While we were waiting I decided to put some food in my stomach as Milev advised me. It was tied into a knot and it did not want to take in anything but water. But I had to eat. I knew that sooner or later I will need the energy of that semblance of food that they fed us with and that was nearly running out by now. A few cookies and some sweet yellowish-green gruel full of vitamins and minerals would have to do. Disgusting as the slop in my plate was, I enjoyed it and I did not allow the flurry and the hundreds of people hurrying around me to shatter my peace. Suddenly I spotted Milev in the distance–he was instructing the trainees. I was amazed by just how active that man was and how he tackled everything head-on. It felt like he was everywhere, controlling and carrying out everything with vigor. Maybe he did not trust anyone but himself and that compelled him to make sure first-hand that everything was done the right way. That quality of his was plain to see in the stern look on his face and the air of jauntiness he had about him. He had now grown a beard–perhaps he did not have any time to spend in private and shave, everyone needed him for one thing or another. He had a five-day old stubble with a few white hairs sticking out, giving him an air of wisdom and manliness. After what I saw there, I was to go and get myself prepared. I put on the helmet and the bulletproof vest which I had left in the main tent earlier on so that they would not get in my way. I set up the cameras to capture everything with the best quality and the widest angle possible. All that delayed me a lot, the equipment was new and I had never seen such advanced technology anywhere on the electronics markets. A few minutes after, the same blood-curdling crackling noises as before came from the other tent–someone was trying to contact us again.
‘German Ascend 1 speaking, I repeat, German Ascend 1 speaking, be ready, we’re coming in an hour. Once we arrive outside the ship, start evacuating the passengers–,’ The connection was abruptly broken, the message seemed unfinished and that was really going to drive me insane. Everyone around me dashed off in different directions and got to loading their guns and to stocking themselves up with ammunitions. I had done all the preparation needed a while before, so I decided to save up some more of my energy and sat down to wait. The clock in front of me slowly ticked away the seconds and the minutes that seemed like an eternity and my limbs were trembling slightly in anticipation. At that moment we all heard an odd squeaking coming from the ship’s AP system. It was probably the signal marking the beginning of the evacuation. I rose to my feet, went out of the tent and found myself surrounded by soldiers rushing towards the exit whose door was still tightly bolted.
‘Everyone who has a weapon and who is trained in using it shall appear at the exit, I repeat, everyone who has a weapon shall appear at the door of the mess hall.’ That message followed the signal coming over the loudspeakers. My blood started boiling, the adrenaline rush shut out all external noises and I charged up to the rendezvous point.
When I got to the place, Milev had lined up two small battalions of fifty men, right behind them stood the mobilized men who were simply holding guns in their hands and listening to the orders.
‘Hey, you, Stokes, where have you been? Come over here!’ the commander spotted me, standing right in the middle of the two square formations. ‘Listen, everyone. These are first and second squads backed up by the rookies. We’ll be moving together until we get out, after that First Squad is assigned the task to get all available vehicles running. Second Squad, we’ll work our way out and we’ll meet the back-up waiting outside. We’ll be guarding the women and the children waiting for the rescue teem to come. Only then we’ll take the path through the forest. If you stumble upon something, eliminate it on the spot or else it will eliminate you.’ He laid out his plan in details. However, that was not the thing that impressed me the most, it was rather the fact that there were no other reporters, even the people who were helping him could be counted on the fingers of one hand–they were standing in the same ranks as we were. ‘Are you ready?’ the Officer yelled loudly, his hand waiting to press the button that opened the door. No one uttered a word and his expectations for an explosion of cries of courage dampened in no time. That’s why he looked straight into my eyes, instilling in me the sensation that he was waiting for me to make a sign and spur him to action. I did not imagine myself as the one to herald the beginning of such a thing, it was as though I had to shoulder the grave responsibility of carrying out the plan flawlessly and I did not want that to be the case. Despite the heaviness that lay in my heart, I turned the cameras on and gave him a signal that I was good to go. Surprisingly, he gave me a smile. I failed to grasp how that man found the strength to take on such an endeavor. In spite of all the difficulties he had to face, in spite of the fresh scars and wounds, Milev seemed to be the only soul around here that inspired both strength and limitless courage in us. Perhaps behind the façade of the tough man there was craftily hidden goodness, a special and rare one . . .
