If what I felt before whenever I walked along the foggy street was a gripping and piercing feeling, I felt like it was only anxiety left inside me at that time as the fog had already thinned out. Before it did, I could only see no more than three floors of building above me, but then I could see as far as the fifth floor from the street where I was walking. Apparently, the others also felt the same as they showed less wary expressions on their face, and so I suppose that the fog thinning had that much of a positive impact to the others as well.
As we kept waking, I noticed that Kyle did not bring her archery equipment with her. Just then, I recalled that back on the night before she only had a couple of arrows left right after the great fight in the building. So instead, she brought the Browning Hi-Power handgun with her. Nevertheless, I did not worry even for a bit since she was also seemed to be pretty proficient in using it either, as shown back when the aliens stormed our first hideout a few days before. She then initiated a conversation with the rest of us, probably to reduce the creeping silence between us.
"I wonder how the survivors were doing in the second hideout…" Kyle said.
"If you are asking if they were cooperative, then yes they still are." Ryan responded her, as he glanced at her a bit.
"I hope that none of them have any tendency to suddenly attack the others and rob them off of what they have…" I said, responding both of them.
"Oh, about that… Apparently some of them have already had the bad luck." Ryan replied to me, as he began to explain a little more about it.
Ryan said that earlier in the morning, he had talked with few of the survivors at the second hideout. Many of them said that they had been robbed by another group of survivors at the first day after the night of the invasion. I asked him if he mentioned that the violent survivors were led by someone with a nail bat, to which he said that he did and to my surprise, all of them confirmed it. In reflex, I turned to Jonathan who seemed to be listening to Ryan's whole story but he did not bat his eye towards Ryan.
Ryan then continued by saying that he told them about the fate of the violent survivors, which brought a great deal of delight and satisfaction to all of them, with few of them saying that it was a shame that they did not get to see their demise with their own eyes. As soon as he mentioned it, I could barely hold myself from smiling, not to mention that I noticed Kyle apparently also felt the same satisfaction feeling as shown on her face.
Based on how Ryan told us, apparently the violent survivors originally had more numbers before we encountered them, as he mentioned that their numbers were around ten or eleven persons. It also made me recall back at the church where the survivors there had also been attacked by the very same violent survivors. Apparently, they also had few casualties while they were robbing the survivors at the church, reducing their numbers before we eventually met them.
Just then, I also began to think if we should also actually evacuate them to our hideouts since Ryan did not say anything about any familiar faces from the church. Somehow, I had the feeling inside me that Jonathan seemed to also be thinking about the same thing. Nevertheless, when I had my full concentration back to the street, I noticed that there were large straight cracks along the road, making me realized that we had almost entered the fifth block of buildings.
"Heads up." Jonathan said, as he readied his rifle.
The rest of us quickly held our firearms as we proceeded along the road, significantly raising our guards and alerts. As we kept on walking along the street, passing the fifth and sixth block, I could start to notice that there were some sort of large chunks of black-colored materials scattered along the cracks at the middle of the road.
Since I could not think of any other possibilities, I assumed that they were parts of the fog turret that were peeled off back when we were forcing the aircraft to land by rubbing it hard against the road. When we finally reached the eighth block, we slowed down our pace until we could see the faint silhouette of the aircraft idling on some distances away straight ahead of us.
"Is that the aircraft?" Kyle asked, as she tightened her grip on her handgun and seemed to be curious on why the cracks were getting wider and deeper the more we approached it.
"Yeah… Not the best landing that we could make, I know…" I responded to her, attempting to joke about it a little.
Jonathan then stopped for a moment once we reached the last lines of buildings right before the main road beside the great lake shore as he began to glance at few of the buildings there. By then, we could already see the aircraft clearly from where we were standing. It was also very large when I looked at it at a very near distance, realizing that the external height must have been no less than 25 feet. He then decided that he would watch our surroundings by going to third or fourth floor of the building that was just on our right side.
