Invasion: the apocalypse

2.4

It is six o’clock in the morning and the specific morning siren has gone off in the areas of the floating fortress where the soldiers and important workers reside. Astra’s room used to belong to Jada so the siren went off automatically.

As soon as she woke up, she started her usual morning routine of twenty-five sit-ups, twenty pushups and the usual stretches that Jada has made her do every morning before she does anything else. When she was done with that, she started practicing the dust devil dance that she now knows is a sword fighting technique both from experiencing it herself and what Carter told her.

When she was done with the morning routine, she went straight to the bathroom, took her bath, and brushed her teeth. She took her breakfast and dressed up.

She wore the newly distributed military uniform that she has been given, a well fitting top and pants, she wore the standard military boots that have been allocated to her. When she was done dressing up, she picked up the smart watch they were all given and wore it in her wrist.

She left the room and headed straight to the deck where she was told to be by the general massage she was sent the night earlier. On her way to the surface of the deck, she met Carter walking through the open region to his laboratory.

“Do your best Astra. I have a piece of crawler tissue to analyze together with the team of biologists. I will see you later in the evening,” he said and disappeared in the tens of tunnels leading t different sides of the deck.

As soon as her elevator got to the top, she got out and by her right, a large military hover bus was standing, all the guns and cannons on the surface of the fortress are open and out, unlike the day before where only a few of the large guns were out.

She approached the bus and was intercepted by two military guys armed with high caliber pistols. They demanded her barcode, which they told her was sent to her smart watch the night before.

Astra showed them the code, which they scan and a few minutes later she was given a name tag that she hung on her shirt. It has her name written on it. She was allowed to board the bus. Inside, she met Rhoda, Jamie, Khan and Kate. They were so happy to see her that they stood up and hugged her.

“we thought you were in trouble when you were not allowed to join us later that day, but we found out later from my grandfather that you were some sort of key right now for the federation since you can activate secret weapons that can kill the crawlers. He even said that the twin blades you were using back at the Chrome shelter were part of it too.” Jamie said.

Before Astra could say anything to explain what had happened to her when they were separated but the military officers on the bus asked them to sit down and shut up, Astra sat down and strapped herself with the seat belt.

The bus let out a loud hiss, letting out a lot of steam and slowly begin to levitate off the ground. A few moments later, the bus was accelerating along the surface of the deck. After fifteen minutes, all the new recruits inside the bus watched as a hatch opened up on the surface of the deck, allowing the bus to descend inside slowly until it was inside completely and the hatch closed.

The person dressed in black clothing seated in the front with the driver suddenly stood up and faced all the new recruits seated in the car, Astra noticed that immediately he stood up, all the other soldiers in the bus that are not part of the new recruits saluted and stood at attention.

“Stand up fresh meat, you are welcome t the greatest military training school in the world, normally we will train the most elite among the recruits but the world is currently ending and we have to somehow do something about it so we are here with you as part of the last hope for humanity.” He said and started walking down the aisle.

“unbuckle your seatbelts. I will now tell you the simple rules for this training camp. We are going to be training you for a total of two months only while here. No one can leave before that time. The training is similar to hell. If you hesitate, you die! That will be all.” He said and walked out of the bus.

The rest of the soldiers walked to various places in the bus and with a reverberating echo, one of them shouted. “get your ass up newbies, if you fall behind, you clean the toilets! Follow me!”.

All of them stood up and started getting out of the bus.

As soon as Astra got out, she realized how different the inside of the base is from the places she has been to in the floating fortress so far. It was an endless, wide open space that has metallic pillars supporting the roof of it. At different places near the pillars were escalators that lead into even lower floors. There are elevators that lead upwards of where they are.

The officers that asked them to get off the bus suddenly started running and asked them to follow.

“I would hate to have to clean the toilet!” Astra said to herself and started running after them after three hours of going round and round the facility. The officers finally led them to the lower floors. They were given individual bunks in a two person room.

Jamie was kept alone in the largest of the rooms where he has a view to the side of the ship, Rhoda and Kate were paired up in the room next to him and Khan was paired up with another guy and Jada was given a personal room that is connected to the training room.

The team trained all day until evening, when they were allowed to wash up and take a rest before they would be called later for dinner.

Astra, however, was summoned to the training room as soon as the training was over. Shen went to the training room right away. In there Carter was waiting for her with two special officers and by the side seating, she saw Khan, Rhoda and three other new intakes seated.

“What is going on here?” she asked Carter.

“It is nice to see you again, too. I told you we will meet soon enough!” he said and waved his hands at the two military officers by his side. Immediately, they understood him and called the rest of the new recruits seated by the sides.

