It was midnight, the twelfth of August. The red planet of Maretia was high in the sky, I saw a luminous green gas leap from it’s surface, it came for us, an invisible, impending doom coming to destroy our home. I watched as another left the planet, starting on it’s way. That was how it was, for ten nights and days, green flares bursting from Maretia and hurtling towards us. A beautiful, yet deadly sight. I consulted Stargazer, the astronomer, she assured me that we were in no danger. She said that there could be no life on that remote, forbidding planet...
The next night, we saw the missile streak close to our world, across the sky, trailing the green gas. At first, everyone thought it a normal shooting star, but we awoke the next morning to find a cylinder embedded into the ground on Horsesham common. Stargazer went to examine what we all saw, the immense heat threw her back, before she could burn herself on the metal. Suddenly, the top began rotating, revolving, unscrewing... Some feared there was a pony inside, trying to escape, but they too were thrown away from the cylinder.
It seemed so strange, that, after this, everypony continued about their business, as if there was nothing happening, as if it was an evening like any other... I listened, the faint sound of shunting trains was softened by distance, almost into melody...
It all seemed so safe and tranquil.
Horsesham Common and the Heat Ray
I awoke the next morning, and looked from my window, I saw a crowd of ponies on Horsesham Common, I ran to see what was happening. The cylinder still revolved, we stood staring waiting for something. We didn’t know what, but we knew that we would know what it was when we saw it.
Then it happened, the lid of the cylinder ceased revolving, and with a shocking thud, it fell to the ground. A pair of huge green eyes appeared over the rim, scanning us, judging us... the eyes rose, along with the huge bulk to which they belonged; it heaved and pulsated, still looking around the crowd. Some ponies ran towards it, knowing it would try to kill the countless crowd gathered around it. A funnel fose from the cylinder, it pointed towards the ground, and an invisible ray of heat flew from it, turning the ponies instantly into fire, there were no remains, just fire. The flame leapt from the ponies to the trees and bushes surrounding the common. Ponies fled, I was swept with the crowd, I ran, finally making my way home, I wrote a draft for my newspaper, and then fell into a restless sleep, haunted by the deaths I had witnessed, and the hammering now coming from the pit.
I woke the next day, looking out once more to the common, the hammering still came from the cylinder, and the common was surrounded by soldiers, trying to form a cordon to keep the public out. It was even stranger now to think that, after five deaths, and the sighting of a Maretian, the daily routine still continued, people were almost oblivious to the danger, but we all knew that this would not be the end of the attack.
That evening, I saw the second cylinder land, and I knew that now, my home lay in the path of an invasion...
