Visitation - Exodus (book 2 of 2)

"Wake up Ian. Come on now, wake up.”

A crystal clear voice had echoed these words firmly within my head.

I obeyed my military instincts and swung my legs over the side of the bed to plant, yet again, my feet firmly on the floor. I didn’t know who had given the order but there had been an authority about it that switched-on and activated my automatic-pilot. If the feet were flat on the floor then by definition the body had been roused and was ready for duties.

This was an old military thing, which I had never got over. However, this method of arousal was something of a nuisance; why was it being persisted with? I liked to reminisce but was long past the old routine of my uniform days, surely. My head was still full of cobwebs and I was finding it difficult to force my eyelids into the open position.

“Come on Ian, now get a grip,” the command came again.

I got my eyes open quick time and quickly adjusted their focus in the gentle light of this dormitory barrack room. There was no one to my front. I swivelled my head and body to look the other way and, beyond Ed’s empty bed there were a couple of prone bodies, devoid of suits and clearly fast asleep, but no one else in the room. If the voice spoke again, it had to be someone with the same talent as myself, able to communicate mentally, Caterin perhaps.

No, it couldn’t be Caterin, I recognised her tone of ‘voice’. Ivan could hear me but would not communicate in this distinct manner. I was sure, despite his ‘secret’ talent, that it was not John. He had hidden talents, of that I was certain, but I had never properly uncovered them; mental communication was not one of them I thought but I was guessing.

Depending upon what time it was and how the Exodus was going, Ivan could be anywhere between here and the base or coming back, piloting one of the large crafts. Ed had slept, I felt sure of that, and had departed, most likely, to the hanger.

The voice spoke again, most clearly with a sort of ringing edge to the tone of the pronunciation, and uttered but a single word.

“Ian.”

It was just my name and nothing else, but there was an emphasis in the pronunciation that could not be ignored. I was asleep, wasn’t I? But I was I still in that strange place between the warmth of dream and the cold, hard light of consciousness. I was not properly awake and the dream state beckoned me back; I welcomed its warm invitation but had to decline. I was most definitely sat on the edge of my bed, my senses were coming to full sharpness at some speed and I cast away any hint of going back into the depths of a warm sleep.

“Ian, you are needed. Your family will come to need you and you must go to them, now. Hurry Ian, your family needs you.”

There was more than one voice here and they were speaking together in some sort of ringing harmony. They were very clear in both how they were speaking and in what they were saying.I checked both ways, up and down the room, but all was silent and except for the two bodies deep in their sleep, it was empty.

Somebody had found a way to communicate with me, perhaps one of those people that were being brought up from the base and now perhaps wandering the corridors. The only people who knew my name were those that I had been familiar with at the base but the words did not seem to be coming from any of those with the talent.

“Go now,” a single voice instructed.

“Go now,” another joined in to emphasise the first.

“You are needed, do not hesitate,” yet another voice intervened.

This was most spooky. I expected to hear some voices mentally but none of these had the timbre of any that I had encountered and with which I had some familiarity. There was something else about them that I could not pin down, something ‘otherworldly’. Was I being played with, if so this was not a pleasant joke?

Then a deep-in-the-gut feeling hit me. The kind that comes from a sudden understanding of what is being said, what is meant and how serious it may be. My family had been mentioned and whoever it was knew of them; this was worrying.

“Catch a ride on a craft, go back to earth, you are needed back at the base. Your family need you.”

My family had been referred to again; this was serious, well to me. Was this a single voice or more than one in harmony with each other; I could not tell but the message was there again and clear; I had to act. These words and their associated thoughts were now banging wild inside my head and I had to give them my full attention. I had no idea what was happening but someone or other was referring to my family and a sense of great seriousness, accompanied by a cold shiver, told me instinctively that something really was amiss. Now I had to follow this innate sense, this instinctive urge to move, to let the adrenalin take me where it wished.

My head was rapidly clearing, my feet were twitchy and my knees were turning to jelly from a lack of action and nervousness that I could no longer control.

I had to do something, I had to move and quickly.

I picked up my helmet and gloves where I had placed them on my bedside locker, before dropping into that abyss of welcome sleep, and charged off with slightly uncertain legs but with the comforting confidence that I was now doing something, whatever that something would turn out to be.

Caterin had given me her orders that I was not to leave this Ark and most definitely not head for the base on any of the craft. There was nothing I could possibly do back at the base and I was to sit out the Exodus. I was to await the arrival of my family, as were others coming here, and show some patience. That directive was now jarring most unpleasantly with my natural instincts and with the clear direction of the voices.

