War of the Worlds

     As far as we knew, the invaders had come from a star far beyond our own system. They were not from Sol, and so they knew little of the ape descendants that lived on the planet and in its orbit. But they were quick to discover the planets resources. They soon setup a foot hold in our system by building a base on our own moon. From there they launched their attacks. Their ships burned our cities from the edges of our atmosphere. Their soldiers marched across our towns, tearing apart our lives. In the two months that we fought against them the United States alone had lost some hundred million people. It was not known how many of those had been killed, or if they had been taken off by the aliens for some unseen purpose. All we knew was that they were gone, and that we were still here. We still had to fight, to fight to survive and to live. And so we worked our way west, to the location of the New Capital, where the remains of our government had setup a strong hold. The last fortress of the United States of America, somewhere near the remains of Portland Oregon.

     Before the alien menace had come I had been a simple post man in New York city. I was enrolled in the National Guard, but I hadn’t been all that active in my duties. I spent most of my free time with my son, nearly three at the time, and my beautiful wife of four great years. I remember the night of the first report, and sitting on the roof of the apartment complex with my family watching the alien machines role across the moon. In mere hours we could see the cities sprout up. And before the early hours of the morning we could see the first few alien battle ships come into orbit of our own world.

     It was then that I decided we should go visit my father-in-law who lived in Minnesota. We told our son it was a chance for him to see his grandpa again but I think he knew we were really just trying to escape what we thought to be the ensuing chaos. We had all our important supplies packed and had just decided to stay one more night. That night before we left, they attacked.

     The sight still haunts me, seeing the ships immense beyond imagination. The ships themselves seemed to be larger then our glorious city and the military reported that they were only at the edge of our atmosphere. So huge even at such great distance. The unfathomable size itself was terrifying, but when I saw our own missiles peal off in a glowing smoke trail, that’s when the fear really hit me. The radio reports told us to stay inside, that the fallout would only last a few days before it would be safe to go back outside. I remembered my days in college and how the EMP from a nuclear bomb would kill your car, so I took out the battery and unplugged all the electrical items in the house, hoping we would survive. The radio reported that it would be going offline for a few minutes and when it came back on we would hear reports of the damage to the alien fleets. But from my window I could see the nuclear fire ball of the missiles. They exploded long before they hit the actual ships. Discharging on some hidden shield of energy.

     As we pilled into our SUV and tried to work our way through the hundreds of dead cars that littered the streets, we first noticed the drop ships. Like large triangles they floated down from the sky. Hundreds of armored soldiers filed out of these colossal ships, and they marched across the city streets. Using strange weapons much akin to phasers from the old Star Trek shows, they captured people and lead them in great chain-trains back to the ships. On one occasion I remember seeing a man come running from his house with his shotgun blazing lead into the alien troops, there armor pocked but there weapons never faltered, The energy beams lanced through him and boiled away his innards before leaving him a hollow man. The aliens set up road blocks across the main freeways and captured all who tried to escape. As we headed for a back road I first noticed the smaller landing craft. As they reached the ground they switched from their sleek triangular fighter craft forms into an angular limbed jet. They performed this act be twisting and swiveling their pieces as if they were no more then origami airplanes. The final contraption was to become a very familure site to me.

     Larger then any man, at roughly twelve feet tall, they looked almost like some angular medieval suit of armor wrapped around an eagle. Their strange elongated heads were all that helped remind you that they had once been jets. Their legs were long and round, like tree trunks, their chests were sharp and angular, yet seemed to be shaped like an upside down egg. Their arms were blocky and their shoulders looked like they had large intake fins sticking from their tops. From behind their shoulders were a pair of wing like apparatus that looked similar to sharp jagged teardrops. And in their hands were the powerful rifles that shot death in the form of energy. They moved with such grace, like a ballerina they danced around the dead cars, smashing in the roofs with fists the size of human heads. They gracefully floated around the streets, using their death rays to dispatch any military units that came to stop them.

     One of the iron giants stood in the middle of the road, its pale golden mono-eye starring down our vehicle. Telling Alice to take Jamie, we dove from the SUV moments before the beam of energy from the giant lanced out and my whole world was enveloped in an explosion. When I awoke I found myself buried in the shattered wall of a house, the giant gone. In it’s place were several armored soldiers, and through my bloody vision I watched my wife and child get dragged away.

     That was two months ago. A band of survivors found me, and as my body recovered we hunted the aliens. Every camp we attacked, every unit we destroyed, every alien we killed, we eradicated for the sake of those who had been murdered, those who had been taken, and for those who have not yet been born. And every camp we found, we freed the slaves we found and searched for our families. We march on, fighting the invaders with every breath we take. Our vary lives a simple act of defiance against the alien plague that swept down upon us. And I? I will fight with all I have, to return what has been taken from me, and to shatter the power of our colossal menace.



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