In the year 2025 human civilization makes first contact with not one but two alien civilizations. The Machine Empire and the Xenopods have been enemies locked in a death struggle for over 10,000 years.... [more]

In the year 2025 human civilization makes first contact with not one but two alien civilizations. The Machine Empire and the Xenopods have been enemies locked in a death struggle for over 10,000 years. As the battle for control of the solar system and the earth rages with unimaginable fury, neither group pays the insignificant natives of the planet much attention. Within a month of first contact, 99% of the human race is exterminated by thermonuclear fire, kinetic weapons strikes, genetically engineered plague and starvation. The survivors scurry like cockroaches to stay out of the aliens' way. A little over 20 years later the fighting stops as suddenly as it started. A shift in the tide of battle moves the front to other star systems and all that remains on the devastated planet are scattered groups of human survivors and the abandoned remnants of the aliens' fighting forces. They have been left to fend for themselves until the system can be reoccupied and the stranded units withdrawn. The earth smolders like an ash heap and the once blue green jewel of the solar system has been transformed into a brown scorched wasteland. [less]