Invasion

The guard said nothing, but pointed with one long hand towards a small group of aliens, waiting for them at the edge of the field. Francis placed his trust in his legs and started to walk towards them, feeling his legs grow stronger as his body got used, again, to the Earth’s gravity field. The aliens waited patiently for the humans and their guards; he suspected, watching the way their faces twitched, that they were finding their progress funny. The aliens should have been used to bodies that had been in space too long, but instead…they were laughing! He was sure of it.

“Welcome to Earth,” the lead alien said, with hopefully unintentional irony. “You will take that vehicle there and head to your people’s lines, outside our area of control.”

Francis followed the alien’s gaze and saw a large SUV, carrying a white flag on the hood, fluttering in the wind. It would be very visible from space, he realised; the aliens were taking no chances on a friendly fire incident from either side. It would be fairly easy to drive once he got his strength back – and Gary or Katy would be able to drive it as well – and it should have enough fuel to get to friendly lines, wherever they were. Gary went over to check the vehicle out as Francis continued to speak to the aliens.

“Thank you,” he said, dryly. The aliens probably wouldn’t recognise sarcasm. “Where are the friendly lines?”

The aliens produced a map. It was a fairly basic roadmap of Texas, one that might be used by any driver planning a road trip, and someone had written on it in green ink. If the map was accurate, the aliens controlled the state as far north as Waco, although the area that represented Fort Hood couldn’t be that firmly under their control. He would have bet good money that Fort Hood was currently the site of a nasty little war. He might never have been in the services, but he was confident that Third Corps could hand out one hell of a beating to the aliens if they were confronted on their own ground.

“Your military has formed a base here, outside of Dallas,” the alien informed him. Francis felt his blood temperature start to plummet again. If the aliens knew that the base was there, how long would it be before they decided to hammer it from orbit? He had to get there first to warn them before they got hit. “We advise you to drive there. Our forces will not interfere with you provided that you do not attempt to enter the cities. Once you have reached your people, convey our messages to your leaders.”

“Of course,” Francis said. He was starting to get sick of being given alien orders. “It shall be done, superior sir.”

The joke was lost on the alien, but Gary cracked a smile. “Come on, sir,” he said. “We’d better get moving if we want to get there before dark.”

Looking at the map, Francis doubted that they would get there before it got dark, but he held his peace. They had a long way to go before any of them would feel safe. The columns of smoke, rising up all around them into the clear blue sky, would see to that. He hoped, desperately, that they meant that the fighting was still going on.

***

Philippe took the backseat and watched as the two American men took turns to drive through what had once been a prosperous American state. He had never been to Texas before, but somehow he suspected that it hadn’t always looked like this, not even when a hurricane had blown through it. The Americans said little as they drove on and even the others kept their thoughts to themselves; none of them had been prepared, really, for the reality of alien invasion. Texas had been wrecked overnight.

The Interstate highways had been torn apart. Hundreds of cars, vans, and even trucks had been abandoned, or had been shot up in the fighting by one side or another. Near civilisation, there were mercifully few bodies, but further away from the towns and cities they were everywhere, mostly just civilians who had been caught up in the fighting and had been mown down by one side or the other. They passed through the remains of a town that looked as if a bomb had hit it, the handful of survivors watching them bleakly as they passed. Philippe had thought himself a hardened man – he’d seen more of the misery that humans could inflict on one another than most – but there was something truly soul-crushing about seeing an entire country laid so low. The aliens seemed to have occupied the land, but outside the cities, they saw little of them. They just didn’t care.