The doors started sliding open slowly and synchronically until they sank sideways into the body of ship and then the corridor got illuminated, the lights shifted from red alert light to sunlight. The two squads marched ahead and the officer and yours truly walked between them, closely followed by the cover-up squad, at whose heels strode the children and the women. We made careful, quite steps and checked constantly all directions for any lurking threats. The path we took was clear and did not show signs of potential obstacles, there were only a few bloody trails on the ground and no remains of any dead bodies. That did not look good as it meant that the beasts had probably taken away and eaten the humans to whom the spilled red life-sustaining liquid belonged. There were so many of us that when the first row of soldiers reached the end of the corridor, there were still people who were to line up for leaving the mess hall. One way or another, we were advancing quickly in the tense environment and that was only going to get me faster to my first close-up encounter with the domineering Menoetian species. There was an escalator at the end of that deck which led up to the furthermost cargo bay in the back of the ship–it offered the widest and most comfortable exit point for evacuation. Then we plunged down the gangway. At the base of the ship we saw two of the bloodthirsty creatures were locked in a fierce fight for the remains of a dimidiated cadaver. The rush of adrenaline hit me again with split-second waves of numbness. Right after we spotted the monsters, they sensed us coming and turned their heads to look at us, growling and letting out powerful cries full of menace. It was interesting how they did not step back but instead defended their territory quite openly despite the fact that we outnumbered them. They did not seem to know fear and they were not going to stop at anything until they vanquished the threat we posed to them. They did not hesitate to approach our front line. We opened fire on them and an unimaginable crackling rain of bullets echoed off the walls of the hall. Right before they were to fly at us and tear apart our guardians who stood at the front, they were struck down swiftly and their bodies were blown to pieces and scattered on the ground. The multiple lead grains quickly defeated them; for now there were only two of them and hundreds of us, but what if they were able to turn the tide?
That was a thought I just could not avoid, walking through those remains which started shrinking oddly and decomposing instantly. But I had no time for more observations and reflections because I could now see the large lowered ramp at the bottom of the spacious barn that was going to take us out. Beautiful shafts of light found their way through the rainy, cloud-laden skies, but most of the people ignored them as they were too preoccupied by the hardly bearable sound that reminded of the buzzing of a swarm of bugs.
‘Squad one, get to the machines!’ Milev ordered to his subordinates in concise and to-the-point manner and they rushed to the vehicles. It was not long before they were on the ground that we lost sight of them. The rest of us gathered our pace and when we got to the inclined surface that we had go down, we saw our back-up. Hundreds, if not thousands of soldiers, mounted on trucks, APCs and a few cargo aircraft had taken up position. We had a
n incredibly strong reinforcement, they had not abandoned us. The vehicles that had come to evacuate the women and the children were going to leave down an already well-trodden path through the woodland flora. The rest of us were going to follow suit. It did not take our trucks long to check their position with newly arrived vehicles. All those multiple coordination actions happened under a rain heavily pelting down in the rumble of powerful thunders. That was not an issue for me, at least in the beginning. It was when I reached the ground and stepped onto the soil that I felt the cool fresh air, but I was also greeted by the strong bone-soaking rain. I wondered what was waiting out there for me in my second contact with that alien nature. The yard we had built around the ship was now crowded with servicemen and the panel pieces that made up the fence were lying in their feet ripped out of their foundations and smashed in the ground as the water washed their remains away.
‘Squad two, spread out and cover the ground around the exit and remain on standby!´ the Lieutenant commanded. ‘The mobilized men, you go to the evacuation vehicles and help the women and the children get in as fast as they can. Boy, you come with me!’ His last order was, who knows why, directed at me and then we trod on through the rain, the thunders and the soft, difficult-to-walk-through soil. We strode past a few dozen foreign-land soldiers who seemed to know Milev from before–they made way for him to pass undisturbed, he was now looking for one of the people who were in charge of the operation. Not a minute after that we both saw something odd in the distance that stood out against the background of the people. The Officer was dazzled at the sight and I was clueless. I walked close behind him, not showing any signs of fear or hesitation, nor trailing even once. The outlines of five exceptionally large images swam to our horizon and they looked more like native inhabitants who were out to kill us rather than like part of the reinforcements. Or at least so it seemed at first until we stood face to face with those non-human beings. That was my first encounter with the heroes from Iris 1 and the exoskeleton suits that people knew so little of. Frankly speaking, in reality they looked even more terrifying and majestic compared to what human mind pictured them to be. I hoped they could not only inspire awe in us but bring us a glimmer of hope in all that incessant rain of perils and hardships we had come upon since our arrival on this planet.
‘Who’s the commanding officer here?’ Milev asked aloud, standing in front of the titanic humanoids, not really surprised by their arrival. Things were different now–the newcomers were not under his direct command unlike the countless number of soldiers on all of the ships. The people behind us, though, were just emerging and beginning to climb onto the vehicles as scheduled.
‘It’s us! Who’s asking?’ the five of them responded in unison, their voices sounded almost the same as though they were refracted with a voice modulator which made them identical. The words came out in a monotonous and sinister manner, as if they were recordings of a thinking machine.
‘Lieutenant Dimitar Milev, commander of American Pride, one of the organizers and, at present, the man in charge of the escape plan to leave the planet Earth,’ he introduced himself briefly. It was then that I really got to know how important the ex-NATO employee was.
‘So you are the one who decided who gets saved and who doesn’t. You wanted to play God, right?’ asked one of the machine-like images ferociously.
‘Relax, Scott!’ the one next to him put his hand on Scott’s chest to stop him from coming at the two of us.
‘No, I’m the one who managed to save Menoetius from the human evil with a bit of aid by giving everyone an equal chance to get here no matter their status in society,’ he said concisely–even they knew he was right. ‘The mercenaries you’re seeing are my subordinates and they’re the best soldiers you could find,’ the Officer finished and I had the feeling I’d heard that somewhere before. All the people who worked for him obeyed him unquestioningly and they were the best specialists not only in the military field but also in all other lines of work that the non-military members of his crew were part of.
