Change Is Coming

By C.S. Michaels

Titan Wolf and his band of survivors spent a week traveling to the nearest military base, through a destroyed city, avoiding the aliens that were reigning havoc on them. After finding out the base had been taken over by the aliens, Titan, or Ty as he prefers, must figure out what to do next. With aliens everywhere, he needs to decide whether they should find a place to hide or if they should fight back.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.S. Michaels
• Release date: Nov 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463031797

Book preview

Prologue

For the first time in the history of the Earth, everything was going great for humans. There hadn’t been any internal strife for a couple of hundred years as humans had finally learned to get along with one another, living in peace. The people of all the countries had finally decided they should work and live together rather than fighting one another.

As part of living and working together, the countries of Earth formed the International Coalition of the Countries of Earth or ICCE as it was also known. Because of ICCE, the Earth now had one government and one military which simplified everything, including producing food, developing new technologies and improving on existing technologies.

One area that the countries were interested in pursuing was space exploration. Space exploration had gone stagnant for a couple of centuries after humans had first walked on the moon, but the formation of ICCE allowed the people of Earth to come together and start exploring space rather than trying to do it independently of each other.

Not only did ICCE want to explore space to see what was beyond the solar system, they wanted to mine other planets and moons. There was an abundance of resources in space that were there for the taking and the government wanted to figure out how to mine those resources.

ICCE first targeted the moon and Mars as the first places to mine since they were closest to the Earth. Humans had already been to both for a brief time, but nothing had ever come of it. Each time a country started to focus on exploring them, wars, epidemic or other more pressing matters would take priority and the country would refocus their resources.

Once ICCE was created and everyone was living peacefully, they decided it was time to explore. They started mining the moon and Mars before eventually establishing small settlements. It was successful and ICCE wanted to venture further in the solar system, but the technology wasn’t there yet.

Because of the time it took to travel through space, humans were limited on how far they could explore. Interstellar travel took too long with the technology at the time, so humans had to stay content with exploring and colonizing the solar system. Even then, it was difficult to do because of the time it took to send supplies to the moon and to Mars.

However, all that changed thanks to technological advances that allowed humans to travel great distances in a short period of time. Not only was speed increased, but humans had invented artificial gravity on their ships to combat the effects of weightlessness on the human body, which was another limiting factor for humans to explore past Mars.

One of the biggest inhibitors to traveling great distances in space was the issue of storing enough food and water to last people while they were traveling. Fortunately, scientists developed ways to get the calories needed by the human body by creating small packages of food that contained all the required calories, so there wasn’t a need to bring big bulky items with them on their missions.

Even with the technological advances, it still took two or three years to get to other solar systems within the galaxy, but that was nothing compared to the time that it would have taken before the advances. The first-round trip mission to another solar system was a huge accomplishment and celebrated by the population of Earth, making the people want to travel to more systems.

Once long-distance space travel was possible, it was just a matter of time before humans started creating settlements on other moons and planets outside of their solar system, living a peaceful existence while at the same time exploring distant lands. It was a time of great prosperity as people volunteered in mass to go to these distant lands, wanting to start a new life.

As humans explored space, there was hope that other life would be discovered. There was always a belief that there was other life in the universe, but it had never been confirmed until humans were able to go to other solar systems. Once they started landing on other moons and planets, they discovered there was life everywhere in the galaxy, although most of it wouldn’t be considered intelligent life.

In most cases, life on planets consisted of microscopic life. However, several planets had small bug-like creatures and a variety of plants. There were a few planets that had large animals that were unlike anything humans had ever seen, but to the disappointment of many, they hadn’t found any intelligent life, so they kept searching.

Even though some of the planets had life, they still didn’t have enough oxygen for people to survive without space suits. However, the fact that there was life on other planets continued to keep people optimistic that they would soon discover a planet with an advanced species.

Finally, news made it back to Earth that they found a planet with intelligent life. The discovery of this planet changed everyone’s thinking. The planet was called Gorlan and the species that inhabited the planet were called Gorlanians.

They were an advanced race, not unlike humans. Although the size of the planet was much larger than the Earth, almost two times the size, their planet had many similarities to the Earth, including having rocky continents with several oceans. However, there were two main differences between the planet Gorlan and the Earth.

