Xavier and his family silently watched the TV as the projector drone flew off.

"We've just gotten confirmation from our other WNN bureaus, folks," the newscaster said, "that this 'Summa Matrei' has given what's reportedly the same message all over the world that we just heard right here... and all in the native languages. Yes, she's given her announcement in English, Spanish, Chinese, Russian, French, Farsi, Arabic, Swahili, Hindi... as far as we know, every language on Earth."

The TV screen dissolved to the news studio and commentator, who shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "We have yet to hear any response from any leaders on this just now, but we're sure that there'll be a reaction soon enough, and we'll give it to you as soon as we can."

The commentator droned on, searching for the new words to say the same thing to fill the time until something or someone new came along. Xavier's family simply stared at the television set silently for quite a while. And at last, someone broke the silence with his observation.

"Ain't no way the President's havin' that."

It was Keith. "When'd you slip in?" Xavier asked his older brother.

"Just before the old battleaxe gave her big speech." He snorted. "Man, how do we even know they've got the power to make us, anyway?"

Xavier's brow wrinkled. "Well, if they're all as big and strong as their queen--"

"One, that's the Jumbotron hologram talkin', ya clown." Keith folded his arms. "They could all be four foot nothin' for all we know. And two, I don't care how much iron they can press, they can't press it when it's flying at their heads at 1200 feet a second."

"Well," Hogan said, "tell me, then: how'd they get past our telescopes, let alone our radar?"

"Yeah," Xavier added, "a whole buttload of em, too."

"Pfft!" Keith waved the TV off. "It's just like Kruschev and the Red Army's parade... same units marching past us over and over again, to make us believe they're many."

"But how'd those same units sneak in without us seeing, Keith?" Hogan pressed.

Keith stared back. Then he shrugged as if it were the stupidest question ever asked. "It's all probably a big practical joke or something by this channel. H.G. Wells all over again."

"Let's find out," said Dad. And he pointed the remote control and clicked.

It was the same story all over: CNN, CBS News, ABC News, MSNBC, Fox News, BBC. In fact, almost all the non-news channels like MTV and ESPN had stopped their usual programming and let their parent companies' news arms transmit the live report. Only children's channels like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network were still running their usual shows. Xavier would've found THAT frightening on its own, if the aliens hadn't stolen the spotlight.

"If this is a joke," Dad huffed, "all the networks must think it's pretty freakin' funny."

Finally, the family settled back on WNN and settled in with the commentator and the channel's head reporter from the science bureau. Soon he was talking about the likelihood of this happening, and trying to glue answers together on why NASA didn't see this coming years in advance. Right then, Xavier finally felt his eyelids getting heavy: the flight across the Pacific, the jet lag, the lack of sleep, the stress and irritation of the beer jerk on the plane; they'd finally took its toll.

And when they brought in a Hollywood sci-fi "expert" to join the blah-blah of talking heads, that was the knockout punch. Xavier blew the whole thing off, and dozed away.

***

"Mmmnh." Two of Xavier's favorite aromas hit his nose: the smell of fresh brewed coffee and his Mom's breakfast casserole. Rustling under the blanket she'd draped over him, he got up and staggered over to the kitchen. "Hi, Mom," he mumbled.

"Hey, sleepy," she chirped. "Your cup's right by the coffee maker."

"Thanks." He poured himself a cup and added the creamer. "Glad to see the world hasn't been blown up yet."

"It better not. I took a vacation day off work to make this for you." She slid him a plate with egg-cheese-sage-sausage goodness on it.

"Aw, thanks, Mom." And he hugged her. "You didn't have to do that."

"Well, I did," she smiled. "So shut up and eat it."

Chuckling, and pausing a second to say grace, he settled into his spot at the kitchen table. "Anything spectacular happen last night?"

"Not really. The President came on this morning at 8 with an address to the world and the aliens. Long story short, he told everybody to stay calm and go with life as normal. And he told the queen, Zoomer Matress--"

"Summa Matrei, I think, Ma."

"Whatever. He told her hi and welcome to earth, flashy entrance, but we're not giving up our weapons. Too many enemies."

"Oh? Any response from her?"

"Nope. Dubya's trying to offer a dialogue with them on it, but I'm not sure how we're gonna reach them." She sipped from her own mug. "They didn't exactly give us a phone number or e-mail address."

