by Hatchett
The Stormtroopers started rounding up survivors and putting them into smaller holding areas about the size of a football field. The old, the infirm and anyone too young, small or weak were vaporised on the spot; Kinaejah needed fit, young and healthy individuals for the slave work ahead.
Once the holding areas were full, the people were sorted into those who were skilled and those that were unskilled. The unskilled were used for building or escorted outside the city to areas of farmland and forced to work the land and rear cattle and other animals under Laakuu supervision.
Those with particular skills were taken to newly abandoned factories where, using the Laakuu’s solar power technology, they would get specific machines and processes up and running, again under close supervision.
There would always be a need for food and water.
Once the land to the North of the river Thames had been fully cleared of people and buildings, Kinaejah set about rebuilding. The new constructions were unlike anything that had been seen on Earth before and although they replicated the centuries-old shape of four-sided pyramids, they were far more advanced and built with many materials not found on the Earth. The silver, solar power collecting skin of the pyramids was similar in nature to the skins of the spacecraft; they generated vast amounts of power and could morph at will. The pyramids were like ground based extensions of the Mothership and operated in a similar way.
Kinaejah was adamant that his pyramid in London should be the largest, as befitting his position as Leader. Other pyramids being built on the remains of other major cities around the World for the other Elders would be smaller, but in no way technically inferior.
The London pyramid was enormous and had taken almost a year to build, with the internal forcefield walls within London having to be turned off to enable it to be constructed.
The apex or tip of the pyramid, stood at two kilometres off the ground and was situated directly above where Waterloo Bridge had once been. The previous tallest building in the city, and the UK as a whole, had been the Shard, which had come in at a paltry three hundred and ten metres tall by comparison. The tip of the new pyramid quite literally touched the clouds.
The sides of the pyramid were also two kilometres long, providing four square kilometres of space at ground level, with the four corners situated near the old Fitzroy Square, the Barbican, Elephant & Castle and Westminster.
The River Thames ran through the pyramid; it entered from the Southern side before curving and exiting through the Eastern side. The Laakuu used their technology to clean the water as it entered, leaving crystal-clear clean water and an abundance of fish to be caught and eaten. They also artificially sectioned off parts of the river and heated the water so it could also be used for recreation.
The weight of such a huge pyramid would ordinarily have caused London to sink into the ground and be flooded by the sea, but again, Laakuu technology allowed the pyramid to hover just above the surface, making it effectively weightless.
Three years in and humans were forced to work for the Laakuu, with no benefit except survival.
In the US, survivors had finally accessed Area 51 in the Nevada desert, only to find there was nothing alien-related there. They never once considered that the US Government would move everything they had acquired over the decades as soon as Area 51 had become the focus for conspiracy theorists and continual conjecture.
Little did they know, although suspected by some, the artefacts and technology they were looking for was safely hidden inside the Dulce Base; the public had not known for sure if this base really existed, but theorists suspected it was located underground somewhere along the Colorado / New Mexico border.
It was in fact an ultra-secret underground part of the Creech Air Force Base in Clark County, Nevada, some forty kilometres from Las Vegas. It also had a sister site which was part of Cheyenne Mountain Complex, the home of NORAD, near Colorado Springs, around nine hundred kilometres away as the crow flies. However, NORAD was a well-known military location and had been one of the prime targets for destruction during Stage 2 of the Laakuu attack. Thankfully, the Dulce Base was not on the list of targets, although the Creech Air Force Base above it had been wiped out.
Those with top secret security clearance were aware of the Dulce Base, and of course, it was permanently manned. Those hidden inside the facility had seen what had happened to their air force colleagues next door as soon as the battle commenced and, whilst they knew their own capabilities, they had no idea what the Laakuu were capable of. So, they held back to watch and wait and try to understand what they were up against.
The destruction of the satellites effectively blinded them, so they had no idea what was happening on the ground. They sent out scouts to see what was going on and monitored radio transmissions, and over a few weeks were able to piece together how events had unfolded. Then came the crushing realisation that there was little they could do on their own.
They had no option but to contact various non-military groups who were in hiding around the World and it wasn’t long before they came across the Underground.
With the drones and Battlecruisers recalled and set new orders, Pete, Sam and Jimmy were able to leave the shop in Mitcham and move about, albeit using vehicles was strictly out of the question, unless they managed to find a charged electric vehicle which made little noise. Unfortunately, these were few and far between.
They still had to be very careful in the open as the odd craft or drone came along now and again, and all three had witnessed them taking out stray survivors or moving vehicles without any warning.
They had encountered many survivors on their travels, the majority of which had been too scared or mentally disturbed to even talk to them. Instead, these people just ran away and disappeared.
However, there were others who were just waiting for the opportunity to fight back, and Sam managed to convince a number of these to join them. They found fifteen likeminded people during the first year and a few more than that during the second year. They made sure they stayed in small cells and found radios to communicate.