The first difference was the oxygen content. The oxygen content on their planet was much higher than the Earth’s. This meant that humans could breathe on their planet without any issues, however Gorlanians had trouble breathing on Earth because the oxygen content was so much lower. They could do it, but they became out of breath easily.

The other difference was the gravity. The gravity on Gorlan was two times that of the gravity on Earth. That meant that it was much more difficult for humans to move around on Gorlan, but it was a little easier for the Gorlanians to move around on Earth.

The Gorlanian’s body structure was somewhat like humans. They had two legs, two arms and one head. Their feet were more like flippers as they spent a lot of time in their oceans. They lived on land but were at home in the ocean as well. Because of their flipper-like feet, they could walk, but they couldn’t move quickly. It was like a penguin walking on land. It was awkward and slow; however, they were fast and graceful in the water.

Their skin was more like a shark’s skin, both in color and texture. They were much bigger than humans, growing to ten feet and weighing in at five hundred pounds. Their heads were twice the size of a human’s head, consisting of two giant eyes and two small ears. They didn’t have much of a nose as it was mainly two small slits that allowed them to smell. Their arms were short and stubby which led to hands that contained five fingers and two thumbs.

The Gorlanians were equally surprised to meet humans. They were as advanced technologically as the humans, so they had been traveling the galaxy in search of resources as well. They had found simple life, but never anything that was as advanced as they were. When the first humans arrived on their planet, they seemed to be equally as happy as the Earthlings that other intelligent life did exist.

After the discovery of the Gorlanians, both the humans and the Gorlanians lived in harmony as they tried to learn from one another. Since both civilizations were similar in technology, they shared what they had. The leaders of both species also made a deal, declaring which star systems each of them could explore and populate by basically dividing the galaxy in half.

Life continued like that for quite some time and as a result, the human population continued to prosper. Humans still had a military, but it hadn’t been tested in battle and because of that, the leaders of the Earth were content to keep what they had, expecting that it would be enough since there were no enemies.

The leaders focused on the continued expansion of other lands, enabling them to harvest the resources from those lands. Everything had been going along well until that peaceful life was shattered in an instant that nobody had ever predicted.

In the year 2292, the human colonies that were spread throughout the Earth’s solar system, as well as other solar systems, were attacked maliciously and without mercy. The Gorlanians, who had been a peaceful ally of the humans for more than half a century had launched a massive surprise attack, determined to take over every planet and moon the humans had settlements.

In a coordinated attack, they had destroyed most of the space fleet that was in the galaxy as well as the colonies that the humans had worked so hard to build. The Gorlanians even launched an attack on the Earth, taking all the inhabitants by surprise.

Using a massive air attack, the Gorlanians used their fighters to continually bomb the cities of earth, trying to kill as many people as possible. After several days and nights of bombing the cities, the Gorlanians implemented their second phase and sent in the troop transports, deploying half a billion soldiers to take over the land.

One of the hardest hit cities was California City on the western end of what used to be the United States. The city ran the entire length of the western edge of North America from what was once Mexico all the way to the land that used to be called Canada. This city contained a billion citizens, but most of them were killed during the bombing.

One of the survivors was Titan Wolf or Ty as he liked to be called. Ty had just graduated from fighter school after completing the Coalition Space Force Academy. He was going to be deployed on the Space Carrier, Constellation, as part of the eleventh Armada which consisted of several ships that would patrol the galaxy. He was enjoying his time off before he was supposed to report to the military base in southern California City. From there, he would catch a shuttle to his carrier then begin his five-year tour.

As he enjoyed his last two days off, the enemy attack started. After surviving the relentless bombing of the city, a group of people led by Ty hid in the tunnels that were all over California City. These tunnels were created for high speed trains that provided public transportation. The tunnels had been built to withstand massive earthquakes that frequented the area, so they were able to withstand the bombings, providing valuable protection for the survivors.

