Invasion: Earth vs. the Aliens. Robert Reginald

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      ALSO BY ROBERT REGINALD

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      Ancestral Voices: An Anthology of Early Science Fiction

      Ancient Hauntings (ed. with Douglas Menville)

      The Attempted Assassination of John F. Kennedy

      BP 300: A Bibliography of the Borgo Press, 1976-1998

      Choice Words: Writers Writing About Writing (editor)

      Classics of Fantastic Literature (with Douglas Menville)

      Codex Derynianus III (with Katherine Kurtz)

      The Dark-Haired Man; or, The Hieromonk’s Tale (NE #1)

      Dreamers of Dreams (ed. with Douglas Menville)

      The Exiled Prince; or, The Archquisitor’s Tale (NE #2)

      Forgotten Fantasy: Issues #1-5 (ed. with Douglas Menville)

      The Fourth Elephant’s Egg; or, The Hypatomancer’s Tale (#4)

      “A Glorious Death”: The Human-Knacker War, Book Three

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      If J.F.K. Had Lived (with Jeffrey M. Elliot)

      Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens (War of Two Worlds #1)

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      King Solomon’s Children (ed. with Douglas Menville)

      Knack’ Attack: A Tale of the Human-Knacker War (Book Two)

      The Martians Strike Back! (War of Two Worlds #3)

      The Nasty Gnomes: A Novel of the Phantom Detective—#2

      Operation Crimson Storm (War of Two Worlds #2)

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      Phantasmagoria (ed. with Douglas Menville)

      The Phantom’s Phantom: A Novel of the Phantom Detective—#1

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      R.I.P. (ed. with Douglas Menville)

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      COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 2007, 2011 by Robert Reginald

      Published by Wildside Press LLC

      www.wildsidebooks.com

      DEDICATION

      To the Memory of

      Major Roy Walter Burgess, U.S.A.F.

      (4 July 1922 - 16 February 1998)

      Pilot and Veteran of World War II and Korea

      and

      Carpenter’s Mate First Class

      Frank Joseph Kapel

      (5 December 1913 - 26 April 2006)

      Seabee and Veteran of World War II

      and for

      H. G. Wells and Tim Underwood

      Who inspired it!

      AUTHOR’S NOTE

      Despite the plethora of indications to the contrary on the Internet, this Borgo Press edition is the first separate publication of this novel, which has only previously been issued as part of the omnibus edition, Invasion! Earth vs. the Aliens (2007). The novel was announced for publication by Underwood Books in the Fall of 2005 under two titles, War of the Worlds and War of Two Worlds, the latter of which has now become the series title for this new edition; covers were created for same, and orders were solicited, but for a variety of reasons beyond the publisher’s control, the book never actually appeared then. Ironically, if War of Two Worlds and its sequel, Operation Crimson Storm, had appeared on schedule, the third book in the trilogy, The Martians Strike Back!, might never have been written, since its fate was dependent on sales of the first two volumes. And so it goes!

      —Robert Reginald

      16 January 2011

      PART ONE

      THE EARTH IN FLAMES

      I am a man.

      I consider nothing human alien to me.

      —Terence

      But who may actually live on

      These worlds if they’re inhabited?

      —Johannes Kepler

      PROLOGUE

      BANG! BANG! YOU’RE DEAD!

      You Only Live Twice.

      —Ian Fleming

      Alex Smith, 29 December, Mars Year i

      Marin County, California, Planet Earth

      I don’t know why I lived while so many others died.

      I should have been killed.

      I was chased and bruised and bent and broken and twisted every which way—and still I survived.

      Why?

      Why did I live while so many others died?

      There has to be a reason.

      * * * *

      The blast rolled me into a ditch, along with the tattered jigsaw pieces of my late comrades-in-arms.

      I remember hearing two successive explosions—blam! blat!—and being covered with dirt and leaves and branches and half an arm, leaving only my eyes and nose exposed. Then I watched the clouds scudding by above me, interspersed with wisps of green-and-black smoke, in a world made dim and deaf by the thunder of war. It was almost scary in a way.

      But I wasn’t scared! I don’t think I really understood what was happening. My ears were ringing with СКАЧАТЬ