Invasion: the apocalypse

1.9

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 he was sitting and thinking of what comes next, he walked to Astra and sat next to her. He put his hands on her shoulder and said.

“I think you are the one among us that has done the most. Without the swords you used to kill three of the crawlers that came in, we would all be dead by now. Even if I have a sword like that, I wouldn’t be fighting the monsters the way you did. Anyway, I am sure Jada is proud of you. We all are and she will certainly want you to keep living.”

“that is true,” Jamie said and walked to stand in front of her.

“have you seen how good she was at slashing and dodging the attacks and swinging back at them? She was totally cool. Why didn’t you tell us you knew how to fight? Even more specifically, when did you learn how to fight?” he said.

Rhoda walked to where Astra sat. Now wiping her tears, she reached out and pulled the small pod that is connected to the swords. Astra turned and glared at her, making her drop the pod.

“Easy tigress, I was not taking it for myself. I am merely interested in knowing what exactly the swords are made of and how they function. Out high caliber could not even scratch the skin of these monsters, yet your miraculous sword somehow begins to slice them like they are nothing.”

Astra lowered her gaze and brightened her face up as a signal that she was allowed to check the pod and the sword. As Rhoda picked the pod, Astra picked up the swords and stood up.

“I assume there is a metal of some kind that their bodies are weak against, and this sword contains some of it, at first I thought it was the glowing hotness of the metal in the sword that was helping to cut the skin but I realized that doesn’t make any sense, if heat can damage their skin then the flames that caught the hovering bus they arrived in should at least burn them, but they were unscathed even after the bus exploded.” Astra said.

Kate waked over to her, collected one of the swords and examined it. Once she took the sword, she sighed at how heavy it was; she used her hand to knock on the side of the blade and listened to the vibrations it made. She gave Astra back the sword and nodded her head.

“the upper part of the sword is made of titanium for sure from the way it weighs, but the edges I am not entirely sure. It looks like an alloy of the same titanium and steel, but the thermostat connected to it would melt titanium and steel so there must be a heat resistant metal mixed in there somehow, most likely tungsten,” Kate said.

“Rhoda suddenly picked interest and asked. “And how is it exactly that you know all of this?”

“Sorry, I forgot to say. I am a metallurgical and natural resources engineer.”

“for now, this is the only weapon that can kill them which we know of and the only person that can use it properly is Astra.” Khan said, standing up to see who will object to her keeping the swords.

“how exactly did you determine that? I may not know any flashy moves like her, but I surely can swing a sword around at an alien crawler,” she said.

“No, you can’t, not like her, not as efficient as she does! I was there, the kind of training she had to undergo to become this good. Even I could not do it, so I doubt you can hold a candle against her when it comes to who deserves the sword more,” Khan said.

Astra stood up, picked the two swords and walked to Rhoda. She handed them to her. She helped her put the pod on her back and asked her to make five swings to prove that she can us the swords.

Rhoda held the swords in each hand, suddenly realizing how ridiculously heavy they were and how difficult it will be for her to be able to swing it five times in a row. Without trying and disgracing herself, she walked back to Astra and handed her back the swords, apologizing for challenging her right to use a sword that was rightfully given to her by Jada herself.

“It seems like the pod is a high capacity battery that supply a high voltage thermostat with current and heat it red hot, it has run out of battery and needs to be charged, thankfully the port installed in it is the normal universal charging port. There is one over there. You should probably plug it to charge.” Rhoda advised.

Astra walked to the charging port and plugged the sword pod in to charge.

The group spent the first ten hours in the fortified bunker hidden under the chrome shelter, looking at the live feeds of the cameras hidden in the metallic walls that make it up; the crawlers have begun to lose interest in the door; they are quite aware that there are people inside but since they cannot open it, or break it, like a lion that figured it cannot attack humans who have barricaded themselves inside a car, they begin to lose interest and walk away.

However, Astra and her colleagues have figured that even if a few crawlers leave the fortified bunker alone, it wouldn’t change much. The only way out is through the main shelter, and there must be hundreds of the crawlers there at the moment.

“What do we do next? I am glad we have made it here so far, but what now? This place won’t be our final destination. We will die in here in the long run,” Jamie said.

“What does your highness want us to do then, kill all the aliens here and send the rest back to where they came from in the name of your father’s company….. what is even the name of it again?” Rhoda fired back at him.

“Chrome well corporation,” Khan answered with a chuckle.

“That’s right, let me paint some reality to your little spoiled ass young man. The whole world has fallen! Not just Chrome city, the entire world is being invaded by crawling aliens with the strength of five humans, bulletproof skin and can run at the speed of a damn racing rover. Your little company means nothing here.” Rhoda said in a furious tone.

Astra stood up and walked around the bunker. She came to a stop at a place on the wall where strong looking metallic pipes entered the bunker from underneath.

“I can enjoy people putting Jamie in his place, but he is not wrong about that. We can’t live the rest of our lives in here. Thinking of spending even a week in here makes me want to open that door right now and risk getting attacked.” She said and pointed at the side of the wall that the pipes connect through.

“These are most likely titanium pipes that connect us to safely hidden water and oxygen tank, the food in here will last most likely a three weeks if I am not wrong, with the number we have in here being dive times above how many it was designed for, I believe we will exhaust the resources we have highest in two or more weeks.” Astra said while placing up and down, slowing down, and standing next to Rhoda.

“What do you suggest we do now? Do we simply wait to see who will kill and eat first or when we will begin to die one after another from starvation, thirst, and hunger?” Astra asked.

“Certainly a bunker made for the president will be properly equipped with proper communication systems so that he can reach the chain of command even from in here,” Kate responded.

Jamie stood up with a sudden change in mood. He walked to Rhoda, who, at the moment, was busy struggling with her thoughts to figure out a solution. He put a hand on her shoulder and said.

“We are not getting stuck here to die. We can contact the Military and have them know that the Chrome shelter is ruined and we are about to be wiped out if they don’t help us. If they come and kill the remaining alien crawlers, we will get rescued and taken to the floating fortress if we are lucky. Once we are there, I have plenty of family friends who will take care of us.”

Rhoda pulled his hand and tackled him to the ground, pinning his head down and locking him in a tackle.

“I told you not to touch me, didn’t i?” she shouted at him.

“You didn’t have to go this far. You know one of these days you will injure him, right? What will you do if that happens?” Astra asked.

Rhoda let go of his arm and stood up, setting him free and walking a few steps before she put her jacket on the floor, using it as a pillow and lying down there.

Astra on the other hand has walked to the set of computers near the live display, they turned one of them on, but all the rest of the computers came on, a few minutes later, they have gone through them and found nothing but disappointment.

“There is not a single program installed on any of the computers. We can’t even send any message out.” Khan said.

Refusing to give up, Astra started opening the lockers next to the computers, one after another. After opening twenty of them, she is yet to find anything but is determined to check all of them, so she continued checking despite the results.

Every one of the drawers has been locked with an encryption that can be automatically unlocked with a key, or different codes that will be updated from time to time.

However, Astra is cracking down the codes one at a time. On her fifty-third locker, she found a long range radio transmitter.

“I have found something! I think it is a long range radio transmitter, an old model.” She said.