The Josef would be sunk and maybe the aliens would be tempted to do more than just attack the Josef; they might attack the entire Combine as well. And if the Combine was beat, did it matter who did it?
Except, the thought crept back, there was no reason for him to believe that the aliens would differentiate between the Josef and the Oahu, between the Combine and the United States.
"The planes!" McCandless said, incredulous. "Look at the planes!"
The Captain glanced down at the screen again. An orangish glow was suffusing the alien ship. A jet slipped in for a rocket shot. The glow pulsed, expanded, touched the jet, and the plane vanished into a rain of wreckage that sped towards the ocean below.
"God!" Davis breathed. "Did you see that?"
The Captain only half heard him. So they were aliens. What did that mean? Beings of different background, different beliefs, different physical structure? He had been one of the first into Berlin after the massacre was over and the Combine had laid the blame on their Berlin Commandant, though it was painfully obvious that he had only followed out instructions. And the shambles he had seen there couldn't have been done by human beings. Four thousand soldiers and close to a hundred thousand civilians killed. Would you call the people who had been responsible for that human beings or ... aliens? Which name fit best?
The Berlin war ...
A dozen different outbreaks, starting with Korea so long ago ...
And then you were supposed to admit that they were blood brothers after all, and that in the face of a mutual threat you should forget your differences and pool your resources against the common enemy.
"There goes another one!"