A man rode alone on the subway to work. 

He was young, in his mid-twenties. He wore a professional's business suit, glasses, and a week's growth of facial hair that could barely be called a beard. A newspaper sat on his lap, and a thin briefcase sat by his feet.

Through the windows behind him could be seen only sandstone lit by a small amount of artificial lighting that ran through the entire track. The subway was underground.

It was a long trip. The man opened his newspaper, The Daily News. The paper was heavily censored. There was a black square where the front-page photograph should have been, black bars throughout the text, and an entire half-column was open space with nothing printed in it.


The subway arrived at its destination after an hour. The lone man stepped off with his briefcase and walked along a bridge toward an entryway that was cut into the underground stone. 

Two armed guards stood by the door. They recognized this man. They saw him every day. One of them pushed a button to open the door, and the man walked inside.


There were no guards to recognize the man at the next security station. A machine had that duty. He placed his thumb on a thumbprint scanner, and the door opened. 

In the next room, the man took off his glasses and placed his eye before a retinal scanner. The door opened, and he walked through.

In the next room, the man drew his punch card from its slot and placed it into a 1930s style time clock. He punched in and was now at work.

In the next room the man suited up. He put his entire body, shoes and all, into the leggings of an orange environment suit and pulled the top over his nice business suit.


The barely-bearded man carried his helmet in one hand as he opened a door labeled Authorized Personnel Only. Inside, similarly-suited scientists worked at computer workstations at the near half of the the room. The far side of the room was dominated by the equipment that maintained a glowing portal to another dimension.

One of the scientists spoke to another. "Something is coming though. It is like something wants to come through."

Something came through. It was a wide-mouthed lizard-like alien who wore body armor and carried a heavy plasma gun. A large heat sink attached to the barrel made the gun look larger than it was. A second similarly-armed-and-armored alien walked in behind the first. 

The scientists gasped in astonishment. "It is our first contact with aliens from another dimension!"

"I wonder what they want," asked another scientist offhandedly.

One of the aliens spoke to the other with an eager grin. "Do you want to kill them?"

"Yep!" answered the other, equally eagerly.

The barely-bearded man dropped his helmet and slowly backed away from the door while the two aliens gunned down the screaming scientists. 

The orange-suited man walked to the next room, opened the door, and peeked inside. This room did not have the equipment to open a portal, but one had been opened on the aliens' initiative. An alien jumped through and began firing his plasma gun into the scientists, who screamed in a panic. The orange-suited man closed the door and walked away.


The aliens opened two portals into the cafeteria. An alien jumped out of each one and they began firing into the panicking breakfast crowd. 

A man and a woman ran away in such a hurry that they left their coffee and purse at their table. They ran back to retrieve these important items, then escaped as a blast of plasma shattered their table.

The alien at the far side of the room walked into the kitchen and gunned down the chef who was starting on a pot of soup for lunch. The alien lowered his gun, took the ladle, and tasted the soup. "Bleah!" The disgusted alien stuck out his long tongue, then slapped the pot off of the stove with the barrel of his gun. He then walked to the counter and began firing into the crowd.

A man walked to the counter holding a plate that contained only crumbs. "Excuse me," he asked the alien behind the counter, "could I have some more bacon?"

The alien shot him.


The barely-bearded man opened the door to the men's restroom and peeked inside. He heard the growl of a hostile alien. He closed the door and walked away. A blast of plasma shot through the door behind him.

The barely-bearded man opened the door to the women's restroom and peeked inside. A woman's hand slapped him across the face.


Two soldiers stood in the stairwell, covered from head to toe in black tactical gear. The barely-bearded man walked up the stairs, saw them, and began to talk to them. "Hey guys, there's, uh, something you ought to know..."

The soldiers turned toward each other. "Take him out," one of them said. The two soldiers aimed their rifles at the barely-bearded man in orange, who quickly retreated and disappeared down the stairs as the soldiers blasted holes into the walls of the stairway.

The two soldiers remained where they were. One of them spoke to the other. "Why are we killing the people instead of the alien invaders?"

"Our orders are to eliminate the witnesses," said the other soldier. "They did not say anything about the alien invasion."

"Our orders are stupid!" declared the first soldier.


Jillian Ross was dressed for battle as she walked up the ramp of an unfamiliar dimension ship. She carried the heavy black gun that she had stolen from the taller aliens who had invaded her dimension's Earth, and she wore a blue-and-black "softsuit" of flexible armor from Alex Smith's dimension, giving her an extra layer of shields on top of the shielding produced by the alien nanites in her body.

