Invasion Day: An Oral History of the Veech War by Micah Gurley (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

face, which stand out on her pale skin. He looks back at me with a small smile, sits, and starts to talk.

Have you ever been in a situation where you know you will lose, no matter what happens? Not just fail, but lose everything. Literally. Everything you’ve worked for, everything you loved? Ash and brimstone? That was the future I saw for us. That's what was going through my thoughts when I made that plea. I only knew despair and panic. The Veech attacked and I knew it was over. I knew it, and so did everyone else. The whole world knew it.

Ottawa wasn't hit initially. We didn't have the population for them to go after, but it was only a matter of time before we were a target. We were the capital after all, though who knows if the Veech even cared about such things. Then the troops landed, tens of thousands of them, and their spacecraft dismantled ours. There was no one to stand against them.

I had hundreds of people storming my office, begging for help. Begging. I mean, they got on the floor crying. I had a mother who came to the office, two small kids hanging off her legs, promising me anything if I could keep her children safe.

Put yourself in that situation for a minute. All these people looking to you, the great MP of Ottawa, to help them, to save them, to keep their children from dying in front of them. We had a few thousand police and mounties scattered through a population of almost 900,000. We had no contingencies to meet the threat coming toward us. We were helpless sheep as a lion sought to devour us.

I was as desperate as them. I cared about the people in my city. I know it seems cliché, but I did want to protect them and felt like it was my responsibility. I was one of them, born and raised in Ottawa.

During an emergency meeting of Parliament, I made my case. I wasn't the only one, of course. There were MPs screaming for the army, for help, for anything to keep us safe. Men and women demanding help, something, anything to keep us safe. They wanted a magical answer that didn't exist, a solution that kept them safe from the Veech. So, I begged the PM to contact the Veech, offer them something, trade them something, hell, sell them something. Anything! Do anything you have to do to protect the people. We owed it to them.

That was the message that was recorded?

That was it. The minutes were still being taken despite the chaos of the moment. (Gives a half-smile.) I know most people believe I somehow contacted the Veech and begged them, but that never happened. Just a desperate plea in a madhouse of a meeting. I'm not sure I wouldn't have contacted the Veech if I could have. What choice did we have? I know, I know, fight them to the last man, never give up, never say surrender. Better to die free than live on your knees. But say that to a mother who is desperately holding her infant baby. Say that to her and then come and talk to me.

Of course, the meeting's content didn't leak until after the Jhi showed up, and we were fighting back. Most of the world was too busy surviving or in shock, but mud-raking journalists would survive deep space. There's no killing those guys. I think the headline ran (He makes air quotes with his fingers.) “Member of Parliament surrenders to Aliens.” (He shrugs.)

They published the story and then cried out that I was a traitor. It's kind of ironic that a year before the attack, those same journalists were instrumental in getting private ownership of guns taken away in Canada. Oh yes, they somehow decided that fighting was now a good thing, and we should defend ourselves. Hypocrites!

I resigned immediately. I didn't want to be a point of contention when we were fighting for our lives. But it wasn't only that; there was a part of me that questioned myself. Was I a traitor? I knew why I said what I said, but was that the best for the people? I still don't know... I probably never will.

How did Ken's Conspirators come about?

(Gives a chuckle.) Well, you need context to understand. The city was coming apart. We had homegrown crime, Mad Max-style. Theft, rape, murder, arson. We had it all. The Veech were just getting to us about this time. Not a lot at first, only a few hundred that were dropped off from their shuttles. Those initial Veech were fought by local police and soldiers that had made their way to the city. It was a stalemate at best.

That's about the time when I walked out of the capitol building and decided to fight. The story had come out the day before, see. I'm not proud of it now, but I was feeling a bit sorry for myself. Looking back, I think I just wanted to hide. Hide and fight. I ended up on the streets, completely unprepared, near a recently dropped squad of Veech. The locals had fallen back and were trying to organize. It was a mess, and that's where I stepped in. I remember thinking I'll show them. (Smiles.) Bit of a drama queen back then.

So, I enter a house, pull out a handgun, which I found on the street the day before, and fired at a Veech trooper who had just walked into the door. (Laughs contagiously) I'm lucky to be alive—blind, dumb luck. The Veech started walking after me, and I backed up, panicked at what I had just done. I turned, about to pee my pants and ran back through the house....

He is interrupted as the woman claps her hands twice, gets his attention, signs, then sits down in a chair next to him.

She says this is where her story picks up, so she'll join us. This is Sky.