Sam now had twelve groups of three of four people dotted around the South London forcefield wall, a further ten groups to the North, eight to the East and nine to the West. He hadn’t met most of the people in these groups; they had just picked up on the radio chatter and offered to help wherever they could.
Harry had requested that Sam and his groups continue to try and find more survivors and increase the size of the network. He also asked that Sam’s groups try their best to monitor what was happening within the city and keep him updated.
Sam and his groups had ventured close to the forcefield walls on numerous reconnaissance missions, every now and again finding a few survivors who had escaped from inside. They also worked out the different ways they could by-pass these walls.
They could use the tube tunnels, or they could use the taller buildings shorn in two. However, the closer they got to the city, the more precautions they needed to take. Sometimes the Laakuu would send drones to check the walls, other times they would send drones into the sewers and tube tunnels. Two of Sam’s groups had been taken out by drones in the tube tunnels over the past three months, so it seemed that more drones were slowly being reallocated to security roles as their current jobs were completed.
Sam and his groups had earmarked a number of buildings straddling the forcefield wall for possible future insertion.
Back at The Manor in Wiltshire, it had been a long, and at times, spirit-sapping three years, but it was time that hadn’t been wasted.
Hannah and Kate were in constant touch with numerous resistance movements throughout the World, including what was left of armed services. And, of course, they were in close contact with Sam and his groups circling what was left of the City of London.
Unfortunately, the UK government including the PM, the Right Honourable Samantha Jane Crowley MP, were presumed dead. Their underground bunker was only able to support them for three months, and once
food and water had run out, they had no option but to come out of hiding. Sam had told The Manor what they intended to do, but unfortunately, she hadn’t been heard from since.
Over time, the survivors developed a new radio code so that they could speak freely without any Laakuu listeners understanding what they were talking about. They believed it was only a matter of time before the Laakuu developed equipment to track them down, and for all they knew, the Laakuu could already be listening to their supposedly secure transmissions. Indeed, they were convinced that they were being listened to, and frequently spoke about false locations and false plans just to see if there was any Laakuu response.
As a joke, they also used the book ‘War of the Worlds’ by H.G. Wells as their codebook for anything they wanted to literally spell out. The numbers would be in sets of three; the number of the page, the line and the letter. Without the book, the code would be almost impossible to decipher.
There had been infrequent flypasts near The Manor by Laakuu craft and drones. Joshua believed that this was because Kinaejah was focusing on setting up a new infrastructure and sarcastically added that Wiltshire was hardly seen as a threat so there was no point in wasting valuable resources keeping an eye on the area. He did caution that once Kinaejah had finished what he was doing, he would restart his search for them all, especially him and Jess. Kinaejah never forgot or forgave.
The craft that did fly past were always on their way to some other destination and the group received fair warning from Jess when they were coming close, and she used the opportunity to try to read what they were doing. In any case, the protective dome remained over the property and was working fine.
There were now far more people at The Manor; once the drones and Battlecruisers had first disappeared, Harry had sent out rescue parties to all their neighbours and nearby friends.
They had found more devices in their stash which allowed them to create a second smaller dome a short distance away so many of the new arrivals stayed at the second location.
Over the three years, the biggest changes happened to Jess. From a physically damaged girl of twenty-one years of age, she had grown into a healthy young woman of twenty-four.
Luckily, one of the friends Harry had rescued was a doctor called Liam, and he spent most of his time looking after Jess, working her limbs as sensation and feeling slowly returned.
Once she had better control over her motor skills, Jess worked exceptionally hard to rebuild her atrophied muscles, and improved day by day. She now spent hours each day running around the grounds to build up her stamina, often accompanied by Jason or Andy, who were also keen on keeping fit. The wheelchair and voice box had now been gathering dust in an outbuilding for over a year.
Jess’s weight was back up to her pre-accident level, mainly thanks to Hilda’s fantastic homemade cooking and the regular supply of treats like cookies and cakes.
Her hair had grown back from stubble into the lustrous brown shoulder length hair that she was used to, and this gave her back a lot of the confidence she had lost after the accident.
Her deep brown eyes regained their intensity, then slowly started to lighten, with yellowy-gold spots of colour. The saying went that the eyes were the window to the soul, and in Jess’s case, this seemed proof of the pudding, an awakening of sorts. Her eyes seemed to be changing to reflect the stronger and more powerful person within.
The only thing that hadn’t changed, and couldn’t without significant plastic surgery, were the scars all across her body. Jess had initially loathed the sight of her body but had gradually come to accept her situation and eventually saw her scars as badges of honour. She recognised that there were millions of people in the World who were in a far worse position than herself and began counting her blessings for the friends and family she had around her.
