Ambrosia

~ PT-II |

We wait in anticipation, watching and surveying.

A hidden hinge on the front of the alien construction carefully extrudes from the main body. The clouds pass over the new opening, hiding its contents. A quick warping sound thunders overhead, and light erupts from the bottom of the warship this time. Instead of lightning however, it is a circular burst, similar to a nuclear blast.

When the clouds pass, I hear...marching?

"What is that?" Grace asks. She looks at me.

Cinching my eyebrows together, I shake my head. "Don't look at me. I have no idea."

The volume of the marching swells. The General and his comrades squint down the length of Main Street—obscured to us from our position by the rock wall he decided to have built a little less than a year ago.

I stand up straight again. Kennedy and Grace follow my lead.

"Hold!" calls out the general. He raises a closed fist in the air. "Don't come any closer."

They're here... I gulp. My life flashes before my eyes. I've lived through a lot—sure, not as much as some people but certainly more than others—but it seemed like there would be so much more to look forward to years and years of success and good luck and friendship. Maybe not a family of my own—I don't think I've ever wanted that sort of thing, and I'm not sure if that would even be possible...

But it doesn't matter now. The world is over.

"Seleste?"

I turn to Grace. "I think we should hurry up."

"Attention, attention," a female voice on a loud intercom calls out from somewhere in the distance. "Please drop everything you are doing. Attention, attention. Please drop everything you are doing."

"Citizens of Earth," another voice goes on. This one is lower, neutral. This one is more solid, not just some disembodied recording. "By order of the High Commander, from this moment forward, your planet is under the governance of the Ani'ira Fal Dominion. Your autonomy is now considered null and void. Resistance is futile. Yield your weapons, and you shall know mercy."

Of course they know English. How convenient is that.

Someone runs up to the General with a stark white loudspeaker. He has one hand in his pocket. His voice, carried on an opportune gust of wind, crackles through the air as he says, "If you turn around now and go back to wherever the hell it is you came from, we'll show you true American hospitality."

"Who voted for this guy?" Grace snaps.

"I was just thinking the same thing... Let's go."

As the words leave my mouth, the ship whirred to life, the body turning as it surges skyward. The lights in the windows turn a bright, glowing purple, and a different siren blares, bouncing around my skull like the sounds of firing pinball machines at a casino. Its gentle hum makes it sound like it's whirring to life.

The second voice speaks up again. "Your response has been recorded."

A bright ray of light zips down the street, striking the general in the chest. He yelps, falling back into his colleagues, and then...disappears in a pillar of smoke.

Standing in his place is a horrified looking goat.

One of the other officials gives a high-pitched scream; the goat makes a dash for it, bleating all the way; another commands the soldiers to fire. They do. Auto-fire down the road; rocket launchers at the ship. The lights on the war jets turn on, the same glowing purple, and soon enough they're zipping around too. I can't tell what they're doing though.