2021 (27 page)

‘LOOK! THERE MUST BE SOME
WAY TO DEFEAT THESE THINGS, WE JUST HAVE TO OUR BRAINS UNTIL WE FIND IT!’ shouted Stuart as he stood up, jesting with his arms for people to remain calm.

‘
YOU RECKON? IT TOOK YOU AGES TO KILL JUST ONE OF THEM!’ an army officer now shouted back angrily.

‘AND YOU SAY THERE ARE
MILLIONS
OF THEM NOW? THEN HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY DEFEAT THEM?’ shouted another military man angrily.

One man now stood up as he held up his hands as he appealed for calm.

‘Gentleman
and Ladies’ he added as he looked all around him ‘it appears to me these creatures are following a pattern’ he surmised.

‘And w
ho exactly are you, Sir?’ asked General Iram.

‘My name is Boris
Gregorksi. I am a professor studying insect behaviour in Munich’ he explained. ‘I’m afraid, these creatures are organised and are progressive in their behaviour in that they obviously attack a complete area, and are then most likely to progress once they have finished with that, to then move onto another. In this they are like our own soldier ants. They do much the same thing using their strength of numbers to overcome even much larger and more powerful prey. Unfortunately, I believe these Migrators next stage may be even in fact to take to flight’ he explained.

‘WHAT?’ someone uttered in shock as everyone looked
completely astonished.

‘The
n they could then quickly take over the world.
Nowhere
would be safe from them!’ uttered another scientist in alarm.

‘HOLD ON! HOLD ON!’ shouted Joan ‘LET’S NOT GET CARRIED AWAY HERE!’ she uttered holding up her hands for quiet. Then she turned to the Professor.

‘Professor Gregorksi, how sure are you about this?’ she asked calmly.

The elderly Professor just smiled at them all.

‘I
base my assumptions on over fifty years of insect study’ he nodded. ‘It is my belief our only chance of stopping these creatures is before they begin evolving to their next stage, because if they reach that…’ he paused for a moment and just shrugged his shoulders. ‘Well, I believe mankind itself could well be doomed to extinction should they ever reach that final stage’ he finally concluded as the room immediately exploded into uproar!

‘THEN THIS
LEAVES US NO CHOICE!’ shouted General Iram ‘WE’LL
NUKE
THE BASTARDS!’ he announced loudly as everyone now cheered him!

‘But you can’t do that, General
!’ protested both Joan and Stuart together.

‘No? You just watch me!’ stated the General stubbornly.

‘General
, the nuclear fallout could last for a thousand years and would kill Americans possibly for centuries’ argued Stuart.

‘Then you tell me, Professor Keys, what’s t
he alternative? Just wait for these things to devour us all?’ replied General Iram forcefully.

‘That’s not the point, General’ argued Stuart.

‘Then you tell me, Professor Keys, what
is
the point?’ replied the General now looking quite angry.

‘The point is, General, no nuclear device will go off in the dead zone!’ argued Joan.

‘Oh, you reckon do you?’ smiled General Iram
as he now marched up and down in front of everyone.

Then he stopped.

‘WELL I RECKON IT WILL BLOW THESE DAMN INSECTS TO KINGDOM COME!’ he shouted as the military people all cheered him! ‘Sergeant, get me the President on the line’ ordered General Iram as he now marched off.

Stuart just sat there shaking his head in despair.

‘I’m just hoping the blood
y bombs
won’t
go off now’ he uttered.

‘I agree,
Stuart, this is just sheer madness and I don’t think it’ll help one iota’ nodded Joan.

‘I just keep hoping this is just a nightmare and any minute I’m going to wake up
in my bed at home’ commented Jenny as she just put her head in her hands in despair.

‘Do they really think an insect
so capable of disarming our every line of defence will really not be prepared for something like a nuclear strike?’ smiled professor Gregorksi.

‘Well unfortunately, Professor
we’re now about to find out’ uttered Stuart as he just shook his head in disbelief.

Day Ten:

16
^th
January 2021

Aboard The

U. S. Aircraft Carrier

Neil Armstrong:

T
he President, having been told of the defeat of General O’Dowd’s army agreed that a nuclear strike was now their only option to protect the world against the Migrators.

He immediately ordered a multi missile attack on California in the vast area covered by the Migrators, from just beyond San Francisco all the way up to the huge black building now believed by many to actually be their space vehicle.

A coded me
ssage was sent to the Aircraft Carrier Neil Armstrong anchored around a hundred miles off the Californian Coast and it immediately sounded battle stations.

Jack, Stuart, Joan and Jenny all sat around the
ir makeshift camp knowing full well that if the nuclear warheads did in fact explode, they would all be killed, if not immediately from the enormous blasts, but from the nuclear fallout that would come very soon after.

Jack was particularly worried for his wife and children w
ho were within the nuclear fallout zone themselves up in Eugene.

He spo
ke to his wife on the phone and she explained that word of a nuclear strike had now leaked out, so there was now a mass panic to escape from the area. So roads were all blocked solid and people were even turning to violence to steal any vehicle they could just to escape. The result was that she and the children had no realistic chance of ever leaving the area.

‘The nuclear warheads
won’t explode in the dead zone, Jack, you know that’ Stuart tried to reassure him.

‘Somehow, St
uart, that just doesn’t make me feel any better at the moment’ Jack replied as he worried about his family.

