Chapter One
Second
Front
Chapter Two
Second
Day Interludes
A woman wearing blue jeans and a
leather jacket was cooking something on the stove listening to the
radio. Of course all they talked about was the invasion. There had
been a battle nearby recently but it seemed to have been an isolated
group of aliens, no cluster of landers in the area. She couldn't
think of a good reason for them to hit rural Wyoming.
The radio announcer was explaining that
officials thought the alien invaders were fleeing a dying world and
that they were not really much more advanced that Earth in most ways.
They might have been, a long time ago, before their planet was
somehow pushed away from its parent star. Now they were just
desperate, probably. Others didn't care why they were doing it.
Her newly-issued combat rifle was still
leaning against the refrigerator. She had personally killed at least
one of the invaders as a member of the volunteer Home Guard. Her son
now thought she was “cool”. She hoped that the aliens stayed far
away from Wyoming anyway.
The face of the alien was sort of like
a bat, or a demon, but the coloration was way off. It had once been
black but it also had gray and white splotches. How long had these
beings been forced to live underground? How in the universe did their
planet get out of a stars gravity in the first place?
She made breakfast for her son and left
a note on his lunch box. Then she slung the 50 cal rifle over her
shoulder, grabbed her purse and headed for work at the truck stop
coffee shop. She doubted there would be much business outside of
those stranded truckers.
…
The alien was cornered in the bedroom
of the apartment. Sgt Mark Walter of the LAPD had wounded it with his
shotgun. It was limping and one arm hung useless. It had broken into
this apartment seeking refuge, jumping through the living room
window. Before Sgt Walter, who was chasing it, had arrived the alien
had already swung its bladed weapon and cleanly cut off the head of
the woman who lived there.
Leaning against the wall next to the
door frame, he pushed a few new shells into the shotgun. He could
hear the labored breathing and a soft whining of the isolated alien
hiding inside. The Sergeant planned to kill this thing before it
could hurt anyone else. Then there was a loud scraping noise.
The LAPD officer turned and looked
inside, there was a hole in the wall, the thing had dug through the
plaster and drywall and was in the next apartment. The morning sun
was shining into the room since there were no blinds covering them.
“Damn!” he cursed as he ran to the
hole and climbed through. There was no furniture in the room on the
other side. Thank God it was vacant. He walked toward the door to the
hallway, listening for the alien. It might have gotten away already.
Suddenly he was hit from behind,
tackled. Claws dug into his left side, where his body armor didn't
protect him. Rolling on the ground together there was a furious pain
in his shoulder as the thing bit him in the shoulder near the neck,
like a vampire. Sgt Walter elbowed the creature in the face as hard
as he could. It seemed to have been stunned so he did it again and
the grip it had loosened.
He didn't know where the shotgun ended
up, but still had his mace. He took it from his belt and sprayed it
at the aliens exposed face. The scream should have shattered glass as
it flung itself back hard enough to break drywall again. The officer
pushed himself to his knees and pulled out his 45 from the holster
and shot the freak in the face twice. It's limp dead body slid to the
floor in a heap.
The shoulder wound made it painful to
move his arm or head. That thing had gotten separated from the
fighting in MacArthur Park and the downtown Los Angeles area. It had
killed a lot of people who were no threat to it. Most people were
locked in their homes because of the fighting, like the woman it had
decapitated without a thought.
He was bleeding profusely from the
wound. Sgt Walter found his radio and wondered if the alien jamming
had been stopped.
…
Seoul National Capital Area
There was no school because of the
invasion but Park Eun-Hee really needed to study for her upcoming
math exam. She had left her book in her desk. Eun-Hee didn't have to
walk far from the family's sixth-floor apartment to reach the school.
Just a quick trip, no reason to ask her parents for permission.
They'd just be worried.
The shops along the way were all
closed. The streets and sidewalks almost completely deserted. The
fighting was miles away but she could see a military vehicle blocking
an intersection in the distance. The soldiers would protect them from
any of the aliens, she believed.
The door was unlocked as usual but the
building was so quiet it was eerie. She giggled to herself, probably
had seen way too many movies about haunted schools. She climbed up to
the third floor and found her classroom. There was the book, right
where she had left it. Easy as...
There was a scuttling sound. Something
was behind her. Please be a stray cat or a bird that flew into an
open window, she prayed. When Eun-Hee looked into the darkened area
behind her, against the wall, she saw it. It was one of the aliens,
out of its armor and looking injured.