As Jonathan had entered the building by going in from the nearby broken window, the three of us proceeded to go to the aircraft front left wing, and decided to get inside from the opened door on top of it by first boosting each other up to the wing, with Kyle being the first and Ryan being the second, before I jumped and raised my hands as they caught them and helped me to climb up to the wing. When the three of us had finally stood on it, we continued by entering the aircraft interior through the opened door.
The first thing that came to my mind once I entered the aircraft again was to check the back side of the aircraft, as we had not done it back when we were trying to land it. I signaled both Ryan and Kyle to follow me there and guided by the blipping purple lights lined on the ceiling, only to find out that the back side was empty all along and was only filled with two large unrecognizable box things. I also noticed that the furthest back wall was shaped diagonally upwards, which could suggest that it might be some sort of a rear hatch for the aircraft
Based on the appearance, I guessed it was safe to assume that the section was perhaps functioning as some sort of a cargo bay for the aliens. When I thought about it again, I began to wonder if there were actually some weapon supplies or other equipment belonged to the aliens stored inside the boxes. Nevertheless, I convinced myself that it was not the best time to think about it, as we had to prioritize in locating their mothership.
I signaled Ryan and Kyle again to go back and headed to the opposite direction, and headed straight ahead until we arrived just in front of the stairs right before the cockpit. I stopped for a little while, and took a deep breath with the hopes that there were no aliens waiting for us at the cockpit before I began to ascend the stairs with my submachine gun pointed to the direction in front of me.
The three of us scouted the cockpit as soon as we had arrived there. After a while and confirming that there were no one and nothing there, we could finally lower our guards and began to focus towards the single large windshield.
To my surprise, although somehow expected it, I could see quite some far distances towards the great lake. It only took us a little time to notice any signs of mothership landing there, as it would be the only thing that was probably floating in the middle of the lake. I also realized that I could also see the lighthouse from the windshield, which was on the northeast direction from where we were. Just when I looked at the lighthouse, I realized that there was actually something else floating in the middle of the lake a little bit to the direction of the southeast just on the edge of the horizon.
The very next thing that I did was no other than to predict the rough calculation on the distance of the mothership from the aircraft. Using the horizon distance calculation method, if I was to assume that I was standing on seven feet above the ground, then the distance would be roughly around or a little above four miles from the aircraft.
I could also faintly see what the aircraft look like even though very faintly, and based on what I saw it had an octagonal spherical shape, with some of its bottom parts sunk under the water. Aside from its shape, it appeared to also have some sort of wings on 4 sides of its side, with also some sort of a pyramidal tip on its top.
As I could not see anything else, I finished looking at the mothership thoroughly while both Ryan and Kyle seemed to still have their attentions completely locked towards it. I waited for a little while, before they seemed to also finally decide to finish looking. It was then when I told them about the calculation before we started to discuss our thoughts regarding the distance to the mothership, as well as any further possible plans for it.
"I assume both of you noticed the lighthouse firsthand, before you notice the smaller octagonal sphere floating just at the edge of the horizon?" I said to both of them, initiating the discussion.
"I bet everyone would, except for those who could see past the horizon…" Ryan responded to me, as he nodded.
Kyle was the next one to speak, asking our opinion on what if the next step to infiltrate the mothership would be to use one of the still working boats at the nearest harbor to the lighthouse first, before finally heading to the mothership. Her concern was that we should see and scout the mothership at a closer distance before actually getting inside it.
In almost an instant, Ryan objected her suggestion. He instead suggested that we would have to use the aircraft again in order to sneak inside the mothership, and then to launch a surprise attack from within. He also said that while the aliens might expect us to do another retaliation attack against them, they would be very less likely to expect that we could in fact, hijack and even pilot their aircraft against them.
Kyle argued again by stating that his suggestion had a very high risk as even though one of us could pilot the aircraft, we only actually barely understand about how to steer the aircraft, without knowing how the rest of the other aircraft control worked. Ryan on the other hand, stressed out to her that the alien would also likely rule the odds on the possibilities that we would first make a stop at the lighthouse before going for their mothership, and therefore the chances that they had laid an ambush at the lighthouse was very high.
