Leroy leapt aside and pulled out his pistol, diving for the tree next to where they had stopped. While diving he fired at the alien in the hover chair, the bullet ricocheting off one of the ornamentations on the thing’s chair and barely missed the alien’s arm. A bright laser bolt sizzled through the space he had just been in and from the corner of his eye he saw Mayor Karyn land in a disorganised heap on top of a couple of her paid supporters.

  A second shot from the floating alien barely missed Jenkins. As Jenkins pulled out his pistol, he disappeared in a ball of light from a shot fired by one of the huge orange guards. The crowd panicked and ran in all directions, screaming and waving arms, reminding Leroy of a swarm of ants whose nest had been stepped on.

  One large blue haired supporter ran towards the floating alien with her hands in the air yelling, “Stop! Stop!” She was hit by another blast from the floating alien and died immediately. The other alien that looked like an octopus fired indiscriminately into the fleeing crowd, killing and wounding many. A few of the trees started to catch fire from stray laser blasts and the area began to fill with smoke.

  Leroy lay behind the large tree he had leapt behind and slowly raised his weapon. An orange foot the size of a tree trunk slammed onto his weapon, crushing it flat. He looked up at one of the orange suited aliens. A fierce boar like creature looked down at him and nodded his head.

  “Stay still,” it said in a tinny, yet deep voice, coming from a small device at its neck, “Play dead or be dead. Your choice.”

  Leroy looked up and then fell to the ground, pretending to die, laying flat on the ground, with arms and body limp.

  “Well done, Dirtling,” said the creature as it moved along beside the floating alien.

  ****

  Felicia had a good view from her hiding position behind the temporary podium at The Obelisk. Her phone was in her shaking hands recording everything. By default, the transmission was still live-streaming to the web. “Oh my God!” viewers could hear her say as the alien killed the Mayor and everyone panicked and ran in all directions.

  The view jiggled and shook as she crouched lower behind the flimsy podium which could only hide part of her. The alien in the hovering chair moved forward and the large orange guards formed a flank along the sides. One of the orange aliens noticed her hiding and changed direction, walking straight towards the podium, with its massive gun pointed at her.

  Felicia closed her eyes but kept her phone up and facing the oncoming mountain of orange. “Saint Michael the Archangel,” she prayed as the creature bent down and picked up her phone.

  The large boar like creature covered in its protective orange helmet looked into the screen and said, “We are on a little hunt. Run and hide. This is your only warning.”

  He put the phone back into the frozen hands of a disbelieving Felicia, staring up at the large alien in amazement.

  “Good,” said the alien as it patted her on the head, then turned and caught up to the other orange aliens.

  “Amen,” finished Felicia as she automatically continued following the progress of the aliens with her phone.

  ****

  Like all of New York, Eric had ignored the grand standing by Mayor Karyn and her ‘Welcome to aliens’ meeting in Central Park. He had more important things to do. His ‘ComStop’ as he had nicknamed his invention, was pretty much complete. The range was still only about one hundred yards, but it didn’t - or shouldn’t - suck the batteries dry in such a short time. He figured he had about thirty minutes per battery when it was operational.

  “How will we carry this?” he thought to himself. “Perhaps a battery belt, a bit like an ammunition belt to carry the batteries might work?”

  As he was rummaging about in the workshop the door burst open. Uncle Jeremy raced in with his tablet and yelled, “Eric! They’re here!”

  Eric’s head popped out of the closet where he had discovered some old clothing, his hand clutched on an old fishing vest that had somehow been stored there.

  “Who’s here, Uncle?”

  “The FOPs!” Uncle Jeremy said, racing towards Eric and showing him the screen, “Didn’t you see the GWS message on your phone! Mayor Karyn said she wanted to welcome the aliens and they came!”

  Eric hurried towards Uncle Jeremy and held on to the tablet. His phone was on the workbench, flashing the Global Warning System message. “Run, Hide, Fight! Aliens are here. Run, Hide, Fight!”

