"We need a navy even more, but most naval units will still be under construction when the Posleen arrive. The battle wagons, the big guns that can go toe-to-toe with the globes, won't be available until about a year after the first wave hits, but before the second wave, thank God." Mike took a pause and looked particularly unhappy. "Which brings us to you."
"Why?"
"A little-known caveat of all these activities won't be little known for long. Fleet and Fleet Ground Strike personnel stationed off Terra will be given the option to have one relative per serviceman relocated to a non-threatened planet. I checked and you were going to be stationed stateside. Before the regulation becomes widely known I can pull a couple of strings and get you stationed off planet. That means that either Cally or Michelle could be relocated to a safe planet."
"Who would raise them?" asked Sharon, eyes widening. Mike realized that he probably should have spread the shocks out, but they had just run out of time.
"Probably an upper-class Indowy family."
"Would it be the planet I was stationed on?"
"Probably not. The guy who owes me a favor can get you off planet but not to a location of choice. It may be to the Terran Defense Task Force, or Titan Base, who knows. All I know is that I can get you off planet and I can't do the same thing for myself right now."
"Why?"
"That's not my mission. I'm slated for the Diess force, but only as an advisor on temporary duty, not as a permanent change of station, so it doesn't count as off planet. And, for that matter, the AEF personnel are not counted as being off-Terra since they're only there temporarily. How temporarily is a good question, but it is not considered a change of station."
"How long are they going to be there?" asked Sharon.
"Nobody knows, but you have to be in Fleet or Fleet Strike to be considered for off-planet duty and the AEF units are not considered Fleet Strike, yet. Effectively, your salary has to come straight from the Federation, rather than through a planetary or national formation."
"So, I have to decide whether to have one of our children safe but separated from us both." Her face twisted into an expression he couldn't read.
"Not really. If you wish to blame me for arm twisting, feel free, but you had better take the position. I cannot guarantee that I will be back by the time of the invasion and I virtually guarantee that neither of us will be able to be with our children during the combat. That means that they will be without our protection and I've already told you how bad it will probably get. Let me be clear. We are going to lose the East and West Coast, all of it, all the way to the Appalachians in the east and the Rockies or Cascades in the west. We may lose the Great Plains, although I think we can contain or delay that loss significantly. Urban areas inside the defensive ring are going to take a pasting.
"Nowhere on Earth will be completely safe. There are going to be shelters for less than ten percent of the population unless a miracle happens and I don't think, and this is a professional estimate, that the defenses for the shelters are going to work. Digging them underground is a waste of resources and, possibly, criminally stupid. If we leave the girls with family, we can leave them in Florida, which is going to be one vast abattoir, in northern California or in the Georgia mountains, on the back side of the continental divide. That's the safest by far but it's still too close to Atlanta."
"I can't believe that they would force me back into uniform given those conditions," Sharon said, furiously.
"Believe it. No one is avoiding service this time, not if they are even marginally qualified. We will both have responsibilities to meet. Family hardship will not be considered a recognized reason for discharge."
"Then I can't believe you want to leave them with your father," argued Sharon. She hated Mike when he was like this, he set up these logic juggernauts and just drove over everything in his path. Her own experience with lifer military, especially officers, had been less than pleasant.
"Dad's a kook, but the right kind of kook for the conditions," said Mike, trying to tack back towards a normal tone.
"Your father is not a kook, he is flat bughouse nuts. Round the bend. Bats in his belfry." Sharon twisted her finger by the side of her head.
"Yeah, but what kind of bats? All his bats carry AKs. He's just the kind of nut that might keep one of the kids alive."
"Honey, he's dangerous!" complained Sharon, losing the argument and knowing it.
"Not to kin."
"Most murders involve relatives!" she rebutted.
"My father is far too professional to murder family. All of his murders are quick, discreet and untraceable to him."
Mike shook his head in bafflement. "He is the perfect person to leave one of the kids with given the situation. What? You want to put them up with your parents? Mr. and Mrs. `White-Carpets, Don't-Run-In-The-House, I-Can't-Believe-This-It's-All-Just-A-Government-Scare'? Or perhaps my mother? Who, while a wonderful person, has no capacity to defend herself much less one of our children? And who lives in California, home of a thousand and one great places for a Posleen to land. Or, put them with an ex-Ranger, ex-Green Beret, and ex-mercenary? Who stays in shape, maintains a wonderful and completely illegal weapons collection and has a farm in the mountains? Come on!"
"I don't like his stories. I won't have him feeding the children all that hogwash." She was starting to be petulant and knew it. If Mike would just back off she might have time to consider, time to adjust. Instead he had to keep pushing.
"What hogwash? He's got citations to go with most of his stories. And they all have some sort of moral to them. `Never pull a pin on a grenade unless you have somewhere to throw it.' `Always remember to booby trap your ally's positions. You can trust your enemy, but never trust a partner.' It's not like he was a heartless assassin; he insists he never killed somebody he liked." Mike smiled. He agreed that his father was bughouse nuts. But he was perfectly adapted for the coming storm.
"Oh, Michael!" Sharon snapped.
"Oh, Sharon!" Mike replied.
"So, which one do we leave? Oh, God dammit honey! How do you make a choice like that?" Her face in the lamplight was pinched and suddenly very old.
"Fortunately that is one decision we don't have to make. When the program was designed they decided that that was one decision not worth leaving to the affected personnel. Fleet will decide for us and the choice is not open for discussion. It shouldn't affect either of our kids but if one of them had a genetic defect, no matter how the parents felt, that one would not be the one to go. Part of the purpose is to move a good quality human gene pool off Earth and to do so without there being real cause for argument. On the other hand—since the fleet is being drawn from the ranks of navies—it is heavily skewing the gene pool to northern Europeans. That was an item for discussion and still is. I don't think that it is going to change, though, no matter how much the Chinese call it racist."
"Is it?" Sharon was willing to digress. It was better than thinking about the situation.
"I don't think so, although don't ask me to analyze Darhel psychology. They are remarkably labyrinthine and I am altogether too blunt; I can't even start to get a handle on them. I wish I could, because I think it's the most important thing anyone could be doing right now, even more important than preparing for the Posleen."
"Why is understanding the Darhel important, and how could it be more important than preparing for the Posleen? I mean, they've been pretty up front, letting us send delegations off world and giving material help, now even offering off-planet evacuation for dependents. I think they've been fairly nice. You can't expect them to spend all their energy defending us."