Falling Skies: Korea

by StephenMcTowelie

A reboot of the Falling Skies universe starting with the EMP/bombardment phase of the initial invasion from the perspective of US soldiers stationed in Seoul, South Korea. Going in a completely different direction than the series from Season 3 onwards. Rated T for language and violence. AU, OC, Ch. 111 Complete.

1. Prologue: Life as We Know It

This chapter is all backstory and fluff if you want to get straight to where "the bomb drops" feel free to skip ahead to the next chapter. The air war starts from there and the ground war picks up a few chapters later.

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Author's Note: First of all thank you for taking the time to read this. Being someone who discovered this show towards the end of its run I'm a little late to the party so to speak. This is my attempt at a total remake of Falling Skies in an attempt to capture the potential that could have been, at least from a writing standpoint. All of my other FS stories are essentially branches off of this. Most of the story follows the characters initially introduced in the first chapter and expands through the people they meet. That being said there is no main character per se and any character could potentially die or be harnessed at any time. There will also be certain special chapters which will give updates on the war around the world as well as insight into events occurring in other star systems (i.e. there will be a few chapters dedicated to Cochise prior to coming to Earth, other aliens fighting the Espheni elsewhere and so on. The main plot may also expand to other worlds as well depending on which ending I ultimately decide to go with.) I'd originally intended just to do a quick prequel with this and be done with it in a month, alas it went on and grew into something more. Now that the scope has expanded inevitably I'll have to go for either a title change or a direct sequel that ties all the converging side stories and this one together. (I can't really call it FS: Korea when it extends to other countries and planets now can I?) Overall this story will be written in such a way that you don't have to have ever seen this show to be able to follow it. I know many of you found this story via some of my other works and have never seen or heard of this show which is fine since (aside from the Canon arc – The Boston Massacre) it is only very loosely based on the source material. (It's also kind of a rough model (at least for the human interactions) of my own completely independent set up story to a sci-fi series (inasmuch that the invasion of Earth is but a prelude to an extended universe of a spacefaring remnant of humanity or whatever species succeeds us) so by not following all that closely it makes it easier to change the aliens/tech/tactics/motive/larger universe etc. to make it my own (granted would be getting rid of skitters and going with ARMED aliens for a change.) I will probably post the first ten or twenty chapters of the non-fanfiction version on my fictionpress account once it's ready seeing as I mentioned it here.) All you really need to know is it's about aliens. (Also if you've never seen the show you can probably skip the next paragraph)

As I've stated in the canon character arc of this (The Boston Massacre); this will be a complete AU/remake so forget what you think you know because I am going to be taking this in a totally different direction. (Did you really want to know the ending before you started reading anyways? Who knows, this time around the aliens might actually win.) The deviations aren't that pronounced prior to the arrival of the Volm but following the approximate time of the Season 2 finale this will be an entirely different creation. (There will be no Espheni Queen, I can say that for sure without giving much away.) I plan on adding considerable depth with the aliens and their agenda, tactics, culture and so on will be considerably different (to some degree I will be extrapolating on what Season 2 appeared to be pointing at). In the end the Espheni will be shown to have a rich and well developed culture and the purpose of the alien conquest, when revealed will be completely different from what was presented on the show though overall there may be some intentionally misleading statements that may deflect from what the true motive is.

With the humans I will try to provide a decent range of diversity of backgrounds, worldviews and circumstances to explore how different people/groups handle the invasion. Some of these worldviews may be offensive to some people. I am trying to depict humanity as we really are with all our flaws, biases and failings not how we would like ourselves to be. That being said this will probably have a darker feel to it than the series had. Note that the opinions presented in the story are those of the characters and the characters alone and as such will conflict with each other. Certain characters I may have a hard time accurately portraying (Hamza, Vargas and Kwang-su in particular), I'm trying not to make caricatures of them nor treat them with kid gloves so if anyone could offer advice on how to better portray the worldview and character traits I am looking for in them it would be appreciated as well.

I'll try to update this one frequently and as long as at least one person is still reading it I will see it through to the end, even if I take a break from it I won't leave it to die unfinished. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. If I don't have a well thought out explanation for something then it probably is an error and I will correct it. This is my first attempt at writing fanfiction so any advice/comments to help me become a better writer are welcome.

Update – 3 April 2016: I'm working on a format change for all my stories. (Chapters 3-87 are still pending this change, it won't alter content only the format.) It will be a slow process and I will still be posting regular updates. I've just completed the prologue/intro chapter showing most of the characters, including some which haven't been reintroduced yet and some that will never be reintroduced (obviously some people die during the initial attack) which is posted below. It was initially conceived as an "opening credits" sequence so it was a bit bulky and tough to actually get it into prose. Since the prologue is 97 pages of fluff and backstory if you want to skip ahead to the point right before "the bomb drops" and the actual action of the story begins just click on ahead to the next chapter. The ground war also begins around chapter 7-8. Right now I've just vomited everything I had for the prologue and there's a fair chance some of it will be cut as time goes on. There's also a few scenes from Chapter 1 that I may also put here (The first Camp Humphreys scene, the USS Nevada scene and possibly the Overlord scene) Any suggestions for improvement are most welcome and will be taking all constructive criticism into account when revising the story. Apologies for the long introduction, hope you enjoy the story. Cheers!

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Prologue: Life As We Know It.

A large triangular shaped craft hovered over central Seoul, at hourly intervals smaller craft would arrive and debark from the main vessel to and from points unknown. It was one of many such craft spread out in the skies over major urban hubs around the world. These triangles had been recorded over New York, London, Washington DC, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Chengdu, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Orlando, Vancouver, Montreal, Vladivostok, Minsk, Sevastopol, Honolulu, Mexico City, Havana, Bogota, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Warsaw, Rome, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Lisbon, Jerusalem, Cairo, Tunis, Baghdad, Dubai, Tehran, Kabul, Mumbai, Delhi, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Johannesburg, Sydney, Perth and Juneau. Smaller disc shaped objects more closely resembling titanic versions of the traditional UFO were sighted over every major city worldwide. Smaller towns and villages may have only seen flyovers from the tiny scout craft that came and went from these motherships. Still other areas would have only heard about the aliens on the news; there were even regions completely oblivious to the fact the human species was no longer alone in the universe. The visitors came to Earth from regions unknown a couple months ago and since then they have stood still in the sky. In all that time not one person has even seen what "they" look like.

When the aliens had first made themselves known to the world at large the reaction was one of both fear and wonder. While some reveled in the discovery that they were not alone in the cosmos others became possessed with dread. Governments of the world by in large made every effort not to appear hostile to the visitors and spared no expense in their attempts to contact the aliens. Every conceivable method to establish peaceful first contact with the visitors failed. The aliens remained silent, sealed within their massive ships. As the silence continued the fear on the surface escalated. It reached a head when the motherships began sending out smaller craft out to all corners of the globe. The chaos that erupted was on a scale the world had never seen. The initial panic was worldwide, cropping up in just about every major city and town. The secondary tumults were more localized and varied from region to region. These were the outbreaks of opportunistic violence, overzealous protests, and the exacerbation of pre-existing strife. The response to the second round of disorder produced tertiary riots in these and other cities.

In the developed world cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Paris, Kiev, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Jakarta and Beirut were the hardest hit by civil unrest. Elsewhere the governments of Myanmar, Venezuela, Tunisia, Yemen, Nigeria, Sudan and Zimbabwe completely collapse sparking a humanitarian crisis the world is ill equipped to deal with. Many other Middle Eastern, African and Central American nations were badly destabilized and teetered on the brink of collapse themselves. Afghanistan only held together at the cost of the lives of American and Pakistani forces in the region. The instability wrought by the visitors also gave cover for violence to break out between nations. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel engaged in a 36 hour war which left scores dead and displaced most notably in the Palestinian territories. Iran invaded Iraq, decades old conflicts in Africa heated up again, and the detonations of dirty bombs in both India and Pakistan brought those countries into a brief exchange of arms with each other. There were border skirmishes between Russia and the Ukraine. North Korea was restrained by the Chinese from attacking the south which spared Seoul from a far worse fate than it suffered. The warfare in the Middle East and Africa along with civil unrest in the West brought fuel shortages to industrialized nations and famine to the 3rd world. Without as much as taking an aggressive posture the aliens had already caused the genocide of millions.

From their post on high the aliens received a display of humanity at its very worst. They were not however immune to the calamities on the surface of the world they hovered over. There were reports that the smaller alien ships had been fired upon, both intentionally and by mistake and that some of these craft had even been brought down. Still no one has yet to produce a picture of one of these alien beings and their identity remained a mystery. Fortunately for Earth the aliens did not retaliate to the aggression the earthlings visited upon them. They did not respond one way or another; they merely continued on with whatever they were doing in our skies. Nothing seemed to divert their attention from whatever enigmatic purpose they had come to Earth for. It got to the point where people got sick of waiting, eventually the aliens would make contact on their terms or, as many suspected based on the poor showing mankind had given them they would deem humans unworthy and leave without inviting us into the cosmic community.

As the weeks wore on and nothing happened with the visitors and humanity began to bring itself back to sanity the nightmare appeared to be over. The world was still on edge, but in many ways once the anticipation began to wane people simply went on with their lives unimpeded by the menacing object in the sky. Here in Seoul it was much the same, the initial fear and tumult had passed for the most part and after the scars left by a couple weeks of pandemonium and rioting in the streets life had gone back to much of what it had been. People returned to work, the schools reopened, and humans went on obsessing about the frivolous all too human things that humans obsessed with. It was very much life as we knew it, save only that gigantic triangular spaceship standing silently between the sun and Seoul, draping the city in eternal shadow. In spite of the return of the mediocrity of day to day life people still had many unanswered questions about the visitors. Where did they come from? How did they get here? Why did they come here of all places? What, if anything did they want from humankind? Were they peaceful? Little did anyone know that before the end of the day at least one of those questions would be answered. For now the alien mothership stood silently in the sky, keeping its secrets to itself.

In an unassuming part of Seoul Hye-jin walked into a quaint little cafe. Hye-jin was something of a hipster, enjoying kitschy obscure things and dressing in ironic fashions. This little cafe was one of those kitschy things she enjoyed as she kind of considered it beneath her to sip coffee at one of the chain eateries. The cafe catered to casual upscale audience of primarily upper middle class college students among whom Hye-jin was just one in the crowd.

She wore a navy blue woolen sweatshirt and pale lavender scarf even though it wasn't cold and had an oversized blue bow with white polka dots in her bright silver/lavender hair. She wore dark brown slacks and polished earthy shoes which gave her a more academic look to her attire. Her hair and makeup on the other hand boldly contrasted with that image. Her hair was cut an even length just barely above her shoulders and it was clearly visible she put a lot of effort into maintaining the style and the color of it, as she did with her makeup as well.

She was in her early 20s just about out of university and still had no clue about what she wanted to do with her life. Even as graduation day loomed near that question wasn't something she would often think about. Life in the real world was even less of a consideration to Hye-jin after the aliens came down. She just went about her studies, popped into trendy establishments, hung out with her friends, went to concerts and lived it up while she was still young. Today was no different; she was starting off on her Sunday morning routine. Later she would meet up with a couple friends and go shopping but until then she was content to lounge around here for a while.

Hye-jin sat down on a polished wooden stool in front of the bar in the back of the cafe and pulled out her smartphone and started going through it. Upon seeing her sit down her waitress, Eun-mi brought Hye-jin her usual blended coffee drink and took her order, a spinach and artichoke soufflé with a small bowl of miso soup on the side. She smiled and exchange casual conversation as she always did before running Hye-jin's order off to the cook. Meanwhile Hye-jin took out her smart phone to check her Instagram account. When the front page of her browser came up it displayed a short video of a light beam descending from an alien spacecraft into the open ocean somewhere between India and Antarctica. Out of curiosity Hye-jin clicked on it and was watching it when Eun-mi came over.

"You never expect aliens to do that kind of stuff out in the open huh?" Eun-mi commented after catching a glimpse of what she was looking at.

"I used to think that, actually I never used to think about that kind of paranormal stuff at all. It happens so often now people are starting to get desensitized to it." Hye-jin replied.

"I remember when they first came. People were going crazy and everyone was either like "It's the end of the world, we're all gonna die!" or they were talking like Space Jesus had come down to save us and make the world's problems disappear. Two months later and we're still here, alive and well, not enslaved and building some death ray to aim at a planet we've never even heard of. The world is still as fucked up as it ever was; war, disease, famine, poverty, racism, pollution, cruelty, crime and Justin Bieber still exist. Aliens show up and nothing changes; it's just a novelty act in the sky." Hye-jin continued.

"Yeah it's turning out to be not as special as we hoped it to be but it's not over yet. I mean its two completely different species that are trying to communicate with each other here. That's never been done before so you'd figure it would take a while to get it right. It could be the same for them if they've never come across intelligent life before while they were flying around out there. This could be their maiden voyage into space, we just don't know" Eun-mi replied. The teenage girl was wise beyond her years. Her well-reasoned answer was something that the college student did not even consider.

"That's true. I'm not saying that it wasn't something special just that people have short attention spans. I'm excited that this moment is happening in my lifetime" Hye-jin said.

"There haven't been that many generations in the whole of human history that have gotten to experience a moment of this importance." Eun-mi remarked.

"Yeah, though I kind of worry that out of the whole of our history they picked now to show up. We haven't exactly been sending them the best signals since they arrived. If they're watching us we're showing them the worst humanity has to offer. Maybe they won't want to talk to us after seeing all this. Part of me wishes this would've happened after we've gotten all our shit together as a planet, even if I wasn't around to see it." Hye-jin said.

"Maybe this is what makes us get our shit together." Eun-mi, always the eternal optimist replied.

"Maybe once all the fear and uncertainty passes we'll be better off even if the aliens never talk to us. Maybe simply knowing that we are not alone in the universe, that what's out there is so much bigger than just us that it makes all the divisions we fight over seem so petty. With the eyes of the universe upon us maybe we'll end up learning to treat each other better. This is a paradigm shift that in the end could serve to teach us that it simply isn't worth it to hold onto hate." Eun-mi explained.

"That would be nice but so far I'm not seeing it out there." Hye-jin replied.

"It will take time. The aliens might have to just leave in silence before we do anything. Right now we're just filling in the answers to the questions we don't know with our worst fears, that's what's holding us back." Eun-mi responded.

The bell rang outside the kitchen window drawing Eun-mi back to her job. While Hye-jin and Eun-mi chit chatted a news report came on the TV behind the bar in the cafe. Hye-jin glanced up at it when Eun-mi left to tend to newly arrived customers and pick up Hye-jin's order when it was ready. The volume on the TV was muted and block subtitles displayed the text of what was being said.

"For the second straight week there has been nothing but silence from North Korea following months of sabre rattling." the anchor, Chi Ji-eun reported.

The news program then went live to a ground level shot of the south side of the DMZ where a large number of South Korean tanks and mobile artillery pieces moved about in the distance behind the onsite reporter. Small alien craft crisscrossed into the frame and were treated no different than birds in the background by the news team.

"More puzzling is that North Korea has appeared to have pulled its forces back from the DMZ leaving the question open to speculation whether the North's nuclear ambitions have reached a point where it is seriously considering a hostile strike." the anchor continued.

The scene then switched to a second camera onboard a helicopter which panned out to show the North Korean side of the DMZ deserted. After a few more minutes of straight reporting the program shifted to a three way split screen with the anchor on the far right, a former general and so called expert in the center and a ground level shot of the South Korean side of the DMZ on the far left.

"General, what is your insight on what might account for this bizarre turn of events?" the anchor asked.

"It's really too soon to tell. Let us not forget the North has been no stranger to controversy both before and after the arrival." the former general replied.

"According to official reports so far our envoys have gotten nothing out of Pyongyang, neither have the Chinese and American diplomats with the UN." the expert continued.

"Any comment on the rumors that the North is preparing for a nuclear strike against Seoul and other targets south of the DMZ?" Ji-eun inquired.

"I believe it is highly unlikely but there's always a chance. Perhaps they believe the arrival of extraterrestrials would deter western nations from retaliating so that any nuclear exchange would be completely one sided. Personally I'd say it would be a bad idea for any nation to contemplate nuclear war with the world under such close surveillance by an intelligence we know nothing about." the expert answered.

"Concerning the aliens it is also rumored that the North fired upon one of their craft. Has there been any confirmation whether or not this was true?" Ji-eun asked.

"It's a well-known fact that several countries had incidents where their planes or ground forces fired upon the alien craft. The North was no exception to this. Now before any of your listeners start to worry about interstellar war I must remind you that the majority of these incidents ended with the missile's guidance systems failing with no harm done on either side. In fact the only incidents I can recall where a spaceship actually went down is when they crashed into our jets." the general reported.

"I recall that from several weeks ago. Have we learned anything from those downed spacecraft?" Ji-eun asked.

"The remains of the downed craft are in the possession of Russian and British intelligence agencies, neither of which are inclined to comment on the matter." the general replied.

"Playing their cards close to their chest I see. Thank you for stopping by General, hope to speak with you again soon." the anchor closed the segment with the standard pleasantries.

The screen then expanded to show only the ground level shot of the DMZ while the anchor made her closing remarks on the subject. As she was wrapping up the story a platoon of American soldiers briefly passed through the right corner of the broadcast team's shot.

The leader of that unit was 1st Lieutenant Ana Barajas, better known by her men as the "Iron Lady" or "Lady Napoleon" the latter being a jab at her height as she stood only 5' 2". Despite her stature Barajas had an intimidating aura about her. Her piercing hazel eyes looked as if they could burn a hole through six inches of steel. Her sharp chiseled face kept a stern expression upon it nearly all the time. She was built solid with ripped muscles that looked as if she was made of iron beneath her firm mahogany brown skin. Beneath her uniform she had multiple tattoos which formed a sleeve over her upper right arm, shoulder and a quarter of her back. She had a scar on the left side of her chin from where she had been cut by a piece of shrapnel from an IED. She had close cut dark brown hair which naturally spiked out in the front. Yet despite the hardness of her appearance she had a boyish feminity about her which was sufficient to dispel any semblance of androgyny about her. Back in the states and most of the lands she had served in it was clear that even with her strength upon strength she was all woman; only in Korea, a country known for its "pretty boys" could she be easily mistaken for a man.

