Chapter 1

Denise Stein, tall and striking, obviously once an athlete, talked to a team in a secure conference room at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). The team was made up U.S. intelligence and military people who were developing strategy and techniques for neutralizing deeply buried command posts, weapons of mass destruction, and storage tunnels.

Even though her face did show lines of stress and pain, one could sense that her miniskirt and heels were not just merchandising her long legs, but part of her emotional strength and defiance of adversity. She clearly delighted in an unusual brown-blonde, in a conspicuous Farah Fawcett style, but clearly it was big hair covering a big brain. She explained,"Once the intelligent fuze recognizes that the deep-penetrating bomb is in the cavern, it ignites the warhead. To defeat WMD, heat is even more important than blast, so the weapon that actually hits it will have a thermobaric rather than traditional high explosive warhead if it's targeted on the WMD proper, rather than breaking the shelter structure. When the target is deeply buried, we may need to attack it with GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators, possibly even using one or more MOPs to open a hole to the WMD. That's one of the reasons we load pairs of GBU-57s, to have different warheads..."

Terry Wagner, National Intelligence Officer for Measurement and Signature Intelligence (MASINT) and the convener of the working group, listened carefully to Denise's presentation. To himself, he mused that he managed to consider her a creative expert, a protégé, and a damned sexy woman. She was sufficiently in his chain of command that she was physically off limits, but that didn't mean he couldn't look. Sometimes, she seemed very knowing of his interest, and her eyes twinkled into his penetrating blue ones. Terry had known her for a long time, before health problems limited her athletics and field operation. Occasionally, though, they'd meet in the gym when either wanted a challenging workout. He wasn't the athlete she had been, but he was well conditioned if older, with well-trimmed hair and beard, red but dashed with white.

"BRAACK BRAACK BRAACK BRAACK. FLASH TRAFFIC. BRAACK BRAACK BRAACK BRAACK." A secure telephone call for Terry, the convener of Denise's meeting, interrupted his working group. Meeting at his Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) offices,

The incoming caller ID showed the call was coming directly from the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Virginia Kent. He picked up the phone, to hear her familiar voice saying "Terry, I need you in my office right now. General MacNeil is with me. By the time you get to the front door, your helicopter should be at the DIA pad."

Terry paused only to tell Denise to take over. This wasn't simply a question of being summoned by the nominal superior of his boss, DIA Director MacNeil, but by the top U.S. intelligence official. He had the highest respect for both of them. As he left his office, he broke into a run, and, as he reached the helipad, sprinted for the cabin of the VH-60 as soon as its crew chief signaled it was safe to do so. Terry couldn't resist a grin, as he looked down as he flew over the Washington DC traffic jam, on the short flight but long drive between DIA Headquarters at Bolling Air Force Base in Anacostia, and the ODNI offices in an undistinguished office part in suburban Virginia.

A golf cart met the helicopter and whisked him into the ODNI building, where he was rushed, up the private elevator, to Admiral Kent's office. He gave a genuine smile as he saw the Admiral, who had long been a mentor. Like one of her role models, Admiral Grace Hopper, she looked like Whistler's Mother in a flag officer uniform. Mrs. Whistler, however, did not have the eyes of a controlled killer--although eyes that showed genuine warmth for Terry. While her mood was serious, Terry noticed that she seemed to glow with health.

"Terry, come sit down with Mac and myself". One person was already seated, whom others might dismiss as a man in a dress. Terry, however, recognized it was merely the kilted Lieutenant General Wallace MacNeil, US Army, who exploited, to the hilt, the tradition of eccentric intelligence officer. MacNeil had served under Chief of Staff of the Army Eric Shinseki, who convulsed meetings when Shinskei did his parody of Toshiro Mfune playing a samurai grunting as he conducted feudal meetings. MacNeil drew on his heritage for a Scottish brogue, which proved most incomprehensible to his British colleagues. He had also invoked the threat of antidiscrimination charges when he began to wear his kilt rather than a business suit.

While she had been very serious, she grinned a bit, while looking at MacNeil. "Terry, do you know why I never gave Mac here a hard time over his kilt?" When in private, the three were on a first-name basis.

"Ginny, I'm not sure I want to touch that. Actually, I may want to retract that particular comment--too many entendres." Terry was not intimidated by rank, which actually made him very valuable to top leaders. His government rank, in the Senior Intelligence Service, entitled him to the status of a two- or a three-star officer, but in a staff/technical role."

