Before the General could reply, she asked another question
‘What is the news from the rest of the world? Have the alien entities started attacks anywhere else? Has there been any response from other countries against the aliens?’
The General shook his head
‘Well, that is what has been perplexing. Alien ships around the world have been keeping still. There are no reports of any untoward incidents till now. The ships just keep on hovering silently over London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi and many other large cities. The ships have not fired a single shot there. In addition, no, there has not been any retaliation to attacks on US anywhere else. No one seems to have engaged the aliens. There are no reports of any contact with aliens from anywhere else and no hostilities either.’
‘Why us? Why are we in the firing line?’
The General just shook his head again
‘I am sorry but I have no answer for that. We have tried all sorts of communications on them. We have beamed all kinds of messages in all known formats of communication and still have no reply, no answer. I am not sure why we have been picked to be attacked but if we do not do something we in US will be decimated.’
The President measured her words this time
‘And by something, you are suggesting a nuclear strike, isn’t it?’
‘I am afraid that seems to be the last resort now.’
‘And why do you think this will work?’ the President asked again, anxiety writ on her voice.
‘I am afraid, I have no convincing reply to that either, but our plan is to do a vertical strike on the ships from above them, detonating the bomb before impact. From what we have observed they do not have any shield or screen and all they possess is an impossibly and incredibly accurate interception system. They have been able to strike down our missiles and even our bullets before they have managed to reach the ships. With a nuclear weapon, we are hoping that the interception and detonation, even at a sizable distance should be deadly for them.’
‘That’s your best guess isn’t it?’
‘For lack of a better word, yes madam, it is a guess. That’s my best educated learned guess.’
The president went silent for a few seconds contemplating the loss of thousands, if not millions of collateral lives in such a strike.
‘And have you identified a target?’
‘Yes. We want to hit the ship hovering over Nampa. That’s in Idaho.’
‘I know where it is.’ President McGee snapped at the NSA chief and then continued
‘And you have selected the city of Nampa because…’
‘Population around 120,000. That is about the smallest where an alien ship is parked. We have initiated evacuation measures and the collateral losses should be minimum.’
‘Give me a number.’
‘Best case it would be under ten thousand.’
‘Worst case number?’
‘Well worst case could be fifty thousand.’
‘Why don’t we evacuate the whole city before striking?’
‘Well, the ship will not be hovering around an empty city madam. If the city is empty it would just get up and move on.’
‘So the people of the city are bait.’
The general had no answer for that but he still continued to look at President McGee with a steely resolve in his eyes. The President stared back at him for a minute and then said
‘When do you want this?’
‘We shall be ready by daybreak tomorrow madam.’
After that lengthy dialogue between President McGee and the NSA Director, there followed a round of discussions around the table where more or less everyone voiced their concerns about using the bomb on US soil but accepted the idea as a last resort measure.
Sienna knew she was not qualified to pass judgment on the issue and kept her reservations to herself. She was worried about Alex, Carrie and Susan and needed to make some phone calls. As soon as the meeting was over, she walked over to Lieutenant Carter and reminded him about the phone numbers that she had handed over to him.
Carter apologized and said that he will get right at it.
Sienna went to the communications station when Carter sent for her half an hour later. Alex and Carrie’s mobiles were not reachable. The phone call to Susan came through, and it was picked up on the third ring.
‘Hello’ Susan’s voice was scratchy and she seemed to be sobbing.
‘Hello dear. How have you been? I am so relieved to hear your voice’
Susan started crying too.
‘Mom, where have you been? I have been trying your number since yesterday. I thought you were…’ Susan’s sobs became stronger and she could not complete her sentence.
‘Honey, I was injured in yesterday’s attack and am so sorry I could not take your call’
‘Injured? Are you alright now? Where are you?’
‘I am fine sweetheart. I am at some military location. I do not know where. Where are you? Are you okay? Have you heard from your dad? Where is Carrie? Is she with you?’
‘No mom’ Susan was crying hard now ‘I have no idea where Carrie is. She was outside with her friends when the attack started. I have not heard from her since then. I spoke to dad yesterday. He was coming to get me. He had reached Florida by night and since after that his mobile is not reachable. I am so scared mom. Please come and get me’ Susan was almost wailing now.
‘Hey honey. I will come and get you sweetheart. Until then, you have to be smart and you have to be strong honey. Where are you now honey? Where are you Susan?’
‘I am in our hostel. Not many students are here. Dad had asked me to stay indoors mom. I am still at the hostel.’
‘Honey is that thing still attacking people out there?’
‘I don’t know mom. The noise has come down. There were a lot of explosions but now things have quietened down. No one is outside though. The streets are deserted now. The ship is still out there mom, hanging in the sky.’
‘Honey, is there any chance you could get underground? That seems to be the safest place now. But you should not risk exposure. Do not get out into the open with that thing still in the sky. You just stay put in your room, inside your hostel. I shall come and get you as soon as possible sweetheart. And then we will go and get daddy and Carrie. Okay honey? Do you understand?’