Barajas was a former enlisted soldier before she became an officer. A common saying among military personnel was that former enlisted soldiers made the best officers, or sometimes the worst. Barajas was in the former category, being an excellent platoon leader though she could at times be difficult to work with. Her experience taught her how to see things through the eyes of those she would send into battle and thus earn their respect more so than would be due to some upstart academy grad. Her experience also gave her insight when her troops were trying to pull a fast one on her. She was hard but fair; she never pushed her men beyond what they could take, even if they didn't know they could take it. She might have been strict but she took care of her men and delivered when it counted. One thing she prided herself on is the fact she had been in many firefights and never lost a single soldier on her watch.

As she went about the day's business she felt a sense of satisfaction. This would be one of her last patrols along the DMZ. Barajas and her unit were scheduled to rotate back to the States at the end of next week. Being unmarried and childless Barajas didn't really have anyone special to return home to, still being back in her homeland would be a welcome change of pace. She had spent too much of her life in foreign countries, both hostile and friendly. From Panama to Uganda to Afghanistan to Korea it seemed she had spent more of her adult life out country than she did back in the States. She attributed that fact to why she had yet to find a man worth settling down with and she would be damned if she shacked up with an army guy. She hadn't intended to go about the path of a career soldier but that was how things had seemed to turn out. She figured after all the time she had put in so far she might as well go for twenty and retire.

Standing a few feet behind Barajas was the platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Edmund Drake and SSGT Tobias Knight, who was one of Barajas' squad leaders. The grey haired soldier adjusted his glasses and observed two alien craft whipping around in a circle and then ascending straight up into the sky.

"You really wonder what they are doing here. The mystery of not knowing is worse than anything. Are they incapable of speaking to us or have they just refused to do so? In a way it was better when we still thought we were alone in the universe." Drake said to Knight.

"There was one less thing to be afraid of. Even if they do come in peace I think I would be freaked the fuck out if I ever saw one of those things get out of their ships. Dragging the whole first contact issue out is just making people more nervous. My aunt in Boston told me that people just snapped over there for a couple days and the heavy handedness of the police ain't helping either. If they don't introduce themselves or leave soon I think the entire planet is going to have a nervous breakdown." Tobias replied.

"Or just forget about them entirely. I've noticed a lot of the civvies really don't pay the ETs any mind lately. They're all on to the next fad." Drake added.

"Aliens just aren't sexy anymore." laughed Tobias.

"I wonder how my boys are doing with all this going on." Sergeant Knight commented looking up at the enigmatic ships dancing around in the sky.

"You got kids Drake?" Tobias looked over to Drake and said.

"Twins and Tina has a grandbaby on the way. She's giving the child her maiden name, without the hyphen so the Drake family name will endure another hundred years she claims." Drake replied.

"That stuff is important to you?" asked Knight, batting an eye.

"Yes indeed. My family's had the Drake name ever since we came over to the Virginia Colony in 1682, probably long before that. I'd like to see it live on past me." Drake replied.

Knight didn't really put much importance in his own family name. He got it from his grandfather he knew that much. Before that he didn't know and didn't care. His legal lineage couldn't have predated any earlier than Reconstruction if he bothered to dig that far back and probably changed a myriad of times before that if his family even had a last name then. He couldn't give two shits and a turkey about the Knight family name; yeah it sounded cool and all but it really didn't mean anything to him.

"Ah, both girls I assume?" Knight asked.

"No, I've got a son too but Tim is kind of a loner and never has shown much interest in girls so the line will continue through his sister." Drake answered.

"Way to take the pressure of your boy." laughed Knight.

"I don't mean to pressure him. In fact I put Tina up to a higher standard to make up for it." Drake started to say.

At this time a group of UN peacekeepers and Nadeem Kayani, an inspector with the IAEA were returning from an unsuccessful visit to the north.

"Oh great, here come the blue helmets." snickered Sergeant Gleason, another one of her squad leaders.

Gleason was a thick hulking mass of a man towering over the rest of the platoon at 6' 10". He had what one could call a "wrestler's physique" thick muscular arms and legs and a somewhat firm chest but a flabby mid-section sporting a noticeable beer gut. He had a cinder block shaped head with a neck just as wide that it made Gleason look as if he had no neck to speak of at all. He had a close cut flat top and was clean shaven and smooth. His face had a rosy complexion while his arms and legs sported a farmer's tan, being tanned down to golden ruddy orange color where his skin saw the sun and almost powder white beneath his undershirt and shorts. Gleason was sort of the wise ass of the group. He wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed but he managed to come through when it counts.

When the UN delegation crossed over Barajas stopped them after a group of South Korean soldiers finished checking their credentials and allowed them entry back into the country.

"So did you manage to get access to any of their nuclear sites?" Barajas inquired cynically.

"What nuclear sites? That was their answer. The whole country is in denial." Kayani replied.

"I hate going to North Korea to begin with but this time they were more secretive than usual. I can't really say much but I've got a bad feeling about this." Kayani continued.

While Barajas and the UN delegation were talking defector ran across the DMZ towards the South Korean garrison near where Lt. Barajas was heading towards. The ROK soldiers pointed their weapons at the paranoid defector and shouted at him to stop but the man kept going. One of the soldiers shot and missed the man only to be reprimanded by one of the on duty garrison officers. The defector ran up to Barajas and grabbed her arm as he fell down to his knees, completely exhausted and gasping for breath. The American soldiers pulled their weapons on the man as the ROK troops moved in on them from the north.

"They're in Pyongyang!" the paranoid defector shouted after catching his breath. He shouted so loudly that he was panting again, struggling to breathe afterwards.

"Who?" Barajas asked.

"Them." The defector said in a grizzled growl while pointing up to an alien fighter craft circling overhead.

"So, those things are everywhere." Barajas shrugged her shoulders and curtly replied.

As the South Korean soldiers apprehended the defector and took him in for questioning the alien fighter craft he pointed at flew away from the DMZ and towards the gargantuan triangular vessel hovering over the Seoul metro area.

Beneath a similar ominous alien vessel, thousands of miles away a plane had taken off from Moscow on a nonstop flight to Seoul via Incheon International Airport. It was a connecting flight for many onboard who were neither Russian nor Korean. From there they would board planes to Japan, America, Australia and elsewhere. As the plane ascended the passengers looked eagerly out the window in hopes to catch a glimpse or snapping a photo of an alien flyer up close. They moved so fast and flew so high that they appeared more like tiny twinkling dots from the ground. In flight there was a better chance to see their true form in all its detail. The passengers' excitement was not contagious to the flight crew. For example, the pilot could care less, the fewer aliens he saw the better.

"This is your captain speaking. We have now reached our cruising altitude and will be arriving in Seoul at approximately 9:17 local time." the pilot, one Leonid Petrikovich announced to the crew over the speakers in Russian.

He flipped the switch to shut off the speaker and looked over to his co-pilot Sergei Kaverin before looking back out of the cockpit into the skies ahead of him. As the gargantuan wedge shaped spacecraft passed behind the plane smaller craft, comparable in size to jet fighters darted across the sky above, below and in front of them. Air travel had before more difficult since the aliens had taken up residence in Earth's skies. Ever since a British Airways flight had collided with one of the smaller craft over the north Atlantic new precautions had to be taken. The aliens' flight plans were erratic and the craft were capable of maneuvers unheard of by earthly jets which made their behavior difficult to predict and thereby difficult to avoid. It could be assumed the beings piloting them didn't want to crash any more than human pilots did so the protocol had been changed to ignore the otherworldly vessels in spite of the pilot's instincts to pull away from a near miss. It was annoying and nerve racking for Petrikovich, who already had his own issues with anxiety to begin with to be persistent tested by the alien craft that crowded the once clear skies over Russia.

"You suppose these space critters will go away someday?" Petrikovich asked his co-pilot.

"You would think they would do something. I never expected mankind's first contact with alien life to be so, boring." Sergei commented with mild disdain for the visitors.

"They need to do something soon. I am really getting tired of these things buzzing around my damn plane. I need a drink when we land." Petrikovich complained.

"Wait til we land Leonid." Sergei reminded him with a slight chuckle.

Petrikovich's imbibing on the strong drink was legendary among any who knew the man and Sergei made it a personal priority to relegate the effects of that activity to the pilot's time away from the job. He hadn't taken the job with the airline to be a life coach to an older man but that was what it had become.

Behind the cockpit a sweet, raven haired flight attendant, Yulia Konstantinov was serving beverages to a Frenchman and a pair of British ladies before taking the food cart into coach to hand out the in-flight peanuts. In coach a plain clothes FSB agent sat across from and behind a young, bearded Syrian man he was keeping an eye on. More towards the front of the plane Yulia handed out peanuts to a pleasant Turkish couple and a red haired American woman who was browsing music videos on YouTube.

Across the continent from the plane Lee Hyuna waited at a Seoul bus stop while watching the same video that the woman on the plane was looking at. This teenage girl was dressed in a bright hot pink miniskirt and a tight fitting top that was pale blue, almost white with pink sleeves. She had pink and yellow striped knee high socks and bright purple shoes. She wore a blue and yellow backpack decorated with ridiculously cutesy designs all over it. Her long, jet black hair was tied into two pigtails on the sides of her head that went down her back to her hips. She only wore light makeup in contrast to her flamboyant manner of dress while her brightly painted nails meshed perfectly with the rest of her get-up. The smartphone she held in her hands was decorated in a case similar to the cutesy-ness that adorned her backpack.

Soon enough the bus Hyuna was waiting on arrived and she stepped on board, paid the fare and walked back to a seat near the back of the bus. On her way back she passed a man with slick hair and a neat, closely trimmed moustache and chin strip beard resembling a shortened Van Dyke, dressed in professional attire reading a newspaper. In the seat across the aisle from this man a tough, somewhat masculine looking woman in a studded black leather jacket and pants crossed her arms and waited for the bus to take off. Hyuna sat down and watched a pair of brothers positively psyched up about something get on the bus and take a seat near the front. She couldn't make out their conversation over the sound of the bus accelerating away from the stop and getting back onto its route.

As the bus continued along its route across town it was passed by a dark green luxury car driven by a well-dressed woman in her mid-20s. The driver, Min-jung was heading home after picking up her son from a friend's house where he had an extended sleepover the night before. She was a well to do lady living in an upper class community in Gangnam District. She married into wealth as her husband had inherited a sizeable trust fund from his father, one of Seoul's premier businessmen. This had given Min-jung and her son quite the comfortable lifestyle. Though she could have dedicated herself to her hobbies and social life Min-jung still maintained a job working in middle management for a multinational firm in case her marriage happened not to work out in the future. She placed little faith in her prenuptials, besides having a professional life allowed her to get out into the world and associate with people beyond the rather dull self-important socialites in her immediate circle of friends. Her husband was currently doing a protracted stint in the ROK Army, which he claimed to be part of a plan to prove his own worth outside the shadow of his father. Min-jung thought her husband was stupid for staying in longer than required and often had urged him to resign his commission and take up the place that had been prepared for him in the family business. It would leave more time in his schedule for her and provide a more lavish lifestyle than the one she already enjoyed. While Min-jung had her own selfish motives for wanting her husband to give in and follow his father's advice she was content enough with his choices that she was willing to let him do whatever made him happy so long as she continued to maintain her standard of living.

She picked up her phone to call her husband as she passed under a highway where the local police had restricted access due to a military convoy en route from the US/ROK installations between Seoul and the DMZ to Camp Humphreys to the south of Seoul. Coincidentally in an ROK army truck following behind the American tanks and Strykers was Min-jung's husband, Captain Han Jung-nam. Though he could have settled into the career his father had groomed him for Captain Han had decided on an extended period of service in the military to prove himself in his own eyes. Captain Han sat in the passenger seat and patiently waited until he and his supply trucks would diverge from the convoy at large. Between the radio chatter and the hum of the engine he didn't hear the phone when his wife called. She was only calling to let him know she had picked up Do-yeon but still it irritated Min-jung when Han didn't pick up the phone. Right now the Captain was blissfully unaware of his wife's displeasure. He was only thinking about the mission at hand. His superiors had sent him north to retrieve war material and relocate it in hidden locations in the southeast suburb of Seongnam as a contingency plan in case the aliens became aggressive and attacked Seoul. Once he got down to Seongnam he would rendezvous back with Colonel Cho on whose staff Han currently served.

The Americans however were slated to be relocated whether there were aliens in the skies over Seoul or not. In one of the vehicles ahead of the supply trucks, an M1A1 Abrams tank, Captain David Bremer sat at the commander's station listening to the song "Ace of Spades" by Motorhead while rumbling through downtown Seoul. Bremer was a tall, dashing, clean shaven, muscular man who at times had been compared to a blonde version of a much younger Tom Cruise, something that the older members of his former platoon had made mention of. Bremer watched the city skyline passing by beneath the shadow of the alien vessel parked directly above him.

"How you doing there Tay tay?" Bremer called down to Private Richard Taylor, who was driving the tank.

"I'm holding up good sir." replied Taylor.

"Keep it then. As long as you don't run over anyone on our way down to Humphreys we're good." Bremer joking said to Taylor.

"Charlie convoy this is Alpha leader. You ready to make your break?" Bremer radioed back to Han and the truck convoy bound for Seongnam.

"Roger. Breaking off at the next ramp." the driver of Han's truck radioed back.

Meanwhile at Bremer's destination maintenance crews had been called in to work additional shifts over the weekend to repair and refit a large number of US military vehicles. In addition to repairing the usual wear and tear on these war machines several of them were having their onboard systems upgraded and hardened to withstand an inadvertent electromagnetic storm in the atmosphere generated by the postulated mechanisms of the alien ships' sublight engines or a direct EMP attack from either alien or terrestrial sources. Several M113 APCs, an M163 self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, an Abrams tank and a half dozen Humvees were partially disassembled in the bays and being worked on. Some upbeat reggae music was playing over the speakers in the maintenance bay to soothe the irritable nerves of those that had been ordered to work while most of the off watch personnel on base had the day off.

Sergeant Lyndsey Sobieski, the chief maintenance technician on duty was walking between the vehicles taking note of what parts they required on her way over to the parts cage to retrieve them. Lyndsey was in her mid to late 20s though looked a good 5 or 6 years younger than she was in the face. She was a muscular looking blonde woman with her hair in a bushy pixie cut. She was average height as compared to the other soldiers on base which made her somewhat tall among the general Korean population off base though it was more her well filled out physique that set her apart in public. She had a tough but cute appearance and a bit of a rough demeanor that for some took some getting used to. She was more like one of the guys in mixed company and never had been much of the girly girl. In the past she never had much of a reservation about getting around with her fellow soldiers or anyone she fancied who was willing at any time for that matter though now she had become more of an ice queen when it came to getting intimate with anyone. She had a reputation of being a slut among some of her peers and of being a lesbian among some of those she had recently turned away. She didn't really care what they thought of her but would prefer it if she could distance herself from both of those reputations.

Lyndsey walked over to the parts cage and handed a list to the man inside. "Oh and I also need an alternator for an M113." Lyndsey asked Terrence Johnson, a DoD contractor working in parts requistions.

He was a shorter thickly built dark skinned black man with corn rows trailing off into braids as they went down to the back of his head. He had an unusually large nose and mouth in proportion to his face with a relatively small chin by comparison. He was dressed his shop coveralls and wore an expensive gold wristwatch, not a Rolex but close enough. Johnson handed Lyndsey the proper forms to fill out and went back to bring her the parts she requested. He brought two boxes out and went back to the back. When he came back he placed three more boxes on the desk between him and Lyndsey and waited for Lyndsey to complete the paperwork.

"So nice of them to make us work weekends while all the grunts are away." Johnson chuckled

"I hear you, at least it's a steady shift and we're not on the rotation for city watch. Besides it'll give me a chance to catch up so I won't have to come in as early tomorrow. Takes time for them to break their toys. They're usually not in here til around lunch time." Lyndsey replied.

"Gonna play hooky tomorrow?" Johnson asked.

No, just a wee bit of a late start. I'm catching the train up to Seoul after my shift." Lyndsey answered.

"Ah, I see. Hitting the clubs are we?" Terrence asked.

"No, I don't know what I'll do I just need to get away from this place." Lyndsey replied.

"Well then we better hope there's nothing broken on those tanks they're bringing down here this afternoon." Johnson commented.

"There better not be. I know the guy leading that convoy from my time in Iraq and if there is as much as one scratch on those tanks I'll have his balls in a vice." Lyndsey replied.

"Ouch! Remind me never to piss you off." Johnson chuckled.

"Even if there's something up with them I'll still be back around 0800 or 0900. Not going to snooze the whole morning but I'll like to catch a little shut eye after being out til 2 in the morning or whatever." Lyndsey remarked

"If anyone says anything I got your back, you know that." Johnson told her.

"I know Big Johnson. You're always there when I need you." Lyndsey said before picking up the boxes and carrying them back to the mechanics that needed them before she got to work on the tank she was working on.

Back in Seoul Bremer's army convoy passed by a concert venue where some idol girl band was about to take stage before a packed house before the trucks heading to Seongnam branched away from the US forces going to Camp Humphreys.

On the floor of the concert venue Kim Hyo-ri and her friends were gathered together to watch the opening act. Hyo-ri was one of the popular girls and known as the proverbial queen of the incoming junior class at her high school. She was the one that all the girls wanted to befriend and all the boys wanted to date. She was smart, attractive and kind, with a good heart, an optimistic attitude and a cheerful sense of humor. She was as it would be, beautiful both inside and out. As the performers for the opening act took the stage a girl standing a few rows in front of one of Hyo-ri's friends raised up her cell phone camera and started to record the performance.