"Mac told me that the kilt forced people to think outside the box. Both of us revere Grace Hopper, who, as you know, was the mother of creativity. I still cherish the analog clocks in her office, all of which ran counterclockwise.

She smirked at Mac. "He does get nervous if I suggest that I should do a Heinlein check on his kilt, and find out if there's a Lazarus Long combat knife and a gun under it. Still, I suppose I don't want to know if that isn't a pistol in his pocket and he is glad to see me."

After her assistant served coffee and left, they looked at Terry and asked, "You read science fiction, I assume?"

"Of course. Is that why you called me with such urgency? Did the aliens land?

She looked at him in some shock. "I know your sources are good, but how did you find out?"

Terry's eyes grew wide. "I was joking, but I gather you aren't."

"No, I'm afraid not. We are, indeed, dealing with aliens -- both hostile and at least somewhat friendly. Let me give you the basics, and then we can discuss it.

"About two months ago, several senior military people, of different countries, were given information on how to locate and access what I'll call message drones. They contained enough new technology to be utterly convincing that they didn't come from Earth, and gave methods of contacting representatives of what was called the Confederacy.

"We learned that the Confederacy contains multiple biological species, but seems to be run by artificial intelligences. Apparently, all but one -- and that one marginally so -- of the races are xenophobic and could not talk directly with Earth. Perhaps even more to the point, the AIs said that the members, even in the face of a threat of extinction, were psychologically unable to fight. The AIs said they sought Earth to do the actual fighting with the threat, which is called the Sa'arm.

"No, they aren't offering full citizenship. They seem to want mercenaries, paid with some technology.

"Think of the Sa'arm as like a horde of army ants -- incredibly destructive, but with no way to speak to them. They don't appear to regard us as anything other than prey. While they don't communicate, they do have starships and some other high technology, although less advanced than the Confederacy tech.

"The AIs warned us that by our standards, other Confederacy races were extremely xenophobic. Only one species, the Darjee, could talk face-to-face, and only there with stress."

"Ginny, do the Darjee run the Confederacy?"

"Not as far as I can tell. They are more speakers for the AIs. It wasn't clear if they generically feared other races, or if that was specific to us -- a fighting species. I think it's more the latter. We aren't sure. They may have complementary rather than command roles. Maybe the Darjee represent the biological intelligences to the AIs. We really don't know."

"The AIs certainly go back tens of thousands of years. They took on the running of the society, and appear to have either helped the races breed out their own aggression, or done that for them."

"Apparently, the Confederacy is cooperative, so much so that the member species all are pacifists. While they recognize that an unchecked Sa'arm invasion will kill them all, they can't bring themselves to fight.

"The AIs showed some ugly pictures from planets they overrun, videos that suddenly ended. These showed destruction both completed and, even worse, in progress. Unfortunately, while the pictures were horrible, they also failed to give information on Sa'arm tactics.

"The AIs recognized Earth as quite competent in combat, but they also think of us as near-savage, and a potential danger to the Confederacy. If we will fight the Swarm, though, they will make advanced technologies, including faster-than-light drive, gravity modification, and matter replicators available to us."

Mac added, "Ginny has always been in intelligence. I used to drive tanks, and I definitely don't think the AIs have much knowledge of battle. It worries me that they might try to micromanage.

"Agreed that they see us essentially as mercenaries, mercenaries of whom they are afraid. The early discussions seem to suggest that they want us to go into space against the Sa'arm, but it's a lot less clear how they would contribute to our defense here."

"Even more," Ginny frowned, "they want to change our society. Their goals seem to be to use us as their mercenaries, and follow their priorities. They seem to suggesting that Earth is on the threat axis, and eventually, the whole population, with whatever military support we can give, will have to fight those hordes.

Terry looked hard at the Admiral. "Ginny, do you think this threat is credible? Do we have a choice here?"

Her face showed great strain. "I wish I knew. If it's real, we need their technology, as with faster than light drives, material replicators, and other non-weapon areas. On the other hand, we're depending on artificial intelligences, who are not military experts, for threat assessment. That doesn't let us really know how tough the Sa'arm may be, and how badly the Confederacy needs us."

"Their priorities aren't just the protection of Earth. Breeding fighters is as high a priority for them as actual fighting. As a woman, I'm rather appalled by the way they seem to regard women as wombs first. Initially, they proposed that only people of a suitable set of scores could leave Earth, but they were also adamant about maximizing our breeding.