEN
    GRADUATION WAS ON THE WIDE lawn that served as the makeshift parade ground. Aubrey wore her Army Combat Uniform, with the quirky insignia of a single chevron above a lowercase lambda. She was a private now, but a lambda private. Supposedly the two ranks were equal, but everyone wondered how it would play out in the real world.
    She could see Jack standing at the edge of the parade ground, where families would be if this weren’t a time of war. As if her dad would come to see her graduate. Jack had a family that cared. Aubrey had a drunk father who used her to get welfare and shoplift their meals. Well, he didn’t know she was shoplifting—just that she came riding home every couple of days with a backpack full of food.
    Aubrey smiled slightly at Jack, and he smiled back. His uniform was identical to hers, with the exception of the insignia. His merely bore the lambda, not the chevron. He was still called a private, but he was a PV1, not a PV2.
    “This is a new experience for me,” Brigadier General Freeman said as he stood at the front of the parade ground. “It’s a new experience for all of us. You’re the first of what will likely be many graduating classes from the Lambda Program. Training facilities like this one are being established all across the nation, and we’ll soon be sending out waves of recruits to aid in the war effort—a war effort that is less than five hundred miles from this camp.
    “You’ve heard the scuttlebutt. Russian forces have landed, and I don’t just mean in Alaska, but in Washington State. Not since the Mexican-American War has the United States been invaded by a hostile nation, and yet here you are, right in the middle of it.”
    Aubrey swallowed as the words hit her. She knew she was going to war, but this suddenly seemed very final. She felt the panicked urge to disappear and hide.
    “If this were a regular graduation, your parents and brothers and sisters would be here to cheer you on. And if this were a regular graduation, I’d have a lot more eloquent things to say. I’d talk about your fighting spirit. I’d talk about your dedication to home and country. I’d talk about how you are better for doing this than all of the naysayers and those too scared to pick up a rifle and defend their homeland.”
    A voice sounded in Aubrey’s head. “Can you believe this guy? It sounds like a pep rally before a football game.”
    It was Tabitha, using her telepathy.
    The general continued. “Normally a graduating class would be moving out together, getting their assignments, and working as a company. But—”
    “But you’re special,” Tabitha said in a mocking tone. “Seriously, can we just be done already?”
    Aubrey tried to push