Alex knew that his finding friends on the alien mothership from a different time was a secret but obviously it wasn’t too well a guarded secret. The Generals in command of various Command centers knew. He nodded at Nishikori and continued,
‘Yes. For my friends too. I need to be there to liaise with them and enlist their eager help to bring down our common enemy.’
General Nishikori got up and Alex followed him off his chair
‘I will spread the word and ask for volunteers. I will inform the other Centers about this.’
Chapter 34
Take a Deep Breath
June 2nd
Tokyo Command Centre
The command Center was abuzz with the nervous excitement. Hundreds of volunteer soldiers were training there for the final assault. The big offensive against the alien mothership had been codenamed ‘Mission Sweet Hiss’ but by now many recruits were calling it ‘Lethal Fart’.
Alex did not mind the appellation when he came to know of it. There had to be some levity in camp and seeing that the recruits consisted of mostly young boys and girls between seventeen and twenty-five, he was just slightly amused. That this was going to be a near suicide mission was not lost on anyone and in spite of that, a large number of volunteers had turned up. They had been training hard for the last one month, eager to take this losing war to the enemy.
Three major things had happened in this last month.
Professor Arvind Ramakrishnan from the erstwhile Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, India and Dr. Wen Liu from the Shanghai Jiao Tong University were sent over from Beijing Command where they were stationed since the war had broken out. Prof. Ramakrishnan and Dr. Liu had been actively involved in research on ‘plastic blood’ and ‘respirocytes’ since the last decade. They had successfully developed a microscopic ‘mechanical cell’ floating in a clear and colorless medium that bound oxygen with 250 times more avidity than human red blood cells. These cells could be programmed to deliver their oxygen to the tissues at a desired rate and it was now possible for humans to work without taking a breath for close to forty minutes after a single two hundred and fifty milliliter oxygen saturated transfusion of their solution. Their product had been through animal and early human trials and was awaiting approval for a large scale phase 3 trial.
Alex understood the potential for their innovation and in consultation with the Tokyo command, he helped the scientists set up production in a guarded Tokyo underground facility, with a mandate to produce enough for all the volunteer soldiers.
The second big development was from Moscow Command. They sent word about a LASER reflecting material developed by Dr. Yuri Oganov of Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The material was a 5mm thick sheet of highly reflective aluminum compound which could reflect 99.99% of incident light on it. The system was converted into a wearable vest, that was padded with a matrix super-coolant to absorb the heat from the 0.01% of light energy not reflected back by the aluminum sheet.
The third development was the fashioning of high-tensile polyethylene into bags to hold the liquefied and pressurized HCN within. The bags were developed in Tokyo and were meant to be further equipped with a small purse containing a catalyst to convert liquid HCN into its gaseous form. This was to lead to an explosive buildup of pressure within the polyethylene bag which would ultimately rip the bag and the carrier animal to tatters, releasing the rapidly effusive gas into the close confines of the alien mothership.
The D-Day for the assault was the twelfth of June. That was just ten days away and Alex was getting more and more anxious by the day. He received news from Mumbai Command. Susan was doing as well as she could, given the circumstances. Susan and Nilofer had taken residence with Dr. Sunita. Aslam had stayed by their side and the Captain had taken a personal interest towards their needs. Aslam had wanted to join Alex in Tokyo but Alex had requested him to stay back at Mumbai. Alex had no idea how this whole operation was going to shape up and he needed someone to take care of Susan if things went bad.
There were so many variables and an even greater number of unknowns in this entire operation. They knew next to nothing about what they were going to encounter on that ship.
‘The face of our enemy is a baby. That is all we have and all we know of them’ General Nishikori had let his guard down on a rare occasion to let Alex peek inside his deep-seated worries.
Alex knew a little bit more than that but he had not been exposed to the hostile might of their military and technological capabilities on their turf. He had been a fugitive on the alien mothership and had run away the first chance he had got.
Alex nodded his head, agreeing with General Nishikori’s assessment,
‘We will know enough, soon enough’
The last few days crept slowly despite the frantic rush to get things organized and set-up on a massive scale. The plan was to launch the offensive simultaneously from multiple theatres across the world. Roughly a hundred volunteers and three hundred livestock each were to be uploaded onto the alien mothership from places as far away as Tokyo, Shanghai, St. Petersburg, Rio, Cape Town, London, Melbourne and many more. The logistics and the effort to organize something this massive was colossal under normal conditions and near impossible under the prevailing ones. But, the motivation to do this was simple – Survival, preservation of the species, preservation of all species and all life on earth and no reward was greater than this. So, the impossible was achieved and General Nishikori received the green from all theatres late on the night of the eleventh. Alex was with him when that happened and both looked at each other, acknowledging in a near imperceptible nod that this was finally happening.