I found my legs taking me automatically in the direction of the hanger with a strange out-of-body detached view of them working one step after the next. I burst into the hanger through a door that I thought I may have damaged with my charging insistence, conflicting with its less than desirable opening speed. The hanger was almost empty of people. Caterin was definitely not there and that gave me a sort of sense of relief. If she was to catch me now carrying through my strange intentions, the proverbial would definitely hit the fan. I felt certain she would have sent Dr. Jarinda to locate the cells and have me locked up for my own, if not the entire mission’s, safety. That is assuming that there were any, which I doubted, but I had no wish to find out the truth of it.

One of the large craft in service was still parked and waiting to leave, presumably at the correct interval time. I had no idea where the Exodus process was up to in Ed’s schedule. Something was telling me, not in words, but in an increasing internal sensation that my family were not here yet; they had to be at the base still. If they had arrived here on the Ark then surely someone would have woken me up to let me know.

“Go to your family Ian, you are needed, hurry.”

That settled my intentions. The ramp of the craft was still in the lowered position and I just ran across the hanger floor straight onto it. Inside the flight deck, Franz sat at the controls with one of the newly promoted junior pilots. They were both in conversation with Ed who was sat alongside them now consulting his watch.

“Ian, what the hell are you doing in here?” Ed demanded to know.

I placed my helmet over my head and slipped on my gloves with an unexpected expertise.

“I left you asleep in our bunk room,” he consulted his watch, “some eight hours ago. You needed a good rest after your exciting adventures. You were totally knackered and almost falling over, what the hell are you doing here?”

“By the look of you, you still need more rest,” Ed continued. “Your face is very pale and you are wide eyed. Your lack of well-being will not improve if Caterin catches you here, I can promise you that.”

Where my strength of character suddenly came from, I didn’t know but I barked an order in the style I had once employed many years ago and with a supreme confidence that came from somewhere deep inside.

“Franz, listen to me. I am taking command of this craft and you will do exactly as I tell you,” I barked out.

“Close the ramp, now.” I paused for a moment.

“Not tomorrow Franz, NOW.”

The look on his face told me that I had him as he reached for the fascia to close the ramp. The face of his poor co-pilot, one of the newly promoted juniors, turned ashen as he froze in his seat.

“What are you doing Ian?” Ed demanded to know.

“Taking you with me Ed,” I snapped back taking the initiative away from an ex-mucker who had once exercised more rank than me.

“You can tell Caterin that I kidnapped you,” I let Ed know most firmly.

“What are you waiting for Franz?” I demanded to know. “Get a move on, let’s go, get us out of here and on our way to the base.”

“NOW.”

“Ian, you just can’t do this,” Ed attempted to soften me. “We will both ...”

“I can and I have,” I interrupted with a sharp retort and having none of it.

“I can’t explain it to you just now but it is imperative that I leave for Earth immediately.”

“Franz, why are we not moving?” I demanded to know.

“I’m getting sick of repeating myself.”

“Get your finger out of your arse and get this craft moving.”

“I am not explaining myself. I am your commander and if you know what is good for you, you will obey me without question.”

Then strangely I added, “This comes from a higher authority than Caterin and I am not prepared to waste time finding her to explain.”

That last bit concerning a ‘higher authority’ just came out all of its own. Why had I said that, why did it sound so correct? Quoting a higher authority than Caterin had clearly shocked Ed; perhaps he thought I was operating under other orders. Ed said nothing for the present but watched every move I made closely and was listening keenly for any other word I might speak. He was keeping a close watch on me, uncertain if what I said was true or a complete fabrication and I guessed, awaiting his moment to catch me out, take over and even perhaps lock me up.

The outer section of the Ark just slowly dissolved as we passed through it on the start of a journey I could not explain the reasons for. I heard no more voices in my head nor did anyone here speak to me as we skirted the Moon to our front and saw the blue Earth beckoning. We were well on our way down to the base and I had to assume that Franz did not have the nerve to turn back lest he countermanded something that even Ed knew nothing about.

Ed finally interrupted the quiet.

“You are aware Ian, are you not, that we have left over an hour early. We will be passing Ivan in a location he won’t expect to see us in and this may cause him unnecessary concern?”

“No Ed, I am not aware of the time,” I responded firmly, “nor of how the schedule is going. Tell me,” I asked, “Just what time is it and how is the Exodus progressing? SITREP please.”

Ed understood the word SITREP, a military ‘situation or progress report’, knowing that I wanted to be briefed immediately of where the Exodus process was up to and any difficulties that may have been experienced. I felt an urgent need to know where events were indeed up to and where my strange compulsive behaviour might fit in or disrupt the whole project. I could not explain where my impulses had come from or what was driving me to behave in this manner.

I only knew that a voice or voices in my head had awoken me, made me sense that an emergency situation was developing and that I had to head for the hanger and on to the base to my family. Once in the hanger my legs developed a mind of their own and had taken me into the available craft readied to leave. I had snapped orders in a style as of old but it did not seem to me that I was in the driving seat; something or someone else was in charge of me.

