by Sean Robins
He was the commander of the Valiant, the largest, most powerful war machine ever built by humanity. But she was completely useless in a space invasion because she was a ship. To be exact, she was an 850-foot, twenty-thousand-ton behemoth. Still useless, especially since they had exhausted their surface-to-air missiles, without doing any damage to the enemy.
One of his officers shouted, “We have incoming at ten o’clock.”
Through his binoculars, McDowell saw a Chengdu J-25 fighter jet flying at a low altitude, being followed by three enemy fighters. The fighter jet pilot possessed excellent flying skills. His jet kept twisting and spinning wildly and evading enemy fire, bringing them closer to the Valiant.
This was apparently the pilot’s plan. One of the Valiant’s bridge officers said, “Captain, we’re receiving a message from the pilot. It reads, ‘My name’s Lieutenant Jianguo Liu, and I’m bringing them to you.’”
This deadly game of cat-and-mouse continued for a few more minutes, during which McDowell feverishly prayed for the pilot to succeed.
The Chinese pilot kept flirting with death. He finally ran out of luck. A laser beam hit his cockpit from close range, and his jet exploded. The three enemy vessels passed what was left of the plane, their momentum bringing them within the Valiant’s range.
McDowell shouted, “Fire!”
His ship was equipped with four S-1000 autocannons—six-barrel rotary automatic cannons capable of shooting ten thousand armor-piercing rounds per minute. The enemy vessels were fast, but they were flying straight toward the Valiant, and nothing, not even a spaceship, could evade an S-1000 at close range. Fire erupted from S-1000s’ multiple barrels. The result was like a fireworks display; glowing fragments of enemy vessels exploding in the air, falling in brilliant arcs into the dark sea. The spaceships were shredded into smoldering pieces in less than fifteen seconds.
McDowell didn’t realize he was screaming like a maniac until he noticed everyone on the CIC was doing it too.
His joy was short-lived.
Earth’s Troposphere - 14.45 EST
Mushgaana was getting impatient. This battle had lasted much longer than anticipated. Besides, several hundred damaged space fighters had landed on the command ship’s hangar deck, which was getting close to full capacity. Since the command ship was the only vessel in the vicinity with hangar bays, this would soon become a serious problem.
The officer in charge of the team operating the Voice of God contacted him, “The Voice of God is fully deployed.”
Finally!
Most officers on the bridge stopped working and looked at him. Mushgaana closed his eyes to savor the moment. It was a historic occasion, one which would bring yet another alien civilization to its knees.
The crown prince stood straight, feeling taller than he was. He puffed out his chest and very formally said, “Let them hear the Voice of God and submit to our will.”
With that command, humanity entered alien servitude.
The Pacific Ocean - 14.50 EST
Images of benevolent gods who had ruled over Earth for centuries suddenly filled McDowell’s mind. They were majestic and beautiful like the heroes of the stories he’d read in childhood, their eyes full of wisdom and compassion. He knew—had always known—how they cared for and protected humanity, helping them grow and prosper. He remembered meeting the gods up close and personal and felt the thrill of such a great honor. A voice in his head said, “We are the gods. Obey us, and you will be rewarded. Bury the dead and forget about them. Forget all today’s events. Continue your life and wait for our orders. If you are a member of armed forces, go to your base and await instructions.”
The message kept repeating in a loop.
A part of his brain that was still independent asked, “Bury the dead? What dead?”
He looked around and for the first time noticed a few people lying on the floor, blood oozing out of their ears. He didn’t remember who they were, and he didn’t care. The rest of the crew picked up their dead comrades, carried them outside, leaving a small trail of fresh blood, and threw them overboard, showing no emotion. It was a simple cleaning operation, and he was pleased by their efficiency.
McDowell ordered his officers to turn the Valiant around and go back to base.
Five spaceships arrived a few minutes later. Gods had come to visit them! McDowell couldn’t believe his good fortune. He knelt, put his palms together in front of him and prayed, his skin tingling. His children would be so proud of their old man when they heard about this.
