Red and gold, green and yellow. Riotous explosions of colour, searing through the night skies against a backdrop of the universe.
“They’re beautiful, Momma,” she whispers, bundled up in her best winter coat, with mittens keeping her fingers warm, holding hands and staring in wonder.
“I know, baby,” I say, checking my comm bracelet, anxiety spiking. It’s linked to his.
“Where’s Daddy?”
Thinking back, we should have expected it really.
Decades upon decades of leaking radio signals out into the ether, detailing what precious resources the Earth had, and how our bodies worked, where our vulnerabilities were. Diagrams on the twentieth century Pioneer deep space probe programme that, without too much interpretation, could lead extra-terrestrial intelligences to our home planet, and show them what the dominant life form they’d need to eradicate first looked like.
It was naïve of us as a species really.
So, when the scientists noticed sunspots that hadn’t disappeared in the time frame that they were supposed to, most people ignored them. It was only when they spotted millions of things coming out of the anomalies that we understood a series of controlled wormholes had been opened. The knowledge sent the governments and militaries of the world into spiralling panic. Were they friend or foe? Should we greet them with open, or conversely should we answer a call to, arms?
It became fairly evident which they were rapidly. A small force, by their standards, had landed simultaneously in each of Washington D.C., Moscow, and Beijing, and flattened not only the cities, but twenty miles around. After a two-day battle, the invaders were finally repelled, only for someone to quietly ask about all the other ships which had been busy forming a Dyson Sphere around the Sun.
All of a sudden, it became clear that some world governments had secret space fighter programmes. Area 51 was opened up and, within a few hours, production lines across the world had been commandeered to produce more fighter components. In a rare show of unity, a small council was convened to overlook “The War Effort” as people were now calling it. Within three days, we had a couple of squadrons.
Not enough.
The finest pilots were drafted, tactics discussed and, when the next batch of invaders came, they were met just outside the atmosphere with advanced beam and kinetic weapons. For a while it worked, they held them off long enough for a couple more wings to be formed, trained, and sent off to die.
And now this is the situation we find ourselves in, barely making a dent whilst they play with us like a cat with a toy. We are humanity though, resistance is what we do.
“Where’s Daddy?” she asks.
“He’s up there, keeping us safe.”
“He’s a shooting star, Mummy!”
“Not yet, he’s not, baby. Not yet.”
I check my bracelet. It’s linked to his. Red and gold, green and yellow. Riotous explosions of colour, searing through the night skies against a backdrop of the universe.
