Read Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) for Free Online

now over three thousand, sir.”
    “My lord.” Conner closed his eyes. “God save us.”
    “Let’s not rely on the almighty just yet, sir,” General Caern said. “All the landings have been in major population centers. That’s bad for casualties, but it’s even worse for the enemy.”
    Conner scowled. “How could it be worse for the enemy?”
    “We can easily strike at every major population center on the planet, Mr. President,” Caern answered. “Especially if the choice is do or die. We’ll kill a lot of our own, yes, but we’ll kill them too. If I were planning a genocidal strike on a planet using a weapon system such as these Drasin, I’d be landingmy assets in Antarctica, the Sahara desert, any out of the way, impossible to get to place I could find. I sure as hell would not land them in New York City, Mr. President.”
    “You think they’re planning something?” Conner asked, confused.
    “No, sir. I think they’re specifically
not
planning.”
    “I don’t follow.”
    “Captain Weston’s reports on these things indicates an almost . . . schizophrenic personality,” Caern said. “One personality is a planner, picking targets, using strategy even . . . the other, however, is bestial. Sir, I think that the beast is in charge right now. They’re striking at population centers just because they don’t like them, not out of any kind of strategy.”
    “The people?”
    “Perhaps,” the General conceded, “or maybe they’re targeting based on power usage, heat, or any number of other signatures from a major city. The point is, they’re not thinking big picture. They’re acting like a wounded animal, sir. See the thing that hurt them and rip its heart out. If they were planning, we’d be in a lot more trouble.”
    “We’re in plenty as it stands,” Conner said sourly.
    “Yes sir, we are. However the problem isn’t with the aliens on the ground. We can take them, Mr. President,” Caern said confidently. “It’s the goddamn battle fleet holding our high orbitals that we can’t take. As long as they’re up there, we may as well just roll over and die.”
    “That’s
not
going to happen,” Conner growled, slamming his hands down on the table.
    “Didn’t say it was, sir. Just said that we need to take those fuckers out,” Caern said bluntly. “Otherwise, sooner or later, we’re going to run out of bullets down here, and I can’t promise that they’ll run out of troops first.”
    Conner scowled, but nodded curtly, looking over to the Air Force general in charge of SPACECOM. “Thoughts?”
    General McCullen sighed, shaking his head. “We’ve got nothing right now, Mr. President. We’re half blind. We think that the
Enterprise
transitioned out of the system almost two days ago, but we can’t confirm. Certainly the Priminae ships went to FTL sometime before that, but we can’t confirm anything beyond that. We have no more military assets in Sol space, sir.”
    “Ground to orbit missiles.”
    McCullen shook his head. “Nothing but nukes and light conventional payloads. Every report we have on the alien armor clearly indicates that those will be of no value.”
    “What about high-velocity missiles?” the President asked, thinking about the weapon systems the
Odyssey
employed.
    “Can’t launch those inside Earth’s atmosphere. Besides the fact that they’d ablate away from friction, we’d destroy the launch site with the shockwave alone.”
    “Lasers?”
    “We wouldn’t even heat up their hulls at this range,” the general said.
    “The
Odyssey
engaged them from
light seconds
away!”
    “The
Odyssey
didn’t have to fire through atmosphere, sir.”
    The President wasn’t stupid enough to suggest pulse weapons. He was well aware of what the use of antimatter inside an atmosphere would do. He closed his eyes. “What about the new transition cannons?”
    “Those . . .” McCullen hesitated. “I don’t know, sir. We’ve never tried to transition this deep in a