Take Ten Steps - Prologue

(Author's Note: Yes, it's the Prologue. It's not meant to be great. Please, do not read this and discount the series. I'll probably make a better prologue closer to the book's completion, because I know this isn't grabbing at all. Also, don't expect the Videl Co'tep to return. They are what they are. ;3)

Take Ten Steps (Turn, and Fire).

BRIEFING: First Contact.

"I told you so," the sci-fi nerds would chant in unison when it happened. Millions of sci-fi authors and directors continually wrote scenarios of how badly things could go wrong when humans had first contact with extra terrestrial life-forms. Did we listen? Hah! Nooo, of course we didn't. We believed a few things I guess; that either humans were the only intelligent life in existence, that aliens were peaceful, and that maybe aliens would even end up technologically inferior to humans. No, no, and almost.

When the aliens came, we welcomed them with open arms. Star Trek fans took over and assured that peace was in the cards. They called themselves the Videl Co'tep, and we hoped they came in peace. Nope, they shot us. For the first time, the Earth was allied. Every country was doing their bit.  It was as if evolution had just popped right in and said, "No, you guys seriously just fight too much, here's an alien threat to unite you and put you on your toes." Suddenly, everything seemed less important. The human race united, as a race, instead of internally struggling. Humans were finally in the kind of mindset where something like communism, or true democracy, may've been possible without corruption.

Then, what did the aliens do? They nuked us. I'm not using funny words, they outright dropped nuclear bombs on us. Ends up aliens had similar tech to us; some even theorize they stole it, but that's hardly relevant anymore. What is relevant is that they had enough nuclear firepower to raze our planet. The only ones left surviving were those with bomb shelters, which ended up being very few. .02% of the population, to be precise. That .02% then gathered itself, and with the materials they had left, you know what they did?

They flew the richest ones out of all of them to bloody Mars. Mars, of all places! This was a few good years down the track, mind you. It took a lot of time to establish worldwide communication after most things on the surface were reduced to rubble. Boats made a comeback, that's for sure. The technology necessary to colonize Mars was quickly gathered (the only thing stopping us previously being the beauty of procrastination), and off they went. .02% of the population is still a good 1.6 million people mind you, and they sure as shit couldn't fit that many in a space pod. So what'd they do for the less-wealthy?

Yeah, I'm sure you've guessed already. The assholes left us here. They only had enough materials to make a few pods, so that left around, oh, 1,598,500 people left on Earth? A counter-attack was never even possible, since everyone left had pretty much no will to fight. Even then, one of the few things we knew about those damn aliens was that they outnumbered us. Swarms of enemies and nuclear firepower? Gee, real advanced civilization there, nothing like humans at all.

So, us poor schmucks were left to our business, free to roam the desolate, poisoned, radioactive wasteland our planet had become. A few stragglers were quick to gather all the spared technology they could, start up tech rings and quickly make their way into the rich business. Funnier still, with the population so low, was how many tech cults managed to pop up. Law enforcement was, as expected, defunct. Corruption took over and the world became a bit of a dog-eat-dog place.

I kinda liked it for a while. Darwinism at its finest. Unfortunately I also liked eating, or at least, my body did. I was born not long after the war, and my parents were, luckily for them, taken by radiation before I could berate them with hatred for bearing me into this beyond-hope void of a planet. That and I never really had a chance to know what eating regularly was like, since the only idea I had of it was, "What if this horrible pain in my stomach wasn't there?"

Damn, I envy the people of the past. But hey, they couldn't write stories as interesting as this, now could they? Plus, it wouldn't stay that bad for too long...