***
June 12th
Fujikya, Tokyo
Alex lay a hundred meters from the mangled remains of the Takabisha roller coaster, its world’s tallest drop tower now twisted and folded in a mangled heap of metal. The other attractions of the amusement park had fared no better. It was now minutes to first light and the faint glow before sunrise silhouetted the magnificent Mt. Fuji in all its heathen beauty before Alex’s anxious eyes. It was a scene to soothe dying eyes and that thought made Alex turn his head away. He wasn’t ready to die today, not before ensuring the survival of Earth. Maybe not the Earth but the Human race. Did they deserve survival? He wasn’t sure of that but they weren’t meant to go out this way, extinguished and made extinct by a race of marauding raiders. The aliens were advanced but Alex now believed that they hadn’t progressed much beyond us. True development and evolution should mean shunning of violence, hatred and planet-wide genocide. But, his assumptions were just that - assumptions as he knew not any better. The pinnacle of evolution on Earth had failed itself and it was apparent that the next few steps on the rung had gone horrendously wrong too, perpetuating and compounding the worst in us.
There was a rustle behind Alex that broke his train of thought. At least a dozen other soldiers lay there on the ground, in rags, playing dead. Underneath the rags were body-molded LASER shields and somewhere underneath that were a couple of pressurized chambers containing the respirocyte fluid connected to an intravenous catheter on the arm. Not far from there were 20 animal carcasses, all loaded up with pressurized liquid Glycolonitrile and a tiny remote controlled pouch of the catalyst.
Alex turned his head to find Park Yun, a twenty-three old University botany graduate from Seoul who had been in the Tokyo camp since two weeks, having travelled from Seoul with twenty other soldiers to take part in the offensive. Alex smiled at him and Park gave a feeble reply.
The first rays of Sun burst forth and the slopes of Mount Fuji glowed in that morning light. Like clockwork, explosions went off all around them, sending huge fireballs up into the sky. Multiple small fires were simultaneously lit on tire stacks, the burning rubber giving them just enough of a smoke-screen to mask their dramatic inadequacies. The whole theatre was being orchestrated by General Nishikori and Alex knew it was only a matter of minutes before alien pods were attracted to all the
ruckus they were creating there.
They did not have to wait for long. There was a loud rumble from the western sky and Alex turned his head to look at Park and the other soldiers one last time. He nodded at Park who had grown still playing dead, waiting for the aliens to harvest him up to their ship. Three alien pods glided into the sky, one hovering directly above Alex. The pods had found their mark and started firing short bursts of LASER into the animal carcasses and the ‘dead’ soldiers.
There were a couple of grunts but to their credit, none of the young recruits screamed in pain or terror. Alex hoped against having any casualties at this stage but knew that it was inevitable. Within seconds, an alien harvester floated into the sky above them, its metal arms flailing about from underneath it. After surveying the scene on the ground, it started its work of harvesting. Alex could hear its arms creaking and swooshing in air as they made trips from the ground to the floating repository above. Alex waited for his turn and after about five minutes, he heard the arms whir over his head. They held his body in a vice grip, five arms clasping him over his soldiers, groin and his sides. His head flailed down and he opened his eyes to gaze down. There were still seven recruits waiting to be scooped up. There was a massive blood splatter at three places, possibly where the aluminum LASER reflectors had given way or the harvester arms had scooped someone through their bodies. Alex could count six animal carcasses yet to be scooped up. There were a couple of blood splatters there too.
There was nothing more to see down there and Alex took a moment to mentally mourn his fallen colleagues and then steeled himself for what was to come. The arms drew him up inside the harvester where he was dumped into a solid holding pen, landing upon a couple of dead animal carcasses. It was a very large container with solid walls and floor, the light streaming in from the spaced out openings in its ceiling where the harvester arms dropped their cargo in. The container was shaking and Alex stumbled on to his feet with difficulty, holding on to the body of the carcass under his feet.
Park rushed through to Alex
‘Are you alright Sir?’
Alex nodded and asked,
‘How many of us are here?’
‘Four dead Sir. Rest are here.’
Alex nodded again. He looked up to ask his next question but Park answered before that,
‘Nine of us alive Sir, including you. With only minor injuries, we should be good to go.’
Park tried to stand up straight but another jolt threw him off his feet and he stumbled a couple of steps to gain his balance. Alex pulled Park up
‘I was out cold the last time they took me up there. I only regained my consciousness once I was inside the mothership. I don’t know how this is going to play out. But I expect that we have to wait until this harvester gets filled up before we make our journey up to the mothership.’
‘What about the gas? When will they release it?’
‘I am not sure of that. But I guess they might not need to release it until we are inside the mothership. Gather everyone here. We need to be together to make this work.’
Park did his bidding and in a matter of minutes Alex and eight other soldiers had lined up along the wall of the container, waiting.
Soon enough, the harvester closed up and glided away from there, refilling itself at three other locations before finally clamping down and moving away. The harvester was now more than half full – carcasses, injured humans and hapless animals at the bottom and uninjured people climbing atop the dead and the injured to the top of the pile. Alex and the soldiers moved up on the pile too, deciding not to intervene in any way at this juncture. They had no means to help these other people with them. That was not their mandate and Alex knew that they could not risk jeopardizing their primary mission.
After a wait of what seemed like an eternity, the harvester turned on its head and shook violently before clamping down on something steady. The contents within turned upside down and Alex and his soldiers navigated the upheaval carefully to be on top of the dead and injured once again.
