Chapter 25 Summary

Texarkanan officials flee to their estates as a nuclear event at Itu Wan becomes certain, headlines proclaim, "Lucifer is Fallen," and the prickly Minister of Defense again faces the press. He hints acknowledging Asian claims is seditious, but a reporter insists a neutral source is claiming an underground test has broken loose, been detected by a Christian Coalition satellite, and been answered by a nuclear strike from space. She rejects the military's attempt to put responsibility on the shoulders of the 11-year-old monarch. The minister will say only that since diplomatic relations are broken since the last crisis, they must rely on neutralist accounts, which vary. A megaton-range subsurface detonation has occurred, which is illegal even if it is merely an attempt to divert a subsurface river as the Asians claim. The minister doubts there will be war, but some Texarkanan armed forces...