Oblivion Read Free Page B

craft pouring the black clouds of nanomachines over people, buildings, entire towns. And those people screaming in pain as the machines ate them alive, from the outside inward.
    It was the stuff of horror movies. Skin eaten, blood spurting everywhere.
    Faces contorted in pain, covered in blood, skin gone.
    Millions of dead.
    Nightmares.
    Nothing but nightmares.
    “Napping on me, Doug?” President Franklin’s voice broke through the images of the attack as he closed the door to his inner office behind him.
    “Hardly,” Doug said, opening his eyes to see the intense gaze of his friend. “Every time I try to sleep I see the attack again.”
    Franklin dropped down into his normal chair, his back to his desk, and nodded. The exhaustion was clear around the man’s black eyes and wrinkled face. Franklin had grown tired looking over his first years in office, but this alien attack had added years to his face.
    “So do I, Doug,” Franklin said. “And to be honest with you, it’s making me damn angry.”
    “You and a lot of other people,” Doug said. He’d spent the last few days on emergency trips to meet with heads of states, calming people, letting them know something was going to be done. “But everyone feels so helpless, at least those who know about the aliens coming back again.”
    “How many know?” Franklin asked.
    Doug shook his head. “Not many at this point. Less than a couple hundred, but it won’t take long for others to start figuring it out.”
    “And the rest of the world, those who don’t know?” Franklin asked. “How do you see them taking it?”
    “Shock,” Doug said, used to having Franklin quiz him on common people’s reactions around the world. “Mourning the dead. And celebration that the aliens are gone and that we won.”
    Franklin snorted. “We didn’t win. I’m not sure we even really bothered the bastards.”
    Mickelson couldn’t agree more.
    “Well,” Franklin said, his voice turning cold and low. “That’s not going to happen next time. We’re not going to just let them come here, take what they want, and kill our people.” Mickelson knew this wasn’t just another of Franklin’s speeches. He had known Franklin long enough to see when all the political screens and faces were gone and he was being the real Franklin. And this was one of those times.
    But unless something major had changed in the last few hours while Mickelson had been on the plane home from Great Britain, there wasn’t any way to stop the aliens that he knew of.
    “Oh,” Mickelson said, sighing and leaning back. “I wish it were that easy.”
    Franklin pinned Mickelson with his stare, the anger clearly being held in check just below the surface. “I’ve seen enough death over the past week to last me a thousand lifetimes. Those bastards aren’t going to do it again.”
    Mickelson sat forward and faced his president. “You have a way to stop them?”
    “Damn right I do,” Franklin said. “We’re going to blow that damn planet of theirs right out of the system before they get another chance to hurt us.”
    For a second Mickelson didn’t understand exactly what the president was telling him. The words seemed to make no sense.
    “We’re going to attack them?” Mickelson said.
    Franklin smiled, but there was no merriment behind the smile or in his eyes. “You bet your ass we’re going to,” President Franklin said. “And they’re not even going to know what hit them.”
    April 24, 2018
8:10 a.m. Pacific Time
    173 Days Until Second Harvest
    Leo Cross clung to the edge of his seat, feeling the plastic bite into his fingers. His heart was pounding harder than usual. He’d been in a lot of helicopters and landed in a lot of strange places, but none of the landings had ever made him nervous before. It was the black dust that unnerved him. The black dust and the flat land where houses, businesses, and people should be.
    He glanced around the copter. The pilot was concentrating on the path