Thorne had seen alien armadas, supernovas, the death of stars. But that look—not fear, not surrender, but a quiet, burning promise—chilled him more than any weapon.
“Signal Fleet Command,” he said at last. “Tell them the planet is ours.” Conquest Earth
“Order the flag to half-mast,” he said quietly. Thorne had seen alien armadas, supernovas, the death
He turned from the viewport. His face was carved from the same stone as the war memorials back on Mars. “Did we?” “Tell them the planet is ours
On the screen below, a single image flickered—a drone feed from what remained of a city called Geneva. A child, no older than six, stood alone in a crater. She held a torn flag in one hand and a broken toy in the other. She wasn’t crying. She was staring directly up at the sky. At the Odyssey .
He sat down in the command chair, suddenly feeling every one of his fifty years.
“God help us for what comes next.”