As well as her physical improvement, Jess had continued to work hard on her new mental abilities, trying out new things and working out the extent of what she could and couldn’t do. As she got stronger, she found that her abilities also strengthened and became more powerful, and the headaches she used to get after using her abilities tailed off.
After three years, she now knew for sure that she was not telekinetic as some of the group had once speculated; she couldn’t move objects through thought alone.
But she could see people’s auras as clear as day and could pick up people’s thoughts as clearly as if they’d been spoken aloud, regardless how far away they were from her, or whether she could actually see them. She could also see through their eyes, like remote viewing, which had been a little disconcerting and dizzying at first, like watching a live TV screen inside her head with no idea what was coming next.
Jess believed that she was somehow automatically placing mental markers on everyone she came into contact with, because once she had met someone, she could then locate them and reach them at will thereafter.
Similarly, her ability to send thoughts and influence actions had improved exponentially. She couldn’t take over people’s minds as such, she just sent suggestions to a person’s sub-conscience and that person invariably did what she suggested, often with hilarious results. Far better entertainment than the hypnotic acts that used to be shown on the TV.
She tried things when remote viewing, sending suggestions to look left or right and was pleased when the person she was using unconsciously carried out her request. But she didn’t abuse her powers and only used them when the people around her agreed and knew what she was doing, although she did find it hard not to read what people were thinking just by being near them.
Just the day before on her run with Jason, she accidentally ‘heard’ him complain about the lack of action and felt his need to fightback. So, she tried to mentally shut off the thoughts by imagining an internal wall with a door which she could open and close at will.
Jess had no idea how her abilities worked but she was certain that the car accident had affected her brain and she was now able to somehow lock onto other people’s brain waves. It didn’t really matter how it was done; it was more important to understand what she could do.
She did a lot of mental training with Joshua, much to his disgust. He still couldn’t touch her and felt extremely uneasy in her presence, as if he had ants crawling over his body. But he grudgingly accepted that he was the only Laakuu around that she could use to test her abilities.
Jess was easily able to distinguish between the shared mind of Joshua the human and Joshua the Laakuu, and ‘spoke’ to both regularly. Indeed, since she started communicating, the gibbering idiot which had been Joshua the human had improved mentally, and he know recognised what was happening to him and why Joshua the Laakuu needed to remain and keep control of his mind…for the time being at least. Joshua the human had calmed down and had accepted the situation, watching what Joshua the Laakuu did and knowing that he would one day have his body back.
Jess found out all she could about Joshua the Laakuu and how his species operated and what they could do. She had got to the point where she knew her enemy extremely well, and felt she was ready to move on to the next stage of their fightback.
Joshua’s main concern was that Kinaejah might have destroyed his Laakuu body, leaving him in human form permanently. Jess convinced him not to dwell on this and made sure that this particular conversation was hidden from Joshua the human. She didn’t want his mental progress to regress and they would cross that particular bridge when they reached it.
44
“We need to talk,” Jess said, as Harry entered the kitchen, wiping his hands on his jeans and heading for the sink.
He stopped in mid stride and turned to her with his head to one side and a questioning frown on his face. He could immediately tell that it was something serious.
“Why don’t we go to my study?” he suggested, quickly washing and drying his hands.
Jess nodded and took the lead, heading into the hallway and passing the door to the lounge before reaching the study. As a mark of respect, she
waited for Harry to catch up and open the door and was then ushered in and offered a seat.
Harry walked around the desk and sunk into his old leather wingback chair. He put his hands together beneath his chin as if contemplating something significant or praying to an unseen God and studied Jess’s face, marvelling at the change in the young woman and seeing her as the daughter he and Harriet had never had.
“Tell me what’s on your mind,” Harry suggested, feeling a few butterflies in his stomach without knowing why.
“You can relax, Harry,” Jess started, sensing his concern, “it’s nothing to worry about.
Harry smiled and was clearly relieved.
“I think I’ve gone as far as I can here,” Jess explained, and Harry immediately understood what she meant.
“You need to test yourself in a non-familiar environment?” he asked.
Jess nodded, pleased that Harry understood.
“It was bound to happen,” Harry said, “and I knew it was just a matter of time, but I didn’t want to rush you or put pressure on you.”
“I know. You’ve been brilliant,” Jess acknowledged.
“So, you have any ideas what this test might look like?”
Jess nodded and explained what she wanted to try.
Harry sat silently with his head back for a few minutes, staring at the ceiling and working through the potential risks.
“Have you spoken to anyone else about this?” Harry asked, looking back towards Jess.
Jess shook her head but didn’t say anything, waiting for Harry to reach a decision.
“Let me get Jason and Andy in here,” Harry suggested, rising to his feet.
“I can do that,” Jess said, with a wicked smile.
“Of course, you can!” Harry agreed as he slumped back into his chair with a grin on his face, marvelling, not for the first time, about the girl’s talents.