Never before had Lila been so grateful for the delayed expansionism of Earth's infrastructure. In her small town, highways and open fences were still commonplace, unlike the bustling urban cities with their obnoxious automated freeways.
It was rather easy for her to traverse with a bike, and even easier for her athletic dog to follow closely. At her pace, the airbase was merely a half-hour away, giving the sun plenty of time to set gently beyond the rocky mountains, leaving a sea of bright stars in its place. Ironically, such a perilous day had perfect weather, a fact not at all lost on Lila, who appreciated the turn of luck.
"Hey! Need a lift?" A man's voice came from a nearby pickup truck as it climbed a dirt hill leading to the airbase.
"Nah, we're basically there already. Thanks, though."
"Now that you've mentioned it," the car slowed to a stop as the man spoke. "I can already see the line from here. Guess im hoofing it too."
The truck's door then swung open to reveal a family of four, with the man's wife conversing among her children on matters conveniently unrelated to the impending crisis. A similar scene could be seen all across the dirt road, as droves of people from all over the town began to hike towards the airbase at a surprisingly pleasant pace. Just as Lila had predicted, panic hadn't yet set in, and confidence was fairly high.
Her community held the unusual privilege of being remote, yet still an arm's length away from the military's colonial branch. In hindsight, such a feature was likely intentional on behalf of the US government, or at least that's what Lila had begun to beleive. Either way, she was getting closer to where she knew her mother should be, causing her to briefly drop her guard.
"Hey, hold on now! Did anyone else just see that?" A voice cried out from somewhere in the crowd.
*Not now.*
Instinctively, Lila spun around to face the open sky, its vast reaches still lit up by dozens of visible stars. But she couldn't see anything wrong, not even after peering behind a fence leading to an open field where the sky was most clear.
"That star just up and left!"
"What?" Lila gasped audibly. "That guy's crazy."
But to her horror, the young girl had begun to witness something identical to what the man had described. The tail end of Persues had disappeared, its light having been snuffed out in an instant. Suddenly, a faint flash followed suit in the same location, leaving nothing behind once it had dispersed. The star was gone, and the crowd began to panic.
"That's not possible, right?" The man from the truck spoke to Lila in a lowered tone, as not to alarm his family. "Wouldn't we be...you know...getting a little more than a flash if a star died?"
"Not unless someone muffled it," Lila spoke plainly.
"There it is again!" The man's wife spoke as one of her children began to cry in confusion. "It's dissapearing!"
Lila watched closely in disbelief, confirming that indeed another star had disappeared, followed by a brief and unusually tame flash of light where it had once been.
"Something's out there." The young girl glared at the sky. "The space-heads must have spotted it already; that's why the military is buzzed."
"What do you mean? Something's eating stars?"
"I have to go." Lila ran as she signaled for her dog to follow.
Lila then began to sprint around the edges of the dirt path, silently pushing people aside as she made a mad dash to the entrance of the airfield. Upon reaching the first gate, she came across a row of stopped cars and at least a hundred armed gaurds, their weapons still calmly holstered as they stood in silence.
"Ma'am, you can't go through, not yet." One guard spoke to Lila as she tried to slip past, his black visor and white armor completely obscuring his human features. "Please step back."
"Fuck the announcement, you have to get these people out of here," Lila pleaded, pointing towards the set of black colony ships on the horizon, their bulbous hulls having been recently strapped to a set of interstellar rockets. "While everyone is still sane."
"I understand your concern. We will be moving along shortly," the guard explained, pushing Lila back with his black gauntlets. "Please be patient."
"Yeah, sure, be patient," Lila shrugged playfully, raising her hands as a sign of calm. "So about the airfleet you sent here-."
The guard sighed sympathetically. "Hey, I'm not happy about this either, girl. But this is a small town, and a big installation. We'll get everyone we can on board."
"So is that gonna be before or after our solar system explodes?"
"I advise calm and-."
An ear-piercing bang suddenly reverberated through the air, catching Lila by surprise as she fell to her knees. Before she could even process the pain, a shockwave of wind and dust slammed into her small frame, causing her and the nearby surroundings to be flung backwards violently. Barely able to keep herself councious, Lila looked up to the sky as she lay on her back, still unable to see anything amiss in the starry night.
