Right when we could already see the elevated railroad in the distance, I suggested that we were to go to the second hideout at that time in order for both Kyle and I to see how the second hideout was doing since we had not been there again after what had happened the night before. Both Ryan and Kyle nodded, with Ryan responded that he would head to the first hideout by walking on the railroad to the first hideout. Thus, we continued by heading to the stairs leading to the second hideout above.
Once we had arrived there, I saw yet another crowd of unfamiliar faces there. Somehow, I got the feeling that the second hideout was a little more crowded compared to the first one, which perhaps had something to do with the second hideout being the first place to light up the lamps and turned on the speaker to invite them at the night before. Nevertheless, I looked to the bright side that it indeed made the second hideout also livelier than the first one.
I had expected to meet at least Della there once we had arrived at the tiny food court, since she was the one responsible in making the drinks earlier. However, there were around thirty unfamiliar people in the food court instead, without any familiar person in the hideout, not even Fiora. Therefore, I assumed that the rest of them had gone to the first hideout.
"Just in time huh…" Ryan muttered to himself, before approaching towards one of the groups in the food court, "Well… I guess this means that I have to get to know more of them then…"
With Ryan gone and started to talk to more survivors in the food court, both Kyle and I decided to look for a spot around us and sat down as we waited at least one more familiar person to come to the second hideout. I even asked her if she thought that it would be necessary to call them through the makeshift Morse code machine there, to which she responded that they could be also doing something important at the first hideout, and therefore it would be better if we waited for them to come instead.
Just then, several other people seemed to arrive at the hideout. I noticed that there were at least six silhouettes of people by the foggy railroad. As they were getting closer enough, it was revealed that there were actually nine people coming from the first hideout. Thankfully, Captain Quentin was amongst them and apparently he was also expecting the three of us to be at the second hideout.
"Oh, speak of the devil." Captain Quentin said, as he approached Kyle and me.
"Sir." I responded to him briefly, as I stood up.
"We were looking for you. We have just-" Kyle responded to him, before he cut off her sentences.
"Good. But not here…" Captain Quentin replied us, apparently had an idea of what we were going to say.
Captain Quentin continued by suggesting that we should go to the second floor's staff room there if we were to discuss about something of crucial importance, as he could guarantee that there were so many information that could make the other survivors anxious or even cause panic if they were not to be kept with discreet. Both of us agreed, and we approached Ryan as we also told him that we were to go down to the second floor. Ryan acknowledged, and he told the group of survivors he had been talking with to let him know if there were any Morse code transmissions meant for any of us, to which they nodded.
As we were walking down to the second floor, Kyle mentioned to Captain Quentin that Jonathan was going back to the Catholic Church to evacuate the survivors there. She also mentioned the reason he went back alone and did not want any of the three of us to come with him was because we were the ones who knew the situation of the alien mothership in more details far well than he did, since he was to watch the aircraft's surroundings then. Strangely enough however, Captain Quentin somehow did not show any surprised expression, suggesting that he had expected something like that to happen.
"Or rather, it could also be because he did not want something happened to you three since you were the only one among all of the survivors who knew our detailed situation." he said, as he descended the stairs to the second floor.
What Captain Quentin said did indeed make sense. Jonathan could even have guessed that the three of us had our own perspectives regarding the situation as well, and would be most likely be the only ones able to rule out our next important steps. Since he could not suggest anything it would indeed be better for him to use the remaining time to evacuate the other known location of survivors to our hideouts.
When we had arrived at the second floor, I had not expected that it would also be crowded with the survivors there. In fact, the crowd at the second floor there was nearly three times it was compared to the second floor of the first hideout, surpassing more than fifty people. We even had to walk in line in order to not bump to each other against them.
The bright side however, most if not all of the people there seemed to be less stressed about the whole surviving matters around them as they were enjoying their time with each of their groups there. As we had arrived at the staff's room, I made sure that the door was closed completely so that no one would be able to overhear what we were going to discuss. When we had sat down on the floor, Captain Quentin started by asking what we had found out.
"Okay, so… where do we start?" Captain Quentin said, as he sat down and glanced at the three of us.
The room then fell silent for a little while, as both Ryan and Kyle looked at me, and making Captain Quentin to also did the same. I immediately realized that the two of them seemed to be expecting me to lay out the calculative perspective first, before they would explain their suggestions to him.