“Let me put it simply Ian,” Ed started.

“This is the last flight back to the base; Ivan is ahead of us on the penultimate trip. We will be picking up the last of the base including the remaining Seniors, who wished to see everyone else gone before they abandoned the base.”

“What else do you want to know?” Ed asked.

“What about my family?” I asked.

“Is that the reason you’re behaving this way?” Ed looked infuriated as he asked me very bluntly.

“It is and it isn’t,” was all that I could manage.

“You are not serious Ian,” Ed almost exploded as his blood pressure probably went off the scale and I saw his neck redden.

“I am very serious,” I replied, with the same degree of firmness. I did not wish to exhibit any trace of weakness. “Trust me. I do not know whose family I am talking about, but I have been directed somehow by voices not of this existence ...” I stalled for a moment as the reality of what I was saying became alarmingly apparent.

“I think I have been directed by somebody or something from the ‘Other Place’, the Universal Consciousness, whatever you wish to call it,” I managed for some unexplained reason, “except that it concerns a family, possibly my family.”

This didn’t seem convincing, even to me, but that’s all I had. Ed eased his anger and frustration and I found myself instantly mellowing with the gravity of what I had done for the reasons I had just given; were these reasons genuine or had I made it up? I knew the reality of it but that didn’t help.

Perhaps the feeling of confidence that still flowed through my body was the answer I needed. I had to stay confident and on top of matters. I had taken control of a craft, hijacking it almost; yes definitely hijacking it. I had done so to address the words that had definitely been spoken to me.

I hoped I was right.

I believed this to be a call, somehow, to rescue my family as some sort of danger was building back at the base. I also hoped that I was not in need of psychiatric care because I had been hearing voices in my head.

The rest of the flight was uneventful except we detected Ivan on his way back to the Ark so close to Earth’s atmosphere that he must have wondered why, where was the problem or what was going on, but we dare not break the self-imposed communication silence. I felt sure that he would not panic and possibly take the view that the last flight was running in advance to get the Exodus over and done with as soon as possible; at least, I hoped that he would.

We found our way to and entered the base easily and without a hint of any alien encounter issues on the way. I made sure that I was wearing my helmet, although with the visor left open, before I left the craft. Maybe I should have said that I was driven, somehow, by a sort of compulsive urge. I had to be ready for something, but I could not explain what it might be.

The final occupants of the base were taken aback to some extent when we arrived because we were not expected for some considerable time. By the time Franz had lowered the ramp and Ed and I came down it into the hanger, the word had gone round. An orderly queue was soon forming and making its steady way into the craft.The last people here in the base did not need telling twice, they were keen to follow those that had gone before.

I asked each second traveller in the queue about my family, of Hazel, the children and grandchildren but no-one could provide information about people they didn’t know nor had never even heard of. It was noticeable that nearly all the people heading for the final flight were not youngsters nor in the mid years of their lives, indeed many of them would almost certainly be seen as aged pensioners.

My family were not appearing and I persisted with my gentle questioning until one lady provided me with an answer. She knew of them because she had spent many afternoons chatting to Hazel in the warmth of the summer park. She told me what I did not really want to know; they had left in the previous flight. I had passed them in Ivan’s craft heading for the Ark while I had been coming down here.

The sensation of coming back to the base for ‘family’ did not go away even in the knowledge of where they now were; safe I hoped. What was I doing here? What was Caterin going to say about my reckless decision to hijack a craft? Why did the urge to come to the assistance of ‘family’ not only not go away, but seemed somehow to strengthen.

I had the urge to work my way down the steady queue of the old and wise, some with children assisting or just wishing to stay with grandmother or grandfather as I had wished my grandchildren to do, but I knew that this was not the reason I was here. Something inside was building and an internal urge to move forward drove me on. I eased my way into the lounge where many of these people had been waiting patiently. Others, many others it seemed, were still streaming into the lounge in their orderly manner from one of the corridor entrances.

I watched them come through the door but for some reason found myself frozen where I stood from some sort of fear that was surpassing any other feelings inside me. There was nothing here to frighten me but the hairs were lifting on the back of my neck and a certain muscle was tightening.

Then it hit me; the pressure wave of a massive explosion from the corridor on the other side of the door into the lounge, the same corridor where some, or many, must still be working their way forward. I did not hear the explosion but felt the heat and the almighty thump in the chest as I was thrown backwards across the lounge, ploughing through other bodies similarly displaced.

My sense of hearing was gone; all I could detect were muffled sounds and cries in the darkened room from the injured and presumably dying laid around and beneath me. Strong arms lifted me and I managed, somehow or other, to clear myself of those beneath me as I was placed against the wall adjoining the hanger. Ed had been about to follow me into the lounge as the blast occurred. He had come in looking for me after being knocked backwards himself. It was Ed’s hands that got me to the seated position off the people beneath me and up against a wall.

