All You Need Is Kill

The creche machines that came to rest on the ocean floor began carrying out their instructions quietly and methodically. In the depths, the machines chanced upon echinoderms-starfish. The creche-produced nanobots penetrated the rigid endoskeletons of the starfish and began to multiply in symbiosis with their hosts.

The resulting creatures fed on soil. They ate the world and shat out poison. What passed through their bodies was toxic to life on Earth, but suitable for the people who had sent them. Slowly, the land where the creatures fed died and became desert. The seas where they spread turned a milky green.

At first it was thought that the creatures were the result of mutations caused by chemical runoff, or perhaps some prehistoric life form released by tectonic activity. Some scientists insisted it was a species of evolved salamander, though they had no evidence to support their conclusion. Eventually, these new creatures formed groups and began venturing out of the water. They continued their work to reshape the earth with no regard for the society of man.

When they first appeared on land, the alien xenoformers were not weapons of war. They were sluggish, and a group of armed men could easily dispatch them. But like cockroaches that develop resistance to pesticides, the alien creatures evolved. The creche machines that created them concluded that in order to fulfill their objective of xenoforming the planet, they would have to remove the obstacles standing in their way.

War engulfed the world. The damage wrought was swift and massive. In response, a worldwide United Defense Force was established. Mankind had a name for the enemy that had brought the world to the brink of ruin. We called them Mimics.

4

Rita Vrataski joined U.S. Special Forces after the battle that earned her the Thor’s Medal of Valor. The medal, which bears a likeness of said deity brandishing a hammer, is awarded to any soldier who kills ten or more Mimics in a single battle. The Mimics had emerged as the only foe capable of standing against a platoon of fifty armed infantry raining a hail of bullets. Few Thor medals needed to be struck.

The officer who hung the gleaming medal around Rita’s neck praised her for joining the elite ranks of those who could claim to have taken down a double handful of Mimics. Rita was the first soldier in history to receive the honor on her second battle. There were some who wondered aloud, to her face, how Rita could have possibly acquired the skills needed to accomplish such a feat by what was only her second field operation. Rita answered them with a question of her own:

“Is cooking dangerous?”

Most would answer no. But what is a gas range but a short-range flame thrower? Any number of flammable materials might lie waiting beneath the average kitchen sink. Shelves lined with pots could weaken and fall in an avalanche of iron and steel. A butcher’s knife could kill as easily as a dagger.

Yet few people would consider cooking a dangerous profession, and indeed, the actual danger is remote. Anyone who has spent any time in a kitchen is familiar with the inherent risks, such as they are, and knows what can be done safely and what can’t. Never throw water on an oil fire, keep the knife pointed away from your carotid artery, don’t use rat poison when the recipe calls for parmesan cheese.

To Rita, war was no different.

The Mimics’ attacks were simpleminded. They reminded Rita of the swine she’d raised back in Pittsfield. Soldiers would single out a Mimic to attack, but Mimics did things the other way around. Like a broom sweeping dust off the floor, Mimics attacked entire groups of soldiers at once. As long as you knew how to avoid the broom, no matter how many times the Mimics attacked, you wouldn’t get swept away. The secret to fighting the Mimics wasn’t avoiding danger, it was running headlong into it.

Try it yourself next time. It’s easy.

That was usually enough to get them to leave her alone. They’d shrug and stumble away, dumbfounded.

Rita, who’d only just turned sixteen, didn’t understand why she was so gifted in battle. She’d have been happier having a knack at baking meat pies, or knowing just where a sow wanted scratching, but apparently God had a sense of humor. He must have noticed her dozing during the sermons all those Sundays her parents had taken her to church.

Special Forces was a place for individualists, for people with authority problems. Everyone in the squad was supposedly a vicious murderer who’d been given the choice between the army and the noose. They were guys who’d as soon shoot a person as talk to him, and they didn’t discriminate between friendlies and Mimics when they were letting fly with 20mm rounds. It was hard duty, and they were always looking for more warm bodies to fill the spots left by all the KIAs.