In a tight formation, the spaceships made an attacking run over the defenseless destroyer and steadily fired at her. Bright, red explosions engulfed the Valiant, and she was sunk with all hands.
New York - 14.50 EST
Joe Winston was watching the news about the alien invasion on one of the several TVs in a packed bar with dozens of other people, trying hard not to give in to his terror, hoping against hope it was all some sort of weird collective nightmare.
An alien invasion! Who would have thought? With spaceships and laser beams, no less. What he saw on TV looked like scenes from a sci-fi movie. The difference was Earth’s defenders were getting slaughtered for real, and he could do nothing but helplessly wait and see how the chips would fall. The army was gearing up to defend against a ground invasion, and all around the planet, militia forces were being hastily organized, preparing for the same thing. He worried about his parents and his pregnant sister. He should call them. His hand reached for his pocket.
Winston’s eyes suddenly rolled back into his skull, and he fell from his stool. He was dead before he hit the floor, blood coming out of his ears.
The TV broadcast stopped. The other people in the bar, in silence and showing no emotions, picked up Winston’s body and carried it outside along with a few other corpses. The bar owner gave them a couple of shovels. They carried the bodies to a small park nearby where they were joined by hundreds of other people carrying the corpses of men, women, and children. Together, they dug a big hole, unceremoniously dumped the dead inside, covered the massive grave, and went their separate ways, forgetting what they’d just done. The dead were not missed. Joe Winston’s parents remembered only one child. His sister listened to the voice in her head that erased all her concerns about the future, and her recent terror. Her child would grow up blessed in the service of the gods.
In Zheng’s operation room, the general helped carry out the corpses. He wasn’t good at it; he hadn’t done any menial labor since his teens. But nothing like that mattered. A few soldiers dug a big hole and threw in the bodies, superior officers and comrades alike.
In The Harem, the Bratava goons didn’t bother to dig holes. They already had a secret underground room they used to dispose of bodies. They’d normally use a tub full of acid to do this, but there was no need for it today. They threw in the corpses of a few young women, as well as a couple of clients and two of their own, locked the door and walked away.
Some of the biggest mass graves in history were dug in China, where there were too many dead bodies to be handled by individual citizens. Government officials got involved and ordered the army to use excavators to prepare designated trenches in various locations, to be filled by thousands of corpses. In their minds, they were beautifying the country by removing unsightly animal carcasses whose provenance they didn’t remember.
The same macabre scenes were being played all around the planet. People buried their neighbors, their friends, and their relatives wherever it was most convenient and then completely forgot about them. Brothers buried their brothers. Mothers buried their children. A five-year-old child spent a couple of hours in their backyard trying to dig a hole to put her mother in until some neighbors saw him and came to his help. An eighty-year-old man had a heart attack while digging a grave for his wife of sixty years and died right next to her. Their son buried both of them later. A newlywed young woman on her honeymoon dug a grave in the sand with her bare hands, threw her husband in it and then w
ondered what she was doing alone on a beach. By some cruel twist of fate, four out of five members of the same family died together. The father buried his wife and three children and mercifully forgot all about them. Millions of people disappeared into haphazardly dug holes, never to be seen, heard of, or remembered ever again.
Twisting my wedding ring on my finger, I was following the battle on one of the virtual reality screens when Barook said, “OMC-BOWS is operational.”
All of a sudden, the battle stopped. The remaining jet fighters flew back to their bases, and the Xortaags let them go. The anti-aircraft fire from the ground died out too. I noticed a few jet fighters fell out of the sky, but I didn’t give it much thought.
Just like that, in a heartbeat, humanity turned into freaking brain-dead, construction-fodder, Xortaag-worshiping zombies.
The Command Center went deathly quiet.
“Show is over, ladies and gentlemen,” said Tarq. “Our work begins now.”
