If Aliens Met Humans by Samuel Masten - HTML preview

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The new Xylan strategy was brutally effective. The war, which had for a time felt like a series of small human victories, was now a relentless hunt. The resistance, once the predator lurking in the shadows, was now the prey, flushed out into the open and exterminated with cold efficiency. The tide of the war had not just turned; it had become a tidal wave, threatening to sweep away all human opposition.

The collaborators were the most devastating new weapon in the Xylan arsenal. In cities wracked by hunger and fear, the Xylans’ offer of food, medicine, and safety in exchange for information was a temptation that many could not resist. Trust, the invisible glue that held the resistance together, dissolved. A fighter now had to fear not only the alien patrols in the street, but also the desperate, hungry eyes of their own neighbors.

In Berlin, Katerina, the former police inspector, tried to lead the last three surviving members of her cell out of the city through the old sewer system. But their escape route had been sold to the Xylans by an informant in exchange for a week’s worth of food rations. They walked directly into an ambush. The Xylans were waiting, their new armor deflecting the humans' panicked volley of bullets. The fight was over in seconds.

That new armor changed the psychology of every firefight. Human fighters, who had been empowered by the punch of their AK-47s, now watched in horror as their bullets sparked harmlessly off the chests of the advancing Xylan soldiers. The aliens, who had once been vulnerable, now seemed like unstoppable juggernauts. A sense of utter powerlessness began to creep into the hearts of the bravest resistance fighters.

The "freedom trail," the network of secret routes used to transport weapons from The Forge, began to crumble. With information from collaborators and surveillance from their new drones, Xylan patrols intercepted weapon shipments and captured the brave couriers. The steady flow of guns and ammunition that had armed the rebellion slowed to a mere trickle. Cells were running out of bullets, with no hope of getting more.

In the command bunker, the great holographic map told the grim story. The small lights that represented active resistance cells were blinking out, one by one, night after night. London went dark. Then Tokyo. Then Cairo. General Thorne’s secret global army, built with so much hope, was being systematically dismantled. The war was being lost, city by city.

Captain Cole and his team at The Forge were now almost completely isolated. Their communications with the command bunker were rare and dangerously brief. They continued to manufacture weapons, their workshops running day and night, but the crates of new rifles began to pile up. The couriers they were meant for were no longer arriving. They were guardians of a vast arsenal that had no way of reaching the soldiers who needed it.

The Xylan propaganda began to take root in the weary minds of the human population. In the tightly controlled "safe zones," life, while lacking freedom, was at least predictable and free from violence. Some humans began to publicly argue that the resistance was to blame for their suffering. They claimed the rebels were only provoking the Xylans, bringing death and destruction down upon everyone. The unity of the human cause was fracturing under the immense pressure.

President Shaan broadcast a desperate, passionate plea over the secret radio channels, her voice filled with emotion as she urged her people not to give up hope. "Remember why we fight," she begged. "We fight for freedom, for our children, for the soul of this world. Do not trade that for a cage with a little more food in it." But her voice was a faint whisper against the roar of Xylan promises and the grumbling of empty stomachs.

The tide had fully turned. The global resistance was broken, scattered, and bleeding out. The Xylans’ smart, adaptive, and ruthless strategy had overcome humanity's raw courage. What had once been a planet-wide fire of defiance had been stamped down into a few smoldering embers, about to be extinguished for good. For the first time since the invasion began, it felt truly and utterly hopeless.