Elsewhere in the city Chae-lin, a close friend of Hyuna's was watching the video as it was being uploaded from the girl's phone. Her boyfriend, Ji-yong stood impatiently at her side while the waited on a bench outside a row of boutique shops for the scheduled bus to pull up. Chae-lin was a year and a half older than Hyuna while her boyfriend was the same age. Chae-lin was of a more solid build than most Korean girls. She was firm, strong and definitely not rail thin, though in excellent physical condition. He face was more rounded than Hyuna's which took a sharp angular shape and she had larger eyes which lacked the exaggerated Asian features that Hyuna had. Her equally dark slightly shorter, yet still rather long, hair was streaked with blonde and purple streaks. She wore a black leather bomber jacket adorned with old school punk rock patches and a few of her own designs over a white and black horizontally striped shirt, insanely short jean shorts and polished black leather ladies boots. Ji-yong was ripped as well, being a bit more muscular and manly in appearance than was the current style for boys in Seoul. He wore a black and grey print T-shirt, black pants with the intentionally ripped knees and fingerless leather gloves. He wore a pair of faux gold chains around his neck and round sunglasses that were right now raised above his eyes being that there was no need for them in the shade of the alien vessel. His hair was bleached blonde and spiked up. The two of them overall looked like a splendid punk rock couple. They would have each gotten a number of tattoos by now if they could to complete that image but given the difficulty to find qualified tattoo artists with reputable work in Seoul that proved to be a challenge. They had often joked about going to Japan just to get some serious ink done.

After the bus arrived and released its brakes with an audible hiss the doors opened and among several other people Hyuna got out. She removed the headphones from her ears and ran to meet Chae-lin. The two girls gave each other a hug, Chae-lin being the larger and stronger of the two lifted Hyuna slightly off the ground during their embrace while Ji-yong stood back and watched. The two girls broke their embrace and Chae-lin stepped back and looked Hyuna up and down with a glowing smile on her face.

"So you actually showed up, all right!" exclaimed Chae-lin giving Hyuna two thumbs up.

"Someone here didn't believe you would come, said you thought you were too good to hang out with us." Chae-lin said sarcastically while glancing back over at her boyfriend.

"Are you kidding? Of course I was going to come! We haven't had a chance to hang out since that stupid UFO showed up." Hyuna remarked, glancing up only briefly at the sky before beaming a radiant look back to her friends.

"Aliens. . . sure know how to put a damper on a girl's social life don't they?" quipped Chae-lin.

"You bet they do!" Hyuna replied

"So are you going to the party tonight?" Ji-yong asked effectively changing the subject.

"I dunno, we have school tomorrow." Hyuna answered bashfully.

"Don't be such a puss." chided Ji-yong

"Dude, they aren't starting until after all that dopey alien loving street festival is done. We'll be out til like four in the morning." Hyuna protested.

"Bock bock bock, bock." Ji-yong made clucking noises while flapping his arms in the manner of imitating a chicken.

"Meow!" Ji-yong continued to mock Hyuna.

"Oh alright, I'll come with you but there better be cute boys there." Hyuna finally gave in and agreed.

Chae-lin and Ji-yong both started laughing.

"That's all it took. Oh, don't you worry, if the party doesn't bring the boys the streets are going to be stuffed with all the lookers for the whole alien festival thing. If we got to we'll just snag us a boy for you out there before we go." Chae-lin promised Hyuna eliciting laughter from her boyfriend in the process.

"Hyuna, you're such a slut." joked Ji-yong.

"Hey! I'm still a virgin I'll have you know!" Hyuna rebuked him.

"Riiiight." sarcastically commented Ji-yong.

"You don't have to believe me but it's true." Hyuna said in her defense.

"So this party where's it at?" Hyuna turned to Chae-lin and shifted the conversation away from her perceived promiscuity.

"Gangdong District, at a friend of a friend's place. I'll get you directions later on today." Chae-lin answered.

"You know Gangdong don't you girl, oh my Gangdong is so ghet-to!" Ji-yong playfully ridiculed her.

"Shut up." Hyuna remarked back.

She used to live there when she was younger, before her dad got a new job and they all moved across the river. It wasn't that bad; she had fond memories of her childhood there and probably would end up moving back someday. That was if she didn't happen to find herself studying abroad which was something that her parents had really pushed upon her when she was younger. It made her think of just how disappointed they must have been with her mediocre ambitions and achievements to match these days.

"Don't mind him; it's going to be cool. This guy's parents are out of the country all next week so we could crash there whenever we want if you don't want to go home afterwards. I could take you to school in the morning if you want." Chae-lin told her.

"So then, we've got all day to kick it. What are we going to do til the sun goes down and it all gets hella crazy around here?" Ji-yong asked.

"Let's head off to the comic book store. We'll hit up whatever you guys want to do along the way." Hyuna answered. She had been wanting to pick up several of the newest issues for the series' she followed.

"That's as good of an idea as any. Come on!" Chae-lin said as she led the way down the street past the boutique shops and into an area packed with tall apartment buildings. In one of the ground floor apartment buildings that the three of them walked by a family could be seen through an open window watching a popular daytime variety show on TV.

As the same variety show was displayed on the screen of several televisions in the display window of a mom and pop electronics store a man on a motorcycle sped by. The motorcycle meandered through the streets of Seoul until it came up to the gates of the US Army's Yongsan Garrison. The rider removed his helmet and displayed his military ID to the guard at the gate who waved him on in. The man once more donned his helmet and rode up to one of the buildings and parked his bike. He got off the bike and walked inside, removing his helmet on his way inside.

The rider, Private Aaron Carter was the newest addition to the US forces serving in Seoul. Fresh out of infantry training and feeling as if he could take on the world he proceeded to enter the building that was to be his new home for the duration of the alien crisis in Seoul. He was a tall and lanky individual with lighter milk chocolate colored skin, awkwardly large ears and a poofed up afro style haircut that was a little more than a tad outside of military regulations. He was not as uncoordinated as his appearance would suggest instead making rather graceful strides as he confidently strolled down the hallway and up the stairs to the TV lounge and game room where several of his fellow soldiers were gathered and made his presence known.

"What's up bitches!" he announced as he walked into a room where several other soldiers were playing pool, card games, arm wrestling, gossiping or watching TV.

The soldiers all stopped their conversations for just a moment when Carter barged in leaving only the Eminem song "Kill You" playing in the background. Once they realized who it was most of them went back to what they were doing.

"Guess whose back!" Carter exclaimed as he spun around and made a showcase of his entrance into the game room.

He had gone into the Army not one day fresh out of high school and landed here in country fresh out of infantry training. Without a doubt he was the greenest man on base but from his swagger and comfort in social situations you couldn't have guessed it.

"Well, well, well looks like this nub thinks he's cock of the walk all of the sudden." remarked SGT Cameron Parker, the leader of a squad assigned to the Seoul patrols since the arrival of alien visitors.

Fortunately for Carter he was not a member of Parker's squad. The jovial Sergeant treated those under him with tough love; he was fair, but tough. This was something that reminded Carter of his own father and that was something he wanted no part of. Now Parker was an inch and a half shorter than Carter but looked as if he was the bigger man due to the fact he was filled out more completely with broad shoulders and a firmer muscle build. Parker was a good four shades darker than Carter, black as night, with a tight cut flat top haircut and a bit of fuzz on the face. Parker had a no shave chit due to his sensitive skin so was in fact strictly within military regulations in spite of being a tad scruffy looking. He was an experienced soldier and well-liked by many on base. Out of everyone Parker had been stationed in country the longest and was due to rotate back stateside sometime next year. The aliens had kind of thrown off everyone's rotation schedule so the exact time when Parker would be returning to his old Georgia stomping grounds was as of yet undetermined.

"Where the heck have you been all day?" asked SGT Jeremy Blake, a burly, somewhat portly soldier with a slick shaved head and both of his arms sleeved with colorful and magnificently done tattoos. Blake was seated at a table in the corner of the room playing cards with a couple other soldiers.

"Out on the town man, I can't stay cooped up on this base. I'm a wild animal bro, I gotta roam free." Carter replied.

"He got himself a bike so he went off and ditched us, I see how it is." said another soldier messing around with Carter.

"You've been in country less than a month and the first thing you do is go off and get a motorcycle?" Parker asked as he racked up a fresh game of pool between himself and another soldier.

"What? I got to have a ways to get around you know? The buses here are full of weird people and the schedules are in symbol-speak. All of ya'll know nothing impresses the honeys like a hot ride anyhow." Carter said slyly.

"Yeah, yeah, that little crotch rocket you got out there is sure one hot ride." sarcastically commented Blake.

"That thing is gayer than my ex-boyfriend and believe you me, he was gay, gay, gaaaaaay. Why don't you go ahead and paint hot pink flames down the side of it and sparkling rainbows around the exhaust pipes." Blake cheerfully derided Carter.

"Haters gonna hate." Carter shrugged off Blake's' comments and smiled.

In the corner across from the pool table sat PFC Jesse Williams reading a hardback copy of "The Fountainhead" while occasionally chiming in on the banter between the other soldiers. Williams was a bookish nerd with the body of a linebacker. His head and face were shaved smooth daily to where one could hardly see the stubble poking through his coal back skin. His arms and legs like tree trunks connected to a slightly flabby mid-section. He didn't necessarily work out he was just a big guy, and as a result of his size had played several sports growing up, mostly at the urging of his father. He however picked the army over football as the best shot for him to go to college, desiring in the end to pursue a purely cerebral career in the sciences or engineering rather than seeking the glitz and glamour of the NFL. Williams and Carter knew each other from boot camp where afterwards an injury had set Carter back on starting infantry school with him. The reconnected at Camp Red Cloud briefly before Williams was transferred to Seoul ahead of him. They got along in kind of a love/hate sort of way. Carter would always rip on Williams for being so dull and overly attached to his fiancée back home, whereas Williams would make fun of Carter for being a walking, talking stereotype. In Williams' estimation Carter might as well have been a character from the Dave Chappelle show. Conversely in Carter's opinion, Williams was the "most un-black black man" he had ever met, a title that Williams found to be racist in and of itself. Williams was also the Army darling and Carter had been known for insubordination on quite a few occasions. Nonetheless both of them had great potential to become fine soldiers if they so desired.

"You can do what you want but I will agree it was kind of a hasty investment." Williams chimed in on Carter, Parker and Blake's conversation.

"Well I'm not looking to invest Baby Huey. I'll leave that to you and all your Econ-major buddies back in Jersey. I on the other hand am going to live it up while I'm still young," Carter replied back to Williams.

Carter wandered over towards the pool tables and hovered around Parker to observe his game. He moved around the outside of the table and watched them take their shots, every so often glancing over at one of the TV's that was tuned into one of the local news channels where a female reporter was saying something about the latest alien activity in what might as well have been gibberish to Carter. Of all the soldiers there he was the least proficient in Korean, being that he knew absolutely nothing. The junior enlisted guys save the interpreters usually only knew a few words in the local dialect or could understand it somewhat but not speak it back to people. The higher ranking NCOs and officers, along with those who had been in country a while knew a bit more depending on how much effort they had put in on trying to communicate with the locals. Fortunately for the soldiers English as a second language was widely taught in this country and they could typically manage with a very rudimentary understanding of the local tongue. While the news report went on, showing pictures of a silver disc docking with one of the massive triangles over Shanghai, Carter waited for Parker or his opponent to mess up and do something stupid.

"Ooooooweeeee my grandma could've made that shot." Carter made fun of Parker after he whiffed a shot.

"Carter's got the next game. I wanna see if he can back up all the smack he talks." Parker announced after wagging his head side to side at Carter's comment.

"Oh I can back it up Sergeant, just you wait." Carter boasted.

"I'm waiting Afro-Ninja, oh boy I am waiting." Parker said as he skillfully sunk his next shot and overtly displayed his satisfaction to Carter.

Carter went over to one of the plush chairs next to Williams and plopped himself down. Meanwhile PVT Sara Shimizu, a radio operator who went through boot camp with Carter and Williams walked in alongside another soldier who also recognized the two of them.

"So the gang's all here now? Seems they just can't stop moving people down here since the funny things in the sky showed up." Shimizu said upon seeing Carter there.

"Soto's here too in case you're wondering." she added.

"Small world we live in huh?" Carter remarked.

"Yeah the living conditions are tight down in the barracks but hey we're here in the big city where everything is happening." remarked PFC Mendoza.

"Right, right, sure beats the hell out of Red Cloud. Thanks aliens." Carter concurred.

"I say we throw a big party in the barracks after the patrols get back now that we're all in one place. I'll bring the beer you bring the tunes alright Carter?" Mendoza suggested.

"Sounds like a plan my brother" Carter replied.

"What about you Baby Huey?" Carter asked Williams.

"I'm down. I won't be drinking but I'll jam out with you, maybe play a little Xbox, four way Call of Duty?" Williams consented.

"Right on. You can count me in too." Fontaine called over to them.

"So what about you Sarge, you gonna drop by and have a boy's night in?" Carter asked.

"Nah Cam's been staying up in family housing now. He's too good to hang with his boys" Mendoza remarked.

"At least I get guaranteed pussy every night." Parker playfully riposted.

"I get guaranteed pussy every night too." Carter claimed.

"Bullshit Carter, you're full of it." Parker refuted his claim.

"You just don't understand, all the ladies they be wanting some of this." Carter said as he moved his hands up and down his body showing off his rather scrawny physique.

"Don't be teasing if you're not going to follow through." Blake joked.

"Hey, hey, easy there big guy. This merchandise, it's not for you." Carter told Blake.

"You don't want Carter anyways, he's a dick." Shimizu quipped as she walked over to Fontaine and Galloway and looked over their shoulders.

"Got room for one more?" she asked the two of them.

"Yeah, just log into the one over there and we'll patch you into our game." Fontaine replied.

"But I like dicks." commented Blake.

"You can get better. Besides I thought you had a boyfriend back in the states." Shimizu replied.

"I did, but he dumped me after he found out I was in the Army. I don't know if it was a bunch of political bullshit on his behalf or he was just jealous of all you fine pieces of man meat." Blake explained.

"Don't be eying up my meat you big horny lumberjack!" Carter comedic ally snapped at Blake.

"Lumberjack eh? So you think I'd look good in flannel?" Blake asked Carter with a wink and a half-cocked smile.

"Ah no man, that's not what I meant." Carter sassed back.

"Anyways I don't know what my ex's beef was. He just didn't want to be dating any army boys I suppose." Blake went back to explaining his breakup to the other soldiers.

"That sucks. Sorry to hear that man." Fontaine consoled him while he set up the next game.

"No biggie, it's on him for not asking when we got together. He's the sad sack that wanted to hop straight into the sack on the first date not me." Blake replied.

"What really sucks is I hear Korea still treats male on male relations as a big taboo. You should've tried to get stationed in Japan or something." Shimizu remarked.

"Germany. Hot damn, there are some fine looking men over in Deutschland." Blake commented.

"Oh yeah, I forgot you're a metalhead. That Viking stuff must really get you hot." Shimizu giggled.

"That's Sweden but close enough." Fontaine commented.

"Ahem, excuse me, for any of us fine young men who are not gay, can any of you scrubs direct me to where all the shawtys be at?" Carter stood up and asked the group around the pool table.

"Hmmm. . .Seeing as you're at that awkward age where you're too young to hit the club scene and too old to be trolling the high schools, it looks like your options are stuck between the internet, hipster coffee shops or that stupid K-pop concert festival thingy they have going on today." mockingly joked Parker as he nailed a shot sending one ball into the left corner pocket and another into the right side pocket.

"Sounds gay. Why can't they have any rock bands or rappers over here?" Carter asked half rhetorically.

"As a gay man I must object, equating K-pop to gays is offensive to gays." chimed in Blake from behind a card table across the room.

"Give me some Carnifex any day of the week, some classic Cannibal Corpse, Infant Annihilator, Skeletonwitch or Finntroll, Finntroll's good too. Hell even some old school shit like Slayer would be welcome." Blake continued.

"Oh yeah and Amon Amarth, I loves me some Amon Amarth." Blake said with a grin.

One of the men sitting next to Blake commented a few other bands and started gossiping off topic with Blake.

"I can't understand a damn thing your death metal bands are saying Blake, same as the fucking K-pop to me." Carter responded.

"That's the point." Jake chimed in.

"How dare you!" exclaimed Blake, standing up and feigning outrage.

"Technically they got rap around here but it's kind of fruit-ay for a guy that grew up on Dr. Dre." Sgt. Parker remarked.

"Ahem! Let's not bring gays down by association here." Blake jokingly protested.

"It's no Snoop or Biggie, or for you young bucks Kendrick Lamar or whatever the hell you jits listen to." Parker said as he surveyed the pool table and chalked up is cue.

"I think Private Carter likes it fruit-tay Sarge. My gay-dar is going off the charts." joked Blake, pretending to flirt with Carter.

Carter looked over at him with a puzzled glare. "I thought we established the fact that I'm off limits to you." Carter reminded him.

"What we need is to have Ol Snoop Dogg come down here and show these minor leaguers how it's done." remarked another soldier in the room.

"I hear you there brother. The local shit's still better than Kanye though." Sgt Parker quipped after he took his shot, knocking in one of his balls from behind the 8 ball.

"Anything is better than Kanye." Williams chimed in.

"Right, right." the other soldier applauded.

"Don't be hating Cam; you know Kanye is a motherfucking genius!" Carter mockingly chided Parker and Williams.

"Us young bucks still know who Snoop is Sergeant, and I don't even like rap." commented Williams.

"I'm surprised you do though. I'd figured you for some orchestra snob or one of those creepy guys that jives to all that smooth jazz Baby Huey." Carter mocked Williams.