Grunting, Xavier added a little mustard. "Where's everyone else?"

"Keith and your Dad went to work, Hogan's asleep but has got classes this afternoon." She poured him a little orange juice.

"So whatcha got planned this morning?"

"Well, I gotta convert my Taiwan dollars into American ones, update my driver's license, and go see Pastor Craig at the church."

"Ah, yes, he'd been asking about you. They've missed you at the food bank. Need my pickup to get around?"

"Where's my old hatchback?"

"Hogan's borrowing it to commute to class. Why don't you just take the truck and fill it up while you're out and about? I'll get you the Exxon card."

And Xavier finally finished off his plate and rinsed it off in the sink as she brought him the keys and the plastic.

"Thanks." Then he got serious. "Mom... are you scared at all about... the aliens?"

She folded her arms. "As long as you boys are okay," she said earnestly, "and I can still get my cup of coffee in the morning, I'm not gonna worry."

Xavier grinned. And he hugged his mother again. "You're something else, Mom."

"I've known that for years. Now get going. You burned enough daylight."

He hit the shower. "'Kay, love ya!"

"Love you too, pumpkin!"

***

"And we can plainly see," said the helicopter reporter, "that each flying saucer is roughly the size of Hong Kong or Manhattan. Many car-sized probes just like the ones that showed Summa Matrei are flying out all over. They seem to have some sort of lens sticking out; can't tell if it's the same ones, or cameras. They're flying all over the countryside, and seem to be flying around the perimiters of our cities and government installations. No signs of any occupants yet at all. Ray Jenkins, WNN Radio, over the Badlands of South Dakota."

Pulling to a stop sign, Xavier peeked out of the pickup cab's window and gave the skies a quick once-over. Just a few clouds, thankfully. But still, with Redd Howard Air Force Base in the next county, he still felt uneasy. After adjusting the radio's volume, he checked for traffic, he zipped through the intersection.

"While currently many of the saucers are congregated within the Indian Ocean nations, particularly Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia, the flying probes are most prevalent through the United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, and India. While the aliens are showing no signs of hostility, all militaries are on the alert. The Department of Homeland Security has made no updates to the current alert status. For WNN Radio News, I'm Elaine Zondervan."

"And this is Roger Whitlock for WJNZ-AM. Temperature will be a high of 55 with a low of 34 tonight, with clear skies leading all the way to tomorrow. It's 1:06 PM, now, and we're back to Thrust Rambeaux and Frank Allen."

Feh. He didn't need to hear those two yammer back and forth at each other. Turning the radio and engine off, he checked his pockets one more time... cell phone, check. Wallet with greenbacks and new license, check. Truck keys... he pocketed them.

True, Jones Meadow made Mayberry look like Compton, but still. Swinging out, he locked the truck up and headed into the church's office.

***

Pastor Craig looked up to the knocking on his door jamb. "Hey, Xavier!" he grinned, hopping up and giving a double-grip handshake. "Great to have you back! When'd you get in?"

"Just last night. Thought I'd drop in and give you guys a howdy."

"Well, you picked a heckuva time to come home. At least you arrived before... they did."

"Yeah. Whadaya think, Pastor?"

Craig took a breath. "Well, I can't say I'm not surprised. I'm still tryin' to figure out what to make of all this." He steepled his fingers. "But I do know this much: this isn't the end of the world."

Xavier arched an eyebrow. "How do you know?"

"Well, for one, I checked Revelation." And the pastor held up his Bible, opened it, and leafed through it. "Lessee, we got war... famine... plague... monster locusts, earthquakes, beheading of the believers, the mark of the Beast, oaths of loyalty to the Antichrist, the moon and the waters of the earth turning to blood, grievesome sores, scorching heat, the drying up of the Euphrates River, and 100 pound hailstones... and other stuff. But nope." He snapped it shut. "No alien invasions."

He walked him to the kitchen. "For two, even if it were, I know Whom I believe in, and I'm sure He'll keep what we've trusted Him with until that day. God got us through SARS and bird flu, the bottle bombers, the recession and the stock market falling, and Jerry Springer and reality TV. He'll get us through this." He smiled wryly. "And for three, as I like to say, the good Lord also put each of us on the earth to do something for Him while we live, and right now..."