After deploying their ground troops, the Gorlanians that were now roaming through the streets went looking for human survivors, killing most of them, but in some cases, they were taking them prisoner. Ty and his group stayed hidden in the tunnels as they made their way to the nearest military base, hoping the military would provide protection for the group of survivors and allow Ty to do what he was trained to do, which was fly fighters, so he could help battle the enemy.

Along the way, they gathered food, water and other supplies to help in their journey towards the base. They also met up with more survivors, expanding their group as they traveled to the base. Finally making it to the base two weeks after the invasion, they were ecstatic, hoping the base would provide a haven for the survivors who had already been through so much.

Unfortunately, their plans changed when they arrived at the base, only to see that it had been taken over by the Gorlanians. They were devastated, not knowing what they should do. Ty knew they couldn’t continue to hide in the tunnels forever, but he had no idea what they should do. He knew that he needed to keep the group of survivors alive the best he could. However, there was one other thing he knew he needed to do.

He needed to fight back.

Chapter 1

I was lying on top of a pile of rubble with my binoculars focused on the aliens that were now occupying the military base in the southwestern part of California City. The binoculars were nothing more than a pair of glasses, except they had two important functions. There was a button on the right side of the glasses that let me zoom in and out and there was a button on the left side of the glasses that let me turn on the night vision function.

Right now, I had my binoculars zoomed in as much as they could go, allowing me to see the aliens clearly. It was a devastating feeling to see the aliens on the base because I had convinced the group of survivors that were waiting for me that we needed to get to the base because it would be a lot safer for them.

From a personal perspective, I was hoping to join other military members, so I could help fight the Gorlanians. Now, it was apparent that the base was overrun with aliens, which was disheartening because that meant there was nothing left of our military. That also meant there was probably nothing left of our military anywhere.

As I watched the aliens on the base, it was hard for me to believe that two weeks ago, I was getting ready to report to this very base as a newly commissioned officer in the Coalition Space Force. At the time, I was extremely excited to report to the base and start my military career. However, that now seemed like a long time ago.

Thinking to myself, I shook my head in disgust because right now, I should have been traveling through space on my way to a distant solar system, not lying on a pile of rubble from a building that had been demolished by the Gorlanians.

It amazed me to see the aliens controlling our base. Although I had worried about it the entire time we traveled here, I was still optimistic because I thought the likelihood of them taking out our forces on the base was remote. Obviously, it wasn’t as remote as I thought, which caused me to wonder what happened to the military personnel that were stationed at the base. Clearly, they had been destroyed in the attack. If they had been destroyed, did that mean that our military around the world had been destroyed as well? If that was the case, then we were truly in a lot of trouble.

As I lay there staring at the aliens, I thought about how I was going to tell the other survivors that were waiting for me a few miles away. They were going to be devastated when I told them about the base because they had put their trust in me as we made our way here.

When the attack happened, I was determined to get here by myself, but that quickly changed as I found more survivors that were trying to hide from the enemy. A lot of survivors continued making their way to where their families were located, but others stayed with me, thinking the base was the best option for them. It started off as a couple of people, but now numbered a hundred and thirty people.

That was depressing me the most. It would be one thing if I only had led a few people here. However, I had led a lot of people here with the hopes that this would be a safe place to be. It had been a long trek and I estimated that we had covered at least forty miles, if not more. Because of that, they were probably going to hate me once I told them what had happened to the base.

I knew I shouldn’t feel too bad because even though this wasn’t going to turn out how I had hoped, at least I had kept them alive for the last two weeks. They had decided to follow me because I was in the military, so they thought I knew what was best for everyone, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. They knew nothing about me, which was the way that I liked it because I only told them what they needed to know.

My given name is Titan Wolf, although I go by Ty because I don’t want anyone knowing that I’m part of the Wolf dynasty, which they would certainly figure out if I told them my name was Titan. They would immediately figure out that I’m part of the family that owns Titan Trains which ran in every tunnel in North America.

I come from money, a lot of money, and I prefer that people don’t know that because I was always treated differently when people found out about my family’s wealth and I preferred to not let that happen. I’m not sure if I would get treated differently now because money didn’t seem to mean anything anymore, but I wasn’t about to find out.

