Read Area 51: The Legend for Free Online

a burden to his family. He ate little and his body was emaciated.
    As the Core appeared in orbit overhead, it was visible to the naked eye, and for several wild moments, the son wondered if the mothership had returned. Then he realized that whatever was in orbit was far larger than even the massive mothership. In fact, though the humans had no way of knowing it, the eclipse caused by the Core cut off sunlight from half the surface of the planet.
    As his family huddled around him in fright at the strange apparition, he remembered vague stories of an Ancient Enemy and a sensation of dread replaced the brief feeling of hope he had had.
    The Battle Core in orbit was essentially a self-sustaining mechanical planet and starship; the Swarm had no known home world. There were hundreds of these Battle Cores spread out in the Galaxy. Each was over two thousand miles long, by a thousand wide, and two hundred in depth. Its mass was so great that it generated a discernible gravity field that affected the tides of the planet below. During the war with the Airlia several dozen of these Cores had been destroyed, but each at great cost, and their loss was offset by the annihilation of dozens of Airlia-colonized planets along the frontier.
    The Swarm scout ship took off from its hide site on the planet and rendezvoused with the Core to render its report. The intelligent species on the planet below was dying out and offered no military threat. There was only one thing of value on the planet’s surface: the people themselves. Report done, the scout was dispatched to the point where the warpdrive had been initiated with orders to try to track the path of the mothership.
    Smaller capital warships deployed from the Battle Core, moving to equidistant positions around the planet. Each of these “smaller” ships was still twice as large as an Airlia mothership. They were large orbs with eight protruding arms bristling with weapons and launch portals. The capital warships descended into the planet’s atmosphere above populated areas until they were at an altitude of ten miles and clearly visible to the frightened humans below.
    At this point, the arms on the capital ships spewed out smaller versions of themselves. Over two million drop ships descended on the planet’s surface like black rain. They all touched down at the exact same moment. Portals in the craft opened and the Swarm emerged.
    Donnchadh and Gwalcmai’s son watched as one of the craft landed in the field in front of his house. When he saw what emerged, the shock stilled his heart and he died relatively peacefully. He was one of the fortunate ones.
    The Swarm began their harvest and in less than six hours there was no human life left on the planet.

    10,800 B.C.: THE SOL SYSTEM
    Donnchadh and Gwalcmai, along with the other fourteen teams selected for planet infiltration, had been put into deep sleep shortly after liftoff from their planet. Placed inside the black tubes the Airlia had used for the same purpose, they spent most of the interstellar journey unaware of not only what was happening on their home world but events on board the ship. Members of the crew died, children were born, and new generations grew up in the unique environment of the alien spaceship. The only planets they foundcapable of supporting human life were ones that the Airlia had seeded and were still occupied by their enemy, so each time they swooped in close to the star system—but not close enough to be detected by Airlia surveillance—and dispatched one of the system craft with a crew of two to infiltrate the planet.
    For those inside the mothership it seemed as if only eighty years had passed, but the relative physics of warp speed was such that much more time passed in the universe around them. Still, when Donnchadh and Gwalcmai were brought out of the deep sleep, they awoke to mostly strangers.
    Brought to the control room, they learned that the mothership was looping near the edge of a nine-planet system