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Then he looked up.

‘The
MIGRATORS
!’ he suddenly shouted. ‘Well that’s a lot better than us keep saying ‘the
Creatures
’ isn’t it?’ he laughed.

‘General, is the
re no way I can persuade you from carrying out this military action you’re planning?’ pleaded Stuart.

‘Stuart is it?’ asked General O’Dowd as Stuart
just nodded his head.

‘Stuart, beyond this invisible barrier they’ve somehow created, innocent men, women and children are all being devoured by these monsters. So no, I don’t believe we do have a choice’ insisted the General Defiantly.

Not long after that the General climbed upon his horse before he addressed his men.

‘MEN,
BEYOND THESE SAFE AMERICAN FIELDS INNOCENT MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN ARE BEING DEVOURED BY THESE MIGRATORS. NOW I DON’T KNOW QUITE WHERE THEY’VE COME FROM OR QUITE HOW THEY MANAGE TO STOP OUR ELECTRICITY FROM WORKING. WHAT I DO KNOW HOWEVER IS THE MIGHT OF THE AMERICAN ARMY IS NOW GOING TO KICK THEIR ALIEN BUTTS!’

The G
eneral immediately turned to lead his army off as all his troops just cheered him loudly!

Stuart though, just put his head in his hands
.

‘Oh, I can’t believe I’m witnessing
this’ he uttered ‘this is complete and utter, madness’ he just moaned to himself.

‘Poor sucker, the only one about to get his butt kicked is
him
!’ commented Jack thoughtfully.

‘But they’ve got to try
something
’ commented Joan.

‘But this is just
suicide, Joan’ replied Stuart. ‘I mean, it’s like the charge of the Light Brigade all over again only much worse’ he added.

Just then
, an army officer arrived and shook his head as he spotted Jack.

‘There you are!
I’ve been looking for you
everywhere
’ he complained.

‘I was just watching General Custer, sorry, I mean
, General O’Dowd leading his troops away’ replied Jack making a rather unfortunate Freudian slip.

‘I think you were right the first time’ uttered Stuart under his breath as Joan
just elbowed him in the ribs suggesting he just keep quiet.

‘It’s arrived!’ stated the army officer.

‘What has?’ puzzled Jack.

‘Th
e thing you requested of course!’ remarked the officer.

‘What thing did you request then, Jack?’ puzzled Joan as she
just stared at him.

‘A small airship’ smiled Jack as they now tried to keep up with the army officer as he led the way
towards it. ‘Well, I couldn’t get mine here, repaired, and readied in time’ Jack explained ‘so I requested another.’

Soon they were all staring at a small, single seat air
ship equipped with the same kind of self propelled cycle power as the much larger version they crashed landed in Eugene.

‘I put in a request to the government
as soon as we got here’ smiled Jack as he walked all around it ‘the General thought I might be able to film his army from the air’ he explained.

‘You’d better get cracking then or you might miss all the action’ commented Joan as Jack immediately climbed aboard and ordered the mooring ropes to be untied.

‘I’LL SEE YOU WHEN I GET BACK!’ shouted Jack as
he quickly turned the airship around.

‘GO CAREFUL!
AND GAIN MORE HEIGHT BEFORE YOU ENTER THE DEAD ZONE WILL YOU!’ shouted Jenny before holding onto her father’s arm.

‘
AND DON’T LET THEM CLIMB UP THE MOORING ROPES!’ shouted Stuart as he suddenly broke away from her.

‘Sorry, Jenny, but I didn’t want to shout in your ear’ he nodded.

‘Oh, I hope
he’s going to be all right’ uttered Joan as she nervously bit on her lip.

‘You should worry more about the General’s army’ replied Stuart as he looked very concerned.

They watched
as Jack did exactly as they had suggested and gained a good height, before he quickly looked back, smiled and then waved them all goodbye before heading off on his way.

It didn’t take
long for the General to spot the newly named ‘Migrators’ as they soon came into view. He’d hoped his army would arrive there ahead of them and so he would have time to build a line of defence to protect the whole of San Francisco.

As it was though, it appeared the Migrators were already there.

Jack had managed to get
just ahead of the General’s army and he paused from his peddling briefly to concentrate instead on some filming, as the General led his almighty army with him looking resplendent on horseback right at the very front.

The moment Jack turned around and began peddling
again though he noticed the Migrators up ahead of them.

‘Oh hell!’ he uttered nervously ‘I’d better warn the General!’

Jack now looked back
however, to see the General had already spotted the Migrators and had ordered the giant crossbows to be set up in a line.

Jack now stopped peddling altogether and concentrated upon his filming instead.

Unfortunately, the sheer speed of the Migrators had meant the General’s
army had simply intercepted them in mid flow as they rapidly passed by them.

Immediately upon spotting General O’Dowd’s army th
e Migrators began attacking!

All the army’s horses
immediately bolted leaving just the men and their crude weapons behind.

Jack secretly clenched his fis
t and cheered whilst he filmed as he witnessed Migrator after Migrator falling dead to the ground after being struck by the specially made metal arrows!

Suddenly though, the Migrators
seemed to all issue a deafening high pitched screech, that even Jack heard loudly from the airship’s height. In fact, it had him reaching quickly to cover his ears!

The strange, deafening noise seemed to be a special
Migrator ‘call to arms’ as they now all gathered to attack the General’s army on mass.

Turn
ing his camera lens towards the battle Jack gasped in horror as he witnessed the sheer Migrator numbers as they now began to charge at the General’s Army at full speed!

Jack himself trembled as he saw the entire earth beneath him turn completely black with Migrator numbers as they now fast headed for the thin line of guns of the General’s army!

General O’Dowd’s army
was still somehow holding the Migrators back, but then, in a second wave, like a floodgate suddenly being opened his entire army was completely engulfed and was quickly overcome and enveloped by the Migrators!