  The tablet screen was showing Felicia’s live stream on one side with a video commenter on the other.

  “Mayor Karyn has met the aliens and they replied to her welcome with destruction!” said the commenter.

  “The Mayor was giving her stupid speech at The Obelisk in front of the Metropolitan and the aliens appeared,” said Uncle Jeremy, muting the commenter, “I’ve got to give her credit, she didn’t run. She walked up to the alien and said ‘Welcome to New York’ and they shot her!”

  Eric ignored the screen and starting putting on the fishing vest and belt. As he began packing all the batteries he could find into the vest pockets, Uncle Jeremy asked, “What are you doing, Eric?”

  “I’m going out there,” he said, “To help!”

  “Help who?” said Uncle Jeremy, looking back at the screen as the aliens were shooting at all the running people, “ARRG isn’t here.”

  “They are,” said Eric as he placed the ComStop in his leather bag with a tool kit in case he needed to do more tweaking of the device, “I just have to be where they will be.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Who? ARRG?” asked Uncle Jeremy, bewildered.

  Eric pointed at the screen, “They will be where the aliens are.”

  With that, Eric ran out the door.

  Based on the location of the hunt, he figured the best place to be would be somewhere near the corner of 79th and 5th. He raced down Madison Avenue as streams of people ran in the opposite direction. Maybe he should have done more exercise to get ready for this type of thing.

  “Ow. Well, that’s a clue I’m going in the right direction,” thought Eric, clutching his bag tightly, as someone else bumped into him.

  As he reached the corner of Madison and East 79th streets, amongst the perpetual construction work, a hand clamped on his shoulder.

  Eric leapt in fright and looked up.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Eric?” said Captain Paige, looking directly into Eric’s eyes.

  “I brought my ComStop! I figured if I got close, you would be here!” Eric said breathlessly.

  “Hmmm,” said Captain Paige disapprovingly. Pointing his finger at Eric to stay right where he was, he quickly poked his head around the corner, looking down 79th towards Central Park. The panicking crowd had thinned as the GWS system worked its magic. The alien progress was live-streamed on multiple channels, letting everyone know exactly where the danger was. The coverage on multiple channels was the most watched broadcast in human history.

  After an initial flurry of activity with many deaths, the streets had mostly cleared. Captain Paige was in contact with his team. Those ‘working from home’ were on their way. Amazingly the subway was still operating. When questioned by an enquiring web journalist, the New York City Transit Authority said “The trains keep running. If the damn aliens go below the streets, we’ll isolate that station, but if they stay on top, we’ll keep running. New York doesn’t stop for any damn aliens.”

  Stepping back behind the corner, Captain Paige looked at his phone. On a map showing his local area, he could see a number of green dots approaching him. These were his ‘home-working’ ARRG troopers. Ones that lived further out were travelling fast, using the subway system. Others were on foot. He had about twenty minutes before he had enough firepower to do something.

  ****

  “Bobby!” yelled Captain Hugo as he hurried along the Special Operations Response Team, “We have New Yorkers to protect!”

  “Almost there, sir!” yelled back Bobby, the SORT vehicle mechanic in charge of keeping their pair of BEAR armoured cars in fighting condition.

  The local SORT force had two BEAR armoured cars, built for multiple purposes. Bobby was curious one day and had built a special module mounting a .50 calibre machine gun turret. “Just in case,” he had said, “Ya never know when one of these babies might come in handy.”

  He was installing it now with the help of two of his assistants. Another was loading in some belts of ammunition they had “acquired” as part of last years’s staff amenities budget allocation.

  “Done, Sir!” he announced as he leapt off the front of the vehicle and landed deftly on the ground.

  Captain Hugo tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Well done, Bobby,” then jumping in to the front seat told the trooper beside him, “Let’s go.”