They had voted me their leader, even though I’m only twenty-three, because I was the only one in the military. That was fine, but I was worried that if they found out about my family heritage, it would change their minds. I didn’t want them to look at me differently and disrupt their belief in me, so I made sure to keep everything about my family a secret. It probably didn’t matter anyway because they would probably lose faith in me once I told them about the alien occupation at the base.

The other reason they probably elected me as leader, other than the fact that I was in the military was because of my physique. It can be somewhat intimidating for a lot of people when they’re around me. I’m six-five and weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. I’m in the best shape of my life thanks to all the training I had recently completed during the military Academy then at fighter school.

Because of my military training, I’m now built solidly with a lot of muscle, which means I don’t have much fat on my frame. I have short brown hair thanks to having it shaved when I was in fighter school. Even though it had been shaved several weeks ago, it was still very short, giving away the fact that I was in the military.

Watching the base, I was suddenly feeling guilty and it wasn’t about leading the people here. I wasn’t sure why I felt guilty, but then it dawned on me. I felt guilty because I wished I would have been on my carrier, out in space, fighting the enemy, not underground avoiding the aliens. All I was doing was surviving and I wanted to fight the aliens.

Although I knew it wasn’t my fault, it bothered me as I lie there. I still couldn’t believe the aliens had unleashed such a bold attack on the Earth and its settlements. To say it was a surprise would be one of the biggest understatements ever uttered. It was an attack that nobody could have predicted, and it was well coordinated. Destroying everything they could, the Gorlanians killed without mercy.

Fortunately for us, we found our way to the train tunnels, which was much safer than being on the streets. We made it through a lot of obstacles to get to this point as we tried to evade the death and destruction the aliens had unleashed. A lot of people in the city had died and I felt like we were lucky to have lived, although that luck may be short lived, given what I saw before me.

As I stared through my binoculars, watching the enemy, I wondered what had happened to everyone at the base. I remembered hearing that there were thirty thousand people stationed at this base, including spouses and kids before the attack happened. I couldn’t help but assume that all of them had perished during the invasion.

Looking at the buildings on the base, it was easy to see that a lot of them had been damaged when the alien fighters bombed them. Many of them were still standing, but the holes in the walls were easy to see from where I was lying. There were a few buildings that had been destroyed completely, but surprisingly it wasn’t that many.

Focusing my binoculars on the activity on the base, I knew there had to be at least twenty thousand aliens, if not more, occupying it. Based on the number of transport ships that I saw, as well as the sheer number of Gorlanians that I could see walking around, that number may even be a little conservative. It might be closer to thirty thousand troops.

In addition to all the troops, there was also a huge contingent of fighters that continued taking off, presumably to attack different parts of the city or go on patrol, looking for survivors.

The fighters were shaped like triangles with curved edges and were much bigger than our fighters. They were approximately forty feet long, maybe even more. Ours were slightly more than twenty feet long. Also, their fighters seemed to be ten to twelve feet tall whereas our fighters were only six feet tall.

There had to be at least a thousand fighters sitting on the tarmac and it was obvious the aliens were using the military base as their headquarters. It made sense and I assumed they were doing that at all the military bases around the planet.

The more I looked at the scene in front of me, the more I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. To say this moment was deflating didn’t do it justice. Getting to the base had been all I thought about for the last twelve days and now that I looked at the enemy occupation of the base, I didn’t know what to do. I was completely dumbfounded because I never had a backup option since it hadn’t entered my mind that we would need a backup plan.

I supposed I should have come up with a backup plan because I knew something wasn’t right. During our time evading the enemy as we moved around the city, looking for supplies, I never saw our fighters or our troops anywhere. I figured they were probably fighting the enemy away from where we were, but somehow, I knew that probably wasn’t happening. I’m sure I was just trying to convince myself of that, hoping and wishing that was true when I knew that it wasn’t.

I should have taken the time to explain to the other survivors that there was a good chance that we didn’t occupy this base anymore. However, I think I was so hopeful that our military was still there that I refused to believe it was possible that they had been eradicated. Not only that, but I think I liked having a purpose, which was heading towards the base. I didn’t want to just sit around and do nothing.

On the other hand, if I would have told everyone that there was a good possibility that our troops were gone, I’m sure most of them would have stayed back at our shelter, which probably would have been for the best. I could have still headed out here without them.