The bottom under their feet gave way with a loud clang and the contents started slipping out from under their feet. Alex looked at his soldiers and nodded, letting go to drop along with the heap.
It was a short fall of about fifty meters and Alex soon found his feet after the fall and looked around him. His soldiers had survived the fall too and they stood up to find themselves in a huge chamber. Alex found familiarity in that chamber and started searching for the door. He located the ramp hundred meters ahead of him and rushed to it, knowing that it would lead to the door. His soldiers gathered around him and they followed the ramp till they reached the door in the wall. Alex positioned himself on one side and the soldiers did the same on either side of the doors. Alex looked around the chamber. It was much bigger than the one Alex was in the last time. He looked up and found a lot of harvesters docked into vents in the room, shaking and emptying their contents into the room. Within a matter of minutes, the openings in the ceiling closed and the harvesters pulled away with a loud rapport. The lights within the chamber were dimmed to near total darkness and then the dim green light turned back on.
Alex called upon his soldiers,
‘Guys, this is it. Keep your hands on the plungers. We will need our breath soon.’
Soon enough after that Alex heard the hissing noise and motioned to others to plunge their syringes. He held his breath and saw them follow through his orders. Then, he took a deep breath and plunged his own syringe. There was a feeling of warmth rushing through his body as the ‘respirocyte’ fluid coursed through his veins, reaching every nook and corner of his body. It felt strangely invigorating, much more than what he had felt the first time when during a trial run, he had been injected with a test dose of twenty milliliters. The two hundred milliliters coursing through him now felt a lot different.
Alex took his position by the side of the door, his hand on the other trigger on his body, the one to detonate the ‘glycolonitrile’ bags within the animal carcasses. The other wounded humans who had managed to stand on top of the heap were by now down with the effect of the gas. Alex had been told that the gaseous ‘glycolonitrile’ would not affect the humans beyond a temporary confusion, delirium or unconsciousness and he hoped that it was true. He hoped that he had not brought death for William and the other human captives on the mothership.
Chapter 35
Sweet Hiss
June 12th
Daiityon Mothership
After five minutes the hissing noise had stopped and within five minutes of that, there was a loud noise and then the door slid up, the light from outside lighting up the ramp within the chamber. Three lumbering alien slobs came into view and Alex immediately saw that they had a problem. All of them had some sort of mask on their faces, probably to protect themselves from their sedating gas. Alex held his breath, his hand frozen on the button under his thumb.
He looked to his side and saw Park across the door coming to the same conclusion. Park indicated that he wanted to engage the aliens to wrestle their masks off them but Alex motioned for him to stop. They needed to improvise and needed to do something very soon. Two of the aliens had started prodding and probing the carcasses with their lighted ‘pitchforks’ and the third stood guard at the door, a lighted rod with a bulbous head in his hand.
Before Alex could think of something, luck came to his rescue. The alien at the gate grunted and took off his mask partially, sniffed the air around him and then took off his mask completely. He snorted loudly and barked an order at his mates. They looked back at him and proceeded to remove their masks too. Alex heaved a sigh of relief and the muscles of his thumb twitched in anticipation. Alex took a glance around the room and signaled to the soldiers across the door that he was going to do it. They nodded back at him and Alex pressed the button. Almost instantaneously, there was a loud ‘pphatt’ across the room and dozens of carcasses flew about tens of meters from the epicenter of that blast. The aliens stopped in their tracks, l
ooking at that direction when another carcass went bust across the room on the other side. The alien at the door turned towards that and a couple more carcasses went off at opposite ends in the room. The other aliens near the carcasses turned around to file out of the room and a carcass right under their feet went bust, hurling them across, face down a good five meters from where they were standing. Alex saw the two burly aliens going down and climbed atop the ramp, between the fallen aliens and the one at the door. That alien was taken by surprise and he recoiled a step back before grunting and advancing towards Alex. The soldiers climbed atop the ramp behind the alien, surrounding and trapping him between the door and Alex. The alien slob turned around to face the soldiers, twisting and bending over in a continuous motion, the gas getting to his lungs. He slumped to the floor and grunted loudly, his breaths coming hard and fast as he gasped for air. The lighted rod, which Alex surmised to be a weapon of some kind, slumped from his hand and Alex caught it before it hit the ground. Alex felt the rod whirr in his hand and shorten by one foot on either end, making it wieldy for Alex. There were no buttons to press on that and Alex fiddled around with it for a moment before carrying on, the rod in his hand. Alex motioned to the soldiers and they filed out of the room into the corridor outside. Alex recognized the pattern of the corridor from his last time in the ship and ran along its walls, hoping to get to the ‘slave-quarters’ to reach William and others. They crossed a bend in the corridor and came across two alien slobs slumped against the walls, choking in agony. Alex side-stepped them and ran ahead. He remembered the pattern from the last time. This corridor ran all along the outside and was intersected by perpendicular paths that led to the inside. As they turned the next corner, they came across a perpendicular and Alex took it, waiting for a moment to gather others. The perpendicular led to a long path and they ran along it. There were no doors or exits on this path and Alex vaguely remembered the path from his last time.
Exodus (The Domus Series Book 2) Page 19
