News from the Front, part II

News from the Front, Part II

No, folks, the Troopers didn't finally get us! We've just been waiting for a few hundred megatons of aerosolized Russia to stop jamming our transmissions.

Thanks for tuning in for another installment of News from the Front. I'm your host, XT Marauder, and I'm still keeping one step ahead of those who would silence me forever. Sorry, Mister Alien Overlord, but I'm still here dishing out round-the-clock truth and helping people keep the fight alive!

This is a special edition of our program, folks. As you all know, the cat is out of the bag. There is no question now as to whether we are under attack. The reports of UFO sightings in the air and landings on the ground have been pouring in, all around the globe. Now that the Siberian Cloud has settled out of the Jet Stream and the airwaves are open again, we here at RRN have a lot to catch you all up on.

Now, I know we call this segment "News from the Front," but this time, we've got some honest-to-God news from the Goddamn front lines of this war, people! And make no mistake; this is a war, now. Us or them. Kill or be killed. With us in studio today is US Army Specialist Kyle Akers. Mr. Akers, it's good you have you back from your special assignment.

Kyle Akers: It's good to be back stateside, XT.

XT Marauder: Yeah, and as I understand, your return trip is a whole story in itself!

KA: [Chuckles nervously] It wasn't as straightforward as advertised, that's for sure.

XTM: Well, in the interest of getting the story out there, we'd love to hear it. But before we do, we've got to go further back. As you know, we've been off the air for a bit now, and a lot has happened. Even when we are broadcasting 24/7, plenty of our listeners can only tune in occasionally, so we have to replay these reports to make sure the news gets out there. Now, to backtrack a bit, you were assigned to a special detachment with a very important mission, correct?

KA: Yessir.

XTM: And just to remind our listeners, you're not some high-level secret agent, right?

KA: No, sir. I'm 21 years old. My hometown is Lansing, Michigan. I enrolled in the Army in 2011 because the eldest son in my family has joined the Army going back to the Revolutionary War. Kind of a family tradition. When the Sweeps came, my company was conducting a training exercise at this mothballed nuke plant outside of a little town in Washington called Elma. Since then, we've been stuck there. Since our command structure kind of shit itself and got compromised, we've been operating without legal orders, so we've been helping out the locals. Keeping the peace, gathering troops, that sort of thing.

XTM: That's the message we've been trying to share here at RRN: Everyone can step up and help the war effort, and a lot of the people who are helping the most are just regular folks who need to get the job done, right? Ha, hah. We're on radio, son. Not TV. Can't nod your head to this audience.

KA: [Chuckles again] Sorry, sir. Yes. A number of the locals I've worked with have turned out to be fine people. They are doing their best, given the circumstances. In fact, several of them were key to our mission in Brazil--

XTM: Wow! Brazil? How did you guys even get there?

KA: Uh, I'm sorry, sir, but I'm going to have to treat that information as classified, for now.

XTM: Classified, huh? Okay. I'll play along. Maybe you can tell me later, off-air...unless you'd have to kill me once you told me! So, what brought your group to Brazil?

KA: We were sent to assault an alien fortification there. Our intel sources knew an extra-terrestrial invasion fleet was inbound, and that destroying or capturing this...forward operating base, I guess you'd call it, it would prevent a large portion of the alien fleet from making it to Earth. Something about a beacon that guided their big ships out of hyperspace, or something. It seemed pretty complicated. Anyway, the alien ships were due to arrive any day, so we had to high-tail it and take out this beacon.

XTM: So, at this point, you guys are pretty much on the clock, right?

KA: That's how I understood it. Anyway, we got down there and had to locate the base. When we did, they scrambled a flying saucer at us, but this one girl on our team, Marie Kjelstad; she's a real whiz when it comes to science and machines and stuff, she figured out some way to spoof them for a bit, got that saucer to fly off in the wrong direction entirely. So we hoofed it from the LZ--that means "landing zone"--

XTM: I'm tracking you.

