EPISODE SIX
Jada looks at Khan, then turned to the side and look at the three sitting on the bare floor, in their blue overalls with each of their hands cuffed.
“Take off their cuffs, they are also victims of circumstances.” She said.
Immediately, Khan pulled out a key from his pocket and freed their hands from the cuffs, walking back to where the rest of his teammates were gathered together with the three in the overalls.
Jada turned her attention to them and then asked.
“what are your names?”
Two of them turned their heads immediately they were asked to look at the third and more mature looking man among them, he nodded his head and they all turned back to look at Jada.
“I am Tom, this is Pete and she is Kate.” He said.
“Please forgive me for not trusting the three of you at first sight, but I am sure you will understand why I had the three of you cuffed. This is a delicate situation and any wrong move, people are going to die.” Jada explained.
She looked around the general area of the shelter they were in and took a deep sigh, then she began pacing back and forth in front of them.
“We are taking charge of this shelter for now but before we do that, we have to make some confirmation on the oxygen levels, food available and how intact the shelter itself is, I believe by tomorrow, we are to expect even more people who will flee from Budapest and the Fortress of Forge. These are the nearest cities from the Chrome shelter aside Chrome city.” She said.
“what about Chrome city? Are there no survivors?” Kate, who is in the middle of taking off her overall, asked. Having unzipped the overall and taken off her protective helmet, Astra can see her long black hair, which reinforces her beautiful eyes and fair skin. She was more beautiful that Astra had expected and Tim is already apologizing for pointing his gun at her earlier.
“you are looking at them. We are the only survivors from Chrome City. one of the alien pillars landed there and obliterated everything, even melting the Chrome walls of the city. No one in there survived,” Astra said.
“either way, we are taking over this shelter and getting it ready to receive more people by tomorrow morning, Astra, Rhoda and Jamie, go back and open the boxes with the federation seal outside in the parking space, let us be sure of what resources we have and which we are lacking, Tim and Lawrence, go mount the bulldozers we passed outside, I’ll open the side entrance to the general area, we are removing the rubble of concrete here and although we are not taking out the fallen pillar, we are not going to leave Edgar to rot there,” she said and immediately, they all immediately got to work.
“The three of you and Khan should come with me. We are checking the supplies and the entrance you followed to get in here,” she added.
Astra followed Jamie and Rhoda through the door, once again finding themselves in the large parking area of the shelter where the large wooden boxes stood. While both Jamie and Rhoda were busy checking out a box that they just opened and found the newest models of the hovering rover, Astra went straight to the monitor on the large metallic door that separates inside of the shelter from the outside.
She looked on the screen carefully trying to see if the alien monster that attacked and chased them all the way from the city, but it was nowhere to be found, but she can see the javelin that she tied to the chrome chains and shot at it some hours before, and the destroyed rover they used to throw it down the cliff, the alien monster has removed the sphere and left.
She then went back to join Rhoda and Jamie in the job that Jada has assigned to them.
SOMEWHERE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN
(GLOBAL HUMAN FEDERATION HQ, THE FLOATING FORTRESS. A.K.A. THE FLOATING CITY)
Carter’s deep sea submarine has Justin docked the floating city, a super large immersive structure that is a kilometer wide in every direction from its center that floats the pacific ocean, which is also where the president of the federation reside and where the chain of command for the federation originate from.
Today, on orders of the president himself, Carter has been called back from his deep sea mission to the bottom of the Mariana trench, the deepest part of the oceans on earth to the beginning of the long predicted invasion he told them would happen when the panel set to make a decision about two months ago declared that there is no way they would just hand over the planet to an alien race that may turn humanity to food or slaves afterwards.
“you should start preparing for war then, while I understand your stance against submitting to this mysterious race that we have not even seen yet, their massage clearly sad that they will start an invasion if their terms are not met by end of next month” he warned the council.
He went back to his research on what secret may be hiding at the bottom of our very oceans, but today has been hailed back aboard the Floating fortress now that the invasion has started.