As I thought about that, something caught my eye and I focused the binoculars to a ship on the tarmac. I was shocked when I saw approximately thirty human prisoners being led into one of the buildings that wasn’t too far from the tarmac. Although I hated to see humans that were being held prisoner, there was a bright side to it. It made me think that maybe they weren’t killing everyone as I had first assumed.

After thinking about it for a few seconds, I wondered why they were being held prisoner. Did the aliens have heinous plans for the prisoners or were they taking prisoners like humans had done in any number of wars they had fought.

There were a lot of reasons why the aliens would take people prisoner, but none of them were good. The only reasons I could think of seemed to be terrible ones, so I tried to stop thinking about it because it was starting to depress me. However, it was a difficult thing to do.

I didn’t know how many prisoners the Gorlanians had in that building or what they had planned for them, but I knew it couldn’t be good. They weren’t shackled, but they were surrounded by armed guards as they led them single file into the building.

Fury flowed through my veins and I wanted to charge the base, so I could try to free the prisoners, but that was stupid and unrealistic. There were far too many aliens and we would be killed before we made it a hundred yards.

We had a few weapons on us, but nothing of significance, so there was no way we could fight a hundred aliens, let alone all the aliens that were occupying the base.

Chapter 2

There were five of us lying on the rubble, looking at the base. We hadn’t been there long, maybe an hour or two, but currently we were silent, trying to comprehend what we were seeing. Rolondo Hinman was lying to the right of me, staring through his binoculars. He had red hair, a pale complexion and freckles that dotted his face. He was a few inches taller than me, but he outweighed me by thirty pounds. Since he hadn’t shaved since the invasion, he was growing out his beard like the rest of us, but in his case, his flaming red hair was coming in patches.

I can’t believe they took over the base, Rolondo whispered to me.

There probably wasn’t any reason to whisper. I hadn’t seen any troops near us, so there was no risk of the aliens hearing us. I certainly didn’t think they had any devices that could pick up our voices this far away from the base. However, it wasn’t a bad idea to always whisper just in case there was a chance they could hear us.

I can’t believe it either, I replied.

Since there wasn’t much destruction on the base, compared to the surrounding area, that told me the aliens took over the base quickly and without much resistance. Since they had attacked the Earth without notice, I assumed they were able to take over the base before anyone knew what was happening.

Moving my head from side to side, I tried to scan as much of the base as I could, thankful we had the binoculars. We had found the binoculars, as well as some food, water and other supplies, in a store along the way here. Grabbing the binoculars had been an afterthought, but I was now thankful that we had taken them because they were proving to be extremely valuable.

Although it was dark outside, I didn’t need to turn on the night vision function because of all the lights that were on at the base. It lit up the aliens, allowing us to see them easily enough as they moved about their business. We were six stories up, which meant I had a good view, but the base was huge, so there was no way that I could see all of it, especially since many of the buildings were still standing, at least partially.

The base was approximately three miles from east to west and four miles from north to south, so most of the base was out of our sight and would be even if the buildings weren’t blocking my view.

However, from what I could see, I knew the situation was bad and confirmed my other thought. My estimate of twenty thousand aliens was probably low. There may be as many of forty or fifty thousand of them, depending on how many of them were in the buildings.

It was depressing to think of all the aliens at the base because those weren’t the only aliens in the area. Not only were there tens of thousands of aliens here, but we had encountered enemy camps throughout the city that contained two to three thousand troops per camp, so I couldn’t even imagine how many troops were in the city. There had to be hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of troops in California City, which meant there were millions and millions of troops spread throughout the planet.

I could hear some soft mumbling coming from Peoni, who was lying to my left. Peoni Haylon was a lovely blonde with gorgeous green eyes. Her long hair was tied up, so it was on top of her head which showed a long, slender neck. Her face was round, and she had the most perfect nose, not too big and not too small. It was perfect for her face. She was slightly taller than average and had a thin build, but still had the hour glass figure.

Peoni and I met at a bar when the attack first happened. She was waitressing at the bar while she tried to find a job as a teacher. I was enjoying