The date: May 30, 1942.
The place: Earth.
War rages across the globe. Bitter hatreds over the results and aftermath of the Great War have erupted into another world-spanning conflict. The United States and Confederate States, archenemies for eight decades, are locked in a life-and-death struggle over control of the North American continent. The infamous Jake Featherston's audacious armored strike into Ohio has succeeded in cutting his northern foe in two, leaving Socialist President Charlie La Follette's United States in dire straits. The U.S. has its hands full elsewhere, keeping the lid on the rebellious Canadians and Mormons while waging overseas campaigns against the Royal Navy in the Atlantic and the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific. All the while, the Freedom Party continues its insidious mission of extermination against Confederate Negroes. Surviving bands of Negro partisans roam the countryside and raise havoc wherever possible.
Longtime U.S. ally Germany, led by the new Kaiser Friedrich IV, suffers from invasion on two fronts. The combined military might of Winston Churchill and Oswald Mosley's Britain and King Charles XI's France has made inroads into western Germany, and Tsar Mikhail II's Russia is overrunning German puppet states in eastern Europe. Emperor Hirohito's Japan has aggressively carved out a bloody sphere of influence in eastern Asia, extending its oppressive rule over the people of China, Indochina, and the East Indies. Japan views the U.S. as the biggest threat to its hegemony over the Pacific and seeks to drive the Americans off the Sandwich Islands and back to the U.S. proper. Behind the scenes, scientists of the leading world powers race to unlock the secrets of a new and terrible weapon which could irreversibly change the very nature of warfare itself.
In a bold and unexpected move, the United States have sent roughly one thousand bombers out of New Mexico on a daring daytime raid against the Confederate cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. But before they can reach their targets, strange bright lights appear in the upper atmosphere above them, as well as in several other places across the globe. Radio transmissions are abruptly scrambled. It isn't long before dozens of the U.S. bombers flying over Texas are inexplicably hacked out of the sky, their flaming wrecks plowing into the desert below. Incredibly fast, unidentified flying objects are seen streaking through the fleet. The bewildered pilots panic and scatter, disrupting the entire raid. Elsewhere around the world, many similar flying objects bomb and shoot up major cities, factories, military formations and positions, supply depots and convoys, airfields, planes, trains, and automobiles. Targets seem to be chosen regardless of which nation they belong to. Fear and confusion are sown among civilians and soldiers on both sides of the battle.
Hasty truces are called by opposing forces whose positions and supply lines have been shot to hell. As the radio interference clears, word eventually comes down from the brass for frontline troops to hold position and entrench. All flights are to be grounded until further notice. Quick-thinking ground crews cover planes on the ground with camouflage netting, since aircraft of any sort seem to be particularly juicy targets. A temporary worldwide ceasefire goes into effect while everyone tries to determine what sort of threat they are facing. Over the radio, civil authorities request calmness and order among the people of their respective nations. Military intelligence units soon report what appear to be rocketships as tall as a skyscraper -- straight of out the science fiction pulp magazines! -- landing in numerous locations all over the world. Idaho, southern Illinois, Florida, Mexico, southern France, Italy, Poland, the Ukraine, Siberia, the Ottoman Empire, China, India, Australia, and several sites in Africa and South America. Such reports are not taken seriously at first, but the sheer number of them and their urgent nature soon convince even the most ardent skeptics of their veracity.
Following up on the heels of the rocketship sightings are frantic transmissions from troops near the landing sites telling of "goddamned Martians" with assault rifles and invincible barrels tearing through their positions. The invaders are supported by devastatingly accurate artillery and peculiar, heavily armed "whirligig" planes which can hover in place. Against orders, thousands of panicked soldiers flee in headlong retreat. Those few that bravely (or foolishly, depending upon one's point of view) remain in place are rapidly overrun. By chance, one of the invaders' "turbo fighters" is downed north of Fredericksburg, Virginia. A squad of U.S. troops led by Sergeant Chester Martin manages to capture the pilot, which had ejected in time but had been injured on landing. Martin and his men are confronted by a bipedal lizard-like creature about the size of a 10-year-old child, with ornate paint on its scaly skin and unsettling chameleon eyes. One of its legs is obviously broken. It cowers in apparent fear while hissing incomprehensibly at Martin. After a moment of hesitation, the grizzled sergeant gingerly bandages the alien's leg and then passes the captive creature up the chain of command. This wouldn't be Martin's only encounter with one of these "Lizards," not by a long shot....
