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

Sky snaps her fingers, and Ken laughs as she signs to him. He looks back at me.

I'll interpret for you.

Ken makes a go-ahead sign. Sky looks at me as she signs.

My name is Sky, and I was there at the start of Ken's Conspirators. I found this fool just as he ran out of a house and fell down the steps into the front yard. He got up and fell twice in just seconds. A Veech came out the door behind him and aimed at him when I shot it with my rifle. The alien shield took three rounds from my .30/06 Springfield. He (me, that is) stopped and thanked me as if I just gave him a Christmas present. I ignored him. We both ran to another house and got our bearings. That is how the Conspirators started. I saved his life.

Sky stops signing, then leans back in her chair and nods her head to Ken.

It's true, she saved my life. I was a goner for sure. I had no business out there, but you learn quickly when your life is on the line. So, it was Sky and me then. I could already sign a little, so we were able to communicate from the start. We fell back and joined the defensive line that had formed. We fought for two days, really just continuing to fall back through the city, when we found the next members of the Conspirators.

I don't remember what day it was, but I remember it was a beautiful morning. It was already cold in September, but for some reason, the weather that day was just incredible.

Sky snaps her fingers, then signs to Ken. He looks back at me.

She thinks I still talk too much like a politician. She told me to get on with it and stop talking about the weather. (Laughs.) That morning, Sky and I were tasked with heading South of our mainline to scout if the Veech were there. We did. We didn't find groups of Veech, but we did come upon three enormous, hairy guys, shirts off, all fighting one Veech soldier who held a lightsaber. At first, we froze. It was an unusual sight, as you can imagine.

Another thing that made it so odd, and this might sound weird, was that there was very little noise coming from the fight. The Veech were quiet fighters to begin with, but the three men, who were fighting with steel pieces of rebar two meters long, weren't yelling or screaming at all. They surrounded the Veech soldier, taking turns distracting it, then bashing it with their rebar. It was odd. The lightsaber would cut through steel, but it would take a few seconds of direct pressure. These guys didn't give it the chance to do that. They moved extremely quickly and had uncanny coordination. It took a few minutes, but they eventually brought the soldier down and impaled its head with one of their rods. Even after years of fighting, it remains the most strange fight I've ever seen.

Sky signs to Ken.

She says it was the most idiotic fight she's ever seen. Anyway, after they killed the alien, they noticed us. The biggest of the men turned to us and said, "Not a bad fight, eh?" (Slaps his leg and laughs.) And that's how the Conspirators became five. The three men are brothers, and the oldest, Big J, coined the name Ken's Conspirators after I told him my story. He got quite a laugh out of it.

Eventually, our group grew until we had about fifty men, and they made us into a platoon. Then we grew some more. As the Battle of Ottawa wound down, we stood 500 men and women strong. We were folded into the 4th division and fought the Veech for the rest of the war until their final stand at the Battle of Montreal.

Ken looks at Sky.

Anything else to add?

She signs.

She says I'm leaving a lot out, but for me, that's a miracle.

Civilian Life

Reginald Kennedy

Los Angeles, California

I meet Reginald at LAX, working for a shuttle company. He is a survivor of the Great I-40 Traffic Jam. He agreed to share his story with me on his break time. We sit at a table outside the terminal.

I was in prison when Invasion Day happened. (Laughs.) Yeah, I guess prison saved my life; not many of us can say that, but in this case… (Shrugs.) I was at the California Correction Institute in Kern County, just north of LA County. I got some time for… well, that doesn't matter anymore, does it?

I worked laundry back then, which was way down in the basement of the prison, another thing I'm thankful for. The prison had thick walls and doors, but being underground is what kept me alive, I think.

I remember that sound like it was yesterday, and I don't think I'll ever forget it. Most of the guys in prison died from it, and all the older ones did, but for me, it just felt like my head was gonna explode. I covered my ears and screamed like a girl; we all did. All those guys, covered in muscles and tattoos, screaming like they were on fire.

Anyway, it took me a while to recover. It might have been a few minutes to an hour, I really don't know. I lay there like a dead dog, not sure I was even alive. It took a long time before I could even roll over, and that was just to throw up. After a while, I was able to stand up, but I was still out of it. I stumbled toward the door, making my way around the bodies. Looking back, I feel bad about not checking all the guys around me. They weren't exactly my boys, you know, but some of them were decent guys, and I just left them. (He shakes his head.)

When I could, I made my way upstairs to the main hallway. It was quiet. Everything