Jill was followed by Siobhan Minh who wore a full-body purple softsuit with a helmet that obscured her face. Siobhan carried a shield spike, a portable shield generator that resembled a spear but was a defensive tool.

Walking up behind Jill and Siobhan, their manager Mick Legato wore a t-shirt and cargo shorts. He was not planning to take part in the battle.

They were the last to arrive. Most of the others had already taken seats on a bench at one side of the ship's cargo bay. Zexler had sent Abraham MacLeod, the twelve-year-old-looking swordsboy in a black trenchcoat and black sunglasses. Harkness had sent Dick Wood, a tough man who fought with a repeating shotgun and his fists. He carried extra shotgun shells in twin bandoliers over his sleeveless shirt. Howie had sent the real firepower, Alexandria Smith. Sitting in full-body blood-red power armor with a cannon for a right arm, she was a more imposing figure than Dick. Jill only shared a brief glance with Alex and then looked away. They did not get along.

Seated next to Alex was Rax Talon of the Space Regiment in his navy blue shielded space suit that would have qualified as a mid-range softsuit in Alex's dimension. Sitting on the floor at his feet was a weapon he had brought from his homeworld that he had not used in the arena, a double-barred rocket launcher for small rockets that were loaded into a central drum.

"Do you need a seat?" Rax picked up his helmet from the spot on the bench that it had been occupying and put it on his lap to give Jill the room.

"No thanks," Jill refused. Siobhan walked by her and took the offered seat.

"Thank you sir," Siobhan said politely.

"Not a problem," Rax said. He recognized the purple armor, having seen it once before in a recording of one of his teammate Ninja Red's many losses. "You would be Siobhan, right?"

"Correct," Siobhan answered him.

As they exchanged greetings, Jill paused to look at the unknown small woman standing by Abraham who appeared to be wearing nothing more than a tight one-piece white suimsuit and a red-painted jetfighter attached to her back. "So who's the new girl?" Jill asked the room. She took another step forward and saw that the new girl was not a woman, but a robot. The apparent 'swimsuit' was her midsection.

Mick answered. "That's RINN-B. She's one of Zexler's tryouts that didn't make it."

"Rinbie, huh?" Jill set her gun down on the floor and then waved a hand in front of the robot's face. She saw no response. She put her hand on the robot's shoulder.

Mick almost warned her. "Hey, uh, don't, uh, I wouldn't..."

It was too late. Jill's nanites were already inside the robot and examining everything. Jill had learned the correct way to spell the robot's name, and much more. "Ah. Rinn-B. Did you know that she is classified as a department store mannequin?"

Mick did not know much about this robot other than what Zexler had told him years ago after that tryout. "I suppose that's one way of hiding a military scouting robot."

Jill withdrew her nanites and her hand. "I just gave her a software upgrade," she said with satisfaction. "There were a few inefficient subroutines..."

Rax was offended. "She is no longer to spec! She hasn't been tested. We don't know if she is going to work out there in the field!"

"Well, I guess we're going to find out," Jill said indifferently.

Another man walked into the room from inside the ship. The fighters recognized Captain Galacto wearing his own clothes rather than a referee's uniform. He was equipped with his laser pistol and silly-looking homemade helmet, but not his jetpack.

Everyone he was expecting was here, so Mick began the meeting. "All right. So what's happening here is, the client has an alien invasion on one of his worlds and he wants them gone, so he has hired everyone he could find who has ever fought an alien invasion. He wants you to go in there and stomp it out because each of you has done that before. Or most of you have." Mick turned to Captain Galacto. "So you will be joining us?"

Captain Galacto demurred. "The client did hire me because Kid Galacto sabotaged the Martian war machine factory to prevent an invasion of Earth when I was forty years younger. I will fly the ship and take my cut."

"Good." Mick smiled at the Captain's business sense. "As, for the rest of you... Dick, did you ever fight an alien invasion?"

"Yep," Dick answered.

"What were aliens doing in Westglen?" Mick asked him.

"They were rustlin' cattle," Dick answered. 

Mick shrugged. "I guess that's what aliens would have been doing there. There's not much else they could have been doing. And I don't think Abraham has ever fought aliens before. I don't recall seeing that in your profile."

"Perhaps I have," Abraham said thoughtfully.