The door into the hangar was still intact, as best as I could tell in the red glow of the emergency lighting and the white mist of displaced plaster and stone. It had been blown open beyond its normal limits but without being torn completely off its mountings. This was more than could be said of the door from the corridor into the lounge that was simply missing, blown into here somewhere; perhaps it was this that both struck me and protected me from the worst of the heat of the blast.

My sense of balance and my hearing, started to resolve themselves but very slowly and no where near their normal capabilities. I leaned back against the wall adjoining the hanger and tried to take stock. I was, to all extents, remarkably intact and unhurt although winded, aching and with my hearing still not functioning at all properly. Sounds were still muffled and indistinct as I stood there, it seemed, for an eternity. I was no longer dizzy or trying to fall over with the wall to my rear providing the stability I needed.

Ed’s blurred voice managed to tell me that the side of my helmet exhibited some streaking marks, presumably where small sharp bits had whizzed past, and a few burn marks. My suit appeared to have suffered very little damage except for a good coating of dust; they really might be indestructible. I considered myself lucky as my head must have turned away just before the blast otherwise I would have had a face full of debris to reshape it. It was full of white dust, however, as was the coating on my face and in my mouth and nose and everything else in this room. I scraped away with my fingers all the dust that I could from my face and mouth but I could not muster any spit to help the task. My mouth was incredibly dry from the adrenalin that was surely pumping madly round my body. Although my head was clearing, my hearing did not improve much more while the pain of bruised ribs with each breath increased.

Some travellers from the hanger, including nurses who were to accompany them on their journey, came pouring back into the remains of the lounge, picking their way carefully between those attempting to get to their feet from beneath those that would never rise again. Words of comfort, water and caring hands were working wonders in removing those that could move themselves into the hanger and then to the craft.

I was still leaning with my back to the wall watching this in an almost silent vision of slow motion. Then my hearing came back with an almighty thump that tried to deafen me again and my sensation of reality sharpened up by a similar amount. We had been attacked, we had to have been. No one outside the base knew of its existence, no one in the base was going to give its location away. Perhaps the numerous flights in and out in the area were leaving traces of the craft’s existence and these could and possibly had been, detected.

I managed to struggle away from the wall and onto functioning feet, staggered across the room to where the door had been and helped extricate those on the floor that had clearly been killed without a doubt. Others were lifting the wounded to their feet to walk or simply carrying them out to the hanger all the way to the waiting craft. Stepping through the lost door opening, I was immediately struck by the shaft of daylight coming down from an open gash way above me. What had previously been a substantial structure and indeed the mountain itself in which all was concealed was now rent open.

The movement of a shadow across the opening told me immediately that someone above the base had fired upon it to score a significant hit, but the results of which they were probably unaware. If they had known what great damage they had caused, more explosions would now be taking us apart for good.

There were no bodies on the floor in front of me now, just a clear empty floor. The side walls of this corridor were gone with the one to the left now a large open space looking down into the summer parkland. To the right the walls dividing the corridor from other rooms were also missing.

It was not only the walls of the corridor that were missing but a short way in, the floor was also absent. The supporting concrete beams had resisted somehow and the two longitudinal ones were more or less intact although dipping in the centre of a gap about twenty feet long. At the bottom of the dip where the reinforcing steel was fully exposed, small pieces of ragged concrete clung on.

Across the other side of this gap a mound of loose rubble laid heavily, I guessed from what I could determine, upon a couple of partly concealed bodies. One of the bodies stirred and staggered to its feet somehow, shedding clouds of loose dust, plaster and concrete. I just stood and stared in amazement that anyone could have survived in that location.

The rubble about my feet was not as dense as that which had been blown down to the park below but included a great deal of loose plaster, pulverised block or small pieces of concrete and powdery dust. There beneath me, three stories below, I could see a mess of unmoving bodies, all elderly and Seniors perhaps, clearly dead from the ragged burnt mess they were in. I thought it likely that they may, somehow, have provided a shield to what I saw were clearly survivors stirring in the pile of rubble and dust across the gap.

The sole figure struggled and succeeded in pulling themselves clear finding their feet amongst the mess of dust and loose material. White dust cascaded off this person as they managed to stand more or less upright. I was truly shocked to see that it was a young girl in what had once been a light blue gingham summer dress, white bobby socks and what now passed for blue ribbons in her golden hair. I guessed it must have been golden, from what I could see of it, beneath the thick coating of white dust.

She just stood there staring at me, not saying a word while her body and legs were clearly trembling. A moan from beneath the rubble where she stood caught the attention of both of us and she immediately dropped to her knees and started scrabbling amongst the lumps of plaster, dust and brick to find someone else. I had an increasing urge to help. There were two people across this open gap that needed help, my help, to secure their lives if I was capable.

