Finally, after years of wondering, they had proof. Aliens were real. It was just typical that the first aliens they encountered were hostile.
Alone in the car, with nothing more than the roar of the engine for company, it was hard to keep his mind from whirring. He didn’t know what was happening with that alien ship, or if there were more of them, though he had to believe there were many. They could not possibly be so lucky as to only get invaded by the one mothership. Cut off from news, it was easy for his imagination to run wild. He pressed harder down on the accelerator. The sooner he got to the base, the sooner he would know what was going on.
He had a feeling they were going to be in for the fight of their lives.
Chapter Two
At Area 51, it was all hands on deck. The base alarm had sounded almost as soon as the booming voice had faded away. Doctor Julian Braden leaned on the wall, arms folded, watching the chaos in front of him. Sweat trickled down his back as the central air failed at reducing the humidity from so many bodies crammed into a single space.
Absently, he pushed up the long sleeves of his charcoal shirt to his elbow, and then ran a hand through his shoulder-length dark hair. This was a pointless meeting, he just knew it; they could have had the same results from a teleconference, and then he could have gotten on with something while he was waiting.
“Alright, listen up,” a young lance corporal shouted, trying to be heard over the chatter and quiet the room. Given the lance corporal was standing next to General Howard Sampson, and the room was half full of military personnel, silence soon swept across the din.
The lance corporal tapped on a keyboard, and behind the general a projector hummed to life, displaying an image feed on the screen at the far end of the room of an alien ship hovering over a different city. It was a pirated news feed, and the banner at the bottom informed them it was showing Moscow.
It was 2 a.m. on that side of the world, and the picture was dark and indistinct. However, the missile tracers and explosions told their own story. The footage showed that Russia had scrambled jets of their own, which had proven to be no more effective than their American counterparts.
“Five more ships have broken orbit and are hovering above Tokyo, Shanghai, London, Delhi, and Rio. There may well be more in orbit, en route, or certainly out there in the galaxy. We have to work under the assumption that this is only a fraction of their fleet,” General Sampson began soberly.
Before General Sampson could continue, laughter broke the silence. A young man, one of the new junior researchers, was sniggering at the general’s words. What began as sniggering soon devolved into hysterical laughter. The room watched him laugh. Julian shook his head; they should have expected someone would crack.
“A freaking alien mothership,” the researcher gasped. “I see it, but I don’t believe it. What’s next, Elvis isn’t really dead? The lizard people are among us?”
“Someone get this man out of here. Take him to the infirmary and have him sedated,” General Sampson barked.
Two airman reacted immediately, grabbing the researcher by his arms and pulling him from the room. He didn’t resist, but he didn’t help, either; his shoes were dragging on the carpet, limp in the airman’s hold.
“What else? Shadow government and black helicopters? Aliens among us? Aliens on this base?” the researcher screamed, his voice fading as the door slammed shut behind him.
“That was unfortunate. I know this is one hell of a situation we’re in. However, as crazy as it is, it’s real, people, and I need all of you to focus. If you feel you can’t and you need some time, then you know where the door is.” General Sampson paused, his eyes skittering over the gathered crowd. No one made a move towards the door; no one said anything. A minute later, he nodded, pleased. “Good, let’s…”
Behind him, the image changed back to the ship hovering over Washington, D.C. For a moment, there was no sign of movement, and then the ship suddenly rocketed back up towards the atmosphere.
“Sir,” the lance corporal interrupted urgently.
The image of the mothership had been provided by a camera mounted on the roof of a building. With a few taps of the keyboard, the feed was swapped to a satellite view. The view of the mothership was now not good, but it didn’t have to be, as death started to rain from the sky.
Beams of light shot out of the alien spaceship, again and again. There were a few gasps of horror, and several people began to pray. At first, the targets seemed random; it felt like they were witnessing the end of the world. That meant that, at any moment, that random target could fall on Area 51 and wipe them all out.
Julian frowned as he saw the explosions on the satellite feed. It only took a few hits before he leaned back. They would soon confirm what he had already worked out: the targets weren’t random. The explosions were familiar and devastating.
The attack was over just minutes after it had begun. The mothership descended once more, but this time it moved to hover over New York, which made a great deal more sense. Washington, D.C. might have been the capital, but the population of New York was twelve times as large. All the other cities on the list had populations that numbered in the millions. Rio was the next smallest city, and their population was ten times that of Washington, D.C.
The message was loud and clear. They had hovered over one city to say hello, then that ship had attacked targets the world over, before moving its position to another city. It was clearly meant to be intimidating; the aliens wanted the world to know that they could get to them anywhere.
“My god,” General Sampson muttered before turning back to the room. “We have confirmation. That attack wiped out the entire world’s nuclear arsenal. They even hit sites we only suspected, or ones we didn’t even know about. In one strike, they took out our most destructive weapon.”
