Robotech: The coming of the Invid

The cabin smells of wood smoke, damp wool, and too many bodies pressed into too small a space. Dana leans against the window frame, her breath fogging the cold glass as she stares out at the snow-covered forest. Two months since the Robotech Masters fell, and still the world feels wrong. Quiet in a way that isn't peaceful. Waiting. Behin...

The cabin smells of wood smoke, damp wool, and too many bodies pressed into too small a space. Dana leans against the window frame, her breath fogging the cold glass as she stares out at the snow-covered forest. Two months since the Robotech Masters fell, and still the world feels wrong. Quiet in a way that isn't peaceful. Waiting. Behind her, the main room hums with low conversation. Eighty-seven refugees—men, women, children, a few wounded soldiers from her own 15th Squadron—crowd the floor on bedrolls and salvaged furniture. They've stripped the cabin of everything usable. Blankets hang over the windows. Rations are stacked in the pantry like ammunition. Every shadow holds a face. Dana presses a hand to her stomach. The nausea comes in waves now, unpredictable and sharp. At first she thought it was something she ate, or the stress of the evacuation. But the dreams started soon after. Visions that jerk her awake in the dark, heart pounding, certain she saw something moving beyond the tree line. Purple light. Swarming shapes. A hunger that isn't human. "You're doing it again." She turns. Bowie Grant stands in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed, his expression caught between concern and exasperation. He's still wearing his dress uniform, the jacket frayed at the cuffs. "Doing what?" "Staring at nothing. Like you're expecting the sky to fall." Dana manages a thin smile. "Maybe I am." She doesn't tell him about the visions. Not yet. They'd think she's cracking under the pressure, and maybe she is. But the images feel too specific to be imagination. Too vivid. She saw a wave of red light sweep over the horizon, and when it passed, the cities were silent. No birds. No engines. Just the hum of something alien settling into the bones of the Earth. The Invid. The name comes to her in dreams, whispered by a voice she doesn't recognize. Outside, the wind picks up, rattling the glass. Dana's reflection stares back at her—pale, tired, but still holding that stubborn set to her jaw. She has to figure out what these visions mean. She has to get them out of here before whatever is coming arrives. But first, she needs to convince herself she's not going insane.

Bowie doesn't look convinced. He steps out of the kitchen doorway, crossing the creaking floorboards to stand beside her at the window. His reflection joins hers in the glass—younger, softer, with the kind of worry that sits heavily on his shoulders. "You're sure you're alright?" he asks quietly. Dana makes a weak smile. "Yeah. I think ...

Bowie doesn't look convinced. He steps out of the kitchen doorway, crossing the creaking floorboards to stand beside her at the window. His reflection joins hers in the glass—younger, softer, with the kind of worry that sits heavily on his shoulders. "You're sure you're alright?" he asks quietly. Dana makes a weak smile. "Yeah. I think I ate some bad rations, that's all." She pauses, then adds, too quickly, "How's Musica doing?" Bowie's eyes flicker—he knows she's changing the subject. But he lets it slide. "She's okay. But she's worried about the others." Dana nods, her gaze drifting back to the snow. The refugees had lived on the Masters' ships for God knows how long—generations, maybe. So much so that most of them had never lived outside an artificial environment until now. The cabin's wood smoke, the unfiltered air, the cold seeping through the walls—it must feel like another kind of alien world to them. Some of the older ones had started coughing in the night. A few of the children had fevers that came and went without explanation. "Doc Morrison says it's their immune systems," Bowie continues, his voice low. "They've never been exposed to Earth's bacteria. Common colds hit them like the plague." Dana presses her palm flat against the cold glass. The cabin holds eighty-seven refugees, and they're getting sick one by one. The rations are running low. The snow keeps falling. And somewhere beyond the horizon, she knows—with a certainty that has nothing to do logic—that the Invid are coming. She should tell Bowie. She should tell all of them. But what would she say? I've been having visions of an alien invasion, and I think we need to run before it's too late. They'd think she's lost it. Maybe she has. Instead, she lets her hand fall from the window and turns to face the crowded room. A child coughs near the fireplace. An old woman hums a tune none of them recognize. "I need some air," Dana says, and before Bowie can protest, she's already reaching for her coat.

The cold air hits her face like a slap, sharp and clean after the stale warmth of the cabin. Dana pulls her coat tighter and steps off the porch, her boots crunching through the fresh layer of snow that has fallen since morning. She walks a few paces until the cabin's light feels distant, then stops and looks up. The sky is a vast, bruis...

The cold air hits her face like a slap, sharp and clean after the stale warmth of the cabin. Dana pulls her coat tighter and steps off the porch, her boots crunching through the fresh layer of snow that has fallen since morning. She walks a few paces until the cabin's light feels distant, then stops and looks up. The sky is a vast, bruised gray, heavy with clouds that promise more snow before nightfall. Somewhere beyond that ceiling of white and gray, her parents are out there. Her real parents. She barely remembers them—just fragments, impressions, the way a voice sounds when you hear it through a closed door. They had been part of the Pioneer Mission, the first wave of humanity to leave the solar system on the SDF-3. She wonders if they ever look back at Earth, if they ever think of her. She turns her gaze to the cabin. Smoke rises from the chimney, curling into the cold air. Rolf Emerson built that chimney with his own hands. She remembers watching him lay the stones, his sleeves rolled up, his forearms streaked with mortar. Laura would bring them lemonade in the summer, and she and Bowie would chase each other through the half-finished rooms, their laughter echoing off the bare wooden walls. Rolf died in the war. Laura too. They were gone, like everyone else. A weak smile touches her lips as another memory surfaces—Zor Prime. The clone of the man who had created the Protoculture Matrix, the very thing that had started everything. They had been enemies at first, but then he had remembered. He had joined the 15th. He had become something more than what he was made to be. And for one night, before the final battle, they had been together. She remembers the warmth of his hand in hers, the quiet certainty in his voice when he said he would stop the Invid Flowers of Life from spreading across Earth. She looks past the cabin, past the treeline, to the edge of the clearing where the snow gives way to something else. Red petals. The Flowers of Life, blooming even in winter, their alien beauty staining the white landscape. Dana started to cry as she said, "He died for nothing." Her radio crackles. Sean's voice cuts through the static, sharp and urgent. "Dana, We've got movement on the perimeter."