Two files of soldiers have been arranged to welcome him in a ceremonial passion, Carter may not be a politician, but he is an extreme member of the committee on science and innovation that allows for the establishment of the moon base and is the inventor of so many kinds of technology used globally today.
He walked through the files of soldiers in the bay area of the floating fortress and was taken right to the meeting chambers of the high government council he was part of.
He walked inside the meeting room, which was painted brilliant white all over. Military generals from all the different military forces the federation has have gathered to figure out a solution to the impending crisis that keeps growing by the minute. Once Carter was seated, the large screen on the wall flickered to life and a briefing on the current situation began.
“Exactly seven hours ago, the two sphere shaped objects of alien origin that broadcasted the demands of the aliens two months ago and went inactive, casting what we believe to an energy barrier which prevented us from the making contact or attacking them suddenly become active, firing what we have now believed is a weapon that destroyed the moon base along with a significant part of the moon.
A few minutes after that, three large monoliths descended on earth and landed in what we initially thought were random locations, but have now realized that they are strategic locations that divide the world into three parts and so far, we are estimating that over fifty million people have been killed by the aliens that started swarming out of the monoliths.
A majority of the world is currently taking shelter in the nuclear bunkers as we have decided in our first meeting, but there are estimated two billion people who have yet to move into the shelters near their cities, since the aliens have not reached them yet” the presenter said.
“have we tried communicating with them now that they are down here with us?” Carter asked
“We have tried, but all of our attempts have failed, even more so is that we have from all the data collected globally from the aliens encountered that they are not intelligent by any degree, all they do is kill anyone or a matter-of-fact anything that moves Sir.” The presenter answered.
“That doesn’t make any sense at all. The aliens that sent us the broadcast are clearly intelligent, with possibly similar or even more advanced technology. It makes absolutely no sense that they are not intelligent and attack anything that moves, that sounds just like a robot you will program to attack anything that moves, but…… Oh My God, it can’t be,” Carter said, realising a terrifying fact about the aliens.
“What have you realized, Carter? We are in desperate need of information about these creatures so share it with us!” one of the military Generals seated said in a shout.Currently, there are forty-seven people seated in the meeting hall, among which are the president of the global human federation, his direct deputy and all the important political and military faces on the planet.It is no new thing for Carson to hijack an entire presentation in the meeting hall and turn it into a lecture that everyone will be happy with at the end of the day. This is because he knows exactly what he is talking about. He raised his head to look in the direction of the president, who sits in a large P-cube, one of Carter’s inventions that provides an absolute defense against almost all kinds of attacks, it combines layers of different types of bulletproof and shockproof glasses in a cube, with his own oxygen tank inside, once he locks himself inside, his
(BACK AT THE CHROME SHELTER) Astra has been at the guard watch duty, her assigned role after Jada had finished coordinating them to clean up the inner shelter had been to keep watch of the entrance and she has been sitting and watching all the live feeds from the hidden cameras outside the gate of the Chrome shelter. It has been a day since they arrived. At night Mila could see nothing on the screen because it was dark and there was no lighting outside to avoid drawing the attention of the alien crawlers. The next day at the break of dawn, while she was monitoring the outside of the gate, she noticed something peculiar. There was noise being picked up by the microphones of the hidden cameras outside the gate. She called Jada’s attention, and the two of them watched a cloud of dust gather and dissipate as a hovering bus arrived at the gates of the shelter. There are about twenty people inside. “These must be from the neighboring cities we were talking about yesterday,” Astra thought
The crawlers moved quickly and scattered around the large parking space of the shelter. The group started shooting at them as they jump up and down, dashing around at unbelievable speed. ‘something about them is different. They weren't as fast as this, so why are they suddenly so fast? Astra thought. Nevertheless, I must stop them from crossing into another part of the shelter. There are helpless people that cannot protect themselves. She reminded herself and changed her assault rifle firing mode to single shots. She stood for a few seconds and tried to read the movements of the crawlers; she realized they were trying to avoid being shot on the head by jumping around; they became faster than just an hour ago, so it must either be the effect of the larger one that awakened them with a growl or the fact that they have just eaten. Maybe it is because they ate human flesh, she thought, but realized that it would be best to just fight at the moment, then figure out what is strengthening