The following scenes were now so horrific Jack had to stop filming and quickly began peddling and turning the tiny airship around to head back again.

Jack
was a scientist and not presupposed to becoming over emotional. Now though, he peddled back with tears running down his face and his hands trembling uncontrollably.

He
was so shaken, he even got himself quite lost and finally had to redirect himself back in the right direction again. For this reason it was taking him a lot longer to get back than it should have.

Taking deep br
eaths to try and keep calm, Jack then reached for an apple he had brought with him to try and cure his now bone dry throat. Still haunted by the horrors he had just witnessed though, he found himself unable to even keep his hand still enough to eat it. He simply threw it away instead.

As the apple
reached around twenty or so feet above the ground it simply disintegrated in a sudden puff of smoke!

‘Heck
! What was
that
?’ Jack puzzled.

Then he began to realise ‘hey, I must be at the edge of the dead zone. No wonder no one ever gets out of there’ he concluded.

Joan, Stuart and Jenny all waited for Jack to retu
rn and they all cheered joyously upon seeing him heading back again.

The troops all grabbed hold of the mooring ropes as Jack drove the small airship down
to land. Then he climbed out and took the only two steps from the tiny airship’s cabin to the ground as they all went over to welcome him back.

‘Thank Christ you made it!’ smiled Jenny as she ran and gave him a big hug.

Stuart and Joan however
, had noticed that Jack now looked as white as a sheet.

In fact, he now looked quite ill.

‘Have
you some water please?’ Jack just about gasped as an infantryman immediately handed him a bottle.

Jack
was unable to drink though as his hands were still trembling too much.

‘Jack?’ cried Jenny as
she looked around at her dad for an explanation.

‘A
re you all right, Jack?’ asked Joan, now looking very concerned as she now watched him just slump down onto the ground as he leaned his back against a wooden crate and just closed his eyes.

‘Help him drink some water, Jenny’
Stuart asked her and she tipped the water bottle up for him to drink.

Jack now took huge swigs of water before
taking the bottle from her and pouring some over his head as he just leaned back against the wooden crate with his eyes closed tight.

‘They’re all dead
!’ he finally uttered.

‘What?
All
of them?’ asked Joan in dread as Jack just nodded his head as he now opened his eyes and just stared at the ground.

‘They fought bravely’ uttered Jack, but then he just shook his head ‘but you should have
seen them, Stuart, the Migrators just overrun the General’s army in just a matter of minutes.’

A second
later, a young officer turned up and saluted Jack.

‘General Iram requests your presence for your debriefing, Sir’ he ordered.

So Jack, Stuart, Joan and Jenny all went along to the meeting of mainly military men and
government scientists.

Jack was asked to go to the front and report General O’Dowd’s progress.

‘Well, how i
s it going?’ asked General Iram impatiently.

‘Give him a chance will you?’ complained Stuart on Jack’s behalf.

Jack stood before them and
now looked tired enough to collapse. He looked drawn and very grim faced as he stood there just staring at the floor.

‘They’re all dead!’ he
finally announced solemnly.

‘What
?
ALL
of them?’ queried one of the military advisors sitting with General Iram.

‘Yes,
all
of them’ replied Jack quietly.

‘The weapons didn’t work th
en?’ asked General Iram as the room suddenly fell completely silent.

Everyone now looke
d shocked as Jack explained all he had witnessed.

‘The General’s army arrived in mid fl
ow of the Migrators and he immediately set up the guns. At first they had some success’ explained Jack ‘and many Migrators were killed. Then though the Migrators just charged in, in such huge numbers it was like watching soldier ants quickly overcoming their prey. The Migrators were just so fast they quickly overwhelmed the General’s army. They didn’t stand a chance!’ concluded Jack miserably.

‘We will soon
have the film ready to run, General’ announced a soldier, but Jack quickly stepped in.

‘No! I mean, there’s nothing to be gained by watching the horrors
I filmed’ Jack insisted and General Iram seemed to consider this, then he nodded his head.

‘Tell them to s
tand down, Corporal, we won’t need to watch the film’ he ordered.

‘These creatures
are pretty much invincible’ admitted Jack. ‘I underestimated how fast they can run, why they covered so much ground so incredibly quickly.’

Y
ou could hear a pin drop now everyone was so quiet.

‘
But we had seventy thousand men there?’ queried General Iram as he now stood up as he began to pace up and down.

‘
Then the weapons we designed were of no use?’ queried one of the scientists on the design team.

‘Yes, they worked
, actually they worked well’ then Jack took a large sip of water before continuing.

‘The Migrators
gave out some kind of ‘war cry’ that seemed to be a call to arms. So they quickly all gathered together’ explained Jack ‘it was just their sheer weight of numbers that beat us.’

Virtually everyone in the meeting was now puffing out their cheeks and shaking their heads in dismay.

‘They sound like soldier ants
’ queried one of the military men.

‘Yes, only these ants are
all over six feet tall with stronger than ten inch steel armour plating covering them’ uttered Joan.

‘T
he people they have in the dead zone are held there by some kind of invisible destructive field’ explained Jack ‘it just disintegrates anything trying to pass through it!’

‘Wh
at like a force field?’ a scientist sitting nearby queried.

‘No, it’s something else, I don’t claim to understand it, but it clearly doesn’t go beyond a certain height or I wouldn’t be able to fly over it
in the airship’ replied Jack.

‘Is this a two way force field?’ a military man now queried.

‘No, it can’t be
, otherwise General O’Dowd’s army wouldn’t have been able to enter the dead zone’ quickly answered Stuart.

‘If we can’t defeat
these Migrators, then we’re all doomed’ commented one scientist as people now began to become alarmed.