Lieutenant Carter pointed to his watch. They could not risk having long conversations. All communications were to be kept under two minutes. And the calls were strictly one-directional. There was no return number.
Sienna nodded at Carter.
‘Honey, mommy needs to go now. I will call you back soon, I promise. Take care of yourself. Be smart honey.’
‘Yes mommy. Come as soon as you can…’ the line went dead.
Chapter 8
Nuked
Nampa, Canyon County
Idaho, USA
25thJanuary 2019
The town was already ravaged. The streets were empty and a long line of cars streamed out of the city, majority of them heading eastwards on interstate I-84 towards Boise. The alien ship hung ominously over the Nampa Recreation Center, sending out armadas of fighter pods and harvesters to maim, kill and harvest people. The death toll hovered close to forty thousand Nampa civilians. The police had been ineffective and the Western Air Borne Command’s attack had been mercilessly mowed down by the alien ship’s defenses. The USAF had lost thirty jets and had decided to pull out from the attack thereafter.
The city officials had initially asked people to get indoors but then the nature of the attacks had changed. An alien pod attacked the Recreation Center, where at least ten thousand people had taken refuge. They were caught unawares when that happened. The alien vessels had until then, not attacked any buildings and people had taken refuge in their houses and in various public buildings. But once the roads were empty of people, the pods had started attacking buildings. They would swoop down and fire thick laser beams at the buildings, which would explode on contact and th
e buildings would be reduced to rubble, the twisted and mangled metal within laid bare instantaneously. The laser beams were probably superheated plasma streams and survivors who narrowly missed getting hit by those beams recounted the burning, the searing smell and sound of those beams. It was as if the air around them streaked and burned before their eyes. The beams sucked the air around it, creating a vacuum all around and even pulling people into its path.
Eyewitness accounts further recounted the horror of being hit by one of the beams. They just burnt through people creating a gaping hole where previously there was skin, flesh and bones. The bodies fell lifeless after being struck by the beams, plopping down like pins hit by a bowling ball. The wound did not bleed either, the searing heat of the beams just leaving a gaping hole lined by coagulated, cooked and cauterized tissues.
The air was full of smoke. The acrid smell of burning flesh permeated through the city limits. People retched and puked and purged and still they reeked of the fumes that had stayed within them. The burning dead entered the living through the air that they breathed, and remained there, within their being, adamant and resolute.
The town hall was blown to bits, churches blown to smithereens and people plucked from their refuge into large harvesting ships. The local cemeteries were being dug up, bodies exhumed and transported up into the alien harvesting crafts. The animals did not fare any better either. They were slaughtered and hauled up into the alien harvester vessels. The people fled the horror, initially into their homes and then when their homes were attacked, they fled out of the city, filing out in any convenience they could manage, taking whatever they could with them. Everyone had lost someone dear or at least someone that they had known. The human procession out of the city, though frantic, was somber. It was a slow, chaotic and yet a silent procession of doom that streamed out of all major cities in U.S at that time.
***
Secret Service Hideout
Maryland
25th January 2019
Sienna had been informed of the next briefing. That was to coincide with the bombing of Nampa. She did not understand why they had to have a crowd for the event. They had decided for it and they should just go ahead with it. She did not want to be a witness to it. But she knew that not going was not an option. The decision that was taken was not any easy one and she had given her tacit approval to it by just being in that room and not saying anything. She had to be a party to the actual event too, when they bombed fellow citizens on American soil.
Not going would be cowardice and would mean not standing up for what she had been a party to.
In half an hour, Sienna was in the room, occupying the same chair that she was in, the day before. All the faces from yesterday were back. President McGee presided over the meeting. Not long after, she was asked to give her approval for the strike. Someone had come up with a rather lame-sounding name for it too – Strike One it was christened. She looked around the room, to a string of nods from around the table and said
‘Yes’
The NSA Director, General Marshall, picked up a phone on the desk and said
‘Operation Strike One is a go’
President McGee buried her face in her hands, shaking her head in despair. Sienna felt for her. That was a tough position for her. She can only work with the best that has been offered to her. And the best was painful this time. She could see the hurt and the suffering in the President’s eyes. She was going to have to live with this decision for the rest of her life, the one decision that she will perhaps regret forever. It had blood written all over it, whatever be the outcome. She had just ordered the summary execution of thousands of innocent US citizens.
The confirmation was going to take five minutes. It was the longest five minutes of Sienna’s life. No one said a word during those five minutes. No one dared to breath hard either. Every sigh, every twitch was heard around the table.
Then the phone rang, jolting everyone from their anxious stupor. General Marshall picked it up halfway through the first ring
‘Hello’
There was a long drawn out conversation during which the General said very little. All eyes were on his face, which was impassive throughout the conversation. He kept the phone down, looked at the President and said
‘Madam President, the alien ship is gone.’
