The better your performance, the greater the reward.

Below this summary was a series of additional tabs.  There were dozens of them.  Some were deeper explanations of territory rights, fame, currency conversion rates, and other information from the text above.   Allistor noted them and moved on, looking for information on the three-day countdown.     Leah began to freak out after reading through the notice. “We’re dead!  This is it - game over!  I don’t want to get eaten by some alien.  Just kill me now!”

Allistor tuned her out as their mother tried to calm her.

He finally found what he wanted under a tab labeled “Stabilization Procedures.”   Opening up the tab and reading the information within, he began to tremble.

Stabilization of UPC 382 will commence three solar days from assimilation date.  Priority One:  Reduce human population to sustainable levels.

Estimated optimum population reduction: Ninety-one point five percent.

Priority Two: Reduce environmental contaminants.

Estimated industrial infrastructure reduction necessary:  Eighty-five percent.

Focus on destruction of facilities harvesting or consuming fossil fuels.

“They’re going to alter the planet to suit their needs,” he said, catching his parents’ attention.  “They consider us a contaminant.  That’s why they plan to kill most of us.  And they’re going to take out our factories and power plants because they create pollution.  We’ll be back in the stone-age.”

*****

Allistor was roused from his memories by another blast of sound from the void titan.  The sixty-foot-tall behemoth was now several hundred yards past his location, still flattening everything in its path as it pursued his neighbors.  It most closely resembled a mythical mountain troll featured in so many fantasy games.  All muscle and no brains, the things disliked bright light, preferring to hunt at dawn and dusk.  They had horrible night vision and were easily distracted.  Which had been the only weakness he and his neighbors had found so far.  A few brave souls with guns could distract and lead the creature away from vulnerable groups in hiding.

He could no longer make out the faces of those still fighting, but he could see that even in the last minute or so that he’d been zoned out, their numbers had declined.   He hoped that meant that some had escaped.

Not wanting to do it, but knowing he’d be unable to live with himself if he didn’t, Allistor went to check on the woman and her child.  The rubble half-wall they’d hidden beneath was crushed into gravel where the monster’s foot had landed.  He didn’t immediately see any evidence of blood, which he took as a good sign.  Maybe they’d found a hole deep enough to save them.