The Rain: The End by Marietta Standlee (good summer reads TXT) 📕

what, water, plants, food, whatever it was, it has been raising our infertility rate at an alarming level for the past twenty years."

Oh my. Wow! My body falls back against the desk I lean on. Sounds like the Phinaruhs are not playing nice and are a force to be reckoned with.

"Seems like your population has grown tired of this war and wants to sue for peace, but your Council and military won't?" Dimitrov sums it up.

"In a nutshell, yes." Parm admits.

Colin takes a step towards Parm, leans forward until they're almost nose to nose, which is not an easy feat, since Colin is very tall and Parm is sitting down. "Tell me what all this talk about the Ethical Committee was about then, your noble speech about not wanting to stand by and watch innocent civilians die?" His voice is dangerously low, I lean forward, to not miss anything.

Parm looks away first. "I didn't lie. The Ethical Committee did decide to step in."

"But you left something else out." Colin states.

Parm works his teeth; he doesn't seem to be happy to be laying all his cards on the table. "You have to understand, trusting you isn't easy for us either." He looks accusingly at Colin. "You asked me how you can trust us; well, let me put the question right back to you. How can we trust you tomorrow? Ever since you arrived you and your army have been deceptive, trying to play us, trying to gain as much information as you can without giving us much."

Colin looks a little amused now. "Okay, so neither one of us trusts the other; I still want an answer."

The war going on inside Parm's head is obvious. He'll either have to put all his cards on the table and risk us betraying him or the whole plan tomorrow won't be pulled off at all. His body posture and face make it easy to guess that he has something very important riding on us helping him tomorrow.

"Alright." he finally nods. "The Ethical Committee is just what it sounds like, always has been. Our members are vetted and tested before allowed into the organization." He waves his hand. "I know, I don't know how Ka made it in or why he defected, okay? All the members have the highest standards and regard for any intelligent life. Over the course of the last century, ever since the blasted war with the Phinaruhs began the Committee evolved. We had to admit more fighters into our ranks because rescuing species like you," he nods at me, which makes me more than uncomfortable, "required more and more finesse and military techniques.

"War is against everything the Committee stands for. We've objected against this war since the beginning, to no avail. We realized there is only one way to end it, we have to fight back, and we have to do so dirty. Our only option is to fight evil with evil if we want to bring it to an end." He takes another deep breath. "Our hope tomorrow is that if we can save those civilians and return them to the Phinaruh's leaders, we can start peace talks. We hope, we can make them see that some of us are against this war, and perhaps then we can stop it."

A moment of silence follows, as everybody digests Parm's words. My mind spins, if this is really true, we might have a chance of winning too. If we can stop the unscrupulous exploitation of our planet; we have a chance of forcing the Gorongiaths back and to reclaim our world.

For the first time in a long time, I feel something warm spreading out inside my belly, it's small at first, but I'm actually allowing it to grow a little bigger before I contain that emotion, hope.

"Well, will you help us tomorrow? We can't do it without you." Parm looks at us expectantly.

Here I thought, what good can our twenty-five hundred soldiers do? Turns out a whole lot. I grin widely at Colin, who returns it with his usual arrogant smugness. Colin looks towards the other five Commanders. Every single one nods. We are in.

"Thank you." Parm's face is wide open; the relief in his expression cannot be fake; we'll have to trust him and his men.

He leaves after making plans to get with Briggs early in the morning to go over the fine tuning of our plan. Colin and I decide to be there as well, which means we won't get much sleep tonight. As it stands, it's already almost midnight. But that's okay. I think I'm way too wired for sleep anyway. Hope flares and spreads inside my chest. If we can pull this off….

Just as we're about to disperse Dimitrov speaks up. "Hold on, before everybody leaves, please."

All eyes are on the Russian, who grins like the Cheshire cat. "There will be casualties, tomorrow, right?"

Colin tilts his head and nods thoughtfully at Dimitrov. "What's your plan?"

"How many spaceships are with our troops, Briggs?" Dimitrov asks in return.

Joanne Briggs doesn't hesitate; she knows her numbers in her sleep. "We have two-hundred-ninety-four pilots. We'll be flying a hundred-forty-seven ships to Oaron tomorrow. What are you getting at?"

"What if we make our casualties a little higher and take, say…. fifty ships? Fly them to Earth, hide them?"

Everybody stares at the Russian for a minute before comprehension of what he's suggesting sets in.

"Nobody will be the wiser," Briggs adds with a grin.

"Not even Parm," I agree.

Dimitrov nods happily, "Exactly! We'll fly half to your President, half to ours. Fair."

Colin turns his head towards Dimitrov, assesses him. "Where are your loyalties, Dimitrov? President, Country, or the human race?"

Dimitrov doesn't hesitate, "Human race, why?"

Colin rubs his chin. "Because I like your plan, but I don't think we should tell either of our Presidents."

Now everybody turns towards Colin. "Why?" I ask incredulously.

"One," Colin holds up a finger. "Deniability, should the aliens get suspicious."

All of us understand this and we nod as one; makes sense.

"Two," he holds up his