“They also showed they meant what they said,” Julian pointed out. Everyone turned to look at him, and he rolled his eyes. He knew people were in shock, but really, had everyone switched their brains off? “With their firepower, they could turn this planet to ash. Instead, they accurately target only what they want to take out. They don’t want the world destroyed.”
What Julian didn’t point out was that the aliens obviously had sensors far beyond Earth’s capabilities. That was the most logical explanation of how they’d found all the nuclear sites; they were able to detect the radiation. However, what else might the sensors be capable of picking up? How long had these aliens been studying Earth?
This first attack was an ominous harbinger of what was to come. It didn’t take much imagination to know that soon beams of destructive death would fire from the other ships. The aliens had demanded their surrender. They could have targeted the nuclear arsenal for a number of reasons. Maybe those weapons would have been a threat to them. However, it was also likely that the nukes had been removed from the equation to stop Earth from self-destructing.
The aliens likewise could have targeted their communications network. They hadn’t done so—yet. Perhaps that was because the population of Earth was too large to control if there was chaos. For Earth to surrender, the world needed leadership, not anarchy. However, if the current leaders didn’t surrender, it would be a simple matter for those beams to crisscross the globe, taking out those that gave the orders. Those leaders would be replaced with others, who would likely be more amenable to the aliens’ demands. They had never fought an enemy like this. No enemy that they had ever fought had had the capability to do this.
“That gives us a chance. You are among our best and brightest. I need ideas. Anyone?” General Sampson looked at the assembled scientists. The silence was deafening as everyone looked at one another; the situation was unprecedented, and it was clear that normal tactics weren’t exactly going to cut it.
“If we breach the shield, we can take it down,” a male scientist with a strong Southern drawl offered.
“Good, how do we do that?” General Sampson asked.
Julian rolled his eyes aga
in. A general leading a brainstorming session—the world really had gone mad. However, he was the highest-ranking officer on base, and this was an alien invasion. He had been here to be shown some piece of new technology, not that any of that mattered anymore. Nothing they were working on would do them any good against their current threat.
“Hit the ships with something stronger,” a female scientist near the front of the room suggested somewhat timidly.
“Like what? We’ve already fired our strongest air-to-air missiles,” an older male scientist said.
“I would hardly call them our strongest; they were standard missiles,” the Southern scientist scoffed. “We should drop the MOAB.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, that ship is currently hovering over New York. That’s a problem all on its own, but there’s no sense in making it worse,” Julian pointed out. He growled in frustration at the sea of blank looks before him, and these were supposed to be their best and brightest. “We need to breach the shield, but blowing up half of New York won’t help with that. We start throwing bombs onto that ship and that’s what will happen.”
“Oh, so you have a better idea?” came a shout from one of the corners of the room, a smug, smarmy colleague that Julian had never liked.
“Of course,” Julian stated confidently. “We need to analyze the energy pattern of the shield. We might be able to overload it with a certain electrical current. Once the shield is down, the ship will hopefully be as vulnerable as any aircraft.”
General Sampson looked pleased. “Good, that’s what I wanted to hear. Now, how do we analyze it?”
“Keep attacking it. The more we attack it, the more data we can collect,” Julian suggested.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” the same smarmy male scientist piped up, a smirk playing across his lips as he repeated Julian’s patronizing words, “every time planes attack that ship, it shoots them down. People die.”
“People are dying anyway. We might all die,” Julian told him bluntly with a careless shrug.
Julian stared the room down. In a sea of military uniforms, suits, and other professional attire, he was the only one there in jeans and a casual shirt, and he didn’t care. However, they would be wrong in assuming he didn’t care about the lives he was suggesting would be lost in order to test the alien shield. He did care, but he didn’t let sentiment get in the way of making the hard decisions. Not that he’d had to make any really hard decisions before. It was just the type of man he thought of himself as, the type that did what was necessary, not what was popular, which was perhaps why no one liked working with him.
“Besides, as I’ve already said, that ship is hovering over New York. Even if we do succeed in bringing it down, the shockwave will cause as much damage as the impact. Perhaps I was hasty earlier,” Julian said wryly. “It doesn’t matter if we blow up half of New York bringing it down; when it crashes, it will destroy the city anyway.”
It was certainly a mark of greater events, when the fate of a city as large as New York wasn’t the big picture. This wasn’t a fight for a city, or even a country—this was a fight for the world, and they would fight. It was practically programmed into their DNA. They fought over everything, which was why there was always a war raging in some corner of the planet. Freedom of religion was enshrined in their constitution; everyone could worship whatever god they wished, and no aliens, even with a freaking for real spaceship, were going to change that.
“If that’s all, I believe we all have a fair bit of work to do.” Julian looked pointedly at General Sampson.
General Sampson nodded. “Dismissed. Get to it, people. We need to make those aliens regret attacking a small planet called Earth.”
*****
When the booming voice had demanded worship, Hector had just laughed. He had stopped laughing when his daughter had turned to him with wide eyes and a quivering bottom lip.
“Daddy, I’m scared,” Gabriela had cried.
