Defeat was not an option.
The war wasn't going well.
The mind-numbingly alien Arachnids were an enemy whose like no civilized
race had ever confronted. Like some carnivorous cancer, the "Bugs" had
overrun planet after planet...and they regarded any competing sentient
species as only one more protein source. They couldn't be reasoned with,
or even talked to, because no one had the least idea of how to
communicate with a telepathic species with no recognizable
language...and whose response to any communication attempt was a missile
salvo. No one knew how large their civilization--if it could be called a
civilization--actually was or how it was organized, but the huge fleets
they threw against their opponents suggested that it was enormous.
The Grand Alliance of Humans, Orions, Ophiuchi, and Gorm, united in
desperate self-defense, have been driven to the wall. Billions of their
civilians have been slaughtered. Their most powerful offensive operation
has ended in shattering defeat and the deaths of their most experienced
and revered military commanders. The edge in technology with which they
began the war is eroding out from under them, and whatever they do, the
Bugs just keep coming.
But the warriors of the Grand Alliance know what stands behind them, and
they will surrender no more civilians to the oncoming juggernaut. They
will die first...and they will also reactivate General Directive 18,
however horrible it may be. Because when the only possible outcome is
victory or racial extermination, only one option is acceptable.
The Shiva Option.
