The Race, he realized, had decided to use the Reich ’s attack as an excuse to smash Germany. The Lizards had warned they would do just that, but nobody in authority seemed to have listened to them. They hadn’t been kidding.

“German upper stage!” The radio crackled to life-in English. “Anybody home in there, German upper stage? Over.”

“Am I an idiot, that I’m going to answer you?” Drucker asked. He’d maintained radio silence ever since the slugging started. If he started transmitting, the Lizards would get a fix on him and blow him out of the sky. He’d known Americans were naive, but this struck him as excessive.

“German upper stage! German upper stage! If you’re alive in there, you might as well give up,” the American flier said. “What’s the point to you ending up dead, and maybe more Lizards, too? You aren’t going to win the war all by yourself.” Silence for a few seconds, then, “Over and out.”

Silence returned. Drucker grimaced. He scratched his chin. He’d grown quite a beard this past month. The American made good sense, in a way-but only in a way. As a soldier, he was supposed to strike at the enemy, wasn’t he?

Then why haven’t you? He pondered that, as he had so often before. He came up with the same answers he had before, too: “Nobody gave me any orders. And it’s a goddamn stupid war, too.”

He glanced down toward the Earth. He was approaching Europe, though clouds hid much of the continent. Even if they hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been able to see much. From 350 kilometers up, even massive devastation was invisible. But he’d seen bombs blazing like suns as they burst at night. And he knew there had been many more he hadn’t seen.

Every time he passed above the wreckage of the Reich, he wondered if he would get orders at last, though by now he’d almost given up on it. If he did get them, this would be the place-the only place. The Lizards had knocked out all the German relay ships. It had taken them a while: longer than it should have, even if the delay worked to the Reich ’s advantage. They never had paid as much attention to the seas as they should have. But they’d finally got round to it.

Did the Reich have any working radars these days? If not, his superiors wouldn’t even know he was up here. Of course, all his superiors might well be dead. His family all too likely was. He’d cried himself sick about that the day the missiles started flying. He blamed Kaltenbrunner much more than the Lizards. The Race had been content with the status quo. The Fuhrer hadn’t.

“He should have been, damn him,” Drucker said. He’d cursed himself sick that first day, too.

A burst of static came from the radio. “Spacecraft of the Greater German Reich! All spacecraft of the Greater German Reich! The fight for justice in Europe continues,” a voice said in clear German. “Punish the Lizard aggressors however and wherever you may. Your sacrifice will not be in vain!”

When the message finished, it began repeating. As far as Drucker could tell, it was identical the second time around. A recording? He wouldn’t have been surprised. Was anyone alive down there to give orders to the remaining German spacecraft? Could anybody down there be alive at all?

Millions, tens of millions, of people down there were surely dead. But what about the high command? He had to admit that he wasn’t sure. Party and military leadership had known for a long time that a war with the Race might be coming. They would have done everything they could to make sure they could go on fighting it.

In the middle of the recorded message’s third repetition, it suddenly broke off. A different voice came on the air, one that sounded both military and tired unto death: “Be it known that all charges against Lieutenant Colonel Johannes Drucker are rescinded and that he is raised in grade to colonel. By order of Walter Dornberger, acting Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich.”

Drucker stared at the radio receiver. His boss at Peenemunde was running whatever was left of the Reich? How had that happened? When had it happened? Why hadn’t Dornberger started broadcasting sooner?

And, even more to the point, if Dornberger was running the Reich, why in hell wasn’t he surrendering just as fast as he could? He’d thought the idea of war against the Race utter madness, as Drucker had. It had proved to be utter madness, too. Why wasn’t he giving up, then?

Did he think he could win? Had the Race refused to accept his surrender? Was he trying to prove he could still hurt the Lizards after they’d done their worst to Western and Central Europe?

Did any of that matter? Reluctantly, Drucker decided it didn’t. An order that included all German spacecraft certainly included him. And, he had to admit, Dornberger was a Fuhrer he could respect. If he was going to go out, he would go out in a blaze of glory.

For the first time in quite a while, he looked out through the canopy with a view to sizing up targets. The points of light that moved against the stars were in Earth orbit, as he was. Some of them, the bright ones, shone more brilliant than Venus. Those would be the starships of the conquest and colonization fleets, the ships the Lizards couldn’t afford to lose.

He chose one by eye. They’d always orbited higher than upper stages usually did, and had moved higher still after the war with the Reich broke out. He could have fired up his radar to see exactly how far they’d moved, but he would have been shouting Here I am! if he did. Instead, he eyeballed a starship out ahead of him. If he could get close before turning on the radar and launching his missiles…

His calculations were automatic, instinctive, like a fighter pilot’s. If it was at that altitude, it was moving about so fast, which meant he’d need a burn of about so long to take himself out of his present orbit and put him into firing position. If the Lizards were alert and blasted him into wreckage before he could launch, they’d win. If they weren’t… He sighed. If they weren’t, they’d blow him into wreckage after he launched.

Soldiers, unfortunately, found themselves in such positions now and again. His finger poked the button that started his engine. The acceleration wasn’t enormous, but he hadn’t felt any acceleration at all for most of a month. Any at all made him seem to weigh five hundred kilos.

He used his fuel lavishly. It wasn’t as if he’d be coming back. The starship he’d chosen as a target grew brighter and brighter, then started showing a visible disk. Drucker knew he’d be visible, too, on every Lizard radar screen in the neighborhood. That starship couldn’t run away, not as massive as it was. They would need to interpose, or to come at him from some other direction, before he got close enough to do what he’d set out to do.

Now he did light up his radar. It showed the starship dead ahead, with just about the range and velocity he’d guessed. “I have good eyeballs,” he said with a chuckle. If he was going to go out, he’d go out laughing-and as a colonel, no less.

And he thought he would take the starship with him. The Lizards never had been good at reacting to the unexpected. None of their missiles headed his way. None of their spacecraft designed to fight in orbit-nastier creatures than Hans-Ulrich Bus — showed up on his screen. Somewhere on their starships, they were probably yelling back and forth at one another, trying to figure out what the devil to do. He didn’t need to figure. He was already doing.

No, here came one of their spacecraft, under what looked like pretty good acceleration. But it was late, late. He used the attitude jets to align the nose of Hans-Ulrich Bus on the starship. And then his thumb and forefinger found the red switch he’d never thought he would use. He pulled it out and activated it, then flipped it first to the left, then to the right.