I could see no others.

The floor where presumably some had once stood was no more. There was no one behind them calling for help nor could I see any further piles of rubble. They had to be the last but this was a young girl and someone else, now buried, who was at the back of what had been a queue; I did not understand. I had to overcome the body aches, the bruised ribs or whatever and focus on what needed to be done.

I stepped forward to the edge of the floor where it disappeared to what had been the greenery of the park field before it became covered in blast rubble. I then realised that I really was looking down some clear three stories beneath my feet. With some concentration, I realised that what I was looking at was not only a simple collection of rubble and some bodies spread over what had been grass, but as I focussed more it became clear that there was truly a very large amount of twisted and burnt bodies, many with missing limbs and all laid at strange unnatural angles.

They had to have been standing about where I was now, when the attacking blast had struck, blowing them and the concrete on which they had been stood and the walls that they were alongside, down some thirty or forty feet or so. I hoped that they may have been killed quickly before their fall that had so broken and distorted those bodies below me.

If the Seniors were bringing up the rear of all who were leaving then what I could make out three stories down, had to include some or many of them perhaps. But what was this young girl doing at the rear of the queue? Was she related to a Senior that was now no more? I had no idea who she was but there on her knees, she was still scrabbling at the loose rubble clearly trying to free someone. Across the devastation, on the other side of the missing floor within the loose white mess a hand raised itself out of the rubble. The young girl reached out to hold the hand and offer, I guessed, some words of comfort.

I could not leave either of them and the same crystal clear voice that had urged me here spoke firmly in my head once again, “Now is your time, Ian, now is your time.”

I needed no further urging but I had to traverse the collapsing beam. To the right of what had been the corridor I was standing in, was just a sloping mess of rubble and dust that slowly trickled into the abyss below. Running across this mess would surely be fatal and I would follow the loose material still trickling down to the devastation below. Considering trying to traverse the exposed rooms now the wall was missing looked even more dangerous as there was no floor here at all. I guessed that perhaps these rooms had taken most of the blast but that a sideways element was what had caused the walls to disappear and caused the open floor before me.

I had to walk across the failing beam, there was no other option. The adrenalin rose and I just went for it, with little thought of failure.

My days of military training on planks and ropes in the elevated heights of trees until confidence became everything, regardless of discomfort or pain, came immediately to mind. How I could think of such things facing what was before me I did not know but I did; perhaps such thoughts were helping. Perhaps it was the training of all those years ago that urged me on.

I stepped confidently onto the eighteen inch wide beam and carefully worked my feet down the slope to reach the centre; that was the easy bit. I had to ignore the drop either side of it. The gap between the remaining sections of the concrete beam, soundly bonded to the reinforcing steels at my side and over at the far side, was perhaps three feet or more with the dubious reinforcement steel rods fully exposed. I had to step onto this array of exposed steel rods to which a few odd scraps of concrete were still clinging.

This was most unpleasant, as the steps along the concrete had not seemed such an issue but the warped steel rods were a different matter. The steel did not resist the firm step of my right foot but attempted to twist away and throw me off this precarious bridge.

Somehow I maintained my balance and gingerly stepping forward, placed my left foot a little further, then my right and then my left, eventually, onto the relative firmness of more concrete beyond this gap of imminent death. Pausing with nerves or fright here would surely see me thrown down to join the other twisted figures below; confidence was the name of the game, just step forward and get on with it.

Up the slope of the precarious concrete beam, I reached the young girl and joined her instinctively in attempting to free whoever it was beneath the powdery pile. There was little time for consoling or reassuring cuddles; a life was ebbing away beneath the rubble.

I scrabbled at the loose pieces of concrete and plaster where I thought the hand and arm originated.

An elderly lady’s face, the same dusty white as the young girls and presumably my own, appeared. She just looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. I had seen that smile before but now was not the time to consider where.

She was alive and the smile had to be from nerves; I had to get a move on. Where her legs should be there was a section of wall and several inches of dusty plaster, laid across them. I guessed that it was this that must be pinning them in place and I had to do my best to remove it.

The adrenalin surge was still working and it took a few strong heaves, beyond my normal strength, to pull it aside and take the weight off this elderly lady. I expected her, for some reason, to jump to her feet but she didn’t move very much. It was clear why as her right leg was most clearly broken; her foot pointing in the wrong direction. She was not crying out in pain but this could be a sign of a serious injury where the brain cuts off the sensation of intense pain to protect the body.

The little girl now started calling to the prone figure.

“Nanna, Nanna, you’re alive, you’re alive. Oh Nanna, Nanna, can you get up, please get up.”

The elderly casualty mouthed something in response but I did not catch the words; I was unable to lip read what she was attempting to say. I reached for her but as she was eased out of the pile to still lay prone upon the mess and with a little assistance from her good leg, it was clear from her wincing through clenched teeth that she did indeed feel the pain of her injuries.

