Summary

In Chapter 16, Zach meets his father’s two friends and comrades, Major Shin Hashimoto and Graham Fogg. They have been up here with Xavier this whole time. Admiral Vance was also amongst them until he was promoted. He and the other recruits find out more about the details of the alien attacks. It has happened every 398.9 days when Europa is the closest to earth. They are shown a video of a particular attack where Vance and Xavier perform an incredibly brave and lucky maneuver. Xavier does not believe it’s luck.

At dinner (a lavish affair), it comes out that both Graham and Xavier think that the aliens have purposefully not obliterated the earth. Their views are the same as Zach’s who thinks that it makes no sense that the aliens have allowed humans time to catch up to them technologically. They...