I rubbed my forehead and wondered if everyone felt as hollow inside as I did. It was like falling down a dark, bottomless shaft, but feeling no horror of the impending death, just wondering when it would happen. I was probably shell-shocked, which meant terror would come later. I could very faintly feel it in the distance. I wasn’t looking forward to its arrival. Having just witnessed the fall of human civilization, I did what I did best and tried to crack a joke. “On the bright side, from now on Kurt can’t drag our butts to watch all those Bayern Munich games.”
Kurt didn’t even bother to give me a dirty look. Everyone just ignored me. It was fine by me. I didn’t think I could stand being looked at. I was barely holding myself together.
That evening, Kurt, Allen, Liz, Keiko and I got together and watched Independence Day. It was only fitting. Like news from a distant universe, I remembered my previous enthusiastic comments about the foxy Viveca Fox. Now all I thought about was the battle to come.
The Netherlands - 15.30 EST
Maada was the first person to set foot on the newly conquered planet. He insisted on this every time.
He landed his Deathbringer in a place where they were planning to build their biggest fleet base. He removed his flight helmet, got off the space fighter, stood on a green, beautiful field covered with lush vegetation, and filled his lungs with fresh air, letting the euphoria of the conquest rush through him. This planet had food, minerals, lumber, rivers and lakes, wide oceans. His people would flourish here. Children would grow up not knowing hunger, thriving under blue skies. Briefly, he remembered his own gray childhood, the constant low-level fear of the future. He grew up in a small village where a third of the children would die due to malnutrition, and another third because of breathing the poisonous air. When he was a child, hunger was his closest companion. It wasn’t like that for his people anymore. It never would be again.
A shuttle carrying Mushgaana landed nearby. When the crown prince disembarked, Maada walked toward him, executed a perfect Xortaag salute by thumping the left side of the chest with the right fist, elbow kept straight in front of the body, and very formally said, “Your Highness, congratulations on yet another magnificent victory.”
Mushgaana casually saluted back. “Please accept my compliments on the flawless execution of our strategy, as always.”
The two of them had repeated this ritual many times in the past. Ninety-seven times, to be precise.
Maada bowed his head. “If you excuse me, I have got work to do.” He walked away.
Maada’s “work” was a ritual too: he would set up a temporary command post, and then he would lock himself in a room and not leave, eat or sleep until he had sent a short letter to the families of all the soldiers who had died under his command in that particular campaign, even though more often than not it took him a couple of days.
The fleet had more efficient ways to communicate the bad news to the families of the dead soldiers, and the commander of the fleet definitely had more important things to do than sitting behind a desk and writing letters. However, receiving a personal letter from Maada was a great honor, and the general hoped this alleviated the grieving families’ pain.
Shortly after, Maada, sitting behind a desk in the Xortaags’ temporary command post, looked at the casualty list on his PDD and started writing letter after letter. Every once in a while, a certain name evoked a memory in him and gave him pause, and occasionally, he had to stop writing to wipe a tear or two from his eyes.
Winterfell - 18:00 PM EST
Tarq, sitting behind the desk in his office and staring at the report he had just received, felt he was about to faint, or throw up, or both.
Millions of people had perished.
Around seven hundred million, to be exact.
Tarq was reading a report sent from an Akaki stealth spy ship watching the Xortaag attack from Earth’s orbit, hoping to gather something useful. The report was mostly the same sequence of events they had witnessed in Winterfell, with one glaring difference. Because they were busy following the battle, they had missed what had happened after OMC-BOWS started working.
They knew MICI was not effective for around four percent of humans—a much higher percentage than other species, for unknown reasons—and it was an educated guess this number would be higher for OMC-BOWS because they worked from orbit. Tarq and Barook had hoped for this number to be as high as possible because it meant millions of potential allies in the fight against the Xortaags.
Beware what you wish for, thought Tarq, pressing his fists to the sides of his head.