Astra walked around the inner bunker and examined it, two-fifth of it is a food storage that is filled with protein bars and drinking water while the rest of the bunker contains the general area where she figured they will be used for sleeping. It also contains a bathroom with taps and a heater. ‘The entire area is made for two people, but there are currently five of us. The general area has a long couch. She walked to it and sat on it. Slowly, the reality that Jada has died came back to her and a sudden feeling of sadness and loss hit her like a brick wall. She sat I the couch, put her head against her knee and started shedding tears profusely. ‘I have lost her. After all the years of caring for me like I was her own child, training me so that I can one day be able to protect myself, I could do nothing to save her; when she died, I was there, but I was not strong enough, she thought. “I am not strong enough to help you.” She said out loud and started crying. Khan stood from where
Astra picked the radio transmitter and placed it on the table, pulling out its wire and plugging it into the socket on the floor close to the wall of the bunker. With a single click to the switch button, it started blinking a blue light and a small display screen came on. All the people in the bunker gathered round her as she pulls out the antenna and begin to punch some buttons on the transmitter. “This thing is like hundreds of years old. At this age, it could be said to even be a relic of the past. Can it even connect to the channels run by modern transmitters? But more importantly, can you even operate it?” Rhoda asked. “If there is anyone here who can operate this thing, it is her. She has a huge old tech collection in her room when I visited it once before.” Jamie answered. All of a sudden Rhoda’s attention left the table where Astra is trying to get the transmitter online and focused on Jamie, who, at the moment, is busy trying to take off his shoe. “Did you just said you v
Two days later, Astra and the rest of the survivors have been waiting patiently in the bunker, observing the live feed from the cameras hidden on the steel bunker, the crawlers have been pretty much inactive the last three days, on the first day that they entered, they filled the underground space where the bunker is in, scratching at it with their claws and trying to get it open. However, as it becomes apparent that there is no way to get the people hiding inside, like a tiger chasing a monkey that just climbed a thin tall tree, which the tiger cannot climb. The crawlers lose interest in the bunker and after three days with no human to attack; they stop moving, forming small clusters of five crawlers each and hibernate. On the fifth day, early morning, they all woke up to the sound of an explosion that had happened shook the entire bunker. Followed by a series of sounds that resemble mortar shell bombardment and intense gun fire sounds. Astra watched on the live feed screen that th
Astra landed in the water in a dive, with her feet locked together and her arm locked by her sides to avoid splashing hard on the surface upon contact. After a few seconds, she swims to the surface of the water and grabbed the floatation device that automatically ejects out of the hovering bike once it is completely immersed in water. She looked around to make sure that all of them have made it to the sea successfully and she was happy to see Jamie and Rhoda have found floatation device and over to their side are Kate and Khan. The small ships are getting closer and closer, so they all started swimming towards the ships. They gathered around and when the ships arrived where they were; they sent down a ladder for the five of them to climb into one ship and the other kept its distance, with guns ready to fire. Astra asked Jamie to go up the ladder, followed by Kate, then Khan, Rhoda before she finally followed them onto the ship. The ship is a small naval ship armed with a cannon and
Astra swallowed her hard and faced the man holding her weapons, “How did you know I fought the crawlers with the HELL blades and what is the with the sudden mood change once Jada’s name was mentioned? Does my mother have anything to do with the government that I have not heard of yet?” she asked. Carter walked close to her and lowered the glow of the swords by reducing the power that the battery supply to them. He eventually switched them off and put them right back on the table. “The Jada that we know is surely different from your mother. She must have changed beyond recognition when she quit working for the government and got herself a new identity. Who would have thought that she will still keep her name?” Carter said while unstrapping the pod for the HELL blades. “do you eve know how the HELL blade’s work? They use an ultra-rare element called Runite that we have spent all of our resources trying to find, but can’t. The only person who knows how to and where to find it is Jada,