First and foremost, Hector considered himself a father. His wife had died last year, and his little six-year-old girl was now his entire life. He was a regular guy; he worked construction, and didn’t really think about the world much outside of his small part of it. Oh, Hector worried sometimes about how violent the world was, and that one day he would have to send his little girl out on her own. However, apart from that, he wasn’t a deep thinker.
Hector had taken Gabriela out for pizza. It was a Tuesday, and the place wasn’t that crowded. After she had said she was scared, he had just gathered her into his arms and reassured her that it was just a joke, that there was nothing to be scared about.
An hour later, his words would prove to be a lie.
They had just left the restaurant, heading for the subway. The sidewalk was crowded as normal; people bustled all around them. It was New York; there were always people everywhere. However, what wasn’t normal were the knots of stationary people. They were standing around, whispering urgently. Hector felt uneasy. His smartphone’s battery had died by the time he’d left work, and there hadn’t been a television or radio in the pizza parlor. He hadn’t heard the news, and something wasn’t right.
Gabriela’s small, delicate hand was clasped in his meaty paw. Her feet were dragging as the long day caught up with her, her sparkly purple trainers scuffing against the ground.
That was when the screams started.
Sunset had been an hour ago, so there was no real shadow cast on the land. However, what little of the night sky that could be seen was blocked out. Hector looked up. A dark, sinister shape, dominated the sky.
For a moment, nobody moved, but fear was contagious. One person bolted, and the next thing he knew, the crowd turned into a panicked, fleeing mob.
Someone hit Hector hard in the shoulder as they dashed past. The impact spun him and he lost his harsh grip on Gabriela’s hand.
“Daddy!” Gabriela shrieked in terror.
“It’s okay,” Hector yelled automatically.
He leaned down to pick her up; they’d move faster that way, and they had to get out of here. However, the ground was not a good place to be. A pumping arm clipped his face, the blow sending him staggering to his knees. Another blow hit his side from a raised foot, and then he was on the ground.
The third and final blow was a kick to the head, and everything went black. His arm was outstretched, and he didn’t feel his fingers break under the crunch of a boot.
“Daddy!” Gabriela screamed again.
She fell to her knees next to her fallen father. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She grabbed his shirt and shook him.
“Daddy, wake up, please wake up,” she pleaded.
*****
Meanwhile, down in Florida, a retired couple, Richard and Beth, moved with precision around the grocery store. The second the booming voice had faded, they had jumped in the car. They were both retired military; Richard was Army and Beth was Air Force. Their training told them that things were going to get bad, likely very fast.
Like most Americans, they bought in bulk; it was cheaper that way, and living in Florida, they had a stockpile for the hurricane season. However, now the country was heading for a potential apocalypse. Hurricanes didn’t usually last that long, a couple of weeks at most. This alien invasion would likely last a lot longer. If they wanted to survive, they needed to be prepared.
When they first arrived at the store, people were in shock. Most didn’t believe what they had heard. A few minutes later, the news reports started.
“What do we do?” Beth heard a middle-aged Hispanic woman ask her husband.
Her husband shrugged helplessly. “I do not know, but it will be okay, you’ll see.”
Beth exchanged a glance with Richard. Nothing was likely be to be okay for some time, if it ever was okay again. If the country had been invaded, then it was obvious what most civilians should do: find a way out to another country and safety. They were former military, though, and they would join the fight if they could. However, it was the world
that had been invaded. There was no way out. There was nowhere they could flee to for relative safety.
Suddenly, there was a sharp bang. On instinct, they both fell to the floor. Beth looked up. The Hispanic woman was staring at her husband in horror. Her husband looked down as a bright red stain spread across his pinstripe white shirt. He fell to the floor.
Another bang and the woman joined her husband in death.
Richard drew his pistol and crab walked over towards the dead couple. They had been standing at the end of the canned goods aisle. Cautiously, he peered around, right at the same time a panicked young man wielding a pistol of his own turned the corner. He stumbled over Richard, knocking him onto his back. The gunman staggered but didn’t fall. Richard rolled back onto one knee and aimed his pistol, but it was too late.
They might have been former military but they only kept one pistol at home. From just a couple of feet away, the gunman couldn’t miss. He put one round into Beth’s skull, exploding the back of her head, splattering skull fragments, blood, and brain matter down the aisle.
A second later, the gunman’s head exploded; this time, it was his face that ceased to exist. He collapsed forward, pitching to his knees, landing just to the left of Beth.
“No!” Richard cried, lurching to his feet.
He had taken one step towards Beth when a bullet hit him in his right shoulder. Another hit him lower, puncturing his right lung. He could hear screaming but couldn’t make out the words. Richard tried to turn and took a third bullet in the side of the head. He collapsed back, the remains of his skull landing against his wife’s knee. His pistol clattering uselessly to the ground next to him.
“You killed him!” the young woman who had killed Richard screamed. “You killed Carlos!”
Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) Page 2