"Stuff's good for setting the mood, nice and chill, and very relaxing. Jazz, indie rock, classical, it's all good to me." Williams said in a cool unfazed voice.

Carter laughed as he walked around the table and observer Parker's opponent taking his turn, a shot he missed and instead tapped two of the sergeant's balls in.

"Better than listening to some guy rapping about his dick for five minutes." Williams remarked, turning the page in his book and continuing to read at the same time.

"Still sounds lame, but not as lame as this K-pop shit." Carter commented as he backed up and watched Parker miss a shot, but not by much.

"8 ball, side pocket." Parker stated before taking what he thought was his last shot which ended up a little off and thus continued the game.

"It's not that bad Carter." commented SPC Jake Fontaine from a desk recessed into a half cubicle across the room and around the L shaped curve from the pool table where he and Private Adam Galloway were online playing the latest StarCraft game along with Private Shimizu.

Carter turned around to see who had said that and saw them there sitting at the computer station. Lo and behold it was the two nerds of the bunch of course. Private Galloway was a scrawny kid barely a day past 18. He was lanky, slim and half an inch shorter than Fontaine. He had disproportionately large feet that had necessitated he wore custom fit boots since he didn't fit in any common shoe sizes. In addition to his jumbo sized feet his frail figure made his head look oversized compared to his body. He had a fresh military buzz cut, was clean shaven and had a bit of an acne problem, which didn't appear as bad from a distance because of his dark complexion but closer up one could see the metaphorical mountain ranges on his cheeks, nose and forehead. Dressed in his civvies while on downtime now, he wore a button down flannel dress shirt and khakis along with thick horn rimmed glasses, dubbed birth control glasses or BCGs by the other soldiers, that made him look like eerily similar to Steve Urkel from the 90s sitcom Family Matters.

Fontaine stood 5'7" which made him short among the company of the other US soldiers but about average or even a bit tall when considering Seoul as a whole. The fact he kept indoors quite a bit gave him quite a pale complexion. Fontaine had dark brown to black hair that contrasted with his skin tone giving him a Goth look though it was totally natural. His hair was cut short but even, a little longer on the top than on the sides and the back, not a military buzz cut but smoother and cleaner looking than a chili bowl. He was somewhat athletic in his arms, legs and chest for someone who spent so much time gaming though a little flabby around the mid-section. He had the early stages of a beer gut though he rarely drank beer; rum was his preferred toxin of choice on the occasions when he went out with the guys. More or less however Fontaine spent his time off duty here on base plugged into a game system, going online or arguing the finer points of graphic novels with his new buddy Galloway and a couple others. He had grown up as much of a shut in from a rural southern family as he was on base so not surprisingly he had never had a real girlfriend or had even been with a member of the opposite sex; a fact he would be teased for on occasion my his squad mates though none of them actually knew.

"In fact some of it is actually pretty good." Jake continued.

"Go figure, I'd hear that kind of talk coming from a white boy." Carter derided Jake.

"Don't you even start with that country western bull crap Torres!" Carter immediately swung about and scolded SPC Torres who was sitting on the couch opposite Fontaine and Galloway watching something on the large flat screen TV next to them.

"I didn't say one word." Torres said in his defense.

"You were thinking it. I know it. You were thinking that damn Carter is such a music snob he needs to branch out and take a listen to a bunch of banjo playing inbreds singing about gay Georgia bloodhounds or their wives leaving them or tears in their beers or whatever." Carter said to Torres.

Torres laughed at the accusation. "Oh boy, I wasn't thinking anything of the sort but yeah. I don't particularly care for any of that cutesy stuff myself so I can't comment."

"See you got some sense boy." Carter replied.

"You know these damn Koreans are like everything that is lame about white folk all boiled down, concentrated and multiplied by three." Carter complained.

"White folk, black folk, we all bleed red Carter, best to remember that." Parker admonished him in a smooth casual tone.

"Well the aliens might bleed blue." Fontaine commented.

"Damn it Fontaine with your science shit, I was trying to edu-ma-cate this sassy jit over here." Parker said to Fontaine before turning back to Carter.

"The point is that you better watch it Carter, you're going to be here for a while if the Army has any say in it." Sgt. Parker warned him.

"Damn it man, I joined the Army to go shoot at people in foreign countries not wipe their asses for them." snarkily remarked Carter.

"You could be shooting at people here if that fat turd on the other side of the wall gets a bug up his ass." Fontaine reminded him.

"You don't want to have to shoot at people son, cause if you're shooting at them they're shooting back at you." Parker replied as he walked over to the wall and exchanged his pool cue for a different one.

"Better to build bridges than walls. Besides I hear you're getting to ride with the liaison officer tonight." Parker told him as he examined his new "lucky" cue stick.

"Game up Carter, you're on." Parker bid Carter to challenge him.

"I hear that guy's a real hippie, or a tool. I can't remember which." another soldier sitting around watching TV chimed in.

"Is he the kind of hippie that smokes the ganja or the whiny type that goes around hugging baby seals and bitches about normal folks eating meat? 'Cause if he's a smoker I can get down with that." asked Carter as he selected a cue stick while Parker set up the table.

"I don't know. I don't chum up to the officers much off duty." Parker replied with a laugh.

While waiting for Parker to set up the board Carter went over to where Fontaine and Galloway were to mess around with them a little in order to pass the time.

"What's this stuff you're playing, Minecraft?" asked Carter as he hovered over Fontaine and Galloway.

"The new StarCraft, Protoss expansion." answered Fontaine.

"They've been on that thing all day." remarked Blake.

"Looks like we got a couple of class A nerds here. If it isn't Professor Beaker Beakman and Steve motherfuckin' Urkel." Carter ridiculed them.

"If you just had the Urkel voice Galloway, if only." Fontaine chuckled to his friend.

"Speaking of, you don't have any accent at all kid, where you from, Nebraska or something boring as hell like that?" Carter asked, noticing Jake didn't seem to speak with any noticeable regional dialect.

"Mississippi, out in the sticks near the border with Cajun country." Jake replied.

One could say his plain and proper manner of speaking was the result of the Army's foreign language trainer since he was their interpreter. That however was not the case, for reasons unknown he never had picked up the bayou accent despite having lived there his whole life. So much so was his speech distinct that people back in his home town had always wondered if he was from somewhere else.

"Mississippi? That's about as deep into the deep south as you can get. I'm gonna start calling you Cornbread from now on." Carter replied.

"I'm surprised you don't listen to all that country fried cowboy crap that Torres listens to." Carter sassed off.

"Hey!" Torres objected.

"Oh I'm sorry, you Mexicans like all that extra sad Spanish country with the accordions and stuff." Carter corrected himself.

"I'm not Mexican Carter, I'm Salvadorian. Oh and I listen to American country by the way, not as much Tejano or Norteno as you'd think." Torres corrected him.

"Torres you sound like Cornbread too, not one trace of that Texas twang in you at all even with that depressing hillbilly music you listen to." Carter said completely disregarding Torres' last statement.

"The army must beat the accent out of ya'll to become interpreters huh?" Carter asked.

"Not at all, I've always talked like this." replied Fontaine.

"Then you must be an alien then. We best watch out for you Cornbread, you'll be sending our secrets up there to the mothership and pretty soon the spacemen up there will be knowing our shoe sizes and shit. Now Torres I get it cause he's from Texas and he's Mexican so the two accents cancel each other out, but you. ." Carter started to rant.

"Salvadorian." Torres interrupted and corrected Carter.

"Whatever it's all the same." Carter quipped back.

"No. It isn't" Torres insisted.

"Carter are you going to play me or you just going to stand over there talking smack?" Parker beckoned Carter back to the table.

"Keep your pants on Sarge, I'm on my way." Carter mouthed off and walked back over to the pool table.

"You break." Parker offered.

Carter took the first shot and sent two balls into the pockets.

"You know if it wasn't for the aliens we would be out of this country in a couple years, maybe even before my enlistment is up. Then what would you Korean interpreters be doing? Whoops, looks like it's off to the infantry for you." Carter turned back and said to Torres and Fontaine after taking his first shot.

"Well, I could always be reclassified as an interpreter in Farsi, it was my mother tongue after all." responded Sergeant Hakim, another one of the interpreters in the room who had been minding his business reading science articles on his phone over by the folding card table.

"I don't know about the rest of you, I guess you're just screwed." Hakim joked.

"You will still be sent back to the Middle East and get shot at so it's not a win-win for you either." Jake commented.

"Right you are there. It'd probably be worse for me too; the bad guys over there would be gunning for me harder than they would be for you." Hakim replied.

"Why is that?" Carter asked.

"The ones over there that we gotta watch out for would consider those like me an apostate. You guys are just the filthy invading pigs to them, it's nothing personal but for me there's a little more emotion involved. It doesn't help that those like me consider them to be the apostates." Hakim explained.

"Well damn, I guess it sucks for you too." Carter replied after finishing up his next shot and letting Parker take his turn.

After they took several turns back and forth Carter walked around the pool table impatiently scoping out what Parker was doing. Parker pushed him aside when he leaned out in front of him and blocked Parker's vision enough with his afro to make him screw up the shot.

"I get a do over; your hair was in the way." Parker asserted.

"Yeah right. Rules are rules Sergeant." Carter refused the claim.

"No really Carter I would have made that shot if your poof ball wasn't in the way." Parker insisted.

"It's not that bad dude, you're exaggerating." Carter smiled and dismissed him.

"Come on Q-tip, like seriously have you ever heard of something called a barber shop? I hear the fro went out of style in the seventies. Did your daddy dust it off out of the old closet where he keeps his rhinestone studded bell bottoms and give it to you as a birthday present?" Parker sarcastically asked Carter.

"He got it from his daddy yo! He got it from his daddy." Fontaine sung mockingly to Carter from across the room.

"Shut up Cornbread!" Carter snapped back.

"Actually Carter, it looks cool on you. The style came back last decade and some people I knew back home were still rocking it when I shipped out." Fontaine said to Carter.

"Cam's just jealous he can't grow it out anymore." Carter quipped while looking over towards Fontaine and Galloway.

"I can grow it out however I feel like growing it out I simply have more sense than to walk around looking like something from Super Mario Brothers." Parker retorted.

Fontaine and Galloway giggled at the comment, looked at each other and back at Carter picturing him with white hair speckled with colored dots.

"It would be kind of cool if he colored it to look like Toad." Fontaine remarked.

"Why not throw out all uniform regulations while we're at it?" sarcastically suggested Parker.

"Oh just take the shot then Sarge." Carter conceded.

"What do you guys got riding on this game?" asked Fontaine while Parker got his do over shot.

"Twenty dollars and a pack of smokes." answered Carter.

"I didn't know you smoked." remarked Williams.

"I don't but I can trade them to folks who do. Shit becomes worth its weight in gold out in a foxhole or so I've heard." Carter replied.

After Parker's do over shot netted no gain to him Carter leaned over and lined up the next shot as a couple other soldiers walked into the room.

"So where are you gonna be at tonight slim?" asked PFC Clarissa Soto as she pinched Carter's butt on her way past him causing him to mess up a shot of his own

The other soldier, Corporal Matthew Hernandez took a seat next to Williams and glanced over to see what book he was reading. Soto knew Carter from high school, where they had been longtime friends. They were the same age but Soto had graduated a year earlier because Carter had to retake a few classes his freshman year. While they had never dated they had an ongoing "friends with benefits" arrangement whenever the both of them were single, an arrangement that presumably would carry on into their military careers. Soto was a well-built woman, a real "brick house" so to speak. She had strong arms, toned legs, wide hips and a firm round butt that fit snugly into her uniform. Her D-cup breast also bulged out against the top of her uniform as well. Soto was the daughter of Dominican father and a black mother and fore distinguishing features of both. Her hair was thick, straight and a dark chestnut brown in color. She was currently wearing it tied up into a single ponytail making it look a lot shorter than it was. Her skin was like that of a rich mocha saturated with heavy cream down to almost a maroon shade. It wasn't dark enough to conceal the pot marks and other imperfections on her cheeks which resulted from harsh acne treatments during her earlier teenage years, imperfections she hoped she would grow out of but for now they served to add to her "tough girl" image. She rarely if ever wore makeup and for the most part preferred the company of men to other women. She knew more about sports than half the men in the room and could out wrestle about half of them too. She was the type that jumped at the chance to take up a combat role in the Army once that restriction was lifted for female soldiers.

Carter stood up after taking the shot and smirked at her. "Oh you gonna be the one putting the moves on me now girl mmm mmm you naughty little bitch you are." Carter flirtatiously replied.

Soto gave him a look of embarrassment and disapproval which faded to a halfcocked smile.

"There's no need for the lame pickup lines boy, you're getting some either way. I've got an itch that needs scratching, that's all. That jive you're spouting just makes you look foolish." Soto told him.

"I can scratch it baby." chimed in Hernandez from the other side of the pool table.

Carter looked over and stared him down territorially then resumed his lighthearted cocky attitude towards Soto.

"It's all good girl, you know I'm always down for some duty booty. I'll be down in Gang Dang Dong tonight if you want to slob on the schlong." Carter propositioned her.

"Sodomy is against the UCMJ." jokingly chimed in Williams.

"Aww pssshit, they don't give a damn about that shit and what, I didn't even say anything about putting it in her butt." Carter dismissed him.

"BJ's are sodomy too, check yourself Private Carter." Williams refuted him.

"Shut the fuck up baby Huey!" Carter snapped back at him after he couldn't think of anything else to say in return.

"The Army doesn't really give a shit about that. Either way Carter, don't be making plans, she's assigned to my squad and tonight we're up in Nowon District, well away from you and that dastardly little schlong of yours." Parker told him.

"What did I tell ya big guy! Your boy got game!" Carter bragged after sinking his last ball and following it up with the 8 ball.

"You got lucky kid, I'll give you that." Parker conceded to Carter as he handed over the agreed upon wager.

"Thank you, thank you. It takes a real man to admit he's been beat." Carter said reveling in his minor victory.

"So how about we go outside and play a real man's game now?" Parker proposed.

"Like what?" asked Carter

"How about football? American football not this pussy licking soccer stuff." Parker suggested.

"I got Huey!" Carter immediately said.

"I got Williams!" Parker said at the exact same time.

"I'm with the guy who said my name correctly." Williams stated.

"Ah damn! Fine then. Big gay lumberjack! You're with me!" Carter drafted Blake, the second biggest guy in the room onto his team.

"For what? Pussy licking or soccer?" Blake asked as he looked up from his phone having not paid full attention to what was being said around him.

"Excuse me, the pussy licking is for after the soccer game and that's only if your team wins." Torres spoke up.

"Don't you actually have to score to win? Most soccer games I've seen have all been ties." Parker commented.

"Yeah we do love our ties, I'll admit that. It's not the scoring that makes it fun it's the anticipation of scoring. One goal is all that it takes to make the game." Torres stated.

"It's kind of like the opposite of basketball." Carter commented.

"Exactly. A 1-0 soccer game can be just as exciting as a 96-93 basketball game." Torres explained.

"Cool. Leave it to the Mexican to know everything there is about soccer." Carter quipped.

"Salvadorian!" Torres corrected him yet again.

"Whatever. You want to come with?" Carter asked.

"Nah, I just showered I don't want to get all sweaty again." Torres declined the offer.

"Alright you stay in here and powder your nose with your girlfriends. The men in here will be outside." Carter said as he, Williams, Blake, Parker, Hernandez, Mendoza and three other soldiers walked out of the room.

"I'm coming too." Soto volunteered.

"No fair, I can't tackle a girl." Hernandez complained.

"I can sure as hell tackle you." Soto quipped.

"She's with me." Carter asserted before Parker could call dibs.

"I got your back Sarge. We can't let Q-tip and his girl whip up on us twice can we?" Hakim said throwing his lot in with Parker's team.

With that the group went outside to toss the football around leaving only the gamers and Torres behind. Torres got up and stood behind Galloway glancing over at Fontaine's and Sara's screens as well and watched them play. Fontaine and Galloway both played as Terrans while Shimizu was leading a smaller Protoss force against two Zerg players fielding large armies and one Terran player whom they had already soundly defeated.

"You guys are kicking some serious ass there." commented a soldier passing by.

"You kidding, we've got slaying Zerg down to a science." Shimizu remarked as the three of them ran through one of their opponents bases and completely trashed his structures.

Across town in Incheon their online opponent, a teenage boy named Ho-jun was picking up the slack for his less than crafty partner.

"Come on man, these Terran dingbats are kicking your ass. Need me to reinforce your hive clusters bro?" Ho-jun said through his microphone.

"Ho-jun! You can't stay on that thing all day. Remember you have homework to do!" his father called up to him on his way outside to take out the trash.

"I'll get to it dad. Let me finish this game first please." Ho-jun called back.

While Ho-jun's father put the trash in the trash can a police car passed by carrying a burglary suspect in the back. The police went into downtown Incheon and pulled into a police station where the suspect was brought in for questioning. On their way in the officer and the suspect passed by Huang Chi, a defense attorney who had just met with his client in jail and was on his way out to his car. Inside the police station uniformed officers and administrative staff went about their day to day business. The station chief walked over towards the desk of one of his top detectives, Chae Ji-hye carrying two manila folders.

"We've got possible arson and assault and battery Detective, take your pick" said the station chief setting down two files on Ji-hye's desk.

She looked up at the Chief then picked up the folders and went through them. Meanwhile on a small TV screen sitting on a desk adjacent to hers a news report was playing saying something about another failed attempt to contact the aliens that had taken place somewhere in Europe.

The news report playing on the small TV screen in the police station was also displayed on a larger television screen in a hospital which Tae-yon, a surgical nurse here on an internship, passed by on her way to the operating room. She was already running late and didn't have time to pay attention to it she just power walked through the hall weaving around the people in her way. This would be her last major surgery assist with under supervision before she had officially completed the skills requirements for her internship. It had been a long time coming for Tae-yon and at last she would be ready for full certification. She rushed by the nurses station on her way to the OR not even stopping to say hello to the people there.

