12

In an apartment building in Washington, DC, Arturo Vargas gathered his wife and two children around him and tapped an app on his smartphone. The TV was off, the lights were dark, the computer shut down. He could hear convoys of police and National Guard cars and armored vehicles rolling down his street every few minutes, but their lights were off and sirens quiet. There had been an initial surge of hoarding, but all the stores and shops had asked their customers to buy only what they needed. It was a polite request, and most had complied. Still, there was definitely a lot less bottled water on the shelves than normal. Vargas had turned off the lights and lamps because it seemed safer that way, for some reason, and the glow of the phone’s screen filled the room.

“. . . and if you’re just joining us, we’re in the midst of one of the most bizarre battlefield broadcasts any of us can remember. Within literally minutes we’re expecting the first engagement in what governments around the world are insisting is an extraterrestrial invasion.”

The normally unflappable newsman couldn’t quite keep the excitement and fear out of his voice. Vargas held his son and daughter a little tighter, but they were too young to understand what was going on, He wasn’t sure he understood what was going on. It was happening so fast: the president’s speech, all the soldiers in the streets, now these spaceships supposedly flying overheard, somewhere above the planet. It felt like a dream . . . or a nightmare.

“But even as we’ve seen extraordinary preparations on behalf of the largest militaries and defense companies around the world, there has been little to no independent verification of the threat,” the newscaster continued. “We literally do not know what is coming, and yet at any minute we expect to see something happening in the skies overhead. We’re . . . we’re, ah, getting no official video feed from any branch of the United States government, or from any other government on Earth, for that matter, but, true to its word, the federal government has not imposed martial law on the various research and amateur observatories around the country.”

The newsman was visibly tense, hands curled in loose fists around sheets of paper, almost crumpling them into balls. Vargas had to admit he respected the guy for gutting it out, though. Some of the other stations had gone off the air entirely.

“So, on the right side of your screen, you’re seeing a rotating live feed from some of the most powerful terrestrial telescopes. We don’t know where the first shots will be fired. The anonymous pilot we’ve all heard about will be responding and reacting based on what he discovers. In the meantime, all we can do is watch and wait. With so much information being withheld, or perhaps unknown even to our leaders, the best we have is educated guesses on what we face and how we’ll fight it.”

He seems to finally be hitting his stride, Vargas thought. Maybe sticking to a routine during times of stress wasn’t such a bad idea.

“To shed some light on these questions, we’re joined by Dr. Melvin Lewis, who holds a PhD in molecular biology from Stanford University with a focus in astrobiology, and Dr. Anusha Chandrasekhar, professor of astrophysics at Princeton. Both guests are at home with their families and are joining us via video call. Dr. Lewis, first to you. Given what has been disclosed publicly and assuming it’s all true, what is your assessment of the enemy force we’re encountering tonight?”

“Well, Carl, again, assuming we have accurate data, we now can make several educated guesses. First, if the mrill race truly is looking at Earth for colonization purposes, then that’s a small piece of good news.”

“In what way?”

“If Earth is a hospitable environment for them, if our planet has a suitable atmosphere, gravity, and so forth, then their biology must be similar to our own. Probably carbon-based, likely requiring oxygen in some form, with their bodies likely composed substantially or largely of water. And more basically, if they need a place to live, then they must also be susceptible to injury and death in ways with which humans are familiar. They can be killed.”

“I . . . hadn’t thought about that.”

“Of course. The bad news is that, if they can travel across the galaxy to Earth, then obviously they’re much more advanced technologically than we are. They might have found ways to reduce or eliminate their biological weaknesses. In other words, they’re going to be very hard to kill.”

“And, uh, Dr. Chandrasekhar, that brings us to your area of expertise. What level of technology are we facing here?”

“It is all speculation at this point and, frankly, I still am reluctant to believe this story of extraterrestrial attack. What evidence have we been given? None. Nevertheless, if this is all true, I will not mince words. Mankind will almost certainly lose.”

“Ah, uh, what, uh, on what do you base that?”

“The ability to travel between the stars in just weeks or months is a technology that is at least hundreds of years out of our reach. With an unlimited budget, we could not make a spaceship with human passengers that would reach even the nearest star in less than a thousand years using existing technology. And yet, this is the enemy we are supposedly facing. It would be like a Roman legion facing tanks and missiles. That’s not a battle, it’s a massacre.”

The scientist’s bluntness seemed to be melting down the façade the newscaster had briefly been able to construct.

“But, but, we’ve been told that the retired US military officer who received the alien injection . . .”

“Yes, we have one man. Facing an entire army. The odds are terribly long. Now, I must say goodbye. If this is real, I want to spend my last moments with my family.”

“Uh, it appears we’ve lost Dr. Chandrasekhar and . . . wait, we’re seeing some activity on the video feed from an observatory on the Canary Islands. Wow, look at that. Oh . . . oh my God.”

Vargas pulled his family in tight.