Xavier nodded and joined in Craig's old favorite joke's punchline: "...we're so far behind on it all, we'll never die." A polite snicker. "So, any way I can help?"

The pastor smiled grandly. "Thought you'd never ask."

***

And in the church's soup kitchen, Xavier reunited with retiree Pamela, who was scrubbing off the baked-on, burnt-on pots, pans and utensils. And as soon as he got his hug and dried off and put away everything, they hurried over to meet his old work-buddy Wes, who was sorting boxes of clothes and canned goods. Xavier learned that while he was teaching in Taiwan, the satellite dish factory where Pamela and Wes worked had laid them off due to plant relocations. Pamela, who was pushing 70, had finally decided to retire from mopping and cleaning their toilets, and Wes was on unemployment and doing volunteer work until he could find another forklift job somewhere else. While the Eugenians' arrival had subdued the mood a bit, it wasn't a dreadful dead-stop malaise like on September 11. They were all chatty. And that made time and the work zip by a lot faster.

Xavier had found that someone had donated a lot of books donated as well. And he started to sort them according to type and category for the coming bazaar, like a mini-Barnes and Nobles. But before he could figure out what to do with the trashier romance novels, a little rapid clicking sounded from his shirt pocket.

"Hmmm," he said. "The telegramaphone. Better see who it is." And he checked the SMS.

It was from Hogan. "Bro get 2 a TV. Aliens news. Shots fired."

***

Xavier burst into the office. "Pastor, can we get the news anywhere?"

Looking up from his phone and seeing Xavier's anxiousness, Craig held up a finger, promptly wrapped up his call, and hung up. "What's wrong?"

"This." And Xavier showed him the message.

The pastor turned to the computer monitor, hit the Bookmarks, and whisked up the Drudge Report. And there it was: ALIEN PROBE SHOT DOWN NEAR SUDAN/CHAD BORDER. EUGENIANS SHOW THEIR FACES.

The link, the London Times Online article and its streaming video revealed that some Islamic African troopers had fired off a rocket-propelled grenade and hit one of the camera probes, sending it crashing to the ground not too far from an old abandoned war-wrecked bus on a dirt road. The troopers stood and posed around the car-sized kill, grinning like they'd just killed a bull elephant.

Then the air around them whipped about, and dust and grass blades flew up. The camera view tilted up to the sky... and two bus-sized chariot-shaped flying skiffs swung around. One had a row of round shields on the sides, just like on a Viking longboat. The other stayed high up, so Xavier and Craig couldn't make it out that well. The Sudanese soldiers quickly scattered back, but the camera stayed trained on the landing craft and its plume of bright energy coming out its underside. Finally it hovered and came to a rest near the wrecked probe.

Quickly, the back of the skiff flipped open like a pickup truck's tailgate, and ten troopers quickly trotted out. Xavier first noticed the legs under the bright, copper-toned metallic short skirts: thick, muscular, so much so that the thighs were shaped like huge eggs. Even behind their round shields, they displayed arms and torsos just a notch larger than Summa Matrei's: biceps bigger than their heads, and breasts equally so. And speaking of heads, out from under their metal helmets streamed long, thick, rich hair: some down to the shoulders, others almost all the way down to their solid, full, round posteriors.

Craig finally blinked on that one. "Women," he said softly. "They're all women."

On each of their big, curved right hips dangled a straight sword. Each of them also had an archer's bow. Craig scratched his head on that one; they didn't have any quivers for arrows. For that matter, the bows didn't have strings, either.

Then the on-point Eugenian scanned the horizon, raised up her bow in one hand, and reached in the string's space with the other. A thin shaft of light gleamed from each end of the bow, and a thicker, harsh, jagged bolt of energy appeared and crackled between the bow's center and her fingertips. Soon the other warriors reached and nocked their own shimmering radiant arrows, and formed a cordon around the wrecked probe, scanning the area for any troublemakers. One warrior stared right at the camera with a mix of curiosity and sternness.

At last, the other skiff landed behind the perimiter and four more Amazons disembarked and went toward the wreckage to grab it.

Then Xavier's jaw dropped. He squinted. He rubbed his eyes. He compared the size of the women picking up the hulk, and gauged one next to the wrecked bus just to double check.

"Four foot nothing, huh, Keith?" he muttered to nobody.

Each trooper was about as tall as the bus.

To Be Continued