The government had long since given up on fear-prevention - in the face of possible extinction, it was useless.

That's why the CIS was playing the footage of the Iron Rains flattening cities worldwide. The Empire itself lost Sydney, and closer to home, the world-famous Los Angeles no longer existed. Skyscrapers were mere piles of rubble, and the skies were gray with dust.

When the bombardments were first announced, Sam had buried her head into my chest, where I could feel her silent sobs rock her body. Her brother lived there, and we both knew that his survival wasn't likely. She'd always spoken well of him, an aspiring actor, and clearly, she wasn't taking it well.

The next morning, I was awoken by my cell phone, which decided to start ringing at the ripe time of 6:19. I grabbed it and reluctantly answered. The caller made me wish I hadn't.

"This is Sargent Dellstrom with the Cascadian Home Guard. I just wanted to let you know that your applications have been accepted and you and your friend are to report to Joint-Base Lewis-McChord tomorrow at 08:00."

"Oh, thanks Sargent."

He didn't bother saying goodbye. He simply hung up.

"The army call?" Sam asked, clearly woken up by the disturbance.

"Yeah, we gotta get down to JBLM tomorrow at 8."

"So we're in?"

"Yeah." I crawled back into the sheets and Sam's hand reached over me. We nestled together and returned to sleep.

We woke up to even worse news - the xenos had landed in Nebraska.

The Proconsul was announcing the largest Cascadian military operation in history, the entirety of the Home Guard mobilizing and joining the rest of the continent in containing and destroying the alien threat.

I was confused initially. How could we send the entire military?

Then came the next announcement - Sam and I had been among 2 million other people who had volunteered after the War in Heaven. This meant something else - we wouldn't be fighting in Nebraska, we'd instead be tasked with handing out food and pointing guns at people doing suspicious things.

I was going to complain before the third announcement shook both of us to our cores - the Dutch had taken a xeno body and found it to be human.

We were fighting humans.

Before the xenos came, perhaps I'd have cried. The new revelation regarding our harbingers didn't terrify me so much as it did anger me. Somehow, they didn't have a claim to humanity.

Later that day, some soldiers came by and issued me and Sam's Garands. The populace was being prepared to fight.