In the Balance

In the Balance is the first novel of the Worldwar series. In it, the Race arrives at Earth to begin their conquest. To their surprise, instead of sword wielding savages, they encounter an industrialized world embroiled in a World War.

Chapter 1
The book opens with Fleetlord Atvar in the command station of the bannership of the Conquest Fleet, the 127th Emperor Hetto. Like every morning he and the other officers look at a holographic representation of earth with his usual comments: "Cold-looking place" and "Cold and wet". Looking at images Earth which were taken by a probe dating from 12th century. The images of crusaders are far from worrying to any of the officiers who know their technology is way past that time.

Those image are 800 years old, but by Race standards, hardly enough time for any major technological development to take place (it took 5,000 years to the race to advance to that level). A junior officer Subleader, Erewlo informs Atvar and the officers that artificial radio signal are being picked up coming from Earth. It is, therefore, much more advanced than they had expected. Atvar is now stuck with deciding whether to invade the planet or not. Seeing the inferiority of the Tosevites' war machines and their disunion, he decides to invade.

Chapter 2
Sam Yeager is introduced at the end of a victorious game for the Decatur Commodores. A victory brought about by the pitcher, the seventeen-year-old Joe Sullivan. The second baseman, Bobby Fiore asks Yeager why he stayed in the Three-I league despite his age, since at 35 he had nearly no hope of advancing to the A-Level league. He merely replied that if the war goes on long enough, the army will draft everyone above of him because of fake dentition. On their way to the train station, Sam buys an Astounding science-fiction magazine, and Bobby teases him about it. When all the team boards the train they head for Decatur.

Chapter 3
In the Soviet Union, more precisely in Ukraine south of the the city of Kharkov, Major Heinrich Jäger and his tank company are in a certain state of calmness allowing Jäger some time for reflection on various topic.

Chapter 4
Flight Lieutenant George Bagnall was in his Avro Lancaster during a night flight above France when anti-aircraft guns begin to take shots at him. He is more concerned with monitoring engine temperature and revolutions, fuel consumption, oil pressure, hydraulic lines, and all the other systems of the airplane. He and his crew drop bombs on the city of Cologne, but then enemy aircraft appear. Having dropped their payload, they retreat.

Chapter 5
Ludmila Gorbunova is a Soviet biplane pilot who suceeded in crippling a few German soldiers, although a few fought back, but didn't manage to hit her. Her hope is that she might be able to acquire a real fighter plane.

Chapter 6
While she was bathing, a Chinese peasant, Liu Han, witnessed the attack on her village by the Japanese. Despite the destruction and chaos, she finds that the bombing of the corrupt local county head's residence (and his death) is a good thing. When she goes back to her home, she finds out that it was totally destroyed and that her son has died, too.

Chapter 7
A British radar operator, David Goldfarb and another technician, Jerome Jones, spot a "pixie" on his radar: An object flying at an incredible speed, and at an incredible height (likely a killercraft). After having spotted the one, a large number of them appeared in the sky.

Chapter 8
Moishe Russie is a starving Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto desperate to get food. He took some silver candlesticks to trade with a Pole for some pork, hoping to substain his familly for a few day with it. He begged for God to give him a sign. Suddenly, a large light appear in the middle of the night high in the sky (actually high altitude bombing by the Race) but he sees it as his "sign".

Chapter 9
Back on the 127th Emperor Hetto, Atvar ponderd whether it would be possible to manipulate the Earth tectonic plate so more land can be acquired after the conquest. Kirel steps in and tell him that the bombing of one of Earth's important radio center was successful. The Race exploded a nuclear bomb above the city in order to send an EMP that would destroy electronic material. The shiplord asks his superior if the fleet has asked for the surrender of Earth powers, but Atvar prefers the Tosevites surrender after being defeated by The Race armies.

Chapter 10
Flight Leader Teerts descends at high speed on a human airport with two other pilots (Rolvar and Gefron), he's amazed by the vast number of airplanes, but he is quick to destroy nearly all of them. One shoots at him, but despite his best effort the radar-control of the killercraft cannon shoot him down.

Chapter 11
In the sky, George Bagnall witness British Lancasters being destroyed quite easily by Race killercraft. Communication links have been severed by EMPs (for the moment The Race presence on Earth isn't "official") The Race killercraft are going at such speed it look like the bombers are blown up all by themselves.

Chapter 12
Jens Larssen a physicist at the University of Chicago witnesses an atomic explosion in the sky. He's quick to relate it to his work and knows that nobody on Earth actually has the capacity to do so and ends wondering who could have done it..