"Shit!" The guard groaned as he knelt over Lila to shield her from a barrage of falling glass. "The hell was that?!"
After some time, Lila finally came to her senses, realizing her dog had been tugging on her shoulder with unusual vigor. But before she could pick herself off the floor, a second soundwave shook the airbase, forcing the young girl to look upwards once more; only this time, the night sky was no longer empty.
*It was the Consortium.*
A shadow loomed over Lila, the young girl staring in silent shock as she clung to her dog. What she saw then, in that moment of chaos, was a vessel of indescribable proportions, its rectangular shape having appeared in an instant to shatter the surface of the earth with its mere presence. It was then that Lila witnessed the second wave of destruction, this time far more calamitous than the last, burst forth from the vessel's belly.
"Shit." Lila grabbed her dog and began to limp away from the airbase. "Come on. Come on. Not like this."
An automated voice rang out in the distance. "Atmospheric rupture detected."
"Not a chance," Lila gritted her teeth as she waded through the mess of people, both dead and alive, their faces no longer visibly detailed as the girl focused solely on survival. "We got this. We got this pupper."
High above the fleeing girl was the remaining fleet of human aircraft, their metallic hulls having been utterly ruined by the rupture of the arriving vessel, causing them to rain down around the base and onto the crowd of evacuees. Lila, of course, still remained undiscouraged, her stride improving as she pushed past the pain and narrowly avoided a hunk of flaming metal that fell behind her. She tried as hard as she could.
But just as she began to put distance between herself and the calamity, a second vessel appeared in the night sky in front of her, its size just as daunting as the last. Written upon the bottom of its metal belly lay a set of symbols she had never seen before, their red markings stretching on for what seemed like miles.
"Come on, Puppers," Lila pushed on, ignoring the presence of the invaders as she slid down the dirt hill.
But with the arrival of the second vessel came another shockwave, its blast sending an entire eighteen-wheeler flying in Lila's direction, crashing down upon her with a fiery bang. The world then faded to black, leaving the girl lost in the wake of destruction. As far as Lila could tell, she was already dead.
Yet somehow, after an endless torrent of screeching howls, Lila opened her eyes, her head having recovered enough to process both sight and pain. She wasn't dead yet.
"Pup-," Lili coughed as she crawled over something warm. "Puppers!"
Unable to work her own body, the girl desperately shuffled her bloodied arms through the dirt, scraping at everything she could get a handle on to pull herself forward.
"Come on." She grunted.
Lila's eyes widened as she heard foosteps from behind her, far too heavy and monstrous to be her dog. Accepting her fate, she turned herself around to see an armored alien figure, its bulky, faceless frame pushing through the wreckage with ease. If Lila had known any better, she was staring at a walking rhinoceros that had grown to twice its size. And yet still, she hadn't begun to cry, nor was her fear evident on her face. She looked on with amazement, her shock driving her forward as she watched the alien point a metal cannon at her, its barrel nearly the size of a street sign.
"Wait, you buffoon," a feminine voice called out, its words sticking into the interior of Lila's mind as it spoke with raspy words the girl could feel. "We have one here. Psionic potential."
The walking beast then stepped aside, revealing a shorter, slimmer figure in its wake. Still, even the smaller of the two aliens made Lila feel like an insect, examining her with a singular twitching eyeball that pulsed in the center of its head. The slim creature began to circle Lila, its high-heeled fit creating a strangely elegant clicking sound as a result. Soon, more of the bulky creatures began to arrive, their patience growing thin as they stared at Lila with bloodlust so visible it could be seen behind their cage-like helmets.
"She meets the requirements," the slim alien hissed, her voice still echoing within Lila's mind. "I shall make the extraction."
"Is Yrix done?" One of the lumbering creatures snorted, its golden pauldrons signifying a higher rank as it thrust its arms around impatiently. "We have work to do."
"This sector...yes. I will leave you to your work."
Lila then felt herself being lifted off the ground, her body encased in an invisible field of energy produced by the slim creature. Staring her dead in the eyes, the creature then motioned with its hand, causing Lila to immediately lose consciousness as a result. The last thing the girl could see before it all faded to black was the singular eye of the creature still pulsing in her mind like a ghostly siren.
They were the Consortium, and for reasons Lila had yet to understand, they had come for Earth.