Final Assault by Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page A

sighed. “Well, I got a piece of information out of Franklin that I couldn’t get out of Maddox.”
    “What was that?”
    “That we are going to fight in space. That the fight will be an offensive one. But he hasn’t told us the plan.”
    “Why should he? This was a speech to the general public.”
    Cross nodded. “My point exactly. You and I feel like we got a lot of information out of the speech because we already know a lot of this information. I’d love to know how other people reacted to it.”
    “I’ll poll the lab,” Britt said, standing. Apparently she didn’t want him to spoil her reaction to the speech either.
    “You don’t have to. We’ll find out public reaction soon enough.” Cross stood, too, and kissed her gently. “I’ve got a lot of setting up to do. I want to be able to contact most of the group later tonight. Maybe you and I can catch a bite of pizza together when the lab does its nightly order?”
    “We haven’t been able to do that since the rioting started. We’re stuck with canned cafeteria food.” “Uck,” Cross said. “All right. How about a date over Spam?”
    She grinned. “You’re on. Maybe I’ll make you my special Spam and tuna surprise.”
    He grimaced and ushered her out. Then he leaned against the door, letting the disquiet that had begun during the speech settle in.
    Franklin had sworn that people would be safe in the cities. But Cross had done some checking after Portia’s plea to the Project that morning. Even her best-case scenario wasn’t quite accurate.
    The factories making the nanorescuers were working at full capacity, but they weren’t producing the numbers needed. The other factories that were coming on-line in the next few days would help, but they wouldn’t get up to full speed right away. It was going to take luck to provide enough nanorescuers to cover every major city, its suburbs, and the twenty-mile radius around that.
    He ran a hand through his hair and looked at his new, sterile office. He longed to go outside and listen to the people on the street. He wanted to know if anyone else had figured out what Portia caught so quickly in the meeting that morning: that the president was saying that most of the planet would be undefended. The cities combined were only a small area. The rest of the planet, from the rain forests to the veldts, would be unprotected.
    And then there was the issue of the current unrest. Franklin purposely hadn’t touched on the U.S. response, but Cross had been hearing the announcements all afternoon. The president had declared martial law and he hadn’t been the only leader to do so. For the first time in Cross’s lifetime, most of the governments around the world had declared martial law. Freedoms that most Americans—most of the civilized world—took for granted had suddenly disappeared.
    If the world survived—and Cross had to believe it would—it would come out of this battle a place he no longer recognized.
    He pushed away from the door and walked to his desk. So much work and so many decisions. He was still in the center of it all. In fact, he was probably more in the center than he had been since the first attack.
    Maddox had done him a favor. She had given him control again. She had trusted him more than she had let on.
    He hoped he was worthy of the trust. He was going into this tired and stressed, and worried that no matter what they all did, the aliens would have some surprises that they couldn’t plan for.
    It was his job to make sure there were no surprises.
    He would do all he could.
    At least Britt was nearby.
    A dinner of Spam and canned tuna was worth suffering through if he had Britt across from him. He smiled. In fact, all of this was worthwhile as long as Britt was at his side.
    October 12, 2018
5:18 p.m. Central Daylight Time
    29 Days Until Second Harvest
    Kara Willis hung up and put her hand over her wrist’puter. She wanted to keep talking to her father, but knew that it would be better to