Divided (#1 Divided Destiny) (2 page)

Leo jumped into the driver’s seat and reached under the dash. He’d always found this tricky, especially as he was so tall. It was hard to see what he was doing. However, a moment later, the car rumbled to life and Leo smiled in relief. Fortune was smiling on him with a full gas tank.

With a screech of tires, he pulled away. Step one was now complete: he had a car. Step two was to get the hell out of the city. Easier said than done, given he wasn’t exactly familiar with New York and was reliant on signs. However, he was on his way, and the movement was soothing. It eased the frustration that had rapidly built during his search for a vehicle. Soon he would be back on a military base where he belonged. Then he could take some real action.

Leo turned the radio on. It hissed nothing but static.

“Oh come on.” Leo swore and hit the steering wheel. He switched the radio back off; he must have damaged the connection when he hotwired the car. Keeping one hand on the wheel, he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and hit speed dial.

“Young,” Sergeant Donald ‘Don’ Young answered, his voice tight with worry.

“You’ve seen the news, then,” Leo commented, ignoring the chorus of blaring horns as he weaved in and out of cars, overtaking on both sides and cutting ahead through traffic by more than one driver at a time.

“Kinda hard to miss with that booming announcement,” Don said darkly. “Just give me a minute.”

*****

Don put Leo on hold and turned back to his mother. Unlike his best friend, he had gone straight home after they had been granted leave.

“Mom, I have to go,” Don told her.

She nodded understandingly, tears glistening in the corners of her eyes. “I know. Just promise me you will be careful.”

“Always,” Don promised.

He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. He took in a deep breath, memorizing the slight trace of her floral aroma that was hidden beneath the scent of baked goods. His mother was always cooking, the house overflowing with wondrous smells of fresh food. It was like nirvana after being overseas, existing off MRE ration packs.

After a long moment, he stepped back. His mother turned and bustled into the kitchen. She never did want him to see her cry when he left. Don shifted and looked into the living room, where his brother was huddled on the couch, watching the sinister hovering ship on the news. He was a high school senior, but he looked so much younger, more vulnerable, at that moment. Don wanted to stay. He wanted to bar the door and take care of them both.

“Hey, you watch yourself. Take care of Mom, and I’ll be back. Alright, little brother?” Don told him with false cheer. It was the same thing he said every time he left, pretending like this was just any other day.

“I will.” His brother nodded, but the usual eye-rolling and false bravado was missing.

He had to leave now or he never would. With quick strides, Don stepped out the front door. After sparing one last glance, he pulled the door closed. As he headed down the sidewalk towards his parked car, he couldn’t stop himself from looking back. He could still see his mother and his younger brother through the window. They were both glued to the television; he supposed they were waiting to see if the world was going to end.

He raised the phone to his ear again.

*****

“Hey, buddy, sorry,” Don said, clearing his throat from the clogged emotion.

“Don’t worry about it,” Leo muttered. He could hear Don get in his own car, and he gave him a few moments to get himself together. “Do you have your orders?”

“Report to Pendleton. At least some of us are still in the right state,” Don teased halfheartedly. “Where are you heading?”

“McGuire.” Leo heaved a sigh of relief as the exit for the interstate appeared up ahead. He had paid no regard to the speed limit, and thankfully it seemed the cops had better things to do than stop him. He had made the city limits in good time despite it being the tail end of rush hour.

“We’ll probably be shipped out there anyway, if that ship stays on the East Coast,” Don pointed out.

“Then I will hopefully see you soon.” Leo hung up, not bothering with the normal pleasantries.

There was nothing more to be said, and he had another call to make. Leo hit another number on speed dial, but this time there was no ringing sound; the call just failed. He swore and tried again, but still it didn’t connect. The phone network had become overwhelmed. He had known it would happen, but he had still hoped he had time for one more call.

He had needed to call Don, needed to see what was happening with the rest of his squad. They fought as a team, and he was their leader. However, he needed to call his parents, too, just like the rest of the world, hence why he couldn’t get through. Leo swore again and pushed his phone back into his pocket, resisting the urge to keep re-dialing over and over.

He was a marine, and he knew better than that. They really should keep the lines as clear as possible for emergency services. He would try again later; perhaps he would have better luck with a landline. Both his parents had been in the military, and that provided some reassurance. They could take care of themselves. They would be okay.

The world was going to be chaotic and hysterical. An alien mothership? It was science fiction; it was a movie plot. It wasn’t real life. However, this
was
real life, and as bizarre as it was, that mothership was gut-wrenchingly real. Leo had always believed that there was intelligent life out there somewhere. It was the height of arrogance to believe otherwise. The universe was infinite, there had always been a high probability this would happen one day.

Finally, after years of wondering, they had proof. Aliens were real. It was just typical that the first aliens they encountered were hostile.

Alone in the car, with nothing more than the roar of the engine for company, it was hard to keep his mind from whirring. He didn’t know what was happening with that alien ship, or if there were more of them, though he had to believe there were many. They could not possibly be so lucky as to only get invaded by the one mothership. Cut off from news, it was easy for his imagination to run wild. He pressed harder down on the accelerator. The sooner he got to the base, the sooner he would know what was going on.

He had a feeling they were going to be in for the fight of their lives.

Chapter Two

At Area 51, it was all hands on deck. The base alarm had sounded almost as soon as the booming voice had faded away. Doctor Julian Braden leaned on the wall, arms folded, watching the chaos in front of him. Sweat trickled down his back as the central air failed at reducing the humidity from so many bodies crammed into a single space.

Absently, he pushed up the long sleeves of his charcoal shirt to his elbow, and then ran a hand through his shoulder-length dark hair. This was a pointless meeting, he just knew it; they could have had the same results from a teleconference, and then he could have gotten on with something while he was waiting.

