the commandant demanded.
Kyle walked up to the alien and shoved him backward, knocking him to the ground. The other aliens formed a tight, protective circle around their fallen leader. At that, the ground around them cracked, and a massive flood of termites crawled out and surged over them They screamed in pain as their flesh and sinew was consumed by millions of ravenous insects. I could not believe my eyes, and moved back. Kyle was laughing out loud. Within a minute, only the skeletons of the aliens remained.
“What just happened here?” I gasped.
Kyle patted me on the shoulder. “Sid, there is only room on this planet for one invasive species. We’ve been here millions of years, which makes Earth as much our planet as yours. The last thing we will allow is some other planet coming to take what belongs to us, and that includes you, Sid.” As I watched, Kyle’s skin cracked and thousands of termites emerged and crawled down and back into the ground, leaving only the pseudo-skin of my former friend.
Karl J. Morgan is the author of the Dave Brewster series of science fiction novels and the Heartstone series of fantasy novels. The Hive was awarded an honorable mention at the 2013 Southern California Book Festival. He lives and writes in Southern California. http://www.karljmorgan.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32.
So, There
Allen Quintana
“Look at the sky.”
They came in out of the southern galactic plane, a cloud of spacecraft, their beams slicing anything they lanced. Lines of white-hot fire cut through stone as easily as it did people.
Teardrop-shaped craft hummed in like waves of locust s, devastating all they came near. Buildings, trees, cars, avenues, and lives were turned into ash as the alien armada stormed the planet from horizon to horizon, leaving in its wake a fiery wasteland of slag and despair.
“We shouldn’t have.”
Forests raged aflame, as animals of all types fled in fear from the heat. Many more succumbed to the conflagration encompassing them, dying in the worst way, as did many campers caught in their midst. Bridges of stone charred and shattered, then collapsed. Arches of steel puddled, then melted and poured into lakes and rivers, the latter exploding into mushroom clouds of steam roiling into a once placid sky.
“Perhaps . . .”
Oceans boiled from the polar caps to the equator as heat beams raked latitudes. Sea life bobbed lifeless as columns of concentrated sun speared the waters into a cauldron from the depths to the wavetops. Vessels on the surface became pyres, before joining ruptured submarines below. Many islands fell to volcanism as heat rays skewered their once-extinct mounts. Continents were cut up like cakes; hundreds of miles of their coastlines sheared off and spilled into the waters before the seas burst into searing clouds.
“Talk to them?”
Homes exploded like soap bubbles, as if from a child’s toy, as beams of fire furrowed cities, scorched towns, and torched neighborhoods. Larger buildings popped like balloons as needle-like bolts shredded streets and schools and shops. Mountains became mesas, then hillocks, and then craters as spacecraft weapons gouged the land in geometric destruction. Communications lines and wires were cut to ribbons. Surprise was complete.
“Maybe we should have.”
People ran in panic. Many screamed as they never had, seeing strangers and friends and loved ones cut down by falling masonry or flashed away at the slightest touch of a white-hot shaft, right before their own ends. Above, teardrops hummed and rained destruction as teardrops of another kind slid from the dying below.
Nothing—and no one—was spared from the merciless invaders from the stars.
“Too late.”
Then—there was silence.
What remained was a burning, smoking, pitted, lifeless world that once had thrived and flourished and harbored countless forms to be seen, heard, admired, held, loved. Now all was gone with the swath of an
Kyle walked up to the alien and shoved him backward, knocking him to the ground. The other aliens formed a tight, protective circle around their fallen leader. At that, the ground around them cracked, and a massive flood of termites crawled out and surged over them They screamed in pain as their flesh and sinew was consumed by millions of ravenous insects. I could not believe my eyes, and moved back. Kyle was laughing out loud. Within a minute, only the skeletons of the aliens remained.
“What just happened here?” I gasped.
Kyle patted me on the shoulder. “Sid, there is only room on this planet for one invasive species. We’ve been here millions of years, which makes Earth as much our planet as yours. The last thing we will allow is some other planet coming to take what belongs to us, and that includes you, Sid.” As I watched, Kyle’s skin cracked and thousands of termites emerged and crawled down and back into the ground, leaving only the pseudo-skin of my former friend.
Karl J. Morgan is the author of the Dave Brewster series of science fiction novels and the Heartstone series of fantasy novels. The Hive was awarded an honorable mention at the 2013 Southern California Book Festival. He lives and writes in Southern California. http://www.karljmorgan.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
32.
So, There
Allen Quintana
“Look at the sky.”
They came in out of the southern galactic plane, a cloud of spacecraft, their beams slicing anything they lanced. Lines of white-hot fire cut through stone as easily as it did people.
Teardrop-shaped craft hummed in like waves of locust s, devastating all they came near. Buildings, trees, cars, avenues, and lives were turned into ash as the alien armada stormed the planet from horizon to horizon, leaving in its wake a fiery wasteland of slag and despair.
“We shouldn’t have.”
Forests raged aflame, as animals of all types fled in fear from the heat. Many more succumbed to the conflagration encompassing them, dying in the worst way, as did many campers caught in their midst. Bridges of stone charred and shattered, then collapsed. Arches of steel puddled, then melted and poured into lakes and rivers, the latter exploding into mushroom clouds of steam roiling into a once placid sky.
“Perhaps . . .”
Oceans boiled from the polar caps to the equator as heat beams raked latitudes. Sea life bobbed lifeless as columns of concentrated sun speared the waters into a cauldron from the depths to the wavetops. Vessels on the surface became pyres, before joining ruptured submarines below. Many islands fell to volcanism as heat rays skewered their once-extinct mounts. Continents were cut up like cakes; hundreds of miles of their coastlines sheared off and spilled into the waters before the seas burst into searing clouds.
“Talk to them?”
Homes exploded like soap bubbles, as if from a child’s toy, as beams of fire furrowed cities, scorched towns, and torched neighborhoods. Larger buildings popped like balloons as needle-like bolts shredded streets and schools and shops. Mountains became mesas, then hillocks, and then craters as spacecraft weapons gouged the land in geometric destruction. Communications lines and wires were cut to ribbons. Surprise was complete.
“Maybe we should have.”
People ran in panic. Many screamed as they never had, seeing strangers and friends and loved ones cut down by falling masonry or flashed away at the slightest touch of a white-hot shaft, right before their own ends. Above, teardrops hummed and rained destruction as teardrops of another kind slid from the dying below.
Nothing—and no one—was spared from the merciless invaders from the stars.
“Too late.”
Then—there was silence.
What remained was a burning, smoking, pitted, lifeless world that once had thrived and flourished and harbored countless forms to be seen, heard, admired, held, loved. Now all was gone with the swath of an
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