Death Valley, California
Two pilots, three witches, and a semi-retired professor stood in the evening's fading light, looking at the crashed alien craft before them. Finding it wasn't that hard, since Captain Hiller, one of the pilots, had left a rather obvious trail as he hauled the unconscious alien in its bio-mechanical suit across the playa.
"I'm not sure what y'all plan on doing with this thing," said Hiller, walking around the downed Attacker through the scrub.
"Well, as I explained, Cerberus is a research institute, as well as a clearing house for various innovations among the assets of my wife and brother-in-law," explained Sirius. Like Hiller, and all the other surrounding the alien craft, he wore sunglasses, and his long, robe-like coat flapped lightly in the light evening breeze.
"We saw videos of the Attackers against the RAF," said Hermione, walking around the craft in the opposite direction. "They are quite maneuverable, and the shielding technology alone would be worth it's weight in Helium-3. I'd like to see how it compares to our own shields, and perhaps see what their energy weapons are capable of."
"Wait, 'our own shields'?" asked Hiller. "Lady, I'm not sure about Jolly Old England, but here in America, I've never head of any sort of magical shielding technology that can shrug off a twenty millimeter round or a Sidewinder."
Sue chuckled, "Funny you should say that."
"Say what?" asked Hiller.
"Dora?" asked Sirius of his cousin.
"Hey, we're way outside of my jurisdiction, and as I understand it Whitmore suspended the Statute after Mr. Shepard saved his life yesterday. Plus, I'm still quite competent with a memory charm," explained the pink-haired auror.
"Wait, 'memory charm'?" asked Hiller. "Either you're messing with me, or aliens aren't the only things I have to worry about."
"You've heard of the saying, 'Any significantly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic', right?" asked Hermione, who by now had joined Hiller and Harry near the rear of the Attacker. "Well, the five of us, we're capable of things for which you'd need the aforementioned technology."
"Magic?" asked Hiller surprised. He looked around as the five britons just shrugged and nodded. "You're telling me both aliens and magic are real?" Another round of nods.
"Now, technically we're not telling you, we're merely supporting your own conclusions," said Sue. "While the President here might have suspended the Statute, I'd still rather not be so cavalier with it."
"Good point Sue," said Harry, smiling at his girlfriend, or rather, fiancée. He'd planned on proposing on his birthday, when he'd finally be an adult, but between the alien invasion, and the rather sudden trip to America, he'd decided that he'd rather not wait. If it was still around when all this was over, he was thinking of taking a day trip with Sue over to Gretna Green, though since both his godfather and her aunt approved, they could have married practically anywhere. "Anyway, enough about the potential for supernatural powers, we need to get this thing prepared for transport."
"Transport?" asked Hiller. "How and where?"
"We should be able to get the built-in fight systems online, make it levitate, so to speak," said Hermione, as she grabbed a piece of the surface, which was much rougher than any airplane, or even spacecraft, she'd encountered. "It obviously doesn't rely on the same mechanics to fly as airplanes or helicopters, so if we can get that running, then lifting it with the Hippogriff would be child's play."
"You know, we should just oblivitate him and do it the easy way," said Sirius, stroking his chin.
"Ah hell nah, nobody's oblivitatin' nobody, even if I knew what it meant," said Hiller, taking a step back.
"It wasn't exactly a serious proposal," said Sirius with a smirk.
"Enough beating around the bush," said Hermione, standing on the top surface of the Attacker. "Either help me to get this thing ready for flight, or stun him and get it ready otherwise. He's already assumed the existence of magic. I for one don't want to spend any more time in the middle of nowhere than I strictly have to."
"Well, since our expert in techno-thaumaturgy has spoken, let's get this show on the road," said Harry. He then stepped over to Hiller, "So, do you want the pleasure to escorting the Attacker, or flying the Hippogriff?"
Area 51, Nevada
Shepard awoke suddenly, and with a splitting headache, "Ow, remind me never to do that again."
"I'll try," said Winona, putting down the prototype em-book she'd been reading. While they'd been able to push technology faster, it could only go so fast with only two people, or rather one person with a time machine, working on it. It helped when you could make up for the shortcomings of technology with a bit of magic. "But you know how impulsive you can get when you want to look impressive."
"Was I?" asked Shepard. "Impressive I mean."
"Well, it was certainly impressive, though it made things harder," said Winona. "Secretary Nimzicki trusts neither of us, and is likely as not going to paint Siri, Harry, Hermione, Sue, and Dora with the same brush."
"Five? I would have brought maybe one or two," said Shepard. "But then, I assume you went for Hermione, since she's our star techno-thaumaturge, and Harry because he can fly practicably anything. Sirius came because he wanted to be the 'responsible adult', and Sue came because she's Harry's girlfriend."