The Xortaags had undoubtedly done the same thing as the Akakies to calibrate and test their mind-control machine: They had taken human samples before the attack. They knew it would not work on all humans, so they had apparently decided millions of people roaming Earth in their right minds would not be good for their colonization plans. The Xortaags had come up with a simple solution: They had programmed the technology so that anyone who did not get their messages—men, women, and children—would die from a massive brain hemorrhage.
Children! They had slaughtered millions of children instantly, without remorse. This was too much, even for the Xortaags.
In the end, it had turned out OMC-BOWS did not work on around seven percent of the human population. Seven percent of ten billion people. That was a number so colossal Tarq could not even picture it. He assumed the Xortaags did not think about it that way. From their point of view, humanity would be as good as extinct within a couple of generations anyway. What was wrong with the Xortaags that they did not recognize the worth of other species? One’s own people came first, but that did not mean others are of no value. This was a familiar thought, and he turned it aside. He would never understand.
Tarq felt he personally had murdered all those people. Every single one of them, albeit not on purpose. It really was his fault because the Xortaags’ invasion of Earth was a part of his master plan. If he had not interfered, all those people would be alive, at least for now.
But then his own people would all be dead.
After the Battle of Alora, it was clear the Akakies could not defeat the Xortaags in a direct confrontation. Their government had decided to sue for peace. At first, Tarq had voiced his disagreement, knowing the Xortaags would not stop until they had conquered and subjugated Kanoor like they had so many other worlds, and he was relieved when the Xortaags rejected the offer. But he had soon found a way to use the proposed peace treaty to his people’s advantage. There was a reason Tarq had a reputation as the greatest strategist in Akaki history; besides, as the head of Special Operations Force, performing black ops was his specialty.
Mushgaana had four older brothers who hated his guts. The fact that the king’s youngest son was crown prince was humiliating enough, and Mushgaana compounded it by constantly rubbing this fact in their faces, in both public and private. Given the chance, they would kill him, or at least do anything in their power to thwart his plans.
Tarq had reached out to the four men, suggesting they had to
pool their resources. They arranged a secret virtual meeting, trying to find a way to bring Mushgaana down. One of the possibilities the four brothers mentioned caught Tarq’s attention, and he took it from there.
The brothers had a spy in their service. The spy was an attractive woman who was able to seduce any man. More importantly, she possessed a unique telepathic power. She was able to change a person’s thoughts and attitude with a simple touch. One of the brothers had mentioned this nonchalantly. Tarq was not surprised when the others got angry at the revelation—such an asset was priceless—but after some irritated muttering, they seemed to not understand just how precious she was. True, she was limited. She could not make a person do something against their conscious interests and will—she couldn’t force Mushgaana to kill himself or stop him from attacking Kanoor. She could, however, plant a small idea in a person’s mind, masking it as their own, and let it grow. For a master manipulator like Tarq, that was more than enough.
“If Mushgaana accepts the peace,” Tarq had told the brothers, “he will lose the confidence of General Maada. The general won’t disobey orders, but I have no doubt he will be in conversation with you shortly, and the prince will fall. You don’t need Kanoor to grow; there are plenty of planets to conquer.”
“Besides, we can always defeat you,” said the eldest brother unpleasantly.
“All I’m asking for is a few years,” he said. “I’m an old man.”
They believed him, he understood, because they would have done the same thing—given anything for a few more years of life. They also assumed he was stupid. Like many inferior beings, they couldn’t see their own shortcomings.
The brothers knew one of Mushgaana’s weaknesses was his interest in beautiful women. They arranged for their agent to get into his bedroom. During the night, she planted two thoughts in Mushgaana’s mind: one, the idea that the Akakies were too strong, and two, a strategy of accepting the Akakies’ peace proposal and attacking a few easier targets until the Xortaags were better prepared to take them on. That delayed the attack on Kanoor but put seven other planets on Mushgaana’s target list. The closest of the seven to Alora and therefore the most logical first target was Earth. Just to be on the safe side, Tarq had asked the spy to single Earth out as the first new target. After that, he had come to Earth to set his trap and wait for the Xortaags to fall into it.