The entire station was on first stage alert. Leander met us at the junction with the main corridor. Water a foot deep coursed along the floor from a pipe rupture. We slogged through the stream beside Leander.

“We’ve put Charles and Tamara on alert,” he explained. “They’re in the main labs, testing the QLs and preparing for whatever you order.”

Having positioned troops and arbeiters, Eccles splashed into the corridor and joined us. “Madam Vice President, we haven’t been able to reach Many Hills. We’ve seen locusts south of the station. There have been two skirmishes, and we anticipate full-scale attacks any time.”

We climbed three steps up into a dry corridor.

“We’ll need better med, and soon, and I want to see everything,” I said. Two distant thumps brought everybody to a halt. We glanced around warily, waiting.

“Our defense arbeiters have begun shelling,” Eccles said.

Dandy shook his head bitterly. “They’ll come in here like cockroaches. We can’t keep them away by shelling.”

“I’ll do whatever I damn well can,” Eccles said defiantly, eyes flashing.

Leander pulled me aside while Dandy and Eccles argued strategy. “Locusts won’t be our biggest worry. Phobos has been taken out.”

“We saw it,” I said.

“And Deimos as well. We don’t have any big guns.”

“Phobos looked like it was torched,” I said.

Leander’s face fell. “We’re picking up high levels of gamma radiation.”

“What, then?”

“Remote conversion,” Leander said. “They seem to be using the Ice Pit to target us.”

“Did the teams get away?” I asked.

Leander shook his head. “I’ve got a medical coming, and some transportation.”

The pain in my ribs had subsided to a brutal throb.

In the annex outside the main lab,, as an officious, humming arbeiter injected more nano and watched my vital signs, Eccles and Lieh worked with the original of Aelita to show me what little they knew. A map of the Kaibab Plateau displayed hundreds of blinking yellow crosses: suspected locust sign, spotted by emergency balloons and gliders circling the station. Red dots indicated positive locust identification. I counted thirty.

Dandy described the locust that had invaded our shuttle and brought us down. Lieh listened attentively.

“We only have the sketchiest ideas what shapes they can take, and what they can do,” she said. “So far, all we’ve seen have been scouts and simple sappers.”

More deep thumps vibrated the walls and floor.

“I hope that’s our ordinance,” Lieh said.

“Sounds like charges,” Eccles said.

“Most links are down,” Lieh said. “Comsats have been taken out — we don’t know how — ”

Leander and I glanced at each other, lips pursed.

“ — And so we’re pretty isolated. We can’t guarantee making any connections with the President. In short,” Lieh said, shadows deeply etched around her eyes and mouth, “they’ve done it to us again, even more dirty. Ma’am, my gut tells me we’ve suffered tremendous damage. Whoever’s in charge of the Earth focus has gone over the edge. I’ll support any effort you decide to take.”

“We assume they’ll try to kill us all,” Eccles said.

“Then it’s war,” Lieh said. “How can we retaliate?”

Leander looked away. We had other swords of Damocles; but if we used them, the loss of life on both worlds would be staggering. So far, only Phobos and Deimos had been hit by what might be remote conversion — an action that could be regarded as frightened, as defensive.

“It’s not an easy call,” Charles said, standing in the door to the annex. He stared at me with a puzzled expression, as if emerging from an unpleasant drunk.

“Where’s Tamara?” Leander asked.

“She’s on the QL, keeping it exercised.”

Eccles tapped my shoulder. The red dots on the display had tightened around the station. They knew where we were, and soon they would know what we were.

“They’ve fully harnessed the Ice Pit,” Charles said. He lifted a hand and flexed it as if it pained him. “They’ll use it on us soon.”

More thumps, and a distant, high-pitched drilling whine that set my teeth on edge.

“They’re doing it,” Lieh said, eyes intense, far more sanguine. “Genocide. We have to respond.”

I knew how she felt. We were cornered. It would only be natural to use all of our claws.

But we still had that other option, and that was why Charles was here: to gently remind me that all along, we had planned to do something completely unexpected. Vengeance would not save us.

But I had to explore all the possibilities. “Can we target the Ice Pit for conversion?”

“I’ve tried. I can’t even find the Ice Pit now.”

“Is anything else protected?”

“We can pick any target on Earth and convert it,” Charles said softly. “Billions of hectares. Entire continents… If you order it.”

Distinct popping sounds came from outside the lab chamber: projectile weapons. Eccles inquired about the action and was told that two locusts had been destroyed, one in a reservoir and the other in an arbeiter tunnel a hundred meters from the lab.

“It’s going to be hand-to-hand in an hour or less,” she said.

I could not order Charles to begin genocide on Earth. He might not even obey. My options had been reduced to just one, but even for that I did not have the authority.

I had to wait, as long as possible, for Ti Sandra.

“What do we do?” Eccles asked.

Aelita interrupted and said, “We have received an important image from a pop-up satcom.”

The display changed abruptly. We looked down from five hundred kilometers above Schiaparelli Basin . A gray impenetrable curtain swept in eel-like folds across the basin, its upper reaches filled with sparkling stars. It seemed to be moving slowly from north to south. Where it had passed, dust filled the thin atmosphere. Through the dust we could barely make out lakes of molten rock, blackened tumult, complete destruction.

“That’s Many Hills,” Dandy said.

“They’re converting Mars now,” Leander said.

“Madam Vice President — ” Lieh began, but Charles interrupted her.

“Aelita, can you magnify the western limb?”

“I see something there as well,” Aelita said, and did as she was told. The picture was at the extreme edge of the satellite’s range; Mariner Valley appeared like a grainy gash in the landscape.

“We’re here,” Leander said, standing beside Charles near the display and pointing with a finger just below, meaning beyond, the horizon. Charles traced another gray curtain barely visible in the magnified image. The curtain might have been a few hundred kilometers beyond northeast Kaibab; it was difficult to be sure.

“Madam Vice President,” Lieh said, “if this is confirmation that Many Hills has been destroyed, then you must take command now.”

Aelita reverted the picture to a wide view. She then magnified the region around Many Hills. The capital of the Republic was lost in dust.

My ribs ground together and I closed my eyes, gasping to regain my breath.

As the satellite continued its grim course from east to west, we saw more clearly the searching fingers of death moving in toward Kaibab. But that seemed expected, even trivial; what shocked was the extent of destruction elsewhere.

Charles’s hands twitched. “You’re in charge, Casseia.”

“Madam President,” Lieh said, stating the obvious.

“Ti Sandra isn’t coming back this time,” Charles continued. “She was at Many Hills. The district governors and representatives were there as well, most of them.”

I stared at the sparkling effects of conversion, pits and slashes filled with molten rock: hundreds of thousands of hectares in Copernicus, Argyre, Hellas. Two of Mars’s biggest stations had been hit.

“Cailetet’s main station is gone, and two outlying stations, as well,” Aelita said.