"Tae-yon sure seems in a hurry today." a male nurse commented.

"Her internship is about to be over, what do you expect?" a female nurse replied after taking a sip from her coffee mug and setting it down.

Hundreds of miles away out in the Pacific the exact same coffee cup was being filled on board the USS Ronald Reagan. The cup was picked up by an auburn haired naval aviator in her mid-20s. After blowing on the coffee which was still too hot LT (JG) Tiffany Fox set down her coffee cup on the table of her ready room as the door opened and the CAG officer walked in. The pilots hushed their conversations and all rose to attention.

"At ease." the CAG said.

"As you are probably aware the skipper has suspended all flight operations for the day due to the elevated UFO traffic in the skies today. We're not going to risk another incident like the Portuguese had on Tuesday. If the god damned aliens can't watch where they're going that's their own problem now." the CAG continued.

A dull round of laughter came from the on duty flight squadron.

"We will keep you posted if and when flight operations will resume later. Until then you are dismissed, carry on." the CAG told the pilots and then left the ready room.

The pilots all resumed their idle chatter while the CAG walked out onto the flight deck and observed the alien spacecraft flying in a wide formation. The formation dispersed and the ships went off in various directions. A cacophony of sonic booms echoed across the sky as the small ships zipped away.

"If I didn't know any better I'd swear they were putting on a show for us." the CAG remarked.

Later on one of the fighters that had streaked away from the Reagan flew over the Korean peninsula and coasted on past Seoul before going out over the Yellow Sea towards China and beyond. As the fighter crossed overhead Carter and company's football game had just begun. As if the fighter thundering by made him do it Carter slipped up and dropped the ball that was snapped to him immediately prompting a dogpile from which Blake emerged holding onto the ball for his team.

"Way to go fumbling the ball on the first snap." Soto playfully ridiculed Carter.

"I couldn't touch his nuts! What if he got hard?" Carter complained.

Soto and Blake both gave him a look of disapproval.

"We got the ball back didn't we? Huh, huh, so there." Carter asserted.

"How about I play QB and you take tight end?" Soto suggested.

"Do I look like a tight end to you?" Carter sassed off, implying he wasn't exactly build as solid as he should have been to play that position.

"I don't know, hmm looks kind of tight to me." Soto joked while glancing down at Carter's rump.

"Fine you're on wide receiver." Soto told him after Carter didn't appear to get her flirtatious remark.

"Alright, so here's the play." Soto clapped her hands together and started telling her team their next play.

The snap went off without a hitch this time and Soto fell back and threw a pass to Carter. Carter caught the pass and came just short of a first down before being tackled by Hernandez and another soldier. The three men got up just as an alien fighter sized craft buzzed overhead.

"You kind of forget they're still there." Hernandez remarked looking up at the triangular mothership that had cast its broad shadow over the city for weeks on end.

On the next play Soto dropped back as if she was going to throw the ball to Carter again but instead once most of the other team had moved to cover him she ran around to the other side and went for it herself. Williams slipped past Blake but couldn't match her speed. Only Hernandez was close enough to pose any risk to Soto as everyone else had swallowed up Carter and their other receivers on the opposite side of the field. Soto juked to the side and faked out Hernandez before sprinting ahead at full speed. Soto slipped past Hernandez in the backfield and ran unopposed into the end zone. Hernandez made one last bid towards her but his hands made contact only with the air.

"Dude, dude, you just let her score on us. Where were you man?" Parker said to Hernandez as his team gathered back together.

"Oh come on, you know I can't tackle a girl." Hernandez complained.

"You were nowhere near her slick; you couldn't have tackled her if you wanted to. Don't give me this chivalrous nonsense." Carter derided him.

Once Parker's team got the ball Parker tossed a long bomb to Hakim and scored on their very first play.

"Ah yeah, that's some all-star shit there." Parker boasted.

Carter's team then took the ball and with a little more trouble than before inched their way to another touchdown after six plays and two first downs. They then successfully shut down Parker's team's next attempt to score after eleven plays.

"Ah yeah, this is just like boot camp! Who's the all-star now bitches!" Carter bragged.

"If I recall correctly we all gave you a nice sock party back in boot." Mendoza remarked.

"And he still hasn't learned to keep his yap shut." Soto laughed.

The game went on back and forth with each side scoring on their possession until Carter jumped out and intercepted a pass intended for Hakim.

"What are we playing to? First to 40?" Carter asked.

"Let's go to 50." Parker replied hoping to drag the game out and give his team a better chance to win.

After several more touchdowns, a few failed extra points and a two point conversion the final score was 56 to 48 in favor of Carter's team.

"I told you Cam, you can't beat me." Carter boasted in the midst of a celebratory dance before they all started back towards the barracks to get cleaned up.

"Don't get a big head kid, it wasn't like luck had nothing to do with it." laughed Parker.

"So we're even stevens now. I got the brains, you got the brawn. Want to go for two out of three?" Carter said.

"I'm down; we still have time to kill before we make our rounds tonight. Pick your poison Carter; what do you want to lose this time?" Parker replied.

"I don't know, umm how about we shoot some dice?" Carter suggested.

"Dice? Pssht come on, bring out ol' ashy Larry! You can do better than that Carter; we might as well have a pussy eating contest while we're at it." Parker quipped back.

"We could bump wieners and see whose stays hard the longest. Just like boot camp remember?" Hernandez sarcastically brought up a most embarrassing aspect of their boot camp experience.

"Don't you ever mention that shit again. Besides we all know Blake would win that shit." Carter sassed back.

"I'd lose the pussy eating contest though. Man that shit smells so rank!" Blake chimed in.

"Your balls smell rank!" Carter quipped back.

"Like a fine cheese my boy, it's something to be savored." Blake said just to screw with Carter's head.

"Let's just make it simple, we got back, kick the nerds off the system and I trounce your ass at Call of Duty." proposed Parker.

"Oh it's on Sarge, it's on." Carter accepted the challenge.

When Carter, Williams, Parker, Blake and the rest had come back inside from playing football at the park on base they found Torres and Fontaine singing a duet out of some upbeat indie song not intended to be a duet together in the karaoke lounge adjacent to the main barracks. The lounge was empty except for the two of them but they didn't care; they could clown around just the same if someone was watching or not.

"What the fuck is that noise? Sounds like a squirrel fucking a cat inside a trash can filled with ping pong balls." Carter remarked sarcastically.

"Nah, more like a frog raping a dog on a log inside a box full of angry bees." Blake commented.

"Over there. Our go betweens are singing a little love song to each other." Parker pointed out Fontaine and Torres to Carter as they walked by.

"We have the doucheyest interpreters in the whole damn Army." Carter sneered.

"Nah, they've just been here longer than you boy. It simply wouldn't be Seoul without a karaoke bar on base." Parker laughed.

"Get a room!" Blake jeered in good jest.

"We have one!" Fontaine shouted back to him.

"Oh yeah, that's right those two clowns are roommates." said Blake.

"You know what Forget Call of Duty. I want to see you two jokers go head to head in a karaoke competition. Kind of like American Idol but not as lame." Soto said nudging Carter.

"Oh, oh, oh I get it." Carter smirked at her.

"Get what? I think it will be funny." Soto replied.

"Oh sure you do. Prepared to be amazed baby." Carter told her.

"That's an awfully subjective contest, more of a popularity contest than an actual sport but I'll give it a go just to see Carter make an ass out of himself." Parker consented to Soto's idea.

"I'm down with it; we could have a little rap battle here." Fontaine also pitched his hat into the ring for the contest as Carter went off to see what songs were loaded in the machine.

"Sit your ass down before you make a fool out of yourself boy." Parker mocked Fontaine.

"Don't you worry about that, I can hang." Fontaine assured him.

"Shit man, we got to find something in English on here." Carter said as he rummaged through the library.

"Look in here. You can download some of the songs into their library." Fontaine said, tossing his iPod over to Carter.

"Half this shit isn't in English either." Carter complained.

"He's an interpreter you douche. It's called immersion, helps him with his job." Parker explained.

"This boy takes that immersion stuff super serious don't you?" Torres joked with Fontaine.

Fontaine looked away and blushed in embarrassment. "He pretty much lives it, seriously guys I think he's gotten to the point where his dreams are in Korean." Torres playfully mocked him.

"Damn boy, you've been in country for what, 2 years and you're already going native on us?" Soto asked.

"Not even." Fontaine bashfully replied.

"You're good at what you do kid but don't get too carried away, the Army doesn't last forever. Eventually you're going to have to go home." Parker commented urging Jake to lighten up and enjoy life a little more.

"It's all good Sergeant, I might not be here forever but I figure it's going to be a while. After all what use does the Army have for a Korean interpreter anywhere else." Jake replied.

In his mind the Army would have to be scraping the bottom of the barrel pretty deep to send him anywhere else. Once the alien crisis was over, contact had been established and the world went back to the way it was, as much as it could with the knowledge that mankind was part of a much bigger universe, the drawdown of US forces in Korea would resume and eventually Jake would return with them. With the way things were going by that time Jake would have finished his enlistment and be out of the army. What exactly he would do after that he didn't know. Probably take his service benefits and go to school in one of the major urban centers along one of the coasts. He had no desire to return home to that dead end town by a swamp in the middle of nowhere. He wanted to start his civilian life somewhere like NYC, LA or Seattle, somewhere that he thought actually mattered. Where he came from wasn't even flyover country so just about anywhere in the developed world could be considered a step up from that in his opinion. If college didn't pan out for him he could always leverage his skills to seek employment in the business world, whether it was with US based firms or DoD contractors the worst case scenario was that he could end up finding himself back here which wouldn't be that bad. As different as Korea might have been Jake preferred it to where he came from. His disdain for his hometown and country life in general was well known both growing up and among his peers in the Army. So with that in mind "going native" wasn't exactly a bad thing in Jake's mind; it was insurance in case his plan A didn't go through.

"At least his iPod isn't stuffed with all that alien shit." Carter remarked as he scrolled through the immense list of albums Jake had downloaded.

"Shh...Carter, the aliens are listening to us. We shouldn't presume to judge what they listen to" Williams whispered putting a finger over his mouth.

"Probably something that sounds like nails on a chalkboard to us." remarked Blake.

"Which is pretty much your black metal crap." Carter quipped.

"I could easily be something outside of our range of hearing so it would just sound like silence to us." Jake added.

"I think I got something here." Carter said picking out a song and loading it into the machine.

"So how are we going to work this?" asked Carter.

"We'll have three judges and after each of your performances we'll rate you on a scale of one to ten, duh." Blake said.

"Oh and I'm judge number one." Blake added.

"I'll take the second spot." Torres volunteered.

"I guess I'll be number three, unless you want it big guy?" Hernandez offered looking first to Williams who shook his head no.

"Move over, there needs to be at least one judge on this panel that does not have a pair of balls." Soto said pushing Hernandez aside.

"How do we know you don't have one? I think I should check to make sure." Hernandez said trying to reach between her legs but instead getting pushed back away from her.

"Sit your ass down Hernandez." Carter scolded him.

"Alright baby don't keep us waiting now." Soto urged Carter to hurry up and get to it.

Carter performed the song "Heartless" by Kanye West. He was pretty spot on with the singing though it was his body language and exaggerated gestures that gave a comical element to the routine, particularly to Soto who thought that it would have been better if Carter had just stood in one place and kept his hands down.

Blake gave Carter a robust score of 8. "I can't fucking stand Kanye but I got to give credit where credit is due. You're owed some props for how you nailed it even if it was a terrible song. The routine you did up there is what pushed you over the top in my book. You got energy kid and I like that." Blake said giving Carter a thumbs up.

Torres held up a card showing the square root of 3.

"What the fuck is that shit?" asked Carter.

"The square root of three otherwise known as 1.732050807568877293527. . ." Torres replied.

"Let's just round it up and call it 2 ok?" Williams suggested.

"Ok, ok." Torres laughed.

"Ah you suck." Carter chided the two of them.

"Alright baby so what did you give me?" Carter asked Soto.

She held up a 5 and smiled at him.

"How the heck are you only giving me a 5 out of 10 on that? I thought you were my girl yo?" Carter asked Soto.

"I call it like I see it baby; not gonna give you any special treatment. Blake might have liked your routine but that's because that ox can't get down with a beat worth shit. Personally I thought it detracted from the song so I knocked you a couple points for that." Soto replied.

"Right on sister. No biases here." Williams applauded her.

"That's alright Huey, I don't need special treatment to come out on top. Let's see what Cam's got now." Carter said before swapping places with Parker.

Parker performed the song "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong, a cheerful classic tune though Parker's voice cracked during some of the parts. His stage presence was superior to Carter's even though the singing wasn't exactly on par. He did get all the lyrics right which was no different than before and Soto liked his choice of song better. After he was done he stood in front of the row of chairs where the "judges" were seated for their criticism.

Blake gave him a 6. "You got all the words but it doesn't sound like the original. Your pace was off and sometimes you went a little off key. If we were doing the Joey Ramone cover I would have said it was damn near flawless but we weren't." Blake explained.

"You missed some of the notes big time. Mr. Armstrong would not be amused. You looked like you knew what you were doing, didn't go over the top and you just let it flow. If you had kept on key the whole time you would've got a 9 from me but that's a big flaw right there. Still it flowed nicely so I'm giving you 6 out of 10." Soto told him also holding up a 6.

Lastly Torres also held up a square root of three. "Not that shit again, you're fucking useless Torres." Parker laughed.

"So it's Carter 15 and Sergeant Parker 14." Hernandez commented.

"Oh yeah buddy I got you there. Told you I have it all wrapped up. I got skills in everything brother." Carter said showboating after he barely squeaked out a win over Parker.

"Well you beat me, fair and square I guess." Parker conceded.

"Cause I'm so gangsta." Carter boasted.

"Oh please Carter, if you ever saw a real gangster you would shit your pants." Williams ridiculed him.

Despite his professorial demeanor Williams grew up in the run down ghettos of Newark and had to put up with his share of thugged out gangbangers. Though at first glance one would have thought the opposite Carter had a sheltered upbringing as opposed to Williams. Williams spent much of his youth amidst street urchins and thugs who preyed on many a young brother going about his day. The police back home did little to protect the people at the mercy of the gangs. In Williams' eyes growing up it seemed as if the authorities viewed everyone in the neighborhood as if they were the same whether they were law abiding or criminal. With no perceived protection from the city it fell to Williams alone to handle himself when the unsavory types crossed his path. These were the types that his mama told him to keep his head down around and just keep walking. Her advice seemed to pay off; Williams came out of there a bright accomplished young man with as good a shot as any of making a better life for himself. The Army was his springboard out of that life; Williams was a bright young man and just about any school would take him when he got out. Meanwhile he also played the stock market and had proven himself to be a rather savvy investor using what funds he could cobble together by denying himself the gratuitous pleasures of youth. His ability to delay gratification was likely the single most important attribute giving Williams a strong trajectory for future success. He was already on track to landing a good job and a better life for his soon to be wife and someday future children than he ever had growing up. One day he hoped to be able to move his mother out of Newark and give her somewhere peaceful to live out her golden years. His own experiences along the road to pull himself up by his proverbial bootstraps helped shape the man that he had become.

"Nah, man they would probably shit their pants." Carter retorted.

Parker erupted with a hearty belly laugh at Carter's statement. "Now I know you are full of shit!" Parker laughed.

"You might have forgotten but this contest isn't over. We've still got one more contestant." Soto reminded Parker and Carter.

"Ain't no white boy gonna win this, it's over. Your mack daddy here is the winner." Carter quipped.

"Still got to give him a try." Soto told him.

"Alright Jake, you're up!" Soto called to Fontaine informing him it was his turn.

"Let's see, what should I do here." Jake said looking over what he was going to perform.

"Oh, and it can't be nothing in Korean! Got that!" Carter shouted to Jake as he rifled through the list of songs.

"This one will do nicely, yes." Jake said pretending to ignore Carter.

Jake performed the song "Space Oddity" by David Bowie to which he performed exceptionally well. Like Parker he didn't try to accompany it with some elaborate routine like Carter did he just stood up there and sang the song.

Blake gave him a 9 "That was superb bro; I really wished someone would have tried something hardcore though." he said.

Soto gave him a 4 "You did very well in singing it but I think you kind of tossed yourself a soft ball there and you were really stiff in your presentation. You seemed a little nervous and could've been louder so yeah, work on your confidence." Soto critiqued him.

Torres shocked them all by giving Jake a 3. Not a square root of 3 but a regular 3.

"Oops, forgot the square root." he said after the votes had been tallied.

"Too late, it's official." Williams said with a grin.

"Yeah, no do overs buddy. We gotta give this one to the scrub." Soto said thereby declaring Jake the winner.

Carter stepped back and clapped before turning to Parker. "Well that still leaves us even Sarge with one point for Sliminem over there." Carter said to Parker, conceding that their little friendly competition today would have no ultimate victor.

"We got to blow off some steam, I'd consider that a win for all of us with how insane our schedules had been lately." Parker added.

"Monday is totally going to suck ass I know. This was the first weekend since ET came down that we got a fair dose of downtime and now it's over so fast." Blake complained.

"Oh shit man, we're going to have to go on duty soon. We really shouldn't have spent so much time fucking around." Torres complained.

"I'm good. I got plenty of sleep this morning." Williams remarked.

"That's only because you don't have a life." Carter quipped.

"I'm gonna feel more alive than you two halfway through our patrols tonight." Williams replied.

"Well I guess that's what they make Red Bull for." chuckled Torres.

"No biggie guys, we'll just catch up on sleep tomorrow." Fontaine interjected.

"Come on now, let's go home. We might as well at least get cleaned up so we smell nice on patrol." Parker told them as they all headed out of the club and went back towards the barracks.