  The trip would normally take about forty five minutes, or more in traffic, but today the roads in to the city centre were mostly clear. The roads out were blocked. Despite warnings that were part of the Global Warning System to not try to escape busy cities by vehicles, many went with their first instinct and jumped in the car.

  “Go down Park Avenue!” Captain Hugo instructed, “Looks like the aliens are proceeding up East 79th.”

  “Yes, Sir,” said the driver, moving around another abandoned vehicle.

  “I would have taken Lexington, but if we are getting this many cars abandoned along here, we need a wider access,” muttered Captain Hugo as he tried to plot a route. He could see on the various live streamed views the aliens proceeding down 79th, shooting at whatever moved. The aliens weren’t moving very fast, just proceeding at a leisurely pace.

  “Based on this livestream, they should be crossing Park very soon. Parker! Man that .50 Cal. Put Bobby’s work to good use!” Captain Hugo tapped Parker on the shoulder as he stood up and manned the machine gun.

  They stopped the BEAR armoured car behind some abandoned vehicles and waited. “Out!” commanded Captain Hugo to the other men, “Use whatever we have for defences and be ready when I give the word. We’ll hit ‘em in the sides!”

  ****

  Captain Mapps was relatively pleased with the hunt progress so far. There was the initial flurry of action and the Emperor had fired a number of times. By Mapps’ reckoning, the Emperor had hit the Dirtling that had tried to talk to him and then out of his many shots had maybe killed one or two Dirtlings. Lord Gubbins had been more deadly, shooting at any Dirtling that moved in his vicinity. Sergeant Timms and himself had intervened a number of times with the Dirtlings, telling them to run and hide and it looked like it was working.

  The street ahead was clear. For an obviously large city, the streets were eerily quiet. Some of the weird vehicles were left running but few had any occupants. His guards had searched each one as they scouted ahead. He was pleased to see one of his guards fire a shot which looked deadly, but the vehicle’s occupant took the hint and left through the destroyed door on the other side of the vehicle, looking behind it see his guard give it a ‘go away’ motion. It took the hint. He liked it when his guards understood the mission. The Emperor is on a hunt, they protected the Emperor.

  He was less happy about the number of intersections. Every cross road was a danger and he and the Sergeant ensured the guards treated it as the danger it was. They bunched up before the intersection, then a fire team rushed across quickly scanning either side, while the fire team behind then used the building corners for cover. This had all worked well so far.

  “I’m getting bored,” said the Emperor.

  “We have done well so far, my Lord,” answered Lord Gubbins, “I have been recording your trophy count. It is impressive!”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said the Emperor, “But now it’s getting a little slow.”

  “The Dirtlings have scurried away once they have experienced our might,” said Lord Gubbins proudly.

  “Yes, as they should,” said the Emperor, looking around at the empty streets, “Are they all gone?”

  Up ahead, he could see his guards doing their rushing around and doing that checking thing they did at all the street corners.

  “Hurry up,” he said, “I want to see more Dirtlings!”

  A hail of bullets erupted from the street to their right. Projectiles ricocheted off the guards’ armour and the guards returned fire, causing massive explosions. Sergeant Timms quickly raised the shield for the Emperor and told Muffins to stop.

  He spun around as bullets came in from the rear ricocheting off the Emperor’s shield. He saw his guards’ return fire destroy a number of dirtlings in dark uniforms that had rushed around the corner behind them. He dropped the Emperor’s hover throne to the ground and stood in front of it watching for any more fire from any direction.

  He noticed a young Dirtling peeking out from a window in a building on the corner behind them and he glared at it. The Dirtling ducked back inside.

  The firing from ahead had stopped and all was quiet. Captain Mapps spoke to the Sergeant via communicator, “Sergeant, all clear here. Tomas is injured, but he tells me it’s only a flesh wound.”

  The Sergeant answered, “He boasted he could fight with one arm tied behind his back. Now he can prove it.”

  “Looks like the local military that Harrick mentioned are starting to appear. Keep alert,” said Mapps, as they proceeded forward.