Christopher Nuttall - Invasion

They reached the centre of the city, a strange building that served as the centre of human government. It didn’t look majestic enough to his eyes; the humans could have built a massive towering construction, but instead they’d chosen to build a fairly small building. A small group of unarmed humans, watched carefully by a group of warriors, waited for him as he dismounted from his vehicle and touched the ground of Earth. He’d been in space for years, literally, but thanks to the miracle of cold sleep, he hadn’t forgotten what life was like on the surface of a world.

The lead human looked up at him. Their faces were more expressive than those of the Takaina, but he wasn’t able to read them; indeed, watching them almost made him feel unwell. It made him wonder, in a rare burst of self-introspection, if the Takaina had the same effect on humans; how would the two races integrate if both races repulsed the other? Maybe it was something they could learn to overcome…

“Ah, how do you do?” The lead human said. The statement made absolutely no sense at all. For a moment, he wondered if he’d learned the right language. “I am Governor Brogan, the duly-elected leader of this state. Welcome to the Texas State Capital.”

That made more sense. The human governing system — rather oddly, their development of high tech hadn’t led to some version of the Unification Wars — made very little sense to the Takaina… and their news broadcasts regarding it made even less sense. The Takaina would not have tolerated someone dishonourable in a high-ranking position, both for actually being dishonourable and for being caught at it.

He leaned forward enough to watch the human’s eyes, weird and unpleasant though they were, flicker away. “You have surrendered your city to me,” he informed the human. “You and the remainder of your people are my prisoners and will be held accountable for the behaviour of your people.” He gave the signal. “Take them to the holding camps.”

The warriors swarmed forward. There had been a surprising number of humans in the building, a handful of whom tried to run when they saw the warriors, but they were all rounded up and shipped out of the city to the camps that had been established at the early landing sites. Taking hostages was an old habit, one long honoured among the Takaina, although it was still too early to know how the humans would respond. A handful of human civilians, watching from the sidelines, would be allowed to leave, to spread the word. They would have to see what was happening to their world.

Joshua felt an uncomfortable prickling behind his shoulder blades as he saw the aliens for the first time. Most of them wore the black armour that covered their entire bodies, including their faces, but the handful that went without protection were almost worse. From a distance, when one was standing still, it was easy to mistake them for humans, but there was something indefinably creepy about their faces and when they moved, they looked almost like jelly-legged soldiers, straight out of an anti-war film.

He’d had to see the surrender ceremony. When they’d heard about it through the remains of the city’s internet, he’d insisted that he went to see what was happening, if only to discover how the aliens treated Governor Brogan. Joshua had been surprised to see the aliens grab him, chain him up and start marching him out of the city, but maybe that wasn’t so surprising after all. They would want to keep the leaders away from the remainder of the civilian population, just to try to keep a lid on acts of resistance… and instead, they’d taken one of the limiting factors away. People who had surrendered because of the surrender order would know, now, that it had been a mistake.

The aliens seemed to be searching the Texas State Capitol. More and more aliens were arriving on their hovering vehicles and Joshua decided that it was time to make himself scarce before they decided to add him to their bag. He walked quickly back though the streets, passing shops and buildings that had been boarded up by their owners, and discovered what the aliens were doing with some of their prisoners. A KEW had fallen on the street and smashed several buildings and at least a dozen cars… and they had put their prisoners to work clearing up the mess. Shackled, their legs chained to stop them from running, former soldiers and policemen worked together to clear the area, piling up the debris into massive hills. The aliens didn’t seem to have a more comprehensive plan besides clearing the streets so they could use them, but maybe they’d dispose of them all in time.

It was the bodies that almost made him throw up. He hadn’t realised just how many people had been killed until he’d seen the pile of bodies, just tossed there without any concern for funeral rites or the feelings of their relatives. Men, women… the tiny broken bodies of children, caught up in a war they’d never asked for nor wanted. The aliens seemed to be sorting them out themselves, without regard for human feelings, piling up the bodies until it seemed that the stink alone would drive them out of Austin. There was a brief pause as a pile of bodies was finished… and then flames flared through the pile, consuming all the bodies in a wave of irresistible heat. Joshua gagged at the smell of burning flesh and this time, he did throw up. The aliens ignored him, despite the vomiting; their masks probably provided all the protection they needed from the smell.

“Bastards,” he hissed, as soon as he could speak again. His stomach felt as if he’d thrown up everything he’d eaten and yet, he was still trying to retch. “They could have buried the bodies, but no…”

It took everything he had just to keep moving, just to get away from the smell, but somehow he managed to stagger back to the apartment. The smell seemed to be everywhere, but at least it wasn’t as bad inside, although most of the residents were wearing masks. They seemed to think that the aliens were trying to gas them all out and kill them; they didn’t want to know what the smell actually was. Mr Adair suggested that the real reason the aliens were burning the bodies was to prevent them from decaying and spreading diseases, but there really was no way to know.

Others came in and reported other news. The aliens were ransacking libraries, for some reason, taking all of the books, loading them onto their vehicles and driving them away. Joshua guessed that the real reason was that they intended to study the human books and learn more about humanity, something they wouldn’t have been able to do from orbit, allowing them to chose their tactics more carefully. They’d already damaged the world significantly, but if they knew exactly how it worked, they could take over completely.

“I’m going to blog,” he said, and went to his apartment. The laptop was where he’d left it — one advantage of the apartment union was that theft was almost impossible — and he powered it up quickly, gambling that the aliens couldn’t have interfered with the internet that much. They hadn’t; it might have been slow and erratic, but it was working. “Now, lets see what I can post.”

He wrote up the entire story of the downfall of Governor Brogan and what he’d seen in the streets quickly and concisely, and then uploaded it to a dozen news sites, using his private key to confirm authorship. The internet news media had redesigned itself in the last few days; instead of the mainstream media, there was now an entire series of bloggers reporting on what they saw, outdoing the MSM. The MSM was probably on the verge of falling apart anyway; they wouldn’t be getting any income, they weren’t broadcasting and the newspaper distribution network had been shot to hell. He smiled as he typed, enjoying the thought… and feeling like a real reporter for the first time in far too long.