It was a shit day, shity as all the rest. Life has been hell since they arrived, fucking aliens. They started in the north and south poles, no one saw them land. Arctic and Antarctic research teams just stumbled upon them. Everyone was ecstatic at first. We weren't alone in the universe, and they decided to visit us! But why the polar regions? Surely there are much better places to land. The world found out the hard way when the shooting started. 

Supposedly, as soon as the first envoy team crossed some invisible line, they were just gone. No one got to check what happened to them. Apparently that was the trigger or something, because then the damned aliens started advancing. They took over the polar regions, but strangely not all at once. It quickly became apparent their pushes were timed, and they only covered so much ground each advance. The poles were basically just given to them, no one had wanted to throw in the effort of trying to stop them there of all places. The universal hope was that they'd stop at the edges of the ice and not push onto actual land.

Whoever thought that up originally was a dumbass. While they did stop at the edges of the polar regions they destroyed anything human related and any one they encountered. Only humans were affected, they didn't seem to care about local fauna or flora, aside from what was caught in the crossfire. When they finally encountered water they stopped. Nations seemed to breathe a sigh of relief as it seemed at least parts of the advance would be stopped. Then the fuckers started dragging boats to the edges and kicking them in, and suddenly the seas around the ice caps were just as dangerous.

I guess that's when you could say the real panic started. Armed response was heavy, nations struck hard in an attempt to blunt the threat before it could cut deep, they failed miserably. Fleets were reduced to piles of scrap on the bottom without even a loss to the aliens. While we could damage them, it became very clear very quickly that they massively out teched us. By this point you would have expected to see an actual alien, but we had only seen their war machines. All their army was automated as far as we can tell, from logistics to the battle units. 

We started to notice more patterns soon. There were different groups among them, each one denoted by a color combination that was always found on anything owned by that group. Two colors, a main color, and a secondary/highlight color. Colors ranged all over the spectrum, and no combination was repeated. The second thing we noticed was that these groups stuck to their designated zones so to speak.

They didn't leave the polar regions for some reason, and they didn't shoot anything that did not cross into their territory. It was like that for a while, everyone argued on if we should launch another counter attack or dig in incase they pushed again. The decision was made for us when different groups of them started disappearing and suddenly dropping from the sky. Fuckers decided to start invading all over the world at seemingly random. The first was a few islands in the pacific, a container ship got jumped and barely got an SOS out before being torn to pieces. Next was a drop in the middle of bum fuck nowhere in the canadian wilderness. Then Saudi Arabia lost a lot of oil fields to another. Then a set in the Russian wilderness.

It was seemingly random where and when they dropped. And everyone had trouble figuring out what they determined they should conquer. They would take half a city and just stop down the middle, seemingly ignoring the other half. They didn't care about anything outside of their zones, down to the damn invisible lines that delineated them. Well aside from shooting at them obviously. If you shot in from outside they would shoot back but wouldn't leave to chase or launch a counter offensive. A fully armed tank could drive by and they wouldn't care unless that tank shot them or crossed the line. 

Then someone finally figured it out, no one knows who exactly. Probably some poor intern no one bothered to credit or pay. It was latitude and longitude based. The fuckers literally wanted a one degree wide by one degree wide box on the world map. Standing at 49.99, you're fine. But cross the line into 50.0, and your ass was grass. 

Maybe, just maybe if everyone stood together at the start we could have figured something out. But it's too late now, over time we've seen more types. Small foot soldier robots that get the nooks and crannies their larger brethren can not. Goliath tanks that slowly flatten the land as they cross it. Submarines fish out our own and ambush our ships, not that they need the advantage of surprise. Cloaked fighters stalk the skies and remove any offending man made object they find. 

They have dropped forty times in the last five years. And now a group of them are dropping into 77W-78W and 38N-39N. Right into the middle of Washington DC and the heart of the U.S government. The noose is closing, and soon we will be hung by invaders who couldn't even do us the decency of announcing they were going to kill us. 

………………..

Sam sat in the gunner's seat of the apc, looking over the not so complex rotation mechanism that allowed his mounted .50 cal machine gun to turn three hundred sixty degrees. Better to be safe than sorry and make sure it was clear of debris. It would suck to get shot in the back during his first, and probably last, engagement because it jammed and he couldn't rotate to face the danger. 

As the APC rattled along with the rest of the armed convoy, the Sergeant below was bellowing instructions at his drafted subordinates for the umpteenth time. 

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“Remember, aim for the joints and focus fire. Target a single side, taking out two legs will leave it limping and it can be finished off with sticky charges. Do not waste the AT ammo on little shit or I'll waste you myself! Our country is counting on us!” 

Sam tuned the loon out. Maybe he was trying to put on a strong face for the rest of them, maybe he is legitimately crazy. Either way he is the only non drafted person on board. 

Sam managed to avoid the previous two drafts, they grabbed everyone eighteen to twenty the two or so years ago when the alien shits had first dropped into Canada. A few months after that everyone twenty to twenty two was called when they dropped in the midwest. Sam dodged that deadline by a literal month. Unfortunately for everyone involved, they finally finished meat grinding the last set of poor sobs against the aliens and threw up a third draft. Sam didn't dodge the deadline on this one, and without a family fortune to buy a pass, or a politically entwined family member to pull some strings, he was picked up and shipped off to boot. 