I began by explaining to Captain Quentin that I had a rough estimation about the distance from the lake shore where the aircraft was to the mothership of around a little more than four miles, as well as mentioning that there was also a lighthouse on a different direction and all of the details that I knew regarding the features of the mothership. Just after I finished explaining all of them to him, Kyle and Ryan took their turns in explaining their suggestions to him.
When they had finished, Captain Quentin turned back to me and asked about my thoughts regarding their suggestions. I fell silent for a little while, before I finally spoke out what I had in my mind earlier about each of the suggestions' positive and negative sides. When I finished, Captain Quentin only nodded twice before he looked down towards the floor in the center of us, seemed to be thinking deeply about all of the information that we had just shared. After some more little time, he finally began to speak out his thoughts.
"You know…" he said, as he paused and continued again, "In my personal opinion, it is not about 'how we should get there', or 'where to land first', or even 'what should we destroy inside it' at all…"
We fell silent for a while, as Captain Quentin continued by saying that he had noticed there were not even a single detectable aliens activities near both of the hideouts after the ambush that we had given to them the night before. Ryan responded by saying that it might be just he had yet to see any since he was staying at one of the hideouts all day long.
Captain Quentin however, replied him by saying that he would not buy that possibility since it only took them several hours to do their next steps prior to their great numbers of casualties on the night before, while currently he believed that it was already nearly half a day passed and still not a single sign of their activity had been sighted. So instead, he believed that they must be planning or doing something directly from their mothership.
"In that case, we are waiting for them to finish up, and just when they were approaching the street again, that is when we are to infiltrate the mothership?" I asked him.
"I would rather say that we are to infiltrate and attack when most, if not all of their attentions are drawn to what they are planning so much that they cannot notice our arrival there." he responded to me.
"But sir, how do we get there in the first place, then?" Ryan asked, responding his words.
"I am afraid that is… entirely up to Jon…" he answered Ryan as he sighed, implying that he had at least expected a little that we were to go to the mothership by using the aircraft.
The conclusion that I had understood thus far, was that we were most likely to go to the mothership via the hijacked aircraft. However, as to when we would go was still remained unanswered since we still had no clues to further support the best decision. Therefore, the only thing that we had to do next was to wait for Jonathan's return from the Catholic Church, hopefully with all of the remaining survivors as much as they were when we had first met them.
Since we seemed to have finished discussing everything that we could for that time being, we went out from the staff's room and headed to the third floor again. Very shortly after we had ascended there, few people started to say something to few others in a rather anxious and restless tone. We approached them to ask what had happened, and realized that they had received news that a tall young man survivor from the first hideout had returned with several new survivors.
I immediately realized that they must be talking about Jonathan's return from the Catholic Church. At first, I could not understand why they were restless upon hearing the good news, until they told us that many of them were seriously injured. It was at that moment that all of us, including Captain Quentin were shocked upon hearing about what had happened. He then asked them right away if Jonathan and the survivors were still at the first hideout, to which they said that they could not answer since they only received the news of their return.
We then rushed to the first hideout via the railroad there. Few of the other survivors also insisted on following us, to which we finally decided that they were permitted to with the condition that they were not to interrupt any necessary emergency procedures that would be needed to be done later on. As we finally arrived at the first hideout, I could see countless people there were all lined towards the stairs to the second floor. When we had reached near them, they all made way for us to go through to the second floor.
It was there, where we saw at least ten people with half of their bodies covered in bloodied bandages lying on the benches and the floor with few others tending their wounds. The rest who had sustained fewer injuries were sat down and got themselves applied by steri strips by the others who were lucky enough not to get injured. Right at the edge of one of the corner, was none other than Jonathan, who was sitting down there with few scratches on his left chest and arm, and seemed to still be catching his breath. We approached him in a hurry, and asked him what had happened as we waited for him for a little while longer.
He began by saying that after he had arrived at the church and was about to leave with the survivors, they suddenly heard the flying sound of the narwhal aircraft right above them together with a faint quake. All of them stopped moving as to wait for it to fly past the church but to the least of their expectation, the aircraft suddenly starting to crush the church by first weighing it by using its body. In an instant, everyone there panicked and started to rush outside, however another unexpected thing happened.
Four of the survivors which included two children, were trapped by the rubbles that had fallen down from the church's ceilings. Jonathan rushed to their direction together with two other people with one of them was none other than the middle-aged man that we had met before in order to lift the rubbles and let the trapped ones escaped.
