Virtues of War by Bennett R. Coles

time of year. Then slowly he began to notice motion, like low-orbit ships, but moving very fast. Bolts of light lashed out from these moving stars, occasionally resulting in a sudden flare as bolts met new stars. It was a silent dance of light far above them, and he stood as riveted as his family.
    Then, as his gaze drifted down toward the horizon, he saw that some of the stars were moving together. He blinked, wondering if he’d been staring into the electronic ether for too long. No, a large group of tiny stars were moving slowly in the sky, their lengthening tails very low against the dark surface of the world. He held Rupa just a little closer, quickly counting perhaps fifty shooting stars in the tight cluster.
    Then a flash tore his eyes away from the distant sight. An orange meteor streaked down from the southern sky, smashing into the valley that stretched away from their ridge-top home. It came so fast and with such silence that Kete for a moment doubted it was real, and then the first explosion ripped upward from the ground. It occurred in a major industrial park, he realized—and then, seconds later, the thunderous fury of sound swept over them like a tidal wave.
    Kete instinctively ducked and pulled Rupa down with him. The girls screamed and cowered against the deck. Meteors began to rain from the sky, streaking silently ahead of their colossal sound waves as they burned through the atmosphere to pound down on the industrial park and its surrounding blocks. New bolts of energy began to fire upward from the landscape, but even Kete could tell that they were firing in a blind panic. The relentless bombardment of the industrial park, by contrast, revealed a deadly precision that made Kete’s heart go cold.
    The bombardment stopped suddenly, but he had already guessed that no reprieve would be coming. The large formation of shooting stars he’d seen on the horizon had faded from view, but in the chaotic light of the burning industrial park he saw the glints of flight and movement. He activated his visual recorder and strained to maximum zoom. Even from his distance of nearly ten kilometers he recognized the dark, boxy forms of Terran drop ships.
    “Oh, no, no, no…”
    Rupa rose to her knees and clung to his shoulder.
    “What is it? What’s happening?”
    Kete slowly tore his eyes away from the horror he could see on the dark plain below, shutting down his visual augments to look at his wife with his natural eyes. The worry in her gaze turned to raw fear as she saw in him the emotion he was unable to suppress. He’d been an agent of the government for twenty years, had seen the worst of humanity across the star systems, but he’d never imagined that it would come to this.
    He’d never imagined it would come here.
    “Take the girls,” he said, rising to his feet and pulling her up with him. “Get down in the basement and stay there. Don’t open the door for anyone except me.”
    Rupa didn’t move. Her mouth hung open in shock. Kete looked again at the valley, saw new flashes of light in and around the industrial park as the Terran troopers fought their way outward onto his home soil. Centauri home soil.
    He looked in desperation at his wife. At his precious, innocent daughters. He knew what Terran troops were capable of doing. Olivia and Jess stared up at him in shock, tears trickling down their cheeks. Rupa touched his arm.
    “Kete, what’s happening?”
    He leaned in to her, pointing down toward what he now realized was the Terran landing zone.
    “Terra is here,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm. “I don’t know how, but they’re here. Their troops are on the ground, and probably headed this way.” He scooped up Jess, handed her to Rupa and then hefted Olivia into his own arms. “Get to the basement and stay down there. Things are going to get very dangerous up at street level.”
    He strode inside, Olivia unresisting in his arms. The stairs to the basement were only seconds away and he