‘When the bombs started to fall, I was lucky, or so I thought at the time. An Altterran man found me sitting atop a hill watching mushroom clouds bloom on the horizon. I wanted to see how many I could count before I died.

‘”Need a life, pal?” I heard a man ask behind me.

‘I jumped to my feet. I hadn’t heard him approach. I stared at him blankly.

‘”I was on my way to my ship when I saw you up here. You want to get out of here, or not?”

‘”Sorry, I’ve never met an Altterran before. I didn’t mean to stare. You say you have a ship?”

‘We were in the air a few minutes later. I looked around in awe at the interior of the alien ship.

‘The ship rocked, and ignorant as I was of space travel, everyone knows flashing red lights and annoying buzzers never indicate that all is well.

‘”Listen, we got caught in a blast wave. I need to you sit here and hold the controls steady while I go in the back. Can you handle that?”

‘”Sure.”

‘I took the seat and held the controls just as he showed me. They fought me, but I did my best to keep them in place.

‘”Just like that, don’t let go till we break out of the atmosphere. Once you see black all around you, you can ease off.”

‘He disappeared into the bowels of the ship, leaving me to hope the red lights meant something less than imminent explosion.

‘I narrowly avoided collision with a much larger ship before pointing us at the Moon and letting the controls go. “Hey, you need help back there?” I called.

‘No answer. I waited, the buzzers and lights continued, and from the corner of the front window, I watched the earth die.

‘The ship lurched and shuddered before I got seriously concerned and started searching for my missing savior.

‘”Hey, man, you alright?” It was a stupid question to ask a man lying on the floor, bleeding from a chest wound.

‘”Get me back to the bridge. We need to get a message to the others,” He grunted.

‘”Is there any way to stop the alarms?” I asked, hoisting him to his feet.

‘”Grab that hammer over there.”

‘”Whats that for?”

‘”I can’t fix the engines, so we’re going to have to smash the alarm box.”