WW 22/08/04, Our first challenge! Options

[bart]

Baked

[Yoda]

QUOTE (Yoda's brain)

The Earth was baked. Once mankind's home, all that remained were dusty ruins and an endless expanse of red desert. And the last humans, the ones who couldn't get off the planet in time. Wrapped up in his radsuit, Mackin scanned the horizon with his eyes, searching for any movement beyond the boundaries of his small homestead. His son had not returned after the last raiding party had been chased off, and according to the survivors, he would not return. Mackin thought different. Wiping a hand over the faceplate of his mask, Mackin was annoyed to find the dust still masking his vision. Then he realised that it wasn't dust. Even as he focused on the expanding sandcloud that spread across the horizon, Mackin could hear the keening warcry of the raiders. Raiders, a human name given to inhuman beings. They were the reason that the human population of Earth had gone, and the reason that none of the animals or birds left behind had survived. No one knew where they had come from, the scientists of the planet had spent too much time looking beyond the galaxy - ignoring the threat within. The invasion fleet had 'appeared' in the solar system just one week before it reached the Earth. All the other planets were bypassed, the lack of life providing nothing for the Raiders. The abundant life on the Earth gave them everything they needed. Almost everything. The resistance was what they hadn't expected, Mackin and his people had delayed the advancing Raider forces as the population was put aboard spacecraft. Spacecraft that left the Earth without looking back, except to plunge a deep dagger into the backs of the defenders. A nuclear rain fell on the planet, a last ditch effort to clear out the invaders, sacrificing the surface to gain the planet. It served only to decimate Mackin's forces. No ship ever returned, and the Raiders took the planet. Almost. As the dustcloud drew nearer Macking caught a glimpse of shining metal as the Raiders drew their weapons. Smiling grimly, Mackin flicked off the safety on his EM rifle, charging the battery to full. Around him the abandoned wall thickened with defenders, the last bastion of humanity on the planet. Mackin wondered if they'd still be there in an hour's time.