I could only consider that she was one of the real hardy types of elderly person, made of sterner stuff than the rest of us and able to minimise her distress from the pain she must surely be experiencing, perhaps for the sake of her grandchild. I had to get the young girl and her ’Nanna’ across the gap and to the waiting craft as soon I possibly could. Its departure must not be delayed and must be away so as not to be caught in any further attack.

An attack it could only be and how many more might be joining in shortly; I had to move and quickly. The old lady, the ‘Nanna’ would have to be left where she was for the present; I would have to focus on the young girl.

A resounding explosion down towards the end of the park, echoing several times in this cavernous space, reinforced the sense of urgency. Then I caught sight, out of the corner of my eye, of a subsequent massive orange flash coming straight through the roof of the park area, not too far away. This hit the ground near a small pond, which instantly converted to steam in another explosion..

The explosion was again felt through my body but was sufficiently far away to be mainly frightening, not fatal. Earth, water and rock from the roof combined to fly in all directions, a little of it rattling on the floor a short way past us. This sharpened the mind and I resolved that swift action was now most definitely the order of the day.

I got to my feet with ‘Nanna’s’ eyes following my every move.

“Right young lady,” I started to say with my face almost pressed up against hers.

“I am taking you first to the waiting craft in the hanger and your Nanna second. That means we are going across this rickety bridge together and I do not expect to hear any argument, is that understood?”

I did not know why I was being so firm, perhaps it was the right attitude to take to overcome the fear and nerves that might see us both fall three stories.

She just looked straight at me, eye to eye and calmly spoke. “OK then, let’s do it.”

She didn’t even flinch and there was no sign of a tremble in her voice.

That shocked me; I had not expected that sort of response. She was either some incredibly cool young lady with nerves of steel or she was so frightened she could not respond properly. I had no intention of finding out which, that could come much later.

I wanted her to climb onto my back to carry her ‘piggy-back’ style but the back pack attached to my suit precluded this.

“Right,” I caught her attention again, or perhaps I did not need to. “Do you know what a fireman’s lift is?” I asked.

She actually replied, “Yes.” This young lady was catching me out again.

I guessed that she had to be about fourteen years of age and being of slim build, should be relatively easy to carry. She held her right arm out and waited for me to hoist her over my shoulders. I obliged and, feeling so very light, less than I had anticipated, she nearly flew straight across my shoulders to find the floor again. Grabbing her leg quickly stopped her going so far and I felt her free left hand press into the top of my pack. She seemed very comfortable with this technique.

I stepped onto the concrete beam and just walked firmly straight across the gap including that section of dubious reinforcing steel. I was amazing myself and had to assume that the seriousness of the situation, old military training and a good dose of adrenalin were having their combined effect.

Ed took her from me as I reached the far side and I told him to race for the hanger and the craft. There had to be no arguments from the young lady as I was likely to need uninterrupted assistance from Ed when I brought the elderly lady across.

The young lady looked at me straight in the face and with a sort of sense of recognition from her she turned and ran herself towards the hanger. She continued to surprise me with this, understanding what I needed her to do without question, able to walk away from the old lady placing her trust completely in Ed and myself to effect another rescue.

I turned back to the gap and watched as more loose rubble from the pile on the right started to pour into the chasm beneath me. The ground was vibrating at an increasing rate to disturb more of the loose rubble. I was not going to leave the old lady, she was alive and needing extricating from the position she was in but without any recourse to medical help. I might yet cause her more injury in the lifting and carrying her back here but that was a chance I had to take. I could not leave her and, indeed, a welling up of feelings inside me for a gran who was not mine, could not be ignored.

I hurried back across the beam again and this time felt it start to move as I stepped on the central twisted steel rod section which sagged and twisted a little further. I compensated somehow and just walked smoothly up the far concrete section.

When I reached the old lady, she was barely conscious, just muttering something or other most incoherently; I could not understand what she was trying to tell me.

I had to work fast as more explosions occurred further down the park and the floor started to vibrate yet again. The alien craft, I had to assume it was an alien craft although I had not seen it, but who else would attack, was still probing the mountainside to locate the base.

It clearly had no idea what it was shooting at or it would be targeting the craft in the hanger. Had we arrived just in time to avoid its presence on the scene, had my urgency to leave the Ark and get to the base as quickly as possible, saved lives although some had indeed been lost?

What had been driving me, where had the voices come from, did they see what was about to happen and drive me on? I had no time for further considerations, I had to get my bum in gear and remove this elderly lady from her predicament, ignoring my own. I had to get her across the failing beam to safety where, if she was still alive, she could receive some medical attention.