"Fiancée," corrected Winona.
"Ah, fiancée then, and that explains Dora, though I'm surprised she wasn't able to persuade Remus to come along," said Shepard.
"Someone needed to keep track of all your sprogs at Skyfall, and between him and Cissy they can handle pretty much anything," joked Winona.
"Well, enough about the past, I'm more worried about the future," said Shepard, pushing himself up into a sitting position.
"How so?" asked Winona. "I mean, David's still going to do his particular breed of magic, and if I can get Hermione in here, they might work a bit faster together. After that, it's just a brief trip up to the Mothership, then perfect the timing on the assault on the Destroyers, and we're done."
"It's gotten more complicated," said Shepard. "It's not just the aliens, or rather, the grays."
"They're taking to calling them acrids, after locusts," said Winona. "Bit more original than just calling them by the color of their skin."
"Well, King would be proud, as that's quite accurate as to the content of their character, or at least, that of the government," said Shepard. "They don't really have a name for themselves, aside from 'the people' or 'the government'. Comes from their telepathy I guess. Though, that's not the difficult part."
"What is?" asked Winona.
"They're no alone," said Shepard.
Winona just looked confused.
So, Shepard conjured an illusion, of both the fully suited alien as well as a naked version, "These are the aliens, the acrids, native to one of the planets of the binary system Zeta Reticuli."
"So, they're Retuculan," said Winona with a chuckle.
"Yeah, but they're old, probably a few tens of thousands of years more advanced, though it's hard to tell exactly since the pilot wasn't exactly well educated on orbital periods. Anyway, their planet's destroyed, or practicably so, a result of a civil war and very large gravity manipulation weapons. The ones in the Mothership, they're the victors, or there survivors at least. They've been traveling around for a few tens of thousands of years, going from system to system, looking for resources, both biological and mineral."
"I assume by the 'they're no alone' comment that we're not talking just food when you say 'biological' resources," said Winona. She wished that she'd known about this, but I guess they really did love their exposition, and even if it was to themself, explaining things was fun.
"They have two slave species," said Shepard, creating two more illusions. One was as tall as the fully suited acrid, with a roughly humanoid body structure. It looked nothing less than a humanoid tiger or panther with a pair of two or three meter long tentacles coming out of its back. Like the acrid it was naked aside from its fur, which was a dark blue or purple. The second seemed to have more in common with an ant or spider than a human, though like there others it was obviously a tool user, with shorter manipulating arms, for of them, near its head, and six segmented legs similar to a spider or insect. It had four body structures, a head, the upper thorax with the arms, a lower thorax with the legs, and an abdomen at the rear.
"Interesting," said Winona. "I think the cat people will have a better time than the arthropods, and both, being subjugated, will have a better time than the acrids."
"Well, luckily the acrids left the other two home planets intact, if devastated, so they'll be able to go home if they want, though they've been slaves for thousands of years, the arthropods for about twice as long as the felines," explained Shepard.
"So, we can't just blow up the ship then."
"Not that it was the plan anyway, I don't want an Endor on our hands, and I think we'd best leave the xenocide to Ender," said Shepard.
"Well, we need to get it out of Earth orbit no matter what we do, it's a quarter of the mass of the Moon, and it's already messing with the tides," said Winona. "I'm thinking Venus or Mars orbit. But, we need to deal with things first. Siri should be bringing Hiller, the Attacker he grounded, and the El Toro survivors back by shortly after sunset."
"How are things going otherwise?" asked Shepard. "I mean, they'd already hit their second targets when I went unconscious."
"Well, they're going quicker than we expected, in addition to having more Destroyers and being more spread out, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. We've lost over a hundred cities to their main weapon, though it seems that the shots are getting smaller, if only decreasing from a hundred megatons down into the seventy-five megaton range. Ten hours from first to second, and eight from second to third. So, it'll be sometime between midnight and 2 am EDT, or ten and midnight our time for the fourth wave of attacks."
"What about Nimzicki's nuke plans?" asked Shepard.
"They're planning on trying the Johannesburg Destroyer as it goes from Maputo to Dar es Salaam," explained Winona. "They're at least taking out suggestion of attempting to flip it, rather than going head on. The USS Nevada is in position in the Indian Ocean. Luckily both Mozambique and Tanzania are willing to allow it, though I'm sure that they would have tried even without the support of the governments involved, though Whitmore had to pledge additional humanitarian support for the affected area, beyond whatever aid gets distributed after it's all over."
"Do you think it'll work?" asked Shepard.
Winona shrugged, "I hope so, it's not like you let me into your secrets. I mean, you didn't even tell me about the arthropods and felines, let along the success or failure. All I know is that we win in the end, or at least, survive long enough to send me back."