by Hatchett
Thaejah flicked through his screens and gave the order.
On the double height floors from levels 53 through 58, thousands of silver spacecraft lit up with a bluish hue and started humming. Thousands more readied themselves on the two inter-galactic cruisers.
These spaceships were drone-like in their outward appearance but about ten times bigger and far more powerful. The Laakuu referred to them as Battlecruisers and, like the drones, were unmanned.
The Laakuu had realised decades ago that they didn’t have a big enough population and couldn’t afford to lose any of their brethren if there was ever a war, so their R&D department and engineers and scientists had spent a lot of time re-developing their spacecraft with artificial intelligence for just such an event.
The Battlecruisers morphed through the outer skins of the Mothership and the Inter-Galactic cruisers and, like the drones before them, spread out around the planet. Once they were all in position, the command was given, and they dropped into the atmosphere.
Guided by the drones, the Battlecruisers headed for every major city around the World and every other place designated by the Laakuu as Category 1 targets. This included army bases, naval bases, missile sites, airports, communication centres and power stations.
Some drones were sitting above the seas where they had detected and identified submarines or warships. There was little chance of them being a threat but there was no point in taking any risks.
The Battlecruisers swept passed the drones sitting at five kilometres, the outer skins on the rear underside peeling back to reveal crackling blue energy. They homed in on their targets and unleashed multiple energy bolts which crackled and headed unerringly towards their targets like blue lightening, but far more devastating.
The key land targets around the World were demolished in minutes, the people inside the buildings killed in an instant. Warships were reduced to smouldering metal husks which gradually sank below the waves.
The targets beneath the waves fared far better; the energy bolts hit the surface of the sea causing mass water evaporation. However, the quantity of water was so huge that it was enough to dissipate the energy and left the targets untouched. Only those submarine captains foolish enough to rise to the surface or periscope depth to see what was going on were destroyed in a ball of flame.
All across the World people left buildings once again to see what was going on. Many people close to the Category 1 targets were killed in the explosions, as others watched on in horror from a safe distance. If there had been any doubt before, seeing the Battlecruisers humming quietly but quickly through the sky and taking out targets with ease was proof that the planet was under attack from aliens. People were shocked and confused; as far as they were concerned, there had been no warning about aliens and no communication with them.
For many, panic set in, for others they reacted automatically and either looked to fight back or find shelter. The fight or flight response.
21
It had just gone past midday in the USA, and they were the first to react and fight back, albeit briefly and with little impact.
With communications and computers down, it was impossible to coordinate a proper response, so it was left to individuals in the armed forces and armed civilians to try to do something themselves.
Some of the air force jets were able to take off before the airports and airfields were torn apart. The pilots weren’t able to rely on many of their instruments and effectively had to fly manually. Those that managed to find a target soon found that their missiles and guns were totally ineffective against the Battlecruisers, exploding against the shields and having no impact whatsoever. In retaliation, these planes were swiftly taken out by the Battlecruisers and the drones providing cover above them.
Those on the ground fired hand-held surface to air missiles, RPGs and pretty much anything else they could get their hands on. As with the aircraft, the shields prevented any damage to the Battlecruisers and their response was swift and brutal.
Within minutes people realised that it was a pointless exercise and withdrew to hide, believing their chance to fight would come again once the aliens decided to land.
It was rush hour in the UK, and those still at work stampeded for the exits to try and make their way home to be with their families and enjoy the illusion of safety.
The roads quickly turned into car parks as millions of people tried to get to their destinations. The Highway Code was ignored, leading to crashes and blocked routes and unprecedented road rage. Public transport was at a standstill, with buses stuck and trains unmoving due to lack of electricity.
With no TV or other communications, they had no idea what was going on and were panicking. Those that did manage to get home hugged their families tightly before thinking calmly and practically about the next few hours. They raided seldom used dusty cupboards for candles and torches, and food stocks were quickly appraised.
By early evening, they were tired, angry, defeated and scared. By late evening, very few had managed to find any solace through sleep, although some managed to find it in bottles, tablets or illegal drugs. Many people were reduced to frightened dogs, hiding and jumping as each explosion went off around them, some near, some far, but none very far away. Some of the elder generations were transported back in time to World War II and the dark days of the Blitz, although what was happening now was on a far larger scale.
Some people simply couldn’t stand it. That night, millions of humans across the world took their own lives.
22
Jason and Andy returned to the basement with George, Steve and Adil about half an hour after they had left.
Steve was twenty-seven, five feet five with short blond hair, green eyes covered by glasses and a thin face. He had been working under George doing various odd jobs for the past few months and was loving life at The Manor. Finding himself in the middle of a real-life secret organisation was a dream come true as he’d always been interested in conspiracy theories and had a passion for comics and science fiction.
Adil was of Asian descent and he had been part of the underground for years. He was thirty-three and five feet ten inches tall with dark hair, dark eyes and a slightly hooked nose. He had brought one of the white transit vans to The Manor and had been in the process of unloading it when the metal rain came down.
