Mr. Grand led Max to a hidden room in his house. With a wave of his hand a door opened. Inside, on a little pedestal, sat the gun. It was about the size of a rifle, maybe a little smaller. Mr. Grand picked it up and handed it to Max.
"This little switch right here is the safety. It fires like a regular gun, just point and shoot. It's solar powered so there is no need to have to reload. The scope allows you to hit a target at over five hundred yards away. And this switch toggles between single shot and auto-fire, but be careful not to auto-fire to long or the gun will overheat. Any questions?"
"Why don't they just nuke the planet like they did with the dinosaurs?"
"Because, unlike then, they now know that this planet has some valuable minerals in the surface, so they are planning to eliminate all life by hand then set up a mining colony."
"How long have you known they were going to be here?"
"Since about an hour after you and your mother left my house last night. I don't sleep so I had plenty of time to make the necessary modifications to the weapon to allow you to use it properly."
"And where exactly will they be landing?"
"They will most likely start in less populated areas to give themselves a foothold to attack the areas of larger population. In this area they will be landing near Meadow Lake, about a half hour west. So you'd better get going."
"Thanks, Mr. Grand. If I don't come back, take care of my mom for me, you know how emotional she gets."
"I'll do my best."
"Thanks again. Wish me luck." Then Max slung the gun over his shoulder and ran out of the house.
"Best of luck, Max. Best of luck."
Max ran all the way to his house. It was still early and his mom was still asleep. For that he was thankful, he didn't think he'd have time to explain how he was trying to save the earth. He did wish he'd have a chance to say goodbye though. He told himself there was no time for emotion and got into his car and sped off.
He had a few friends that lived in the Meadow Lake area so he new a couple shortcuts through dirt roads. In about twenty minuets he was there. He checked his watch, the Adsifs should be there in about fifteen minuets. He decided find a good hiding place and use the sniper feature first. He spotted a grove of trees about four hundred yards and drove over there to set up. He laid down and found a rock to prop the gun on to steady himself. He looked through the scope and saw he had a clear view of the entire lake. The lake was only seventy-five yards across, so even if they landed on the other side, he was still in range.
He waited for them to arrive. He wondered to himself what they would look like. Grand said that they thought the dinosaurs were very big, so that meant that they weren't too terribly large. He also said that they designed his skeleton to seem more primate-like, so that probably meant that they weren't human shaped. He tried to think of anything else his teacher had told him that would give him a clue as to what these creatures looked like.
He was starting to let his imagination get away from him thinking about what they might look like when he heard a loud explosion. He looked up and saw a flaming object falling from the sky. That had to be their ship coming into our atmosphere. At first he was tempted to try to shoot at the ship, but he didn't know if the laser would penetrate the hull and he didn't want to bring unnecessary fire towards himself until he was sure he could do damage back.
The ship itself was pretty simple, very 'flying saucer' like. It also didn't seem very big, about the size a normal human airplane. The ship landed and a hatch on the side opened up. A metallic ramp slid out and lowered itself to the ground. What came out next was like nothing Max had ever seen before. Even in his nightmares, nothing like this had ever been thought of. The creature that emerged had a head, and that is were the similarities to a human ended.
The entire thing was a sickly purple color. The head beneath the helmet had four eyes, no apparent nose or ears, and a large mouth with lots of sharp teeth jutting out. Its body had four arms that were budging with muscles. Its legs were very insect-like and it had eight of them. From leg to head it looked like it was about ten feet tall. Another of the creatures came out of the ship carrying what Max guessed was their weapons then another came out, and another, and another. All in all there were seven of them.
It's now or never, Max thought to himself. Then he took aim on one of their helmets and squeezed the trigger. At first he couldn't tell if he'd done anything. Then he looked closer and saw there was a little hole in the Asdif's helmet that was leaking whatever it used for air. The thing started to gasp and roll on the ground. Finally, it made an ungodly sound and quit moving. The others, instead of trying to help their fallen comrade, appeared to be laughing at it.
Max took aim at another one and fired, he did this twice more in less than ten seconds. Three more of the creatures fell. The remaining three took this as a sign that things weren't funny anymore and started to fire randomly all around. The closest any shot came to Max was a tree about twenty feet away. But that was still too close as he could feel the heat as the shot hit the tree and it went up in flames.
Max stayed low, but got to his feet and started to fall back. Sure enough, not thirty seconds after he left his position, a shot rang out and destroyed his former hiding place. He got behind another tree and switched the gun to auto-fire. He turned out and fired a quick burst at the first creature he saw, then ducked back. Within seconds he heard that ungodly scream. He did this once more and got one more. After this one he quickly moved from his spot to another one. There was only one more Asdif and he didn't want to make any mistakes with only one left.
He ducked from tree to tree. The thing knew there was someone there as it was firing into the trees trying to kill what had killed its buddies. As Max was running a shot from the thing hit not five feet from him. The blast knocked him forward and slammed him into a tree. He could tell right away that his leg was broken. He knew he was in big trouble. He grabbed his gun and started to crawl.
Max heard a yell and saw there were some people that had stumbled across the battle. Max tried to yell at them to run away, but no sound came out of his mouth. The Asdif fired a shot at the group and Max saw there were body parts flying everywhere. Max new what he had to do. He crawled out into the open and tried to stand on his one good leg. His gun was at his side with his finger on the trigger.
"Hey, ugly!" Max yelled. The creature turned from the crowd towards Max and started to laugh.
Despite the laughs, Max went on, "You come to MY planet, blow up MY people, and dare to laugh at me? I don't think so, fucker! Say hello to my little friend!" And with that Max lifted the gun and fired full auto-fire at the Asdif. Shot after shot hit the creature tearing hole after hole in its protective armor and letting the noxious Earth air into its system.
The creature howled in dying fury and fell to its insect-like knees. But before it let out its ungodly scream, it raised it gun and fired one last shot at Max. The shot connected, and nothing was left of the young man other than a bloody smear and a severed hand still clutching the trigger of a laser gun.
So Max Reef died that day a hero. But the war was far from over, in fact, the true war has yet to begin…