Chapter 1

This day started off like any other day in late spring in New England. The Red Sox were scheduled for their Home Opener, and the festivities were to begin precisely at noon. My wife, Sarah Hunter, and I, Jack, had cut our classes at BU (Boston University) to make sure that we did not miss a moment of the pageantry and celebration of the occasion. We had purchased our tickets the first day that they went on sale, and we had splurged for the best seats that we could afford.

No, we didn't have box seats behind home plate, only the richest people in the region could afford that! What we had were seats in the fourth row right behind third base. We wanted to be able to see into the Bosox's dugout, and we had applied all of our "college smarts" to work out the best seats for that. We even had binoculars along so that we would not miss anything that might happen. We were special fans of Hector Alverez, the designated hitter, and we wanted to follow his actions throughout the game.

The hated Yankees were there for the first game of the season at Fenway Park, and the weather was as nearly perfect as one could hope for at this time of the year. The sun was shinning brightly, and the two teams were already vying for first place in the Division. Sure, it was too early for that to mean anything, but any true Sox fan wanted to beat the Yankees, no matter when it was in the season and no matter what were the relative positions in the Division. Lander was pitching, and it was probably the last Opening Day start of his career.

The score was 1-0 in the Red Sox's favor at the end of the third inning; Alverez had hit a home run over the Green Monster in left field to the delight of all of the Sox fans. Lander had a no-hitter going, and all of his fans were practically holding their collective breath in hope that he could keep that up. Lander was just finishing his warmup pitches when a huge shadow fell over the ball park.

Everybody reflexively looked up to see what could be casting such a black shadow, since no cloud was ever that dark. What we saw looked like a refugee from a Star Wars movie! The object we saw hanging over our heads was so obviously a spaceship that everyone recognized it at once.

The umpire called for a time-out, for this was something obviously more important than even a Sox-Yankees game! A hatch opened in the bottom of the craft, if an opening no less than a mile square could be called a "hatch," and tiny black objects began to fly out of the opening. At first, these tiny black objects looked like confetti, but a few seconds later, it could be seen that they were flying objects and not chaff fluttering through the air.

The tiny black objects formed into echelon and flew once around the mother ship before heading out over the ocean. Only moments later, the objects returned, but this time they were recognizable as aircraft and they were buzzing the city of Boston as if they had every right to be there. The UFOs were around 300 feet off the ground and firing some sort of energy weapon as they flew.

This strafing was absolutely effective because anything struck by the beam was immediately set to burning if it did not turn to ash on the spot. Concrete walls exploded under the beam and steel girders turn white-hot and sagged. Any lesser item, such as human tissue, simply disappeared when it was touched by the energy beam.

The UFOs made four passes and managed to obliterate the city of Boston and its immediate suburbs in approximately 15 minutes of sustained fire by the UFOs. It appeared that there was not a living thing, animal or vegetable, left alive in the city and its immediate environs. Sarah and I had made a trip to the refreshment stand and could be counted among those few fortunate residents of Boston who were not vaporized by the first pass made by the UFOs.

By the greatest sort of luck, we had been protected from the direct beam of the ray by the concrete structure of the stadium. We had been bridged when the walls fell, so that we were not crushed by the falling debris. All of our injuries were minor, just some scrapes and bruises. We picked our way around the destruction in the streets as we headed toward our apartment.

Of course, when we reached "home," we found utter destruction. There was nothing left but smoking ashes. Even the brick walls seemed to have burned. All I could do was to shake my head in disgust, but Sarah relieved her feelings with tears. If only I had been so lucky.

Later, we found out that every major city in the northern hemisphere suffered the same fate as Boston. Not long after that, the southern hemisphere was attacked and the results were the same. Almost the only living things left on the planet where the individual humans, animals, and plants that did not live in or near a city. Naturally, all of the radio and TV stations that were still in operation were doing nothing but reporting on the disaster perpetrated by the attacking aliens.

By purest chance, the President of the United States was spending a long weekend at Camp David. The destruction of DC and Baltimore could not be missed, and he ordered the entire military force of the United States into a state of war. Meanwhile, the Secretary of State was dispatched to the radio station at Camp David with orders to try to contact the aliens to see if some sort of armistice could be arranged.

By this time, the aliens were taking care of the details, so they were concentrating their destructive forces on any emitter of electromagnetic signals. Naturally, this meant that the radio station at Camp David was obliterated along with all of the others in the world, including the active hams. That cut off any chance of contacting the aliens, but the aliens would have ignored any pleas for a cease-fire anyway. They were intent on destroying all organized resistance to their invasion of Earth, and they were doing a damned good job of it!

The various air forces of the governments around the world tried to attack the alien fighters. There was no contest: the alien rays took out any human fighter as soon as it brushed over the plane. The result was the same as what had happened to the cities of the Earth: utter destruction.

Any rockets or antiaircraft fire directed toward the aliens were destroyed in flight and the fighters' rays were used to eliminate any means the humans had of attacking anything in the atmosphere. By the end of five days, the Earth was helpless. There were no more than a few hundred thousand humans left alive over the whole planet, and most of them were totally demoralized and incapable of any hostile action toward the aliens.

We did not even know who had attacked us for another two weeks. The aliens had not bothered to show themselves to the defeated humans, as if the humans were simply not worth considering. The aliens landed a few representatives at strategic places around the globe, and a few humans caught sight of them. There was no doubt that these were aliens because they were so different from any creature on Earth.

The aliens were about eight to nine feel tall and looked like they must weigh on the order of 400 pounds. The nearest thing that the aliens looked like was the extinct T Rex, except that they had four arms that were all functional with four-fingered hands, with one of the fingers acting as an opposable thumb.

The aliens appeared to be nude, except for a harness extending around the chest and over the upper shoulders. To the harness was fastened several pouches, but there was no way of knowing what was carried in the pouches. Well, that was not quite true. A human did shoot at an alien and appear to wound it severely. This resulted in the nearby aliens pulling a weapon from one of the pouches and firing it at the human. He was instantly burned to ashes, and the aliens paid no further attention to him.

On the other hand, the wounded alien was surrounded by its fellows, and a discussion seemed to take place. After a few minutes of discussion, one of the aliens drew its weapon and shot the wounded alien in the head. Its head vanished instantly, and the other aliens began to cut pieces of the dead one's flesh away and eat it.