(Galactic Girl – Lab’s Cloud Ambient Remix)
The wailing sirens echoed off the snow capped mountain peaks as a growing wave of panic and dread rippled through the few remaining stragglers who inhabited this frozen stronghold. It had been many years since the first wave struck. Visitors from another solar system, passing through ours, seized the opportunity to express their stellar superiority over our technologically inferior race.
Our earthly weapons were no match for the might of theirs. We have only ever developed war machines to kill each other with. They have spent millennia evolving intergalactic battleships capable of destroying worlds. We didn’t stand a chance.
We barely saw them coming. Spotted, by an amateur astronomer, tailing asteroid A-204 on its bi-annual earthly fly-by, their ships were dismissed as a glitch. Dust on the lense. A conspiracy theory. But as more sightings were reported it became impossible to deny. There was life on other planets. We weren’t the only piles of amino acids who had managed to assemble themselves into conscious, self aware beings.
It seems funny, looking back, how excited everyone was. We would finally meet another life form. What would they say? What could they teach us? What wisdom could we share with them? Groups of wise minds were assembled for the grand meeting. A selection of arts and crafts which were to summarise and portray the collective achievements of mankinds efforts to date. Everything which we as a species have invented, created and crafted, in one neat little parade. It must have been quite a feat to assemble. How does one summarise the achievements of an entire species? What might their parade entail? Would they have a parade of their achievements? Foolish questions it seems now, looking back, as the first wave arrived with a fully loaded armoury, fully charged and ready to destroy.
The banners and flags waved in the summer morning breeze, as the chatter of the crowds lining the streets filled the air. Smiles were abundant and hopes were high. As the first ship descended, it opened fire. No questions, no discussions, no parades. They weren’t here to negotiate some peace treaty, they were here to destroy us. Their energy weapons tore through the crowds, decimating everything in sight. It would have been the worst event in human memory, if there were anyone left to remember it. Their onslaught was relentless.
The annihilation spanned a couple of years at best estimate. It was difficult to tell as the power stations were among the first to go. Plunging our pathetically ‘advanced’ world back into the dark ages. Soon batteries ran dry and there was no longer a method of telling the time or date any longer. Except for a handful of wind up pocket watches, mankind was forced to begin, once again, observing the Sun’s cosmic dance through the heavens to know what time, day or season it was.
But ultimately it was all fruitless. It was only a matter of time before every last human was sought out and eliminated. Some put up a good fight and some hid very well, but one by one, their flames of existence were extinguished. No one was ever able to determine a motive for the invasion, or at least not one that they could pass on to anyone useful before being consumed by the invading force. It didn’t seem to revolve around resources and our technology was laughable to them. They didn’t take any prisoners or abduct a single soul. It was an outright extermination.
Perhaps they saw the inherent virus-like all-consuming nature of mankind and eliminated us before we spread to infect another planet. Perhaps we posed a potential future threat. Perhaps we were just in the way. No one will ever know now. Our achievements and entire history has been reduced to dust.
So here we stand, atop the mountain peaks. Perhaps the last bastion of mankind. The final survivors. It is down to us to dig our heels in and put up the last resistance. to show that our species will not go down without a fight. As futile as it seems, we have to at least try.
With the sirens wailing, with a whir the Earth Cannons jolt into life, clunking, lifting into the air by a few feet on frozen Pistons and swivelling to aim towards the sky. Up above, the mothership obscures the sun like a total eclipse, but out of the swirling corona, hoards of alien ships can be seen swooping down to our location. Every weapon is readied and to hand, as the Lord of the Mountaintop screams the word we have all be dreading to hear;
“FIRE!!!!”