George had been below the worktop in the barn as seen on the monitors. Steve had been hiding behind George and Adil had been cowering in the back of one of the transit vans.
They had managed to find Errol along one of the aisles, close to where the section of barn roof had fallen in; unfortunately, he had a two-foot length of twisted metal protruding from his chest and there was nothing they could do for him.
The five men had quickly found some shovels and flashlights and hastily buried Errol near some trees, a few hundred yards to one side of the property. It was only when they were returning to the darkness of the house that they first heard the humming. They quickly turned off their flashlights and edged back towards the cover of the trees, watching the sky carefully through the branches.
The humming grew louder, and they witnessed a silver object with a broiling blue section streak across the sky, heading in the rough direction of Cheltenham. It was only when the object had disappeared over the top of the trees and the humming sound had died down that the men realised that they had been holding their collective breath. They had then quickly run back towards the relative safety of the house, just as the first sounds of faraway explosions reached them.
Now in the basement, there was a palpable sense of relief, not just from the five men who had come in, but also from the rest of the group who had been huddled in the lounge area. The group rose and nearly knocked the newcomers over in their excitement at seeing them.
Jason and Andy side-stepped the hugs and made their way to the communications room to update Harry. When they got there, they found Joshua showing something to Harry with Matt, Karen and Jess looking on. Harry turned at their approach and lis
tened carefully to their report.
“Are you sure there was nothing you could do for Errol?” Harry asked with a pained look on his face.
Jason managed to keep the sarcasm out of his voice when he replied, “Yes, we’re sure.”
Andy nodded in agreement. Jason then explained about the spaceship flying overhead.
“OK,” Harry replied. “We need to get as much stuff from upstairs down here, but we need to be careful. We don’t want to alert any Laakuu to our presence, especially if this turns into a mass extermination.”
“This must be Mason’s doing,” Joshua surmised, “and knowing him, it could quite easily be that. How he managed to avoid being spaced and taken over from the Elders is worrying, but the fact that he’s attacking so quickly is even more concerning. It sounds to me that he’s sent the Battlecruisers.”
“IN THAT CASE, YOU NEED TO BE VERY COOPERATIVE OTHERWISE WE MIGHT HAND YOU OVER,” Jess threatened.
The look on Joshua’s face was one of utter panic. He knew that Mason would flay him alive if he was ever caught.
“I’m here to help you,” he stuttered.
“Well, then you better keep talking about this device,” Harry replied, indicating the communicator on the desk.
He turned to Jason and Andy.
“Can I leave you two to arrange getting the stuff from upstairs?”
“No problem,” Jason confirmed, turning with Andy to leave the room.
“I’M COMING WITH YOU,” Jess said, and Harry quickly turned in her direction, concern written all over his face.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’LL BE FINE,” Jess confirmed. “I FELT THAT OBJECT FLYING OVER US, ALTHOUGH I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT IT WAS AT THE TIME. NOW I KNOW, I’LL BE ABLE TO ACT AS LOOKOUT.”
Harry turned back to Jason.
“Make sure you look after her,” he ordered.
“Will do,” Jason confirmed and left the room with Andy and Jess, although he felt sure it would be more like Jess looking after them rather than them looking after her.
Harry turned back to Joshua.
“Right, let’s carry on.”
Neither Damian nor Di were particularly happy about Jess going up to ground level with Jason, Andy, George, Steve, Adil, Kate and Hannah, but Jess assured them that she would be fine. Likewise, Hilda was not happy about George going back up and the rest of the group were also a little nervous. The fact that Jess was going seemed to calm most of their nerves.
They all used flashlights rather than trying the lights in the house. They didn’t want it lit up like a beacon and preferred for it to appear abandoned.
It didn’t take long to reach the barn, and following Jason and Andy’s directions, everyone except Jess started selecting the most important items to move to the basement first. As they started carrying fuel, food and equipment back to the lift, Jess steered her wheelchair onto the patio.
She liked sitting in the cool air, looking up at the millions of twinkling stars. She could currently see far more of them as there was no artificial light to obscure her view, and she wondered just how many alien species were out there. Millions or billions she suspected, there was no end to space. She looked towards the horizon and couldn’t see light anywhere.
‘They must have hit the power stations’, she thought to herself.
She imagined sending out a probe to search, and thought she detected people a few miles away. She couldn’t be sure, but she’d be sure to ask Harry or Harriet if there were houses in the direction she was looking.
She lifted her head again to look skywards, and again imagined sending out another probe. She didn’t pick anything up so kept scanning the skies in all directions.
She was about to go back indoors when she felt a small connection. She quickly turned her wheelchair in the rough direction and concentrated on the source.
After a few minutes she smiled then continued to watch the skies and picked up other connections as the rest of the workgroup continued shifting gear to the basement. She didn’t know what the connections were, or meant, but she felt it was important, so she kept probing.