“I am sure you know who I am. I have read your file so I will skip the introductions since I already know who you all are as well. I will go straight to the point!” he said and walked closer to them and grabbed Astra’s hand. Walking her to the table, he was standing next to where two objects were, each with a black material covering it.

“I am sure it is no news for all of you here that our weapons have so far proven useless against the aliens that invaded us, after the spheres dropped the monoliths on specific cities, the spheres released massive amounts of the alien crawlers that have destroyed out world as we know it, all of our tech has also proven useless against them.” He said.

He let go of Astra’s hand and started pacing around, “we found out recently that some very rare weapons that we have to do work on them, we call them the HELL-blades and Astra right here is the key to unlocking the weapons. I cannot tell you more than that,” he added, and walked back to the table. He pulled off the black material covering the objects on the table, revealing two different weapons.

“what you are looking at right here are two of only five ultra rare prototype weapons that have been useless to us since we could not activate them. Astra has already paired her biometric information with the coder in this here. Go ahead and wish for them to activate Astra!” he said.

Astra stood there looking dumbfounded at the man, ‘what is he talking about? I have to pull the trigger for them to activate.’ She thought. ‘But oh well, I wish for the two weapons to activate.’ She said in her mind and instantly, with a violent wheezing sound, the two swords by the left started glowing red by the edges and the one by the right started to glow white instantly.

Astra stood, mystified by what had just happened.

“Now, wish for them to deactivate.” He said again and as soon as she wish it in her mind, the swords stopped glowing instantly.

“Now I will give one of you a chance to ask one question. Of course Astra is excluded.” Carter said.

They started looking at each other, confused, each one of them wondering where to even begin, but also being careful since Carter said he was going to answer only one question from them.

“Why exactly are we here then, sir? I understand that these are indeed the most valuable possessions in the world since they work on the crawlers, but I can’t get my head around why we are here.” Rhoda said. All the remaining three newbies freeze with surprise.

“Good judgement Rhoda. I have gathered you here for two reasons, but I will only tell you the first reason. You four are here to train with Astra, she will choose one HEL-blade at the end of your two months’ training here. The rest of you will compete for us to determine the person with the highest compatibility to take the second one. I have drafted a request for the federation to give us resources to look for the remaining three blades. When we get them you will be the ones to wield them until we can make more!” he said.

“For now, you should get back to your dorms, rest and prepare for your night training. We will meet here at twelve hundred and sixty every day, wear these after training and head here every day, lateness try not to make me wait. You are dismissed.” He said. The soldiers next to him distributed sealed packages to them and they started heading to their individual rooms.

“what time is twelve hundred and sixty please? I am not used to military terminology yet.” One of the new faces asked.

“it means exactly at one o’clock in the afternoon, an hour after our morning training is over,” Khan said. Astra went straight to her room and took her bath, and opened her package. Inside is a black cloth that was made entirely of a material she immediately recognizes.

‘I know exactly what this is. I have read about it many times when it was first synthesized. A polymer that is heat resistant and change colors when touched by a hot surface.” Astra said out loud to herself. She folded the clothe and put them back in the package. She put on her high neck sports bra and headed back to the training room.

Neither Carter, the HELL-blades or the military guys with him were there, but there were five soldiers lifting weight in the room.

Astra went to the side and started practicing her dust devil blades dance and minded her business, but shortly after, the five soldiers walked to her and were laughing. She paid no attention to them or the provocative comments they were making on her.

She continued her practice, swinging and swirling herself around like a ballerina in the middle of her dance, she jumped and performed a vertical slash and was about to land on her feet when she felt a large hand grab her left feet and did not let go until her face was about to hit the floor; she tried to use her hands and spring up again but she was too late.

Her face hit the metallic floor of the training room, blood started gushing out of her nose.

“ohhh, the little princess has hurt herself while practicing for the City Olympic games. Hahahaha,” one of the soldiers said and the rest of them all started laughing at her.

“This is not a place for a girl like you to be, just be a good fresh meat and sleep till it is your turn to use the training area!” another one said

One of them walked close to her and looked down at her while she plug her nose with a piece of cotton. As soon as he got close to her, Astra made her mind up to beat the shit out of him. She stood up and looked at him dead in the eyes.

“I don’t quite like the look in your eyes!” he said and extended his muscular arm to grab her hand. Astra quickly bent down low and swept his feet off the ground with all of her strength that he almost flipped in the air, while he was in the air, she grabbed his shirt and landed a strong kick on his groins, sending him falling towards his colleagues crying in pain.

“you bitch! You will regret what you just did.” The bulkiest one among them said, walking forward.

Astra blew out the remaining blood in her on the floor and spit out the one in her mouth.

“Bring it on, bitch!” she said, and stepped forward.