I carefully cleared a lot of the remaining rubble from around her, hoping her good leg was not as damaged as the clearly broken one; it appeared more or less intact but there was now no time for checking further. The rubble was now moving on its own as the floor continued to vibrate with each distant blast, dropping over the edge of the broken floor onto the shattered bodies below. I could not have concern for them, only for the living, this elderly, broken lady.

“You must hurry Ian, you must,” one of the voices came to me again.

Who was speaking to me, who could see what I was experiencing now?

Its effect was more than informative or a simple instruction as strength from somewhere seemed to rise deep within my being to carry out what was required. I rolled her onto her back, sufficiently that I could pull her towards me and lift her over my shoulder into the fireman’s lift position. Crouching down, pulling her towards me, she helped by taking her weight momentarily on her good leg as she approached my shoulder.

She groaned loudly, surely as the pain of disturbing her broken leg increased dramatically but up and over she had to go. With a hidden source of strength that was driving me on, she did so without ceremony. Exerting my leg muscles in a way that was not normal for some one of my age but of a much younger soldier, I stood with her weight barely noticeable.

Turning with her draped limply over my shoulder I continued to walk steadily across the beam, which had now shifted even further removing more concrete from its central sections. The amount of exposed and twisted steel reinforcing rods had increased in length, and wanted to pull themselves free of their concrete encasement. I now had to walk across this crumbling mess without losing my balance.

As I stepped onto the centre section of moving steel rods, they moved beneath my feet enough to almost throw me off. This I might have done if it had been for some extreme balancing which I realised I was now watching myself performing. I was not entirely myself, something or someone was within me, taking control almost; I was becoming an external watcher of events.

As surely as I had considered what it was that I was now watching, my feet touched upon the firm remains of the home stretch of the eighteen inch concrete beam. I was up the slope and close to the remaining floor as quickly as my tiring, hurt body could manage. I had been given back control of my actions and was grateful for Ed’s hands reaching out to assist. I did not remove my load from my shoulders but headed directly to the hanger, with a simple nod towards Ed, who needed no further words.

Passing strewn, twisted and burnt bodies, which I had to assume the medical people had left because there was nothing else they could do for them I hurried as best I could to the craft and felt a great relief as the ramp took me easily and without any further effort on my part, up into the interior. Franz was on-message and the closing of the ramp was well under way the moment that Ed and I both reached the top of it and were standing within the interior.

The medical nurses in the last group had been waiting for me and gently took the old lady from off my shoulders away to the passenger hold. The young lady, still covered in white dust, stood in the doorway to the passenger section staring directly at the old lady.

As she was carried past, her glance lifted from the old lady to redirect her gaze directly at myself. She remained motionless, now maintaining a penetrating stare before mouthing the words, “Thank you,” which I felt somehow much more than heard; she continued to surprise me. I nodded slightly in acknowledgement of her expression of gratitude.

Turning into the inner hold to join the others, she disappeared as the door was closed behind her. I hurried up to the flight deck.

“Nice one Ian, well done mucker,” Ed’s plain speaking voice came to me.

I tried a simple man hug but I was paining too much to make it anything but the slightest of contact. Brushing past Ed I reached for the end seat, furthest from the door, then changed my mind. I would sit on the floor in the far corner. I could slump and sleep there if needed be and I was sure that the need was most certainly arising within me.

In simple terms I was knackered, hurting and just about out-of-it. I found the least painful position to slump into, sitting on the floor, from which I could easily slide down to fall asleep when I became overcome with tiredness, which could not be far off.

“Franz, how are you, how is the craft, are we safe to leave?” Ed was asking.

Ribs were still aching from the initial blast and the tiredness was rapidly depleting my reserves of strength. The nurses were with those who really needed them, injured far more than I had been. I had to just get on with matters and ignore my own problems. I was in no position to concern myself with wherever the situation was going and just listened in; I had done my ‘bit’.

“I shall leave with us cloaked in a moment or two when whoever was doing the shooting seems to be further away from us than he is now,” Franz replied. This was his craft and all our lives depended upon him, there was no point in playing the commander role again even if I could find some energy to do so, which I was sure I could not.

Even inside this solid hull of the craft we heard and felt an enormous explosion that suddenly took place from somewhere deep down in the base. Whatever thoughts I may have had were suddenly focussed on the massive rumble that came echoing through us.

“That’s it,” Franz announced, “now’s our chance. Ian for goodness sake turn off your head. Even I can hear you.”

I was not aware that Franz had the ability to hear mentally; could he transmit and if so why had he not alerted Caterin as we left the Ark?

“Whoever is doing the searching, will soon find us if you cannot be quiet, Ian,” Franz continued firmly.

I hadn’t realised that I was broadcasting, but with the adrenalin still flowing and the pain in my ribs coming to the fore I had to assume that I was. I imagined the brick wall that I had tried with Caterin and focused, quietly, on maintaining every brick in it. This did not require any great physical expenditure of energy, if at all, so I worked hard at it while I could keep my eyes open.

