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commendation.”
    “At least there are no sharks in space, sir,” Sloan said with a weak grin.
      Oh, but there are, I thought, but I laughed at his joke and guided them to the infirmary. Some actually tried to volunteer for assault ship duty, but I refused them. They had to rest up for the next battle. They were my reserve force. They didn’t argue.
    I headed back to the command brick with a heavy heart. We had less than half an hour to go before the assault began. In all my recent years of hard decisions, this one topped my list. I realized I would have to decide if the Star Force marines would be a tool in the cold, heartless, metal claws of the Macros once again. I had never created this army for this purpose. I had never meant for things to go this way. I imagined many historical commanders had felt the same dismay I felt right now when they realized their beloved armies had been misused by others. I recalled the German general, Choltitz, who had disobeyed his orders to blow up Paris when forced to retreat.
    My decision involved even bigger stakes, however. If I played this badly, I could cause millions back home to die. I hardened my heart. The aliens who were so clearly on their knees here had to suffer, so my own people didn’t suffer. Extinction is a hard thing to be a part of, but I decided I would be the one responsible for the extinction of another species, rather than my own. I cajoled myself with promises. I would try an attack and see how it went. We didn’t have to kill everyone . With luck, they would surrender. Perhaps there would only be one attack required to end this. Such pretty lies we tell ourselves, sometimes.
    “How are things shaping up, Gorski?” I asked as I stepped onto the command brick. The big screen showed all twenty-one planets clearly now, all various shapes and sizes. Both the enemy target and the Macro cruisers in the system were centered around the six worlds in the habitable warm-water zone. There was just one cruiser in orbit here, and it was parked on the far side of the planet.
    “A lot of things the Macros have hinted at make sense now, sir,” he said. “We are going to sail right by the target. At the exact minute they’ve indicated, we will fire our invasion forces laterally toward the target. The assault ships can glide in over half the distance, more or less invisible in space as small, cold objects. We’ll look like a storm of ice particles. But when they get in close, they’ll have to fire our engines up to slow down, or risk being smashed into the target hull. We’ll see if they sense us and shoot us down then.”
    I nodded. “What about the eighth assault ship?” I asked.
    “It won’t make it back in time,” Gorski said. “We’ll have to do this op with seven.”
    “We don’t have any choice, do we sir?” Major Sarin asked.
    “What’s that?” I asked. “We always have a choice, Major.”
    Sarin and I locked gazes for a second, then she dropped her eyes back to her screen.
    “We’re slave troops, aren’t we, Colonel?” Gorski asked me suddenly.
    I turned to him. “What?”
    “I used to think we were mercenaries—that was bad enough. But we are worse than that. We have no choices. We get no pay. We must fight or our families die back home. I wonder what kind of deal those people made to stay alive.”
    Gorski was looking at the six, beautiful worlds on our screen. My eyes followed his there, and I was as fixated as he was. Somehow, when they were displayed with all their promise of life, perfect sunsets and smiles, it was painful to the human spirit. We were helping the wrong side. It was inarguably clear at that moment. I knew this, but I didn’t see any way out of the situation. In such a grim state of mind, it would be hard for my people to fight, I realized. They would be distracted. They would make mistakes.
    I decided to help them out. I decided they needed something to believe in, and the only thing they had left was me. In short, I