As their arguments continued, I had my mind filled with doubts and uncertainty on what to suggest, let alone decide. On one side, I agreed with Kyle's opinion about inspecting the aircraft at a closer distance before we were to go in. However, I should also not forget that the aliens were also clever, as they were proven to be able to adapt very quickly towards any changes that were made and done against them, and therefore Ryan's objection against her suggestion was completely reasonable.
Ryan's suggestion on the other hand, would indeed to be the least of the aliens' expectation. However, since we were still completely not familiar with how the rest of the aircraft controls worked, the aliens inside the mothership could very easily notice something was not right with the aircraft should it was not flying the way it should, which could result in their unnecessary attention towards the aircraft. Aside from that, the aircraft also had already sustained damage and would likely attract their attentions anyway, making Ryan's methods was indeed too risky in the first place.
Then again, my personal view on Kyle's suggestion was that I also highly doubt that we could see anything clearly without the telescope from the lighthouse for us to be able to notice anything more from the mothership. Meanwhile, for my view on Ryan's suggestion was, should there were any other further damage to the aircraft caused by the forced rough landing on the night before that we did not realize, it could result in a sudden total malfunction while we were already in the middle of the lake, and it would make his suggestions ended like a suicide plan for us.
Just then, I realized that both Ryan and Kyle had their attention turned to me. I did not realize how long they had been staring at me, perhaps for a little while already while I was still thinking about any other alternative options that I could suggest. They were staring at me, signaling that they were insisting on hearing my answer on the next things that we should do.
"Really? Do I also have to speak now?" I said to them, reluctantly.
"Come on, you were the one who came up with the calculation just now. You must have at least a hint on which one is more realistic to do, right?" Kyle responded to me, insisting me to say my opinion.
"Travis, I think it would be better for us to compile our thoughts here first, before we finally say it to the rest of the others…" Ryan said to me, also persuading me to explain what was in my mind.
Since there was no other way to dodge their requests, I had no choice but to explain all positive and negative possibilities from each of their own suggestions. However, I did not say it firsthand before trying to make them understand that I had yet anything in my mind that I could suggest to them, as I believe that I had to think of a safer suggestion compared to theirs. When I had finished explaining to them about my thoughts, I could not determine whether they were somehow disappointed to me, or were left in confusion again as they only turned down their heads a bit once I had done talking.
"But, in my personal opinion there were no more other realistic options for us in order to infiltrate the mothership as fast as possible. So, I think that we have already compiled every possible option here…" I continued, ending my explanation.
Both of them looked towards each other, before they nodded to me and decided that we were to go back outside to the street to meet with Jonathan again and head back to our hideouts. We backtracked all the way to where we had come in from, exiting towards the aircraft front left wing, and jumped down from it one by one, before we headed to the building where Jonathan was watching us at.
Apparently, Jonathan was already waiting for us by the main road as he was already standing there when we were approaching the building. However, just when we had gathered again, he said something that put the three of us pretty surprised.
Jonathan said that he would go back all the way to the church, and evacuate all of the survivors there to our hideouts. When we asked him who did he want to go with, he said that it would be him alone, putting the rest of us left speechless for a little while. Ryan asked why, and he answered by saying that the rest of the others at the hideouts would need our information as well as suggestions on the next things that we should do. Since he was not among us who had seen the mothership directly, he had to do another necessary step, which was none other than to save any known remaining survivors.
"Are you really sure that you can do it alone?" I asked Jonathan, wanting to know if he was completely consequent of his decision.
"I have never said anything that I was not completely sure of, have I?" he responded my question, with a tone full of determination in his voice.
It was at that point, that I convinced Ryan and Kyle to let him go alone to the church. Jonathan left without waiting for both of their responses, and I looked at him walked further from us as the fog around him slowly engulfed him. When he was no longer could be seen from my eyes, I told the two of them to start to head back to the hideouts. Both of them did not say anything and only nodded as we began to walk back there in complete silence. As we were walking, I only hoped that Jonathan and the rest of the survivors in the church could also make it there safely…