‘And who the hell are you?’ asked me the man standing closest to me. I did not expect anyone to take interest in me since I was practically nobody in that configuration. Already drenched and feeling on tenterhooks in the unfamiliar environment, I began to realize I had gotten myself in something big, actually much bigger than me. There was nothing else for me to do but introduce myself.
‘I’m Nolan Stokes, Sir, a reporter!’ I lowered my weapon to the ground and announced my name and occupation as the cameras were recording everyone and everything.
‘Is this your right-hand man? From all the hirelings in the world you picked a young man unknown to anyone to help you?’ piped in another of the robot-like tall images.
‘He’s not with me to help me, but to record the events. The boy may be young, but I think he has the qualities to be more than everyone else or it at least that’s how I see it. I’m alone now because most of my trusted fella on board are already dead and probably eaten. If you don’t want us to suffer more losses, we can now proceed with the plan, there isn’t much time left until sundown and I wouldn’t like to stay out in the dark,’ he answered concisely and clearly to all present and future questions that mattered for the time being. But his words ignited the fire inside of me. Despite the soggy ground and the cool torrential rain I managed to warm myself up. How had that stranger seen something that made me different, I was a mere reporter? How did he know what I could be and whether I had the capacity to become different even greater than anyone else here? I was at least going to help, if nothing else, there was no doubt about that. It was right there that I realized that the time for actions and not for words had arrived. Actions that were going to show them that not only Milev was right but that I did deserve my place among them.
‘Who are you actually? I’ve heard about you, but I want to know at least who I’m talking to since all of you look so identical.’ I found the courage to ask them to introduce themselves.
‘I’m Hiroshi and on my right are Liu, Mila, Scott and Alan. We’ll get to know each other later on for sure. Let’s leap into action now.’ The one who left the impression of being the most level-headed of all spoke, presenting himself and his team–the team without whom the game stood no chance of continuing.
‘Come on, Alan, let’s check the survivors’ passenger list, still, we may find someone we know,’ said the same man who tried to pick at Milev, the others called him Scott. ‘The two of us will remain at the back line, after the last people standing in the column. We’ll be keeping watch from behind,’ he continued clarifying and then the two men turned around and left, making heavy steps–their feet sank a bit due to their weight.
‘Hey, before all of us go off performing our tasks I want to thank you for coming to our aid and, most of all, for withstanding the attack. It’s thanks to you that we’re still in the game,’ the Eastern European thanked them for the swift organization and indeed, if it had not been for them, we would have had a different plan now. And it would have most probably led to nothing other than our downfall, all surrounded by the grayish-white creatures, or, at best, to starvation here, in the Cosmos or back on our home planet. Our situation was not a rose-colored one, but at least now its color was not the blackness of oblivion.
When the vehicles were fully packed, they also took the severely wounded, some of the women and the smaller children since there was not enough room for everyone. The rest were going to walk with us. Those trucks along with a few tanks and APCs left first for German Ascend 1 and were supposed to get to the ship in less than an hour, depending on the terrain and the things that they could run into. The heavy downpour seemed to have no intention to recede for the time being and it impeded the machine’s natural movement, forcing them to sink as they drove ahead. Those vehicles left first and were going to reach the end destination before us, moreover the people inside would be protected from a potential assault by small number of the local inhabitants. Once we saw them advancin
g considerably, it was our turn to go. Three of the participants in Probe led a long line of passengers though the forest followed by me, Milev and everyone who was fighting for their survival. With a moderate step we trudged down the forest path which was well cleared from bushes and trodden by the machines so as to facilitate our advance. In spite of it, the sticky soil hampered us a lot in the beginning, but the most extreme fatigue we experienced was caused by the 45 pounds of equipment we carried. The stronger gravity was already taking its toll and combined with the atmospheric inconveniences, after having walked for about 1,500 feet I felt like I had been carrying one more person on my shoulders. My legs trembled every now and then–I got cramps. I started panting and the rain was no help at all. The hideous sound kept on buzzing unrelentingly, threatening to drive us insane. Oh! Just how much I hated it! From time to time I threw a backward glance to see what was happening at the back of the line. The other mobilized men had the same problems as I did, yet they did not give up and somehow found it in themselves to go on. The more we walked, the more the perimeter of the forest path extended ahead. That was appalling. We were wandering like refugees with uncertain future and dreams, little by little drifting away from our dear steel-made Noah’s Ark.
I saw pairs of eyes watching us hidden from the trees and the bushes that lined the path. Someone was observing us, someone was stalking us. Were these the same creatures we stumbled upon earlier on or were they a different kind of human-killing species? I did not know where to look–the unclear outlines of some bird-like creatures jutted out from atop the canopies, they just stood there bathed by the downpour. They were looking at us and it seemed like they were waiting for the rain to stop. But whatever the perils lurking around, I had to carry on if I wanted to survive.
Dawn of Hope- Exodus Page 43