Chapter 9
William of the Marquees of Montferrat
Alien Mother Ship
25th January 2019
Alex had settled back in his corner. The others in the room were either dead or still under the effects of the gas. The room was stinking now, reeking of the dead. Alex had tied a cloth to his mouth and still the stench was strong enough to find its way through that. His body was tired to the bones and he fought hard to keep from sleeping. However, his weariness won over and his eyelids closed over his tired eyes.
Alex had no idea how long he had slept but he had awakened with a start, to the hissing noise emanating from the corners of the room. The noise of the gas seeping in was accompanied by a sweet sedating smell and Alex took a deep breath before shutting off his respiration. He climbed further to the corner, and dug himself a place under the corpses piled up in the corner.
And there Alex waited, his breath held within his lungs, captive to his struggling and fearful will.
He did not have to wait much longer than the last time. The hissing stopped after five minutes, testing the limits that Alex could hold his breath in for. The ceiling lights came on, a greenish hue spreading across the room yet again. The door creaked as it swung out and the same two heavyset bulky monsters appeared inside the room. Both of them were holding forked spades in their hands and they started to collect the bodies near the door.
They came in, dug their sharp, pointed forks into the bodies on the floor and drew them across to the heap they were creating in the middle of the room. It went on for a good fifteen minutes and they collected around fifteen bodies in a heap. The heavier of them then started shifting through bodies, advancing towards where Alex was hiding under the heap in the corner. He was just a meter away from Alex when he stopped, his hand still inside the heap, wriggling out something that he held. Alex had stopped breathing once again, for fear of being detected.
The monster pulled hard and yanked out the body of a child, holding it upside down by the leg. He walked back to the heap, throwing the body on top of the heap. He gave his fork to his partner, who went out of the room, returning empty handed. Both of them hunched by the side of the heap and pushed hard, sliding the entire lot out of the room with ease.
Alex knew that this was his chance. He had to get out now. He may not get another chance to get out. The next time they returned to make another heap, there may not be enough bodies to hide within.
He waited until both of them had just inched out the heap from the room. He pushed at the bodies above him and wiggled free, slowly and gently without making any noise. He hunched over the bodies, finding for a footing amongst flesh and bones and joints under his feet. He tiptoed his way down the pile of bodies in the corner and reached the center of the room, which was now empty. He quickly ran across the room to the shadows beside the open door.
He felt the cold of the walls against his shirted skin, slid down to his knees and just dared a peek outside. Both the monsters were still at the heap of dead bodies, trying to push them further away from the door. Alex knew he had to take the chance. He needed to get past them and then start running to wherever the corridor led to. He was hoping that the lumbering giants would not be fast on their feet. Thus decided, he stepped out of the door onto the corridor just behind the monsters still working on the heap of bodies, pushing it on to the main corridor a couple of meters ahead. The main corridor was lighted with bright lights and the same reflected on to the side corridor that led to the room. He could see the backs of the monsters. They appeared taller than what he had thought inside the room. They could easily be six to seven feet tall and about three feet wide. Their hairless bodies were r
eddish grey, almost the color of raw ground beef. There were biped and had flat feet, a hunch on their back and had bulging veins on their hands which had probably four fingers on them.
He was about to lunge for his break when the body on top of the heap came sliding down, crashing in a thud just ahead of Alex. He was startled and looked back to see a column of pillars lining either side of the dim corridor. He quickly slipped behind the one to his left, just in time before the heavier of the monsters turned back, caught the body of the child by its shoulder and hurled it back on top of the heap. The heap was well clear of the door and he ambled back towards the door, holding it and swinging it shut. All this while, the monster had its back towards Alex. But Alex realized that as soon as it turned, it would see him hiding behind the pillar. He looked around him and saw a dark crevice on the floor next to the pillar. It was a long narrow crevice but was probably just right for him to fit into. It was very dark and Alex had no idea how deep it was to its floor. Or if there was a floor at all in that darkness.
Alex was fast running out of options. He decided to try the crevice anyways; side stepped away from the pillar, and swung his legs into the crevice, hanging from the passageway above with just his fingers. Just as the monster was turning around after closing the door, Alex let go and braced for a drop on to the floor.
The floor was a good five feet under him. Alex was barefoot and dropped softly on to the floor. A similar dim green light swathed the length of this corridor that was about five feet wide and about ten feet in height. The corridor ran along for a hundred meters behind Alex and took a bend ahead. It was deserted, with high metal walls and was ventilated by the crevice running along its length halfway from the floor to the ceiling, the same crevice that Alex had slipped in through.
Alex turned on his heels and decided to explore the corridor to his left. As he walked along the length of the corridor, he noticed the lack of any hiding place along its length. If someone or something were to step on the corridor then, he would be exposed as a deer on a highway. He decided to press on further as he had nowhere else to go.
Exodus (The Domus Series Book 2) Page 7