KA: --And we sized up the situation. There was only one obvious approach to the entrance of this underground base, and we figured they had that path defended for sure. Our team leader was Captain Kamastafall. He was just a reserve officer of an engineering company, but he's put his time in. Served a couple tours in Iraq, I understand, and he's done real well by us. Even though he's not any more from the Elma area than I am, he doesn't seem to see the people around him that way. I mean, he's a black guy, okay, and there ain't hardly any black people in Elma. In fact, we've had plenty of run-ins with this goddamn group of white supremacists, see? Anyway, he just seems to see all these scared people around him and, I don't know. Just sees...Americans, you know. Countrymen. Humans. We're all on the same side, and he wants to help. Makes me feel pretty good following his lead. Anyway, Captain Kamastafall hatches this plan. We had figured out that the alien base wasn't that far underground in some parts of this hill it had been built into. He sent the majority of the force to work its way up the hillside, up that trail as a diversion. Meanwhile, he and the rest of the group had a plan to dig down and blast into the base from the blind side.

XTM: That seems pretty textbook. Did you ever feel like he was throwing you guys into the meat grinder?

KA: No. We knew what we were getting into. And you gotta understand, he sent us out with the best lucky charm a guy could ask for. A fella by the name of Brock Jankins. If Saint Peter ever had a bouncer to keep the riff-raff on the proper side of the pearly gates, he musta sent him to Elma for some R & R before the Sweeps hit. I kid you not, that guy's motto is "Let's do this!" And then he fucking does it. Ran us up that hill lugging a rifle damn near as big as I me. He had some fancy armor that Marie and the science team had built for him. Once, when we came across a group of aliens dug in on the way up that hill, he yelled back at us, "Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?" Then he tossed a grenade at 'em, and ran right at 'em. Lost track of him for a second 'cuz the smoke and such of the grenade blowing swallowed him up some, but when everything cleared enough for us to see, there he was, firing that rifle down into their foxholes, and when he ran out of ammo, he didn't run for cover. Just dropped the gun, drew his knife, and started stabbing them in the face. The man's an animal. You wanna know how we got up that hill by the time the strike team made it through the alien base? It's because we were following in the wake of that crazy bastard!

XTM: Kyle, you came here with some video footage. Tell me about that for a bit.

KA: Yessir. Captain Kamastafall and some others thought it would be a good idea to record what we were doing here. Maybe for later analysis, but I think they wanted some record of what we were getting into. Something to show the folks back home, "hey, this is what we are up against."

XTM: And you were the designated cameraman, correct?

KA: Yessir. My sergeant came out and said since I was the lousiest shot in the whole squad, he'd give me the camera. Figured maybe then, I'd be able to hit something worth seeing, see? I'm really not any kind of hero, XT. I'm just a regular guy who joined up because of tradition and maybe to get some money for college. I was scared shitless going up that hill, but I followed because of the men at my side. We can beat 'em, XT. [Chokes up] We did. Beat 'em like they owed us money. One time Brock had 'em on the ropes so hard, one of those big aliens--we've taken to calling them "Behemoths"-- started shooting at some of the other aliens who were trying to break ranks and run, just to turn 'em back our way. We cut that sonuvabitch down, though, and we kept on moving, and I got it all on film. People need to see it. Those aliens may have come here to our planet, but I don't think they understand what they've bitten off. I don't think they can chew it.

XTM: One of these days, I ought to introduce you to one of our fan favorites, the Angry Old Marine. I think you two would get along just fine. At any rate, I've seen the footage you brought, and I agree that it is...impressive. Now, I'm just a voice behind a microphone. You have been there, Kyle, and all you had to shoot at the aliens was a camera. You have my respect, sir. In fact, you're not allowed to call me "sir" anymore, got it? I don't deserve it from you. But rest assured, we're trying our best to get that footage on the air. Hack some local cable providers or something, if we need to. Our tech boys are working on it. I agree with you, son. People ought to see it. So, after you worked your way up that hill, Brock joined up with the strike team in the base and team Humanity secured that bitch, right?

KA: You got it! They punched the ticket of some huge guard robot and entered the alien command room. There was some high-ranking Gray in there, one of the kind that can mind control people. If you don't know anything about that, I invite you to visit Olympia. You'll see what mind control is like soon enough. One of the civvies in the strike team grappled with that Gray, and punched the shit out of his big head until he keeled over. Wanted a prisoner, I guess. Then, everything was quiet. We'd won! Then, quick as you please, Marie fell on the alien computers like a girl possessed. We still had an invasion to hobble, and she was one of the few of us who seemed to remember. She got that beacon shut down, and the rest is history, I suppose. None of the big ships came, 'cept for that one that dropped hyper too soon and crashed into Siberia.

XTM: But, come close of business, you and your team succeeded. You shut down their beacon and took out that base. Then you had to return back home.

KA: Yeah, and that's when things got really weird...