65 Million Years Ago

An egg,

gigantic—pulsing:

awash with small scuttling dinosaurs, building it.

Earth, lush and primeval.

On a mountain-top overlooking construction, two large dinosaurs touch foreheads.

It approaches, one telepathises to the other.

It shall destroy us.

We must save as many as we can before—

IMPACT

—of an asteroid smashing into the Earth!

Boom!

Crust, peeling…

Shockwave: emanating from point of impact like an apocalyptic ripple, enveloping the planet.

Followed by a firestorm of death.

Burning.

The terrible noise of—

Silence:

in outer space, from which Earth is but an insignificant speck; receding, as an egg-shaped ship floats past, and on board, We shall return, an old dinosaur telepathises.

Present Day

“Sir, I have no idea what it is.”

The head of the Royal Astronomical Society stares at a screen

(“But it’s coming right at us.”)

door, sliding open:

“Mr President, the Prime Minister is on the line.”

The White House

The President: “I stand before you today at a moment of crossroads, not only for the human race, but for our planet…

The egg drifts through a vast star-pricked blackness.

“We must meet this foreign object as

a NASA assault ship

a threat.”

appears, followed by dozens of others, all converging upon the egg.

“We must defend ourselves.”

The ships open fire.

“My fellow Americans, at this very moment, we act:

the egg—

cracks.

and the future is once again made safe by the United States of America,” the President concludes.

Applause!

The egg sheds its shell.

Revealing—flakes breaking away: discarded, pulsing—a thousand smaller eggs within.

The assault ships pulse too /

The assault ships are—

no more time!” she screams, leaping out the window.

gone.

And she falls…

into New York City below, where egg after egg thunders into

.

the streets / the skyscrapers / the people

/ from the eggs emerge:

Dinosaurs

They predate our world, blood dripping from their fangs (a soldier—swallowed whole), human skin hanging from their claws (ripped (“In the name of the father—”) apart) like drapery torn from the very window of civilisation, itself splattered with innards and showing the unstoppable advance of a prehistoric enemy.

Merciless—

A flock of pterosaurs wrecks a squadron of F-22 Raptors.

Unyielding—

Triceratops charge Abrams tanks.

Never before seen—

Aircraft carrier. Calm ocean waters; broken by the emergence of a monstrous beast whose limbs enwrap the vessel, pulling it below…

But amongst the devastation humanity found hope.

A tyrannosaurus prowls across a shattered urban landscape.

Stops.

Turns its head and—

“Bingo!”

vapourized.

“Dinosaur fucking dust,” the pilot says, lowering his weapon before moving nimbly past the kill zone, bright sunlight glinting off his mech’s armour, on which is painted

Earth Mechanized Defense Force

“What’s your mech warrior?” the recruitment officer asks.

Images flash:

massacre / mech / dinosaur / bodies

(Dulce et decorum est

You glance at the people seated beside you in the underground auditorium.

EMDF

The future of us—is in your brave hands.

pro patria mori)

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