“Thank you Ian,” Franz confirmed my efforts as we slowly, and for the last time, edged out through the disappearing external wall into the valley beyond.

As we came out fully, Franz rotated the craft to look up the valley searching for the alien craft, or whatever it was that had been responsible for attacking the base. It could not be seen until we gained some height and even at the distance we were now away from it, its shape was distinctive and very clear; a triangle. We watched it tilt downwards as a beam of bright orange shot forth from it to strike into the hillside concealing what was left of the base.

“I don’t know if it has any idea where it is shooting, but we need to be away before it hits what has been planned for the base,” Franz explained. “We do not have long so here goes.”

Where did he get his information from and what was he really talking about?

We dropped back into the valley and flew along it, out of view visually even if there was any possibility of us being seen but also from any sensors that may be capable of detecting us when cloaked. We travelled for what seemed a good distance before ascending vertically at a crazy, dizzying speed.

The triangular craft could now just be made out a long way below us as the entire mountainside suddenly erupted, taking off into the air from the biggest explosion I have ever witnessed. The miles of flying rock took out the triangular craft that simply stood no chance and what may have been coming our way was being left behind as we accelerated some more.

“A little surprise set up by the Seniors before they left,” Franz announced. “I got the timing just about right,” he declared.

“You knew this was to happen, Franz?” I managed to query.

“What if I had been longer at extricating the injured lady and that young girl; what then.”

“One of the surviving Seniors who came on board told me exactly how much time was left and I was measuring its passage carefully,” Ivan explained.

“Once you appeared I knew how much was left to get away safely.”

“But what if I had been longer?” I wanted to know.

“Not worth thinking about Ian,” he responded, “so let’s not go there; end of topic please.”

He was the pilot, in full command of events, I was shattered and I had no choice but to respect this. Our safety now depended upon his decisions.

I didn’t want to push it further, I had a good idea what he meant, and besides here I was alive and well, unlike those who were left behind.

“Ian, try this mucker,” Ed said as he reached down to me offering his small hip flask.

“Something I keep for the odd emergency and you look as though you need a little right now.”

Old military habit, why had I not thought of that, but here it was and not refused. I lifted the cap clear and threw a slug down my throat. I expected it to burn but while there was indeed a sensation of alcohol, there was also something else, something soothing and comforting, with a taste of old fashioned cough medicine. A pleasant, dark taste that spoke to me of being ‘on-scheme’ in Germany, in the early hours, yet the name of this familiar drink would not come to me so I had to let it go in the pleasure it provided.

“Thanks mate.” I returned the flask with a feeling of welcome relaxation coming over me. It was having the same effect a shot of strong liquor might have provided but this was in a gentle and most pleasant way. For some reason I guessed that I was really expecting Scotch but Ed’s mixture was the correct choice and very much the business.

The pain in my ribs was joined by others in my hips and shoulders and I felt the draw of impending sleep to ease my situation. Perhaps it wasn’t sleep but unconsciousness taking me over, or Ed’s ‘cough medicine’. I cared less and still ignoring a chair, continued to slump deep into the corner where I tried to slide down into a prone position and close my eyes. I was exhausted, painfully so, and my chest heaved. I should have closed my helmet dome and breathed in clean air when I could, but inside it was full of the dust of destruction and that would have made matters worse.

Ed was sat next to me, where I laid on the floor trying to keep myself awake despite whatever it was he had made me drink, some sort of pain relief or a sedative I guessed. Perhaps it really was that old traditional drink which tasted of ‘cough medicine’ and commonly carried by the troops when I had served in Germany. Most of us carried cans of fizzy stuff and chocolate bars hidden away while a few had a bottle of the ‘medicine’, me included, but I still couldn’t bring its name to mind. It could either put a guy to sleep or keep him awake, despite the privation suffered and I had made use of it many times. I was at the point of not caring about anything any more nor the names of things.

Aboard the craft escaping the earth, witnessing the wanton destruction of the mountainside that concealed the base of a hundred thousand years and lately ten thousand souls, my vision of Jamaica was being repeated and the pain of that experience was being repeated here although the only people potentially suffering were already dead.

The Seniors had left themselves to be the last to escape, giving those young and healthy the best start for a new life. Some had paid fully for this altruistic and selfless act, some had made sure that the attackers of the base, which were sure to come, would be given a bloody nose; they had been right in their assumptions and their planning had reached fruition.

The mixed images of the base exploding, the destruction at Jamaica, the triangular crafts and the US markings were going round my head as the darkness crept in, no warmth, just a cold darkness that slowly took away the ache of my battered ribs and sore head for which I was grateful.

I accepted my fate and let my eyes close to the enveloping darkness.