“Alright, listen up,” a young lance corporal shouted, trying to be heard over the chatter and quiet the room. Given the lance corporal was standing next to General Howard Sampson, and the room was half full of military personnel, silence soon swept across the din.

The lance corporal tapped on a keyboard, and behind the general a projector hummed to life, displaying an image feed on the screen at the far end of the room of an alien ship hovering over a different city. It was a pirated news feed, and the banner at the bottom informed them it was showing Moscow.

It was 2 a.m. on that side of the world, and the picture was dark and indistinct. However, the missile tracers and explosions told their own story. The footage showed that Russia had scrambled jets of their own, which had proven to be no more effective than their American counterparts.

“Five more ships have broken orbit and are hovering above Tokyo, Shanghai, London, Delhi, and Rio. There may well be more in orbit, en route, or certainly out there in the galaxy. We have to work under the assumption that this is only a fraction of their fleet,” General Sampson began soberly.

Before General Sampson could continue, laughter broke the silence. A young man, one of the new junior researchers, was sniggering at the general’s words. What began as sniggering soon devolved into hysterical laughter. The room watched him laugh. Julian shook his head; they should have expected someone would crack.

“A freaking alien mothership,” the researcher gasped. “I see it, but I don’t believe it. What’s next, Elvis isn’t really dead? The lizard people are among us?”

“Someone get this man out of here. Take him to the infirmary and have him sedated,” General Sampson barked.

Two airman reacted immediately, grabbing the researcher by his arms and pulling him from the room. He didn’t resist, but he didn’t help, either; his shoes were dragging on the carpet, limp in the airman’s hold.

“What else? Shadow government and black helicopters? Aliens among us? Aliens on this base?” the researcher screamed, his voice fading as the door slammed shut behind him.

“That was unfortunate. I know this is one hell of a situation we’re in. However, as crazy as it is, it’s real, people, and I need all of you to focus. If you feel you can’t and you need some time, then you know where the door is.” General Sampson paused, his eyes skittering over the gathered crowd. No one made a move towards the door; no one said anything. A minute later, he nodded, pleased. “Good, let’s…”

Behind him, the image changed back to the ship hovering over Washington, D.C. For a moment, there was no sign of movement, and then the ship suddenly rocketed back up towards the atmosphere.

“Sir,” the lance corporal interrupted urgently.

The image of the mothership had been provided by a camera mounted on the roof of a building. With a few taps of the keyboard, the feed was swapped to a satellite view. The view of the mothership was now not good, but it didn’t have to be, as death started to rain from the sky.

Beams of light shot out of the alien spaceship, again and again. There were a few gasps of horror, and several people began to pray. At first, the targets seemed random; it felt like they were witnessing the end of the world. That meant that, at any moment, that random target could fall on Area 51 and wipe them all out.

Julian frowned as he saw the explosions on the satellite feed. It only took a few hits before he leaned back. They would soon confirm what he had already worked out: the targets weren’t random. The explosions were familiar and devastating.

The attack was over just minutes after it had begun. The mothership descended once more, but this time it moved to hover over New York, which made a great deal more sense. Washington, D.C. might have been the capital, but the population of New York was twelve times as large. All the other cities on the list had populations that numbered in the millions. Rio was the next smallest city, and their population was ten times that of Washington, D.C.

The message was loud and clear. They had hovered over one city to say hello, then that ship had attacked targets the world over, before moving its position to another city. It was clearly meant to be intimidating; the aliens wanted the world to know that they could get to them anywhere.

“My god,” General Sampson muttered before turning back to the room. “We have confirmation. That attack wiped out the entire world’s nuclear arsenal. They even hit sites we only suspected, or ones we didn’t even know about. In one strike, they took out our most destructive weapon.”

“They also showed they meant what they said,” Julian pointed out. Everyone turned to look at him, and he rolled his eyes. He knew people were in shock, but really, had everyone switched their brains off? “With their firepower, they could turn this planet to ash. Instead, they accurately target only what they want to take out. They don’t want the world destroyed.”

What Julian didn’t point out was that the aliens obviously had sensors far beyond Earth’s capabilities. That was the most logical explanation of how they’d found all the nuclear sites; they were able to detect the radiation. However, what else might the sensors be capable of picking up? How long had these aliens been studying Earth?

This first attack was an ominous harbinger of what was to come. It didn’t take much imagination to know that soon beams of destructive death would fire from the other ships. The aliens had demanded their surrender. They could have targeted the nuclear arsenal for a number of reasons. Maybe those weapons would have been a threat to them. However, it was also likely that the nukes had been removed from the equation to stop Earth from self-destructing.

The aliens likewise could have targeted their communications network. They hadn’t done so—yet. Perhaps that was because the population of Earth was too large to control if there was chaos. For Earth to surrender, the world needed leadership, not anarchy. However, if the current leaders didn’t surrender, it would be a simple matter for those beams to crisscross the globe, taking out those that gave the orders. Those leaders would be replaced with others, who would likely be more amenable to the aliens’ demands. They had never fought an enemy like this. No enemy that they had ever fought had had the capability to do this.

“That gives us a chance. You are among our best and brightest. I need ideas. Anyone?” General Sampson looked at the assembled scientists. The silence was deafening as everyone looked at one another; the situation was unprecedented, and it was clear that normal tactics weren’t exactly going to cut it.

“If we breach the shield, we can take it down,” a male scientist with a strong Southern drawl offered.

“Good, how do we do that?” General Sampson asked.

Julian rolled his eyes again. A general leading a brainstorming session—the world really had gone mad. However, he was the highest-ranking officer on base, and this was an alien invasion. He had been here to be shown some piece of new technology, not that any of that mattered anymore. Nothing they were working on would do them any good against their current threat.