When the last two had been freed and were just about to escape, the ceiling had started to cave in again right on top of them. Jonathan guarded himself and one of the children using his left arm, while the middle-aged man guarded the other one as the ceiling collapsed on them. As the chunk parts of the ceilings had stopped falling, and the bottom part of the aircraft could be directly seen from inside the church, Jonathan and the child he was protecting moved away from the piles of ruins that had fallen on top of them and rushed to the middle-aged man's side.
Much to his shock, the child that the man saved were not hit by the fallen ceiling ruins ,however the man was completely stuck there, with a couple of sharp wooden beams pierced him right through his body. He also noticed that the child had her attention locked towards the man, not budged even for a bit.
As the man could not move anymore, he told Jonathan in a very weak voice to make sure the safety of the child that he had just saved, as the child was none other than the man's nephew. Jonathan nodded once and as he was about to leave with the two children, the man let out a couple of old dynamite and a lighter from his coat, revealing that he had kept an explosive weapon all along with him, and was planning to bought the attention of the aircraft completely to him while the rest of the others were escaping.
Jonathan ran as fast as he could, with the children right in front of him as the bottom part of the aircraft were getting closer to the church floor. Just when they had arrived right in front of the entrance door, a loud explosion could be heard from behind them. Jonathan immediately shouted to the children to not look back and keep on running outside to the others, as he himself also went out from the church very shortly right before the aircraft crushed the church completely to the ground.
As Jonathan had regrouped with the rest of the survivors again, they hid behind a building a few blocks away from the church in order to wait for the large aircraft to fly away from them. He peeked at its direction in order to make sure how their current situation was, only to find out that its fog turret seemed to have been seriously damaged.
He immediately realized that the aircraft would most likely not able to spew out the fog as effective, if not at all anymore. Although he began to wonder if he could somehow take down the aircraft all by himself by shooting the damaged fog turret and the tip of its tail, he had to come back to the hideouts since it was too risky for him to do it all alone while there were countless people depending their lives on him.
When Jonathan finally finished talking, I could not find any words that might comfort him if even a bit, and apparently none of us could. He also stated that any medical supplies would be best allocated to those who were seriously injured, and that he would be the very last one to be prioritized since he only felt that he was only hurt a little. All of us then fell into deep silence for a little while as the crowd around us was busy attending their injured colleagues.
"We lost a very good man today…" Ryan said as he sighed, with an unusually hard tone.
"Well, that is what will always happen whenever there is a great war, son…" Captain Quentin responded to him, as he looked away to the crowds.
Soon after, Jonathan started to speak again. He asked Ryan, Kyle, and I if I had discussed what we had found out about the mothership to Captain Quentin, to which we said we had. Then, without any further words, he said straight out that he had a suggestion regarding how we would approach the mothership with.
At first, I had expected him to say that he would choose to go there by using the aircraft. However to the least of my expectation, he instead said that since we had to approach it very silently we had to go by using a boat, specifically a rowing boat. He explained that his decision came from the fact that since another source of the fog had been eliminated, it would result in more deterioration of their thermal sensing as well as another fog thinning, and therefore it would be harder for them to detect any living humans.
Also to my surprise, the option to go to the mothership by using the aircraft was the first option that he had dismissed right from the start, with his reason was that the aliens would immediately noticed that the aircraft would be piloted by humans since they would most likely already realized that one of their aircraft had been hijacked and taken down, while another had been seriously damaged. I had to admit, that it was another reason that would counter Ryan's suggestions that had yet came to my mind.
"Alright," Kyle responded, as she paused before she continued, "then when will we go?"
"You will not like the answer…" Jonathan said as he turned to Captain Quentin first.
"Like many times before, yet somehow they often worked better than I expected…" Captain Quentin replied to him, scoffing a little.
"We will go…" Jonathan said, as he took a deep breath first before he continued, "tonight… at midnight."
Unlike many times before, none of us seemed to be surprised at what Jonathan had said, it was as if that everyone had at least expected a similar answer from him. All of us immediately agreed on his suggestion, and thus it became our decided final step in retaliating the aliens' invasion. With that in mind, I continued by saying to them that we would be best to conserve our strength for the time being, and began to prepare for everything when the time was already around ninety minutes to midnight, which was around nine hours from the current time shown on my watch.
The rest of them