Fontaine and Torres joined their fellow soldiers and all returned to the barracks together. The sweaty soldiers all went off to their rooms to hit the showers while Torres and Fontaine returned to the game room where Galloway was sitting on the couch reading comic books.

"I've got some more in my bag over there if you want to read them." Fontaine offered.

"Sure, let me see what you've got." Galloway replied.

"Are you going out tonight?" Fontaine asked Galloway as he walked over to his bag and pulled out a small stack of comic books.

"No, I had the morning watch so I'll be here chillin'." replied Galloway.

"What you should be is in bed bro." Fontaine joked.

"I'm one of those that can't fall asleep unless it's dark." Galloway replied.

"Is that big alien sun blocker out there not dark enough for you?" laughed Fontaine as he sat down next to Galloway.

"My body still knows it's daytime out there." Galloway replied.

"What do you got there?" Galloway asked.

"We got Marvel Zombies, Robin Wars, Star Trek/Green Lantern crossover, this old Spider Man one and these three." Fontaine said showing Galloway what he had.

"Hmmm, I'll take that one, that one, and umm, that one." Galloway told him.

Fontaine picked out the ones Galloway wanted and set the rest down on the other side of him. He then handed the slightly folded comic books over to Galloway.

The same comic book that was on the outside of the stack given to Galloway was in the hands of Hyuna as she perused through a comic book shop that her friends had taken her to. She flipped through the pages skimming over the content of the book before she closed it and put it back in the order in which she found it in. She then picked out a few that she liked and stopped to flip through a couple more.

"Hurry up; we've got other things we want to do today!" Ji-yong pressed her as he passed behind her impatiently.

"Hold on. I want to get one more and I don't want it to be crap." Hyuna replied.

"Here, take this one." Ji-yong said randomly picking up an issue of The Flash and handing it to Hyuna.

"Fine. I'm coming." Hyuna said taking the book and putting the one she was looking through back.

She walked up to the counter to pay for her purchase and made casual conversation about nerdly things with the man working the register. All the while she gave the man flirtatious eyes and led him on as if she was more interested in him than she really was. When he bagged up Hyuna's comics he gave her an awkward smile. In response she teased the awestruck and confused young man with a cute but misleading gesture as she left. Hyuna legitimately loved to toy with boys' emotions. She liked to lead them along and then cut them off at the last minute; it was something of a thrill for her. To her it was a harmless little game but it earned her a reputation among some of her more stuck up peers that she was the type who really "got around."

"Hyuna, why did you have to string along that guy like that? Now he totally thinks you are into him and you'll go out that door without a care in the world for him. Meanwhile he'll go back home, probably jack off thinking about you and after days without as much as the tiniest little bit of attention from you he'll end up heartbroken and alone." Ji-yong inquired.

Hyuna raised her eyebrows, tilted her head to the side and looked at Ji-yong with a look that said "Are you serious bro?" Out of that relationship Chae-lin had to be the one taking the male role with Ji-yong throwing out some sappy plea to emotion like that. It wasn't as if Hyuna was using the guy to get free stuff, she would pay full price like everyone else. She didn't slip him a fake phone number or email address, or even worse gave a dude the number of another girl she didn't like. She had used that one before to get back at someone who was talking shit about her, oddly enough the guy and the dumb bitch ended up getting together. All Hyuna was doing this time was just having fun with him. She enjoyed getting attention, she fed on it and constantly desired more and if she wasn't mistaken the guy that just provided her the attention she craved enjoyed she feinted in his direction the attention as well.

"Dude, come on. It's not like I go up to them and straight up ask them out and when they say yes I come around and am like "denied!" It's harmless fun really. Both parties involved feel wanted and no one really gets attached you see?" Hyuna explained.

She shrugged her shoulders after receiving a blank stare from Ji-yong in response. She walked back to the rack and looked through a few more back issues of comic books that she didn't have.

"Someday you're going to snag some poor boy and he's going to end up snagging you back. When that happens I swear you won't know what to do with yourself." Ji-yong told Hyuna.

"What are you two gossiping about?" asked Chae-lin after coming out from a beauty supply store to find her boyfriend and best friend talking.

"Ji-yong is just being a prude that's all." Hyuna cheerfully responded.

"Oh really? If you're trying to get us into a threesome it's not happening girl." Chae-lin jokingly told Hyuna.

"Wouldn't dream of it sister." Hyuna replied with a wink.

The three of them then continued down the street on their way to make the most of their day. It was mid-day and the sun was high overhead and bright, though the three friends would have never known it. The alien mothership cast an enormous shadow leaving the city all around them in perpetual twilight. It was a little depressing for the scenery to not match their bright and cheerful moods.

"Do you remember back when Seoul had sunshine during the day?" asked Hyuna lamenting the perpetual shadow they had been living under for the past couple months.

"It's not all that bad. That big scary thing in the sky has kept the rain off our backs during the monsoon season." remarked Ji-yong

"That's true. Still it would be nice to see the sun again." Hyuna said with a sigh.

Her mannerisms shifted back to being cheerful and lighthearted, being a veritable ray of sunshine herself. "You wouldn't believe how many times I tried to get out of going to school by saying it was still dark out." Hyuna told her friends.

"Did it work?" asked Chae-lin.

"Nope. Every time it's night no it's morning that's just the UFO that is making it look dark; now get up and off to school with you!" Hyuna answered.

"Man, parents just don't understand." Ji-yong quipped.

Both he and Hyuna laughed at the way he said it. As they walked off together Chae-lin's phone beeped.

"Oh, oh, that must be your other boyfriend." Ji-yong sarcastically said.

"Oh hush, I don't have another boyfriend." Chae-lin quipped back.

Chae-lin took out her phone and opened the message one of her girlfriends had sent her. She read the message and opened a video attachment sent to her by a friend who was at a concert taking place today.

"What is it?" asked Hyuna.

"One of my friends is at that big music festival thing today. She's just sending me video from it." Chae-lin replied.

"Oh yeah, I forgot that thing was today or I would've gotten us tickets." Hyuna said to her.

"That's ok. I don't really like all that cutesy stuff anyways." Chae-lin replied.

"Who's playing at it?" Ji-yong asked.

"Mostly a bunch of rookies and no name groups, nothing any of us care about. Seriously who wants to hang out in a packed arena with a bunch of tweens and hipsters?" Chae-lin answered.

The three of them laughed together and continued around a corner and up another street.

Meanwhile Chae-lin's friend who was recording the concert stood a few rows in front of a large group of girls that had come over from Incheon to see the show. Behind Chae-lin's friend Hyo-ri was completely oblivious to the sea of cell phone cameras and was too busy having a grand old time with her veritable legions of friends. She was standing out in the crowd dancing and being surrounded by her close friends and hangers on. She came from an upper middle class family in Incheon and while her studies consumed much of her life she was still able to maintain an active social life including frequently going to events such as this one. Hyo-ri was smart, kind and cute with a pretty face and long black hair she usually kept tied in a single conservative ponytail in the back. She was sort of a preppy girl at school. She was always well dressed and sometimes obsessively kept up with trends though she wasn't arrogant to those in her group who could not nor had any desire to do so. She didn't wear a ton of makeup though she often laid on the eyeliner heavily and today was no different. Despite being seen as included in the stuck up top echelons of teenage social strata Hyo-ri was actually quite a humble and caring person, though due to the snobbishness of some of her friends and the general perception of others not too many people around her actually found out how approachable she really could be. Chae-lin's friend was among those who would never dare approach Hyo-ri out of the preconception that they two of them would share nothing but mutual disdain for each other. The differences in their social cliques disappeared as the fairly recently debuted girl group Twice came on stage and performed the song "Like Ooh Ahh." The crowd, mostly female but speckled in with a few boys as well erupted in cheers and chants. Chae-lin's friend didn't get into it as much as some of the others because she was concentrating on recording the concert more so than enjoying it.

After Twice did their set several other groups came on and did their thing all throughout the afternoon into the evening. The shadow of the alien mothership accentuated the lighting as if it was a night concert so the crowd got all the glitz of a late night performance and still was back home in time to hop in bed before school the next day. The fireworks launched as part of the pyrotechnic display popped in the midst of a pair of alien fighters which casually banked and swerved to avoid them. After the concert concluded one of the previously unheard of girl groups that debuted at the festival celebrated backstage. Unlike most of the groups which were composed of the native sons and daughters of the Republic of Korea this group was comprised of mostly Chinese members headed by one South Korean singer. These six girls jumped up and down, giggled, exchanged hugs and cheered with glee after what had been an amazing debut performance.

"That was awesome, we got to open for Twice" exclaimed Bae Haru, the sole Korean member of the group.

"Indeed girls this show will definitely generate exposure for us. There's still a lot of buzz around them and with us being Chinese artists in Korea the controversy alone will make us household names here." their manager, Liu Jin Ping, a jolly rotund man in his mid-40s replied as he was packing up their things.

"I think by this time next year you could look up overnight success in the phone book and you would see our faces next to it." said Yanmei, the ditzy bleached blonde peppy member of the group boasted.

"I think you mean the dictionary, not the phone book." Miao, the junior member of the group corrected her.

"You're right. That's what I'm the cute one and you're the smart one." Yanmei remarked.

"I thought I was the maknae?" asked Miao.

"You can be both." Ari, the eldest member of the group told her.

"Alright girls we can congratulate each other on the bus. We've got to get to Anyang; we have another show there tomorrow and I want you rested and looking your best." their manager told them.

The group joined in with grabbing their things while their road crew packed up their outfits and stage equipment. They then proceeded onto the tour bus for the short drive down to Anyang. From there they were expected to do five more shows throughout the major cities in the country and then catch a ferry over to Japan to perform there. Unfortunately they couldn't fly because the Japanese government had grounded all flights in and out of that country due to a possibly overblown concern over midair collisions with alien craft. A lot of countries had placed similar restrictions on flights for a period of time but since then most of these bans had been lifted. Japan was simply one of those taking a more cautious, conservative approach to airline safety and unfortunately for the girls was a major market for Korean girl bands.

After leaving the venue complex the tour bus passed by a column of US Army MRAPs heading back to base following on their afternoon patrols around the city in support of the local police and security forces. While the afternoon patrols were en route to return back at the Yongsan Garrison barracks on the soldiers continued to unwind prior to and after their patrols while the song "The Thing From Uranus" by Sloppy Seconds played in the background. Most of them were just leaning back on the couch watching TV waiting for the inevitable order to suit up and head out. Williams had picked up his phone and was continuously texting his fiancée who had just woken up back in the states. Blake and Hernandez were playing blackjack in the corner and Carter was leaning up against the pool table sipping Mountain Dew and talking about random things with the others.

"Dammit Carter! Flush your shit would you? Do I have to wipe your ass for you too?" Parker complained in a loud voice as he walked out from the restroom.

"Someone left a stanky did they?" Hernandez asked with a smirk.

"You wouldn't know the half of it boy. I go in there minding my own business, and before I sit down I see the biggest damn log staring back at me. Like damn, that thing's gonna clog up the plumbing." Parker mockingly complained.

"You know what they say about us guys with big logs." Carter gave as a slick remark.

"That you're compensating for something." Soto said, elbowing Carter playfully in the ribs as she walked past him.

"Since when does a black man ever have to compensate for something down there?" Carter quipped sarcastically at Soto.

"For Pete's sake Carter, enough of your stereotype bullshit. You sir are the reason dumbasses always assume I want fried chicken for lunch." Williams complained.

"I was just being nice, we had leftovers so I asked if you wanted some." another soldier apologetically chimed in.

"Not you, I was just making a point to Carter about his stereotypes." Williams told the soldier.

"I wouldn't say my gigantic cock is a bad stereotype, but dude, I'm not the one offering you the chicken. Hell, I don't see what the big deal is; someone offers me free food I'm going to take it.' Carter quipped back.

"It's not that big slick." Soto chimed in.

"Nah, baby why you got to be hating like that." Carter said, walking off after her and kissing her neck a few times when he caught up with her.

Soto brushed him aside, blushing a little as she continued on towards the soda machine in the hall. Carter then split off from Soto and walked over to the stereo and put on an old Weezer song. Soto walked back in and sat down at the table with Parker, Hernandez and Blake.

"Deal me in boys." Soto said to Blake as the song began to play.

"So after all this time ripping on that jit over there about his music preference you're up and listening to the white man's music yourself. Carter, my boy you are a piece of work." Parker derided Carter in jest.

"Black folk invented Rock n' Roll, most people don't know that but they did." Carter explained.

"I thought Elvis invented rock n roll?" mentioned Fontaine.

"Elvis didn't invent shit. Everybody knows that when they found Elvis they were looking for a white man with a black man's voice which means that black folk were already doing his thing before it became Elvis' thing." Carter sassed off.

"So he stole some stuff from some old Jazz and Rockabilly brothers, ever since then the genre's been as ghostly pale as they come. That still doesn't detract from the fact you're listening to the whitest song on that box." Parker said.

"That's bullshit Cam and you know it, there have been plenty of black rockers that most folk out there have heard of, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Bad Brains, Whole Wheat Bread, Lenny Kravitz, need I go on?"

"Pssshtt, Lenny Kravitz. Carter I think you just undid your case with that one." laughed Blake.

"You could have just said Alexis Brown or something." Blake suggested.

"Can you shove it with your gay ass metal bands?" Carter retorted.

Parker laughed. "Oh Carter my boy you are a class act." he said.

Just then Lt. Hui entered and Parker immediately called the room to attention.

"At ease." Hui calmly said.

Hui walked over and poured himself a cup of water and sat down at the card table with Parker.

"Carry on; I'm just waiting around here the same as the rest of you." Hui said feeling awkward about the soldiers' silence.

Carter immediately went back to teasing Blake and Williams while Parker turned his attention towards Hui.

"You're here early sir. We aren't slated to gear up for another hour or so." Parker remarked.

"I like to be prepared." Hui said.

"And prepared you are, if I could only get my soldiers to look as presentable as you. I can't even get that jit over there to cut his hair or wipe his ass for that matter." Parker joked pointing a thumb back at Carter. Hui chuckled a bit in embarrassment as Parker stood up and pointed him out to the men.

"Now that ladies is an example of being in perfect accordance with all army dress code regulations." Parker stated to the other soldiers concerning Hui.

Parker sat down and turned back to Hui who was covering his face. "Sorry to draw attention to you there but you exemplify what I've been trying to stress to some of these young bucks the past couple weeks." Parker apologized.

"So are you riding with me tonight or are you heading off across the river to Gwanak or Gangdong?" Parker asked.

"I'm assigned with Staff Sergeant Vargas tonight. They want to take me off of the northern runs for a while. Don't know where we're going but it's all Seoul to me, I have no idea where anything is around here." Hui explained.

"Ah, so you're from outside of the capital. Don't worry old Pederson back there is your driver. He's got you covered." Parker said.

"Vargas is a good soldier too. I'm you're in a jam listen to what he has to say. The man knows his stuff and is probably one of the coolest cats I've known when the heat gets turned up." Parker added.

"Speak of the devil, I should probably go let him know what time it is." said SPC Randy Pederson.

Unlike most of the other junior enlisted men Pederson joined the army later in his adult life after working in the civilian world for 12 years. Now in his early thirties he seemed too many to be someone who should have been an NCO by now. He was just shy of six feet tall, somewhat underweight and gangly for his size with a full head of medium brown hair and a push broom moustache. Pederson got up and walked out of the lounge and went off to find their squad leader.

Upstairs the aforementioned SSGT Antonio Vargas, who was also the team leader for Fontaine, Carter, Pederson and Williams, was biding his time in his own way until their duty shift started. Vargas was a 37 year old 1st generation Mexican American soldier with a long and distinguished career record with the Army. He had served multiple combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a brief stint in Panama before that and had been in more firefights than most of the soldiers in his batallion combined. He served as a sniper by trade and was an expert marksman even among that company. He could have been in the Special Forces if not for his age for he was in peak physical condition and could easily run circles around the younger troops on base. More so than that his mental toughness and sheer determination was second to none. He was often the workhorse of his unit and while promotions had come slower to him than most each one was well deserved. Despite being such a war machine his actual appearance was quite modest at first glance. He was about average height and seemingly average build. A few laugh lines, or scowl lines depending on who you asked had already formed on his rough stubble ridden chestnut brown face, the sign of a man who had lived a hard and arduous life. He had thick eyebrows and a closely trimmed moustache which in the field would often join with a light beard as his facial hair grew quite rapidly. His hair was sleek, full and a solid shiny black which he kept at a modest but professional length. It too would grow out of control quite quickly to a point when it wasn't regularly groomed. He had already been in his fatigues, dressed for duty well before their patrol shift was scheduled to start.

At the present time Vargas was sitting at his laptop mulling over an old email from his children back in the States. He had yet to respond to this one though it had been sent over a week ago. Communication between Vargas and his kids would at times take a while, though usually the holdup was on their end.

He had gone through a rough divorce a couple years back. Though he had never signed the divorce papers his wife pushed it through uncontested and it ended with a brutally raw deal for Vargas. Ever since the divorce his ex-wife had made every effort to cut all communication between Vargas and his children, something made all the more easy by his present deployment overseas. In spite of this his oldest daughter, Inez had defied her mother and the courts and still slipped her father an update on how she and her brother and sister were doing. She had always been the rebel of the three and was closer to Vargas than the younger kids. From what Inez had told him the others missed him as well, especially Melinda, the youngest daughter. Most of the email was Inez talking about starting her senior year in high school and her friends, rivals and stuck up bitches at her school. She was excited to graduate soon and talked about how she would immediately be moving out at that time. She clashed hard with her mom and especially with her boyfriends. Whether they tried to fill her father's role or completely ignored her she was irritated with them nonetheless. In a way Inez was an outlet for the anger and resentment which Vargas should have felt during the divorce but didn't. She also talked about how Melinda was sad that this was her last year of junior high and how Inez had scared her younger sister with all sorts of stories about how high school was like. She mentioned that her brother Carlos had become an excellent soccer player and was selected for the varsity team for the first time this year. He had also started boxing lessons at a local gym and got his first job at the tender age of 15 at the newly opened El Pollo Loco down the street from their old apartment complex.