"Oh?" Mick waited to hear what Abraham had to say.

Abraham explained. "There is a theory that people like me hold the souls of aliens from another planet who inhabit and sustain the bodies of men. If that is the truth, then I have been fighting aliens for my entire long life. However, I do not believe it."

Mick dismissed the theory as well. "Yeah, that sounds ridiculous. So I guess you're just here to bring RINN-B back if her engine goes out."

"No," Abraham said, "I will join the fight."

"Are you sure?" Mick asked. "These are aliens with plasma guns and missiles and stuff like that, and you just have a sword."

Abraham did not think that would be a problem. "It sounds like fun."

Mick really disapproved of the idea of sending Abraham to this battle, but it was not his decision to make. He also knew that someone else was not suited for this battle even if she was literally suited for it. "And Siobhan, I don't think you've done this before but you wanted to come along with Jill..."

"I shall stand and draw fire," Siobhan declared enthusiastically.

Mick noted the spearlike device in her hands. "Well, you have that shield spike to protect you, and I suppose that brings us to the next thing I should say. I mean, it doesn't need to be said, but the people with the strongest shields will be at the front. That means Jill and Alex. And Rax Talon, I don't know how strong your shields are..."

Rax lifted his double-barreled rocket launcher from the floor and propped it against the bench. "I will not give them the chance find out." 

Mick smiled. "Yeah, get them before they get you. That's a good plan."

"Ahem." Dick cleared his throat to get Mick's attention, then twisted his body and pointed to the metal triangle that was attached to his belt.

Mick smiled at the sight of that familiar object. "Oh, you have a personal shield generator!" He turned to show off the same product attached to his own belt. "This little guy will protect you from shrapnel, but if you take a couple of solid hits, you're out. So I recommend you stay behind someone with real shields. In fact..." Mick removed the triangle from his belt and offered it to Abraham. "Here. You'll want this out there." 

After Abraham took the small device, Mick turned to Captain Galacto. "So what exactly are they going to face out... wherever we're going? We should give them a proper briefing."

Captain Galacto did not have that information yet. "Highman is gathering that information from the client."

"So... we'll figure it out on the way?" Mick asked.

"Yes." Galacto turned to the wall and used the control panel to begin raising the ramp, then walked away into the ship. 


The ground level of the research facility was situated in the middle of the Utah desert. The location was protected by a concrete wall and multiple perimeters of cyclone fencing. Attached to the outermost fence was a sun-faded sign that named the facility for the black mesa that rose from the landscape behind it.

	BIG BLACK BUTTE
	Research Station
	NO ENTRY TO
	Unauthorized
	Personnel 

High above the research facility, Captain Galacto's ship flew from left to right across the clear blue sky. 


Alien after alien walked through four portals in the facilty's sandy courtyard. The scouts with their plasma guns were supplemented by bigger aliens with bigger plasma guns, double-barreled plasma guns, triple-barreled plasma guns. Other aliens sported belt-fed rocket launchers, sawblade launchers, or a gatling-style rotating laser gun with multiple barrels.

Two of the aliens near the front spoke as a growing army of reinforcements arrived behind them. "There has to be a civilization out there to support this place," one said to the other, "and we will conquer them just as quickly as we conquered this outpost."

The other alien warned him. "There is still one human who resists us."


The young man with a thin beard-in-progress nervously looked around the corner of an outbuilding at the increasing army of alien warriors, then turned away to hide. He looked down at the weapons in his hand through his cracked spectacles. He had a soup spoon and a can of WD-40. "I can do this!" the young man told himself. He turned and walked out to face the alien army on his own.

The aliens took position and aimed their many guns toward the lone man. Far above them, Mick spoke. "Alright, send down the first team." The young man was surprised as three transporter beams placed three people in front of him. 

Rax Talon on the left spoke to Alex Smith on the right. "You take the ones on the right and I'll take the ones on the left." He aimed his double-barreled rocket launcher and began running. Alex was already running.

"I guess I'm going up the middle," Jill said. She aimed her heavy gun and fired the prepared cluster bomb from the red-glowing barrel. 

The front row of aliens fell as Rax and Alex showered them with missiles, and they flew through the air as the cluster bomb exploded among them. 

"Send down the second team!" Mick ordered.

Dick, Siobhan, and Abraham now appeared in front of the young man who was lying flat on the ground to avoid the alien counterattacks. Abraham already had his sword drawn and held it at shoulder height in a pose that was more for showing off than for fighting.

