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The distant, tinny sound of a ringing phone sounded on the speakers in the Sit Room, one, two rings, and then a hasty answer.

"Crow Island Earth Station."

"This is Wyman Ford," he said. "In the White House Situation Room."

A silence. "This is Dr. Sarah Simic, technical director for the Crow Island Earth Station. I have some . . . truly astonishing news to report." Her voice was steady, but with a slight tremble in it.

"Let's have it," said Ford. "We're listening."

"Let me put on Abbey Straw, who made the contact. She'll explain. But let me just say this is legitimate. We've checked and double-checked it."

A moment and then Abbey's voice came on, high and nervous, "Hello?"

"Abbey?"

"Wyman? You won't fucking believe--"

Ford quickly interrupted, "I'm here in the White House Situation Room, Abbey, with the president, and we're all listening to you on speakerphone."

"Oh." A silence. "Excuse my salty language."

"What is it?"

"We sent a message to Deimos, using the Earth Station."

"Why?"

"You know why! With those shots, the alien thing was trying to send us a message. Tell us something. It obviously wanted a response, it was trying to solicit a response. Otherwise, why not just destroy us with the first shot? No--that was a classic shot across the bow, to use naval parlance." She paused. "I figured we better respond--or the next shot might be the end."

"What was the message?"

"Let me explain first. Think about it. A shot across the bow. Why does a ship do that? To get another ship to stop, to surrender, to permit boarding. Right? So I figured that's what the thing wanted. So I sent it the message it wanted to hear."

A pause.

"Which was?" asked Ford.

"Just what I said. What do you do with a shot across the bow? You surrender. So I sent it a message: 'WE SURRENDER.' "

A long, shocked silence. "Oh my God," said the national security advisor. Mickelson's face turned white.

"And the response?"

"I'll read it verbatim. It was a little confused. 'SURRENDER ACCEPT. WAIT. WE COME.' "

"You surrendered?" thundered the president. "You surrendered on behalf of the United States of America?"

"Who's that yelling?"

"I am the president."

"Oh. Sorry. No, sir. You don't understand. No way are we surrendering! Heck, this is what ships did all the time in naval warfare in the past. They pretended to surrender and then blew the hell out of the boarding party when they least expected it. What we're doing is buying time, that's all. Unless God just repealed the speed of light, it's going to take many years for that alien outpost on Deimos to communicate with its home planet. It'll have to do that if they're going to come. It'll be twenty, thirty years, maybe even centuries before they come, depending on how many light-years away those scumbags are. That message just bought us time to get ready, arm ourselves, and prepare for the invasion."

"Did you say 'invasion'?" Mickelson asked.

"Yeah. Invasion."

A thunderous silence.

"You didn't think we were really going to surrender, did you?" Abbey said. "The hell with that: we're gonna fight."


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