Enclosed in the email were recent pictures of Vargas' children at an unspecified ski resort. They would never have had the money to take a ski trip when he and his ex-wife were still together. Whoever this new man in her life was he certainly was making bank. His ex-wife had gone through a lot of guys since Vargas was forcibly removed from her life and in spite of Inez's usually disdainful opinions on each Vargas hadn't kept track of them all or bothered to learn their names. It was something he really didn't want to know. As much as he didn't publicly admit it he was still in love with her. Every time she got with another it was like a burning dagger was plunged through his heart and twisted. For someone who had taken advantage of him, mistreated him and betrayed him he still found it in himself to forgive her every time and once more he found himself longing to be reunited and be a family again. Why he hadn't gotten over it and moved on after all this time he couldn't say. Maybe it was his strong religious convictions telling him he had to get back together with his ex or maybe he was just an emotional masochist. Truth be told Vargas would have accepted the role of a willing cuckold once he had discovered what was going on with his wife. However his ex-wife would have none of it and she was the one who initiated the breakup in shame. Even at this point he was willing to take her back. If it only was about sex then he could come to grips with his infidelity if it allowed him time and a stable home environment with his kids. His ex's infidelity was a matter between her and God in Vargas' eyes. As for his own actions he equated the sin of divorce as being on par with the sin of infidelity and himself would have no part in it. He truly loved his wife, through thick and thin regardless of the way she thought or acted towards him in the twilight years of their relationship and was still committed to her, resolving to never seek a new love so long as the slightest chance remained for reconciliation. He longed for an amicable resolution to their current separation even if it meant he shared a room with five other de facto husbands.

Pederson knocked on the door startling Vargas who was thoroughly lost in thought and reflection.

"Come in." he said.

Pederson opened the door but he did not come in. "I wanted to let you know it's just about time." Pederson reminded Vargas.

"Right, I got the orders here. I'll be down there in a few." Vargas replied.

Vargas hit send on his reply hoping that his daughters would be able to read it as Pederson walked off. He then closed his laptop and put it away before heading out the door himself.

Downstairs the rest of the soldiers in Vargas' and a few other units were watching the evening news on TV. Once again the reporting had something to do with the aliens in the opening segment.

"I've hear there's speculation that the aliens might be leaving soon. I've heard reports of them gathering up their little scout ships over Europe and South America" Williams mentioned to the others.

"Doesn't necessarily mean they're going anywhere. We really have no clue what drives these creatures, if they're even creatures at all. The ships could simply be automated probes which would explain a lot of things by the way." Fontaine responded.

"He's got a point there. If we were exploring another planet we'd probably send out robots before we sent people, just like we're doing with Mars." Hui said.

"Mars, pssht, we were supposed to have cities on the Red Planet back when I was a kid. We just got lazy." Blake commented.

"We got sidetracked because we had more important things to worry about on Earth." Hui interjected.

"Once the aliens are gone what's going to change really? We've kind of gotten used to them." Fontaine remarked.

"Yeah people seem to not care as much anymore. We were real excited for a while but then it was all tease and womp womp wahhh. . .denied! People just got tired of waiting." Blake added.

"Well for one most of us will be packing out of Seoul and we'll be getting back to worrying about that maniac up north." Williams said.

"Kim Jong-un can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. It's sad that the aliens came all the way here and didn't bother blowing that guy up. We Earthlings wouldn't have minded one less dictator running around, they could still say we come in peace after that and most of us would be cool with it." Parker said.

"There's quite a few places they could scrub off the map and the world would be a better place if you ask me." Blake chimed in.

Pederson passed by the door on his way down the hall and knocked on it drawing attention in that direction as Vargas was following close behind him.

"Wrap it up boys! Time to suit up and head out!" shouted Vargas as he appeared in the doorway.

"We've got Gangdong tonight." Vargas informed those on the team who might not already have known.

"Swell, another place I don't know my way around." Hui complained.

"You don't have to come sir; we've got Fontaine to do the talking for us." Vargas told him.

"Eh, might as well, the brass has been pushing me to go along with you guys. If tonight is going to be as big as they are saying it is you should probably have an officer on site with you to help with PR." Hui replied.

"Very well sir. I'll meet you down at the MRAP." Vargas told Hui.

"The rest of get suited up. I want my squad posted at our vehicle in thirty minutes." Vargas ordered the others.

As Vargas left Parker got up and clapped his hands together. "My squad better get moving too." he announced before leaving the room.

The soldiers all hurriedly secured their belongings and made their way down to the armory to pick up their assigned gear.

"Come on Hakim; let's make the Army proud so they don't ship you off to East Jackoffistan with a big red target on your back." Carter slapped Hakim on the shoulder as he passed by.

The troops then split off into their groups as they moved down the hall with Parker, Hakim, Soto, Blake and a couple others following behind Vargas' squad while Hernandez, Shimizu and Torres went off in a different direction to find their squad leader. The each got in line and waited their turn to check out their equipment from the armory.

"Do you suppose we'll see anything tonight sir?" Fontaine asked as he waited in line behind Lt. Hui.

"Probably not. I doubt the aliens want to have anything to do with a species that kills its own kind like it's going out of style. I mean look at us, an entire history of warfare behind us, we're burning up our atmosphere, poisoning out water, going about our lives with complete disregard for all other species on this planet. They probably think we're monsters." Hui replied.

The Lieutenant retrieved his body armor and riot gear and got out of line to allow Fontaine to get his.

"What did I tell you, a hippie." a soldier turned to Carter and said.

Carter and a couple of the soldiers with him snickered. Fontaine grinned, being too timid to join in with Carter and the more extroverted members of the squad Fontaine looked away to see Williams waving over for someone to help him suit up.

"The way the spacemen have been acting it's like they barely know we exist. Remember when that one crashed into an airliner a couple weeks ago? They've learned how to avoid us but taken little interest in going beyond that. I highly doubt they've paid enough attention to us to even put forth the effort to make contact." Williams remarked.

"You this whole thing with the aliens know it doesn't even feel real." Fontaine said as he helped Williams put on his body armor.

"I know what you mean. It's like it's been one long ass dream." Williams commented.

Fontaine slapped Williams in the back. "All tight, nothing's fouled up, you're set!" he told Williams.

"Good for you Baby Huey! Maybe next time you won't need someone's help to get dressed." Carter derided him.

"Better to ask for help and have it done right." Williams replied.

Williams slapped himself in the stomach. "I feel invincible!" he joked.

"But first, how about you give it a whack? I want you to punch me in the gut as hard as you can? You know to make sure it works." Williams asked Carter.

"Say what? You crazy." Carter replied giving Williams the old crazy eye.

"No come on, it'll be fun. Hit me." Williams told him again.

"Nah, Huey I don't want to hurt you." Carter declined tilting his head in feigned modesty.

"This stuff can stop a bullet I think it can stop your fist." Williams assured him.

"You sure this isn't an excuse for you to hit me back with one of those big old bear paws of yours? Cause I ain't cool with that." Carter perked his chin up and suspiciously asked Williams.

"I won't do shit. Come on, hit me! Show me what you're made of!" Williams egged Carter on.

Carter pulled back and delivered a strong underhand punch to Williams' gut. Williams grunted and backed off a little when Carter's fist went thud against his body armor then he looked over at the other soldiers and smiled.

"Ha! What did I tell you? Works like a charm!" Williams remarked.

"Alright, alright, do me now." Carter said.

"No you won't. We'll have no more of this tomfoolery here." Vargas said grabbing Williams' wrist to stop him from punching Carter.

Williams smiled, looked over at Carter and laughed.

"You guys hurry up and get outside. I'll be waiting in the MRAP." Vargas said as he and Hui exited the room.

"You think we'll need these?" Fontaine asked holding up a clear riot shield and tapping on it with a baton.

"Leave them. The police can handle crowd control; we're just out there for optics." Hui replied.

After they were all ready to go, Fontaine, Williams, Carter, Pederson and Hui gathered around in a circle.

"Oh yeah man we are gonna be so badass tonight! We're like ghostbusters cool!" Carter said pounding his chest.

Hui laughed softly and covered his face with his hand.

"On three then, Ghostbusters?" Williams suggested.

They all out their hands out on top of each other's and shouted "Ghostbusters!"

"No, no, no that isn't going to work. We're not the Ghostbusters guys we need a better slogan." Hui chuckled afterwards.

"The man's got a point. Don't know about ya'll but I hadn't seen no ghost? How we gonna be ghostbusters if we ain't bustin' no ghost?" Carter added.

"Umm, alright, then umm how about Space-busters? We out there keeping tabs on aliens from space so it fits no?" suggested Williams.

"That sounds so stupid but ok." Hui agreed.

The group then all put their hands together and sounded off "Spacebusters!" before hurrying off to join Vargas in the MRAP.

A line of MRAPs exited Yongsan garrison and joined with a row of police cruisers with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. After leaving the base and getting onto the highways heading towards their designated sections of the city the MRAPs and police cars split off and went their separate ways. Each MRAP was assigned two police escorts, one in front and one behind the MRAP. The police vehicles later spread out further ahead of and behind the MRAP with other cars between them to cover a larger stretch of road once they got onto their designated patrol routes. Vargas' crew one of those heading a little further out today to the eastern extreme of Seoul proper and would cross outside of the city limits into Hanam during a few points along their route. Being that they were heading a few miles out from the base during the thick of evening traffic it took a little while before they got off the highway and started off along their route. Pederson was seated in the driver's seat with Vargas in the back behind him. Hui sat next to the gunner's station while Williams and Carter were in the back. Fontaine was positioned on the top gunner's station since he was the interpreter and could most easily communicate with any civilians and police officers that approached the MRAP.

"Specialist Fontaine, what do your elf eyes see?" inquired Lt. Hui as they started down the first major thoroughfare on their route once they got off the highway.

"Not a whole lot sir. The spaceship is doing what it always does, nothing. Haven't yet run into the protesters or the drunks yet" Fontaine reported.

"Give it time. They'll be here; the night is still young." Vargas spoke up.

"Actually we're coming up on our first batch now sir. There are these crazy people out here dressing up as aliens dancing around. I'm serious guys." Fontaine reported down to the others.

"Those guys again? We saw the crazy alien dancers on Monday." Vargas remarked.

"Dancing aliens, ha, and no one on that spaceship wants to join in. Kind of tells you something huh?" remarked Carter.

You know what's weird about that?" asked Lt. Hui.

"What?" asked Fontaine in return.

"That of all the people who have claimed to be abducted by aliens none of them ever said that the aliens were green but what color are all the alien suits out there? Green." Hui stated.

"Das racist." joked Carter from his seat across from Hui.

"More like gray-cist." Fontaine added attempting to make a pun.

"You aren't going to see any real aliens tonight though so might as well enjoy the dancers. From what I'm seeing here these fellows are packing up and going home." Williams commented while looking at his phone in between texts with his fiancée.

"You're full of shit Baby Huey. I don't see them leaving, we still got that big ugly triangle in the sky." Carter replied after peeking up through the top hatch.

Fontaine looked down at him curiously. "Don't freak out Cornbread, I ain't going for your nuts." Carter told Fontaine.

"Maybe the one in Seoul is still there but in other places these fellas are bailing. I'm serious, I've got video to prove it. People all over the world are recording these things flying up, up and away." Williams responded.

"Man, you got to show me that shit for me to believe it. That's probably an online gag or something." Carter sassed at Williams.

Carter stood up, walked across the MRAP and hunched over next to Williams who pulled up a video on YouTube from Johannesburg, South Africa of one of the large alien ships gathering up several smaller ships and then ascending up and out of the atmosphere.

"We'll I'll be one sorry son of a bitch, these motherfuckers are actually leaving." Carter admitted.

"Shit hope they keep me in town a while longer before shipping us back up north, I haven't got a chance to hit up shit in this place." Carter said.

An incoming text message buzzed onto Williams' phone from his fiancée and Carter leaned in closer to read it.

"Do you mind not being so nosy with that big nose of yours?" Williams shooed Carter away.

"Don't know what you hiding over there. Ya'll ain't even talking dirty." Carter remarked as he walked back over to his seat and sat down.

"Folks still acting crazy out there?" Carter asked Fontaine

"Yep. A whole lot of silliness going on tonight. But hey, at least they aren't trying to burn the place down." Fontaine replied.

"That's always a big plus. I don't understand what makes people want to act like that. Aliens or no aliens, what purpose does it serve?" Hui questioned.

"Nah Lieutenant, folks don't need no reason to get cray cray. Back in Chi-Town we tear the place down every time one of our teams makes the playoffs." Carter remarked.

"Isn't that like every year?" asked Jake. He didn't know too much about sports but assumed this to be true since Chicago's teams were well known.

"Carter, you ain't from no Chi-Town. Stop making up stuff about yourself." Williams commented while feigning Carter's manner of speech.

"Nah, Huey don't listen to Soto, she's full of lies that woman. Lies I tell you!" Carter rebutted.

"Carter you want to see some mad lies, check this out." Williams said beckoning Carter to come take a look at his phone.

Williams turned to a trash TV program where a large sassy lady was claiming that one of the aliens was her baby's daddy.

"Aww man, that is whack! You know those things are scripted right?" Carter commented after watching a few minutes.

"You know that lady might be your mom Carter. See the resemblance? Look at the size of the beak on that one." Williams kidded with him drawing attention again to his nose.

"Aw hell no, you did not just bring my mama into this did you Baby Huey?" Carter sassed him back.

The two of them then proceeded to exchange a variety of "yo mama" jokes.

"I thought "yo mama" jokes went out of style in the 90s?" Hui asked Vargas who simply shrugged his shoulders.

After they finished sassing each other Carter peeked back onto Williams' phone and perused the other videos recommended on the side bar.

"Dude, play that shit. I want to see that." Carter said pointing to one of the videos.

At the same time a text from Williams' fiancée arrived which overrode Carter's request.

"Not now, I got to take this." Williams told him.

Carter remained looked over his shoulder as Williams and his fiancée texted back and forth in rapid succession.

"Ahem. I already told you once. Do you mind?" Williams asked acerbically feeling Carter's breath close to his neck.

"Go ahead, I'm just waiting her for you say what you gotta say and then we watch the video." Carter replied.

"Could you wait like, someplace else?" Williams asked harshly.

"You said we was gonna watch the video, what about bros before hos?" Carter replied.

"That's fine I'll watch it with you in two minutes ok? Can I please just talk to my woman in peace!?" Williams shooed Carter away.

"Shantay isn't a ho by the way." Williams corrected him.

"Psssht, you know what I mean." Carter brushed him off and scooted away from Williams.

While Williams texted with his fiancée and Jake surveyed the gathering crowds the MRAP entered into Hanam and began to make a large loop around the city before they would in time eventually return back to Gangdong District.

"Hey Fontaine did you bring your iPod with you tonight?" Vargas called up to him.

"Yeah why?" Fontaine asked.

"How about we hook it into the loudspeaker system and you can give us some tunes. That way we don't have to listen to those two arguing about nonsense all night long." Vargas suggested.

"It's not nonsense, he implied my mama was a ho." Carter corrected Vargas.

"And he implied my fiancée was one so there." Williams snapped back.

"You do know he's just fucking with you kid." Vargas told him.

"That's what happens when our generation grew up without yo mama jokes." Hui turned and said to Vargas.

Fontaine then reached down and handed the cable from his iPod to Hui so he could plug it into the MRAP's loudspeaker.

"Alright, she's all set!" Hui shouted up to Fontaine.

Fontaine then put on "This is War" by the Korean band MBLAQ which caused Carter to stop and glare at Lt. Hui as if he had anything to do with Fontaine's selection.

"Are you serious Cornbread? I thought you would be blasting some Willie Nelson hillbilly shit with that thing." Carter complained.

"Not everyone from the south is a redneck." Fontaine rebuked Carter.

"The boy can't help it; all he sees are stereotypes everywhere." Williams laughed.

"Nah, nah man. He's just hiding his roots so we don't think he's all hayseed out here but when he goes back to the barracks and thinks he's all alone I bet it's all Dukes of Hazzard up in there." Carter remarked jokingly.

"Specialist, I appreciate you trying to assimilate to the culture around here but the point was to shut this one up so if you don't mind putting on something more in applicable to the situation." Hui shouted up to Fontaine.

"Hmmm, more applicable." Fontaine mumbled as he fumbled through his iPod. While he was looking a line of alien fighters whizzed overhead on their way into an open glowing port on the mothership. This gave him an idea. He scrolled through and put on "Spaceman" by The Killers.

"You said applicable, I can't think of much more applicable than this when we've got spacemen flying around overhead." Fontaine remarked as the song kicked off.

Hui then looked over at Carter expecting a protest.

"Nah, it's alright. I can dig it." Carter said.

Hui looked around outside and saw another group of alien cosplayers and a few people with glow sticks and others being shooed away by curbside police officers for public drunkenness. While the music played over the MRAP's speaker system it appeared the night had now come alive. As the song went into the first verse the crew of the MRAP began to sing along.

"It started with a low light." Fontaine sang softly as he watched the alien fighters congregate and dock with the mothership above him.

"Next thing you knew they ripped me from by bed" Williams joined in.

"And then they took my blood type." Pederson sang from the driver's seat.

\

"Left a strange impression in my head." Carter sang as he got up walked down the MRAP and pointed two fingers to his forehead.

"You know that I was hoping, that I could leave this star-crossed world behind." Vargas now added his voice to their mobile karaoke night.

"But when they cut me open, I guess I changed my mind." Hui took over.