"It's time to kick some alien butt," Dick said as he walked forward while observing the area. He then broke into a run toward the left side of the battle.

"Let's do this!" Abraham said eagerly before running toward the right side of the battle. 

Siobhan waited until Dick and Abraham were out of her range, and then she twisted the shield spike to turn on the portable shield generator. The young man watched stray missiles and plasma explode against the half-dome surrounding them, and he considered that it was safe to stand up.

"Send down team three!" Mick said. 

The third team did not appear in front of the young man. He heard the high-pitched whine of a jet behind him as Rinn-B and Highman flew over the walls. Rinn-B followed Abraham and Alex on the right side, while Highman flew to the left with his yellow cape fluttering in the wind behind him.

Having no time to reload her missiles, Alex threw a handful of sticky bombs over the crowd of hostile aliens while strafing them with her arm cannon. She leaped and somersaulted over two aliens, then activated her electric field as she landed between them and the aliens behind them. The electrocuted aliens fell away from her, while others fell as the bombs exploded across their bodies. 

While the confused aliens concentrated on Alex, Abraham attacked their exposed throats with leaping slashes of his wakizashi. When a few targeted Abraham, they were blasted from above by Rinn-B who carried a laser rifle in her hands and micromissile launchers on her jet. 

Another large blast cleared out the middle of the alien lines as Jill eliminated half of the remaining alien force with another cluster bomb. She walked towards the gap as quickly as she could.

Having run out of missiles, Rax Talon had left his rocket launcher behind and now used the aliens' own weapons to devastate them. If one of them came close enough, he slapped it away with the energy-powered claw that was attached to his left arm. If an alien got by him, Dick Wood took it down with a blast of his shotgun. Dick was getting low on ammunition, so he struck the next alien with his gun-butt and kicked it off its feet. 

Highman flew in and took one of the bigger aliens up into the air, then dropped it on another big alien. He then dove down and punched another alien to the ground from above. 

The young man under Siobhan's shield watched with utter astonishment. 

Another alien leaped through one of the four portals, growled angrily, and raised its gun. Jill kicked the alien hard enough to knock it into the air and back through the portal. The portal then closed in front of her, as did the other three. Jill looked to both sides and saw her companions walking toward her, and no aliens still standing.

"Is that it?" Jill asked. "Did they go away, or--"

She was answered by a loud roar on the other side of the main building. Two extremely tall aliens reached down and lifted the entire building, to the surprise of the alien invaders inside the building and the scientists running from them. They all ran in different directions as the big aliens threw the building to the side. 

One of the scout aliens hammered a sign into the ground. 

	THE MAIN CAMPUS HAS MOVED
	<-- 200 YARDS

The two very tall aliens raised their arms and roared. 

"I guess that's my answer," Jill said casually. Her gun's barrel glowed blue as she prepared a very big shot for a very big target. Alex reloaded missiles onto the magnetic ring of her arm-cannon, while Rax discarded an alien plasma gun in favor of a bigger gun.

"Here, Dick. Help me lift this." At Rax's request, Dick raised the front of the weapon off of the ground and propped it over his shoulder to hold it steady as Rax moved the butt to aim it. 

Highman flew up and slammed his fist into one alien's chin, launching the huge alien off of his feet and to the ground. He turned toward the other alien but caught the back of its hand and was slapped away into the distance. Rinn-B blasted that alien in the face with her laser rifle, then flew out of the way before it could slap her too.

Abraham jumped onto the alien's foot and aggressively slashed tiny cuts into its socks. Alex fired six missiles that exploded against the alien's body in a line from its belly to its forehead. Dick and Rax scored a direct hit with the alien weapon. Jill delivered the grand finale, a huge ball of energy that exploded against the alien's chest and threw it to the ground.

Abraham jumped off of the falling alien's foot and returned to the team. Highman flew in and landed beside Rax and Dick as they lowered the alien weapon to the ground. Rax looked over the two still giants ahead of them and then asked Highman a question. "So did we win or what?"

Highman directed that question to the ship. "So did they win, or...?"

Captain Galacto answered. "We have received a message from the aliens. They are surrendering."

Mick had more to say. "I think that was exactly what the client wanted to see, and none of you were hurt, so, good job everyone. We'll be landing and picking you up in a moment."

Highman repeated that message to the squad. "Good job, everyone."