Three months of training, that's all they got. Actually, calling it training would be a joke. It was more like an explanation that they were going to die, and if they tried to run all sorts of bad things would happen to them. Jokes on those assholes, aliens currently have a like two hundred thousand K/D. So, plenty of people were deserting or straight up draft dodging. No matter how hard the U.S Govt tried, it wasn't scarier than the aliens. Which is ironic becouse the fucking interstellar tin cans are stationary and non aggressive once they have their zone. As long as you don't fuck with them atleast. But instead of stepping back and figuring it out they had to send everyone in to die to try and reclaim the land.

So why was Sam here? Because he was a dumbass who wanted to actually save his country and avenge his sister and parents. At least that's what he kept telling himself. In reality it's because after getting out of college he couldn't find work his his field so he just said fuck it. Being alien bait fucking pays better than McDonald's, aliens were probably nicer too, just vaporizing you outright instead of bitching your ear off. 

A static click on the vehicles radio snapped him out of his thoughts. Someone was saying something over the armored unit's comms channel.

“Alright, 2th armored squadron comms check” The division commander called out over the radio. Which was turned up to max so Sam ended up hearing it. The response was flurry of call signs and confirmations, and when it seemed like everyone had checked in, including Sams's own captain, the commander continued. 

“Alright, brief your squads and vehicles. The situation in DC is already FUBAR. A bunch of those things are already wrecking havoc and more are still dropping from up high so stay sharp. Objectives are still unchanged, Abrams are to move to their designated rally points and provide fire support for the combined arms brigade currently getting their shit wrecked. Heavy troop carrier elements are to deploy their infantry and remain on site to provide support. Light elements are to drop and go back to ferry more troops. We are NOT running civi rescue, do not let any onboard. Send them to the nearest evacuation site or towards a unit responsible for evacing civies. Lock and load boys, I'll update on any changes as they come in.” 

Then the transmission cuts off, and it's just the rattle of the vehicle and the rumbling of the engine once more. Well, that and the mounting anxiety of everyone in the truck. 

“Everyone get that?” The vehicles commander, corporal Winston asks.

He's met by a chorus of affirmatives, even a few from the grunts sitting in the back. Which probably earned them a glare from their own commander but whatever. Well, affirmatives from everyone but Mike, who was driving and decided to be a smartass.

“I don't know corporal, I think the radio needs to be turned up more.” 

“Unfortunately, private Mike, the radio is already at full volume. But I'll tell ya what, next alien we see we'll pull over and ask them to write you a prescription for hearing aids.” Winston replied. 

It earned at least a few chuckles from the poor grunts under Sam's feet. Then the Sargent started bellowing about how they need to get serious and blah blah blah. Lucky for Sam, the apc he was riding in was considered a ‘light’ element due to its lack of armor and increased carrying capacity at the cost of armament. Well, lack of armor by human standards. Supposedly the aliens tend to treat abrams like tin cans, as in crushing them to dispose of them. That bodes especially poorly for their little apc if they run into anything considered a heavy element on the aliens side. 

“Hey, buckle up if you haven't already! We're about to hit the highway!” Mike shouts from the front. 

Sure enough the APC starts to corner before lurching back a little as it starts to climb the makeshift on ramp at speed. The engine revs up and the lurch increases as Mike clearly puts the pedal to the floor. Sam rotates the turret to get a view, albeit a narrow one, of the road as they speed away from JBAB. Deployed to defend Washington DC, they were expected to give their lives saving the nation's capital. Despite the fact that everyone knew there was no way in hell they would be successful. As they pull out onto the highway the first explosions ring out in the distance. Sam can even see a fireball rising into the air. A building and everyone in it probably just got fried. 

Moments later they were on the highway, flying along at near max speed in an attempt to rapidly deploy to protect key areas. Ever since the drop events started, the military had been keeping heavier units at key locations around DC, like the pentagon and white house to name a few. If Sam remembered right, his convoy was going to try and defend capitol hill. Assuming anything was left of it when they got there.

Cars were flying by on the opposite side of the highway, people desperately trying to flee DC before the aliens caught up with them. to No one's surprise their side of the highway was mostly empty, guess no one wants to go deeper in right now. And it stayed that was for a few minutes, just empty highway one way and a slowly increasing volume of traffic going through the other. Until it wasn't. 

“Are these bastards seriously on the wrong side of the road!?” Mike screamed from the front. 

Sam stopped his area scan and turned to face front. Sure enough cars were starting to enter the highway by whatever means available. Mostly on and off ramps, but Sam watched as a semi further ahead on the opposite side swerved to avoid a traffic jam, slamming into the concrete barrier and blowing right through it. The semi came to rest in the middle of the road, forcing the convoy to swerve a bit. It also left just enough room for cars to fit through the median barrier. Which they promptly did, flooding into their side of the highway in an attempt to escape as the convoy flew past. 

“Bloody hell that idiot almost got smashed by an abrams.” Mike called from out front. 

“Everyone's running scared. They have minutes to get out of DC to the south or east. Once the aliens start dropping shit escalates quickly. We have….” Winston said, only to be interrupted by the radio cracking to life again.

“INCOMING! ON OUR ASS!” A frantic voice screamed over the radio. Sam swung around just in time to see a ball covered in red and orange flames slam through the highway and bounce back up and straight toward them.