“Why did you come here?” She asked
it. She sat at her desk. It blinked but otherwise did not move. It
was carrying no weapons, in fact it was naked. It gave off a barely
audible shrill whimpering sound.
“Is that your language? If so, I
doubt we'll ever understand each other.” She told the alien.
She had seen the television footage of
these things fighting. They were very agile. This one must be
injured. The news reports said these things were viciously cruel,
they had sent the beasts yesterday. Today they were invading.
“Your world has a new sun. It can
heal over time. None of this was necessary was it?” Eun-Hee asked,
although she would admit they might have a thousand reasons why it
could not wait. “If you had just come peacefully...”
Maybe they had no concept of peace. She
wondered if they could learn. Then she laughed at the idea of trying
to teach this creature anything. Being in the school felt ironic. She
would just slowly leave and then run home to report this to the
authorities. It would be the right and proper thing to do. If they
took it alive they could learn a lot about the aliens.
Internal injuries. Maybe it was just
scared. It may have been forced to join the invasion against its
will. Not all of the aliens could be the same. She always thought it
was strange in books or movies where an entire alien race acted the
same. Why couldn't they be individuals too?
The aliens were losing all the battles
around Seoul. The aliens were doing much better near Busan and Jinju.
There were reports that some of the landing vessels were burrowing
into the ground, possibly digging underground bunkers.
They had lived under ground for so
long. Eun-Hee looked out the window at the reddish world in the
evening sky. When it was darker, and that would be soon, it would
glow brighter. She pointed at the other planet.
“Dangsin-ui segye, i-e-yo?”
She saw the creatures eyes look at
where she was pointing. It saw its home world. Another whimpering
sound came from its throat. A very lonely sound. To her ears, Park
Eun-Hee did not think this alien was like the others. It didn't seem
like a soldier. Then again, didn't all soldiers long for home?
Finally she stood up from her desk and
started moving toward the door. She kept eye contact with the alien.
It watched her. She was in the hallway and she slid the door shut.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she turned and started running
toward the stairs. She heard a crash behind her and the noise of
something chasing her.
She screamed but something hit her as
she reached the end of the corridor. It slammed into her and she was
crushed between it and the wall. Eun-Hee saw stars as vision faded.
The thing was holding her up after her legs failed. She looked into
its face and had no idea if there was an expression as she passed
out.
…
The arrow-shaped alien lander was
floating on the water. It was bigger than nearly every ship in the
Argentine navy and its weapons had blown a submarine apart. The
weapon had created a crater in the water, exposing the sub to the air
as the alien ship blasted it.
“Firing one. Firing two.” The
seaman reported as the anti-shipping missiles were launched. The deck
of the San Juan had eight anti-ship missiles, half of those remained.
The alien vessel had easily shot down the first two and now these two
would be as useless.
The 3,400-ton destroyer was no match
for the massive alien landing ship that had recently landed along
with the second wave. There were several on the ground near Buenos
Aires. They were putting up a good fight but there didn't seem to any
long-term strategy by the aliens.
The Captain uttered an obscenity as the
two missiles were destroyed in the air. “Fire all four remaining
anti-shipping missiles, then full speed toward the enemy!” he
ordered. The crew on the bridge were a bit stunned, surely he wasn't
going to ram that thing?
…
Later...
“Mr. President. These things, the
remaining landing ships, are burrowing into the ground. I do not
totally understand why. Maybe they have some technology that can pull
resources from the ground, possibly they have advanced 'printing'
technology to build more weapons.” The General was telling the
President on the phone. “I just do not see how they can hope to
win, there are just too many humans for them to defeat.”
After a short silence he spoke again.
“Yes, sir. Operation Doolittle is still a go. Won't be ready to
launch today though. Might not even be necessary, looks like we can
beat this invasion at the moment.”
Suddenly the floor shook. The General
grabbed his desk. The phone was dead so he threw it down and went to
a window. There were several large holes in the ground and something
was coming out of them, many somethings. They looked like...
“Robots.” The General told himself.
Hundreds of small robots that looked like spiders or crabs and some
larger ones that carried obvious guns. This must be a third wave. The
landing vehicles that burrowed into the ground were making robots.
They've had a matter of hours and they built all this.
Soldiers and officers in the building
were now running and shouting. It looked like chaos but they were
doing their jobs. Armed soldiers rushed to attack the robots but the
big ones fired back as the little ones scurried forward. They reached
a car and within seconds had dismantled it and consumed it. As he
watched they did the same thing to a soldier.
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I will try to update this ongoing story 2-3 times a week, at least.
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