Realising the miss
iles might cut out upon reaching the dead zone the military experts had worked on a trajectory that would mean the rockets would fall down and hit their targets anyway.

Proof of their success would be seen in the large mushroom clouds they produced
soon afterwards, followed by the incredible strong winds that would simply blow everything away for fifty miles or more!

Soon the countdown began, broadcast all over the army encampment
at Lodi.

Everyone had been given advice how to protect themselves from the blasts
, based upon an old United States government public television advisory campaign from the Cuban crisis entitled ‘Duck and Cover’.

Jack
though, said it was a complete waste of time.

‘If these things do go off
, the fallout in this area will be such that there will be nothing left! Duck and cover indeed’ scoffed Jack ‘the only reason to duck would be to kiss your arse goodbye’ he added as Stuart just smiled.

Soon the countdown
for the missiles to hit their target area reached its final stages as countries all around the world now began to track the gigantic missiles in alarm, thinking that someone had started ‘World War Three’ by launching a nuclear strike on the United States of America!

In all major cities around Europe
, emergency sirens sounded and people were advised to take cover in basements or anywhere underground they could find!

In
London, people poured down into the vast Underground system just as they had done during ‘The Blitz’ of World War Two. Whilst in Paris, France, people did the same there as they all rushed to take cover in their own Metro system.

Countries all over the world were now rapidly interrupting their
regular television and radio broadcasts to issue a special newsflash!

Meanwhile, t
he final countdown continued for the numerous nuclear missiles to actually hit their targets ‘8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3.’

Jack, Jenny, Stuart
and Joan now all held hands as they sat on the ground outside their tent, just praying they were right and the nuclear bombs wouldn’t go off!

‘Two, one,
ZERO
!’

Aboard the Aircraft C
arrier Neil Armstrong and at Camp Lodi as they were now all calling it, the missiles were now being carefully tracked as they all approached their targets!

S
uddenly, they could now see the missiles in Lodi as a series of bright yellow/red glows in the sky.

‘THERE THEY ARE!’ someon
e shouted loudly as he pointed upwards.

All of a sudden though, the missiles simply disappeared
from their view and off everyone’s radar screens as the bright yellow/red glow in the sky disappeared in Camp Lodi altogether.

Suddenly they could hear a loud series of ‘THUDS!’ coming from somewhere quite close by them and Stuart just smiled at Jenny.

‘They haven’t gone off
, Jenny’ he uttered.

‘Thank God!’ muttered
Joan as she and Jack just looked doubly relieved.

Aboard the
Neil Armstrong, they all looked on in dismay.

‘We should be able to see the mushroom clouds by now?’ puzzled a sailor.

Whilst at Camp Lodi
, General Iram just shook his head.

‘Nothing kills these Migrators, absolutely
nothing
!’ he uttered as he just shook his head in disappointment. ‘You’d better get me the President on the line again’ he ordered.

Stuart, Joan, Jenny and Jack meanwhile all stood up and
just blew a huge sigh of relief.

‘We live
to fight another day then’ smiled Jack.

‘Yes, but
for how long?’ questioned Joan as she looked thoughtful. ‘I mean, if even nuclear weapons can’t kill these things, what can?’

‘I think you were right all along, Joan, these really
are
the ultimate fighting machines’ uttered Stuart ‘their science is way beyond anything we can throw at them.’

‘Can
nothing really stop these things, Dad?’ asked Jenny, now looking very frightened.

‘It certainly looks that way, Jenny’ he nodded
honestly as he just held her in his arms.

‘Maybe this
is just a war mankind can’t win?’ questioned Jack. ‘Let’s face it, these things are just
invincible
. They leave us without any electricity, any communications, any firearms that work, and so without any of our modern technology and they even somehow prevent our gas powered devices from working close up to them and we haven’t a single clue how they do any of it!’ he shrugged.

‘No, there must be a way to stop them
somehow’ insisted Stuart.

‘I’m not so sure now, Stuart’ pondered Joan ‘maybe nature has just scheduled mankind for extinction?’
she questioned.

‘You can’t seriously believe that, Joan?’ replied Stuart just staring at her.

‘Let’s b
e honest here, Stuart’ nodded Joan ‘these creatures may look primitive to us, but the truth is, they are so much more advanced than us’ she concluded. ‘Had they been friendly, I would have enjoyed speaking to them’ she sighed ‘as there is obviously so much we could learn from them.’

‘As military tactics go, they are quite brilliant
aren’t they’ nodded Jack. ‘I think General O’Dowd secretly admired them for that and I reckon he was right to do so’ he concluded.

Jack then looked
down at Jenny as she looked quite upset.

‘Cheer up, Jenny, we’re not finished yet’ he smiled.

‘Yes,
Jack will defeat them with his bad jokes’ smiled Stuart as he tried to cheer her up.

In truth though, none of them could see
quite how the Migrators could be defeated now.

‘We’re all going to die aren’t we?’ u
ttered Jenny.

Stuart was a brilliant scientist, but as a parent he was sometimes at a loss
what to say to her.

Joan just looked towards Jack to say something as she just indicated for him to intervene.

‘Let me to tell you
, young lady’ he told Jenny firmly ‘even in the midst of the worst hell on Earth, you’ll
still
find something good!’

‘You
sound like you’ve already fought in a war?’ asked Stuart curiously.

‘No, I
worked in a factory!’ stated Jack indignantly as Joan just raised her eyebrows and shook her head at him.