After thirty minutes, Jess felt that she understood a lot more, but she was beginning to get tired and felt the first stirrings of a headache. She wheeled her chair indoors to see if the guys had finished.
23
When Jess and the others returned to the sanctuary of the basement, it had been transformed and looked like some sort of refugee camp with boxes full of supplies, equipment, weapons, and bedding all over the place.
Damian and Di came over, their relief palpable.
“Are you OK?” her father asked.
“I’M FINE, STOP WORRYING,” Jess replied.
“But we do worry,” Di added. “We can’t help it.”
Harry and Harriet also came over to check on her.
“We’re ready to try the communicator,” Harry said, “if you fancy being there.”
“LEAD THE WAY,” Jess said, and Harry led the way back towards the communications room. As he walked, Jess sent him a direct message.
“I THINK I’VE MANAGED TO PICK UP THE ALIEN SHIPS,” she reported. “THEY’RE NOT MANNED AS FAR AS I CAN TELL BUT USE SOME FORM OF ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE. I THINK I MAY BE ABLE TO CONTROL THEM, OR AT LEAST DISRUPT THEM.”
Harry stepped aside to allow Harriet to enter the room before him. He then turned to Jess.
“That’s good but be careful. Do you know if they sensed you?”
“I’M PRETTY SURE THEY DIDN’T.”
“OK, but like I said, be careful. We don’t want them attacking us here, at least not until we’re ready.”
Harry walked into the Communications Room with Jess trailing behind him.
“Ready Joshua?” he asked.
“I’m always ready,” Joshua replied. “For whatever opportunity presents itself,” he added, leering in Karen’s direction.
Karen made as if to approach Joshua but was held back by Matt.
“He’s just trying to get a rise from you,” he whispered.
“It’s working,” she whispered back, staring daggers at Joshua.
Joshua turned to the desk and brushed his hand across the surface of the communicator. It was about the same diameter as a football and made from a shiny silver metal of some sort. It looked a little like a miniature version of the classic UFO disc shape, almost flat around the edges rising to a thicker dome shape at its centre. Several panels lit up with blue symbols on them and others sprang open to shine a bluish light from the openings.
“Remember, we only want to communicate with the device held by MI5, no others, and it must be secure,” Harry reminded him.
“Yes, yes, yes,” Joshua replied testily. “You told me before and I’ve set it up as you asked. Now…” He ran his fingers across some of the panels in a sequence, as if dialling a particular number.
Within seconds the light seemed to bend and swirl before forming a holographic cone, waiting for a figure to appear.
24
In the Technology Department on level four of Thames House, two technicians were busy indicating which equipment they wanted taking down to their newly appointed space in the basement. They were implementing their ‘business continuity protocol’, although they never in a million years thought it would ever be used for real. Well, Russian invasion aside. Certainly not aliens. Dozens of people were frantically picking up the indicated pieces before quickly ferrying them downstairs.
A little earlier the technicians had been testing a couple of Laakuu devices before the shit really hit the fan. They had rushed to the windows to watch as the streets of London were first littered with metal shrapnel, killing many people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then came a handful of Battlecruisers, silver darts swathed in blue, skimming between buildings and changing direction at impossible angles, levelling some buildings and causing explosions all over the city and surrounding areas.
The technicians realised immediately what
was happening and invoked their protocol. They thought it was only a matter of time before their building rose up the priority list and was targeted.
The last of the key equipment was picked up and taken quickly from the room, the technicians doing a final sweep of the room before following on.
When they reached their newly allocated space, a cell like room with faded paint and no natural light, they looked on in dismay at the equipment strewn all over the place, no thought given by the movers to its importance or fragility.
They carefully picked up certain items before trying to work out how to reorganise. The walls of the room were packed with shelves and there were half a dozen large desks in the floorspace, so they stared working on putting things in the right place, all thoughts about what was going on outside long forgotten.
They were so focused on what they were doing that they initially failed to see the Laakuu communicator light up from its position on the floor. It was only when the cone of holographic light rose above the desks that the technicians noticed and quickly moved to lift it onto one of the desks.
The technicians understood how the device worked because Joshua had shown them, but they were still a little nervous now that it had switched itself on. Their biggest fear was that they were going to come face to face with the Laakuu.
“Shit! Who do you think it is?” asked the first technician.
“How the fuck should I know?” replied the second.
“Should we should open the channel or ignore it?” asked the first, still looking at the cone of light.
They both stood staring at the device for a few seconds and, following a quick glance at each other and an almost imperceptible nod of their heads, the first technician touched the flashing panel.
“Let’s just hope they can’t kill us or crawl through the connection,” he noted, crossing himself and saying a short prayer.
The blue holographic light swirled some more before coalescing into a group of people huddled around another similar device. The two technicians were surprised and relieved, having expected to see a Laakuu, and were even more surprised when they recognised Joshua amongst the group.