The place: Earth.
War rages across the globe. Bitter hatreds over the results and aftermath of the Great War have erupted into another world-spanning conflict. The United States and Confederate States, archenemies for eight decades, are locked in a life-and-death struggle over control of the North American continent. The infamous Jake Featherston's audacious armored strike into Ohio has succeeded in cutting his northern foe in two, leaving Socialist President Charlie La Follette's United States in dire straits. The U.S. has its hands full elsewhere, keeping the lid on the rebellious Canadians and Mormons while waging overseas campaigns against the Royal Navy in the Atlantic and the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific. All the while, the Freedom Party continues its insidious mission of extermination against Confederate Negroes. Surviving bands of Negro partisans roam the countryside and raise havoc wherever possible.
Longtime U.S. ally Germany, led by the new Kaiser Friedrich IV, suffers from invasion on two fronts. The combined military might of Winston Churchill and Oswald Mosley's Britain and King Charles XI's France has made inroads into western Germany, and Tsar Mikhail II's Russia is overrunning German puppet states in eastern Europe. Emperor Hirohito's Japan has aggressively carved out a bloody sphere of influence in eastern Asia, extending its oppressive rule over the people of China, Indochina, and the East Indies. Japan views the U.S. as the biggest threat to its hegemony over the Pacific and seeks to drive the Americans off the Sandwich Islands and back to the U.S. proper. Behind the scenes, scientists of the leading world powers race to unlock the secrets of a new and terrible weapon which could irreversibly change the very nature of warfare itself.
In a bold and unexpected move, the United States have sent roughly one thousand bombers out of New Mexico on a daring daytime raid against the Confederate cities of Dallas and Fort Worth. But before they can reach their targets, strange bright lights appear in the upper atmosphere above them, as well as in several other places across the globe. Radio transmissions are abruptly scrambled. It isn't long before dozens of the U.S. bombers flying over Texas are inexplicably hacked out of the sky, their flaming wrecks plowing into the desert below. Incredibly fast, unidentified flying objects are seen streaking through the fleet. The bewildered pilots panic and scatter, disrupting the entire raid. Elsewhere around the world, many similar flying objects bomb and shoot up major cities, factories, military formations and positions, supply depots and convoys, airfields, planes, trains, and automobiles. Targets seem to be chosen regardless of which nation they belong to. Fear and confusion are sown among civilians and soldiers on both sides of the battle.
Hasty truces are called by opposing forces whose positions and supply lines have been shot to hell. As the radio interference clears, word eventually comes down from the brass for frontline troops to hold position and entrench. All flights are to be grounded until further notice. Quick-thinking ground crews cover planes on the ground with camouflage netting, since aircraft of any sort seem to be particularly juicy targets. A temporary worldwide ceasefire goes into effect while everyone tries to determine what sort of threat they are facing. Over the radio, civil authorities request calmness and order among the people of their respective nations. Military intelligence units soon report what appear to be rocketships as tall as a skyscraper -- straight of out the science fiction pulp magazines! -- landing in numerous locations all over the world. Idaho, southern Illinois, Florida, Mexico, southern France, Italy, Poland, the Ukraine, Siberia, the Ottoman Empire, China, India, Australia, and several sites in Africa and South America. Such reports are not taken seriously at first, but the sheer number of them and their urgent nature soon convince even the most ardent skeptics of their veracity.
Following up on the heels of the rocketship sightings are frantic transmissions from troops near the landing sites telling of "goddamned Martians" with assault rifles and invincible barrels tearing through their positions. The invaders are supported by devastatingly accurate artillery and peculiar, heavily armed "whirligig" planes which can hover in place. Against orders, thousands of panicked soldiers flee in headlong retreat. Those few that bravely (or foolishly, depending upon one's point of view) remain in place are rapidly overrun. By chance, one of the invaders' "turbo fighters" is downed north of Fredericksburg, Virginia. A squad of U.S. troops led by Sergeant Chester Martin manages to capture the pilot, which had ejected in time but had been injured on landing. Martin and his men are confronted by a bipedal lizard-like creature about the size of a 10-year-old child, with ornate paint on its scaly skin and unsettling chameleon eyes. One of its legs is obviously broken. It cowers in apparent fear while hissing incomprehensibly at Martin. After a moment of hesitation, the grizzled sergeant gingerly bandages the alien's leg and then passes the captive creature up the chain of command. This wouldn't be Martin's only encounter with one of these "Lizards," not by a long shot....
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