"And you know I might, have flown too far from the floor, this time. ." Carter sang with his arms making wavy motions to his sides.

"Cause they're calling me by my name!" the entire crew sang loudly in unison.

"And the zipping white light beams disregarding bombs and satellites." Fontaine sang almost longingly as he watched the streaking beamers dart to and fro in the sky.

"That was a turning point." sang Vargas

"That was one lonely night." sang Fontaine.

"The star maker says it ain't so bad." Carter and Hui sang together.

"The dream maker's gonna make you mad." Williams and Pederson then took over with Williams smiling and pointing towards Carter busting a move.

"Spaceman says everybody look down!" everyone sang in unison while all except for Pederson looked down at the ground.

"It's all in your mind." continued the entire crew.

As they went into the second verse of the song the loud music and Jake occasionally singing along drew attention from the crowds of onlookers on the street. They started clapping and cheering the soldiers on, a few even joined in with the song. Seeing that the crowd outside was getting into it when the next song came on, Party Up by DMX via his iPod's shuffle feature, Jake turned up the volume which in turn was amplified through the MRAP's speaker system. What was intended to broadcast messages to an unruly crowd instead became the soundtrack for the night's activities.

The MRAP continued on its rounds while a more varied crowd was forming and thickening. Up top Jake watched as they rolled down the street. Crowds of people stopped on the sidewalks curiously watching him and the police cars that were driving some distance ahead of him pass by. Seeing military hardware going through the streets of Seoul was still an oddity, even after the alien presence had been lingering there for weeks. He pondered on how things had changed from the time when he first started going out on these patrols, back when just about everything with the world had been turned on its head.

Depending on when and where in the metropolitan area they were the reaction from the local populace had varied greatly. Early on when news of the aliens arrival had first begun to spread through the general population of the developed world there were more protests and riots in the streets of Seoul. After the initial panic these displays were mainly directed at the military presence in the city with the fear of the unknown brought by the aliens fanning the flames. Now there had been a few serious outbursts of violence in that initial wave throughout the city where the Army had in fact assisted the local police forces in suppressing widespread civil unrest. These incidents were what convinced the local government these patrols were necessary and insisted that the Americans step up their involvement when the sentiment shifted towards abandoning the program. Conversely the militarization of the streets had also attributed itself to some of the demonstrations both benign and those that got out of hand.

By in large however Seoul was relatively calm compared to much of the developed world. From what Jake had heard from back home and from his fellow soldiers cities along both the East and West coasts of the US were proverbially on fire as were many major cities in Continental Europe and Latin America. The most notable of these cities were Los Angeles, Chicago, Paris and Rio De Jankier. Across the Yellow Sea in China it was rumored than the cities of Guangzhou, Beijing and Shenyang had seen serious incidences of civil unrest which were violently put down which in turn led to more flare ups in other cities. If one was to believe the Korean news agencies the Chinese government was doing very poorly in handling the widespread panic induced by the aliens' arrival though it was highly likely these stories were exaggerated for political reasons.

As a general rule the bulk of the human tragedy that followed the alien arrival had been in the larger more populous countries of the world or places where pre-existing tensions received that extra push from outside. The degrees to which the chaos had affected everyday life varied, from being an annoyance and a great expense with sporadic loss of life back home in the United States to causing widespread death, famine and even inciting the collapse of certain nations in the Middle East and Africa. This wasn't always the case however, some places one expected to be the most likely to succumb to widespread panic changed little, as was the case in Kenya and Mozambique. Most surprisingly to Jake's own personal experience however, was that places like Memphis and New Orleans had remained peaceful in spite of his assumption that they would be among the first to crack. Not that they didn't have their problems but comparatively speaking they were fairly mild.

Jake's mind soon forgot about the rest of the world and focused on what was in front of him in the here and now. Today the reaction of the crowd ranged from mild to disinterested at first. There were the regular street revelers flashing glow sticks and playing loud music. So far there were about three committed protesters with signs decrying the military presence in the city, they chanted and shouted but did not start throwing rocks or Molotov cocktails as similar protest had done when they had drawn greater crowds. It was easier to keep a protest peaceful when it was 3 people rather than 3000 stuffed with all manner of street urchins and malcontents among their ranks. The soldiers were certainly glad that things had calmed down significantly over time to the point where it lately had started to feel a little too dull and routine when they went out. In addition to the protesters there were the party boys, the drunks and the hooligans, pickpockets and riffraff who preyed upon unsuspecting people in the large crowds. There were also the men who used the gathering as a social event and went around trying to pick up women. Then there were the people who turned the occasion into a showcase for the performance arts. A passerby or two would see their antics and occasionally slip them some change while others jeered and cheered. Of course the majority of people in the crowds were just curious bystanders or the day to day people walking from place to place in their usual routine.

After an hour or so of following their long zig zagging loop weaving in and out of the district and surrounding areas the small number of protesters in the crowd swelled considerably. Now on the return trip where there had been only three before the usual protesters were out tonight in slightly diminished numbers than from weeks prior. On one side of the street were the "Keep Earth Human" protesters and on the other side were the "No Walls Between Worlds" ones. Both groups chanted their slogans and hurled explicatives and epithets at each other and the passing patrol. There were also other signs mixed in with the two groups that had nothing to do with aliens or the activities of the military and police. There were the ones calling for the removal of all US troops from South Korea, there were the pro-Communist North Korean sympathizers, anti-government groups, the environmentalists, the animal rights people, all of the assorted grievance groups and a contingent of people bearing signs derogatory towards the Japanese. There were the comedic "Bring back Crystal Pepsi" types that Jake had seen pictures of back in the states and even a guy dressed up as Spiderman in the mix.

"Do you really think they're paying attention to this up there?" Jake asked wondering if these people decrying or welcoming the aliens meant anything to the intended recipient of their message.

He couldn't really believe that any more than half of these protesters actually took what they were doing seriously. This was just something to get caught up in the moment for a lot of them, something to do because it was a passing fad. Feeling like you're actually changing the world is sexy, even if you're doing nothing of the sort.

One of the signs he saw had an alien holding up an American flag and said "Go back to your home planet!"

"Great to see that we're the in the same category as the space mutants." Jake remarked.

The increased numbers of people gathered served to slow down the flow of traffic thus leaving the MRAP spending more time in any given area. This also allowed people to approach the vehicle and start asking Jake questions which he answered to the best of his ability coordinating with Hui and Vargas over what to tell them.

Now while ships were departing Earth in other cities around the world in Seoul the alien mothership still remained. As news spread over the internet there were sporadic celebrations and flash mobs along the patrol route. In contrast to the chaotic conditions that occurred during the arrival the aliens departure was nothing of the sort. Tonight the atmosphere was jovial and the people in the streets were quite friendly and playful towards the patrols as they passed by. The festive attitude of the crowds tonight was preferable to the days when those shouting obscenities, mooning them with bare butts and throwing rocks and bottles at the patrols were the norm. The fear of uncertainty concerning the aliens was diminished as apparently the creatures had found nothing of value on Earth and were leaving without as much as revealing their faces to the throngs of humanity below.

Among the people out tonight along the patrol route were Hyuna and her friends. They were well ahead of the MRAP on the patrol route, standing on the sidewalk while street side revelries clogged up the already thick traffic crawling down the road.

"Wow people are really going all out tonight." marveled Chae-lin.

"It'll be really sad if the aliens don't leave tonight and it turns out this "celebration" was for absolutely nothing." Hyuna commented.

"You don't need a reason to party girl. Don't be so stiff." Ji-yong told her.

"You mean like those guys?" Hyuna replied pointing over at the protest lines across the street.

"These people are idiots." remarked Ji-yong as he saw some of the protesters.

"Like the aliens are really going to do anything different because a bunch of us are down here screaming this and that. They probably can't even read Hangul." Ji-yong commented.

"That one over there is in English, what about that?" Hyuna asked pretending to be innocently asking a question.

Ji-yong and Chae-lin laughed more at the way she said it than what she said. As Ji-yong turned to his side towards some strobe lights going off outside a nearby noraebang a tipsy man spilled a sloppily mixed cocktail in a red plastic cup all over him.

"Dude, party foul yo! Get the fuck out of here." Ji-yong grumbled at the man moving him aside.

"Here." Chae-lin pulled out a few napkins from her purse and handed them to Ji-yong so that he could clean himself up.

While he was doing that Hyuna saw one of the people dressed in an alien costume get too close to the "Keep Earth Human" protesters and accidentally bump into one of them while doing a little dance. The protester shouted at the costumed man and reached after him but was held back by his friends. The alien suited person compounded stupid with more stupid and got into the agitated man's face and taunted him. This incited someone nearby who wasn't with the protest to throw a stiff right hook at the costumed character and knock his alien head slightly off to the side. The angered protester pushed his friends aside and hopped the barricade where he grabbed the dancing character by the chest and pummeled his face until the head of the suit fell off. The incident drew the attention of the police who arrived a few minutes later to separate the belligerent man and the street performer. The officers cuffed the aggressive man and one of them stayed with him explaining that he couldn't act how he was acting as if the grown man was a child while another officer helped carry off the guy in the alien suit, now bleeding from the nose and mouth.

"Oh my God, check that out!" Hyuna exclaimed seeing the scuffle.

"What did I miss, aw darn it's already over." Ji-yong said when he looked up.

At that moment some wannabe thug kid tried to snatch Chae-lin's purse while they were distracted but this led Ji-yong to shove the boy away.

"That's right! Keep on walking!" Ji-yong threatened the boy as he ran away through the crowd.

Ji-yong looked over at the police officers but decided not to bother them as well, this was just one big jacked up party and crazy things were bound to happen. Fireworks went off down the street and loud music started to play out of some of the cars. A guy wrapped in old newspaper from head to toe streaked through the crowd throwing candy into the air. While another man wearing shoes, a shirt but no pants sprinted out of a mini mart door marked "no shoes, no shirt, no service." Ji-yong started to sing along with the music coming out of a minivan passing them by and turned to Chae-lin and Hyuna to join in. Chae-lin went along with him but Hyuna seemed too embarrassed.

"Come on girl, it's a party you got to get into it! How you gonna get down at the after party tonight if you can't mix it up right now?" Ji-yong goaded Hyuna into letting herself go.

She bashfully joined in with the chorus but didn't sway with the beat like her friends did. The people in the cars passing by many of whom were just going home from work or on the way to go out to the clubs downtown would on occasion falsely capitalize on the fact that they had become the center of attention. They would sometimes even steal the show from the coalescing alien armada being gradually sucked into the mothership. People from the vehicles and the crowds called out to each other and the streets were filled with an endless cacophony of noise.

Now with all the screaming and shouting amidst the revelry of the aliens' imminent departure Hyuna and her friends had built up quite a thirst.

"Hey we'll be right back. We're going to go get slurpees." Chae-lin told Hyuna before she and her boyfriend left.

"Yeah save us a spot will you?" Ji-yong sarcastically asked before Chae-lin drug him off.

"Fine, fine. Bring me back one too!" Hyuna shouted at her friends as they pushed their way through the crowd.

"Not those nasty blue ones either! I want cherry! Or Coca-Cola!" Hyuna shouted though by now her friends were too far to hear her. She knew they were going to get her a nasty blue one, they always did.

While Hyuna waited for her friends the Army MRAP was slowly inching down the street towards her from a few dozen blocks away. Jake was smiling and sometimes laughing at the things he saw outside while they were held up in bumper to bumper traffic. Vargas and Hui seemed disinterested in the festive mood pervading the night. Vargas was reflecting on what it must be like for his daughters now while Hui was just feeling very awkward. The Lieutenant was rather young man himself but just didn't seem to fit in with this group. It wasn't because they were American either, he felt like an alien in Korean units as well. Hui was just more of an asocial recluse than anything else. He just didn't seem to get people in general. The Army would probably just be a temporary stint for him and afterwards he could snag some programming job or something that would allow him to work isolated and alone from other people.

"Do they have anything from El Paso or Juarez on there?" Vargas asked Williams.

"Let me check." Williams said. "Nope, but they've got a lot of videos from the west coast popping up all of the sudden." he said after scrolling through the newest videos posted online concerning the alien withdrawal.

After making a quick reply to his fiancée Williams pulled up one of the more highly rated videos for himself and Carter to see. Meanwhile Vargas continued to worry. His girls were tough, especially Inez. He had enough of a hand in raising them before he was pushed out of their lives to see to that. Carlos was something of a mama's boy but his older sister would watch over him just like a big brother would have. Inez was more of the substitute father for her siblings than any of their mother's boyfriends would ever be. He kept telling himself all of them would be ok no matter how crazy it got, even his ex-wife.

"Screw you guys I'm going home. That's what they are telling us here Huey." Carter said to Williams as the watched the Los Angeles mothership leave from seven different angles.

"Carter, come on, you can leave me alone now? I can't keep my girl waiting." Williams told Carter, nudging him out of the way as he removed the videos from his phone and went back to texting his fiancée back home who now had three unread messages stacked up for Williams to respond to.

"Pussy whipped Baby Huey, aight aight I know when I'm not wanted." Carter told Williams.

"Yo Cornbread, what does your ass see out there?" Carter called up to Fontaine.

"My ass sees the inside of my underwear. My eyes see a lot more of the same. The spaceship isn't going anywhere." Fontaine replied.

"You don't have to answer him you know." Williams said to Fontaine.

"No one was talking to you Baby Huey. Just zip it and go back to kissing your bitch's ass." Carter snapped playfully yet disrespectfully at Williams.

"Calm down private." Vargas warned Carter.

"Her name is Shantay and she's not a bitch." Williams replied.

"Damn Baby Huey, take it easy there, can't you take a joke?" Carter said to Williams.

"You know what I'm just going to go over here and do my thing now. Maybe I'll take a peek at the freaks doing the cha cha cha out there in a bit." Carter said distancing himself from Williams.

"Kids." Vargas and Hui said in unison to each other regarding Carter, Fontaine and Williams. The veteran soldier and the young officer laughed and shook their heads.

Meanwhile Jake was looking up at the steady lights sparkling in a darkened sky now that the sun had gone down and the city lights had come on. There were lights above and lights below now while all the mere humans dwelt in what appeared to be a corridor of light between the two. The smaller craft were now fewer and further between as they docked with the mothership and disappeared into its enigmatic innards. After taking the time to appreciate it all it really was a pretty sight Jake thought. He looked away from the eerie soothing glow of the spaceships above the litany of earthbound lights from the Seoul streets and skyline and focused his eyes back onto the crowd to make sure there were no issues developing within it. A few minutes later Jake's attention was quickly brought back down inside the MRAP by Carter tugging at his leg.

"Yo Cornbread! Mind switching places? I want to take a look-see out there, from what me and Huey have been seeing on the nets it should be an interesting night." Carter asked Fontaine in a somewhat demanding fashion.

"Sure, why not. The ships still aren't looking like they're going anywhere." Fontaine politely replied.

"You're going to let him get to see the departure?" Williams asked Fontaine.

"Meh, there will tons of videos posted of it tomorrow. Seeing that thing move isn't going to be much different than seeing it stand still." Fontaine replied casually.

"Here, take my phone. I want you to record the ship leaving." Hui told Carter.

"Alright, alright." Carter said then moved over towards Hui.

"It's not an iPhone, man get with the program sir." Carter joked as Hui pulled out his phone.

"Ah shit, it's all in Korean too. You're going to have to show me what these squiggles mean, at least the ones I need to use to record this shit." Carter complained.

While Hui was showing Carter how to take video on his phone Jake remained at his station, surveying the crowd. Meanwhile Hyuna's friends had just returned to see the MRAP on its approach. As the MRAP passed by the location where Hyuna and her friends had congregated Jake happened to turn his head in the right direction and for a second or two noticed her looking straight towards him. For longer than Jake had noticed her Hyuna's eyes were fixed on at him, the shy reserved boy from the back country who had long sought to get away from his bleak mundane life now seated at the gunner's station atop a US Army MRAP. She was clearly looking at him, not through him as one in the crowd staring off into space. It was more like she was a bird of prey eyeing a hapless rodent which it intended to make its latest victim. The thought of seducing one of the "occupying army's" minions and quickly dashing his hopes was alluring to Hyuna who had the wild idea to take it as something of a challenge. The two of them were too far out of reach for Hyuna to play any such mind games on Jake. They were too far apart for the two of them even to know the other one existed aside from being a face in the crowd. For Hyuna it was the mere physical distance that separated him from her standing behind the police barricade. For Jake it was not only that but the fact that Hyuna was in an astronomically higher stratum of society than he was, both in terms of her beauty and socioeconomic status. This mere peasant gave the illustrious noblewoman on the sidewalk no greater concern than any other among the great multitude gathered out on the streets tonight. Still he felt something ever so minute and indescribable as their eyes touched over the gulf of air that separated. Only briefly did her gaze meet Jake's as they passed by. At this moment Hyuna, being the outgoing, somewhat immature girl she was she raised her arm high overhead and waved at him. Feeling somewhat embarrassed, Fontaine waved back at her. Sometimes the civilians took notice and would call out or make gestures to the soldiers on their patrols. The unspoken exchange that went between them as their eyes locked for that miniscule moment in time would soon be forgotten by both of them as the MRAP rolled on. It didn't take long for Hyuna to move on to the next thing to catch her attention leaving Jake as just another attraction on a parade route. Jake's mind remained fixated more on events in the heavens than upon the ground as the aliens gathered together their smaller ships and packed themselves onboard the titanic mothership. With such more memorable things going on at the time Jake didn't even bother to commit the silly girl and her friends to memory. Still as he looked back to see her eyes trailing off after him she was the last thing he saw before he climbed down and swapped places with Carter. Jake gave Carter a fist bump as they passed and a firm slap on the rump as he climbed up onto the gunner's station before Jake sat down in Carter's seat and enjoyed the ride from the inside. Little did they know this was the end of the last normal day of their lives. Life as we know it would soon be changed forever.