Prologue

And here we are. We've spent more time, money, and effort preparing for 'Visitors From Mars' than we had a right to. We made up stories, we hypothesized about life on other planets, we made it a part of our popular culture, we teased and scared each other with costumes on holidays. We hoped, dreamed, wished... hell, we shook our fists at the universe and downright demanded that we not be alone.

The universe answered.

I am part of that answer. The 'devil's advocate' part of that answer. The part that says if the universe wants to play dirty, we deserve at least a whim of a fighting chance at salvaging something of an existence of our species.

I may very well be our savior. Children generations from now will speak my name in awe, pretend to be me while unfairly creating unbalanced rules on the playground that ensures their victory in the games of imagination they will surely play. I'm not humble, I can't afford to be; because if I'm not everything humanity needs to survive this hot mess we find ourselves in, then... well... we're fucked, and there won't be anyone left to criticize me.

By now, you already know the story - you either remember that day like a stark photograph of blue lines burned into your retina after a camera flash cracks into your eyes; your parents have told it to you so many times you may as well have been there and/or you've seen it in video recordings to the same effect; or, it's been so long that this has just become a legend in some new version of a history book, or even a religious text. If you're none of the above, then we lost, and you're not reading this in the first place. Whatever happens now, the invasion of Earth from alien beings from God-knows-where will never be forgotten so long as one human being still draws breath, of that I'm certain.

What you don't know is -my- story. And the stories of my soldiers. My heroes. The men and women you'll likely never hear of, unless you happen to be damned lucky enough to carry one of their medals through your family as a sacred heirloom. I'll make choices - good ones that will (hopefully) ensure our inevitable victory against the damned aliens, bad ones that will ensure some poor boy or girl just waiting for Daddy to get home for Christmas will never know profound joy without horrendous loss ever again. I have to make the calls, simply because someone has to. Someone has to take responsibility for this, either way, and if I do well... if I save us... we'll come out of this on the other end of hell with a new resolve and thirst for life as we struggle to rebuild and come out of the stronger than we were when we fell prey to some horrible race of space conqueror. If I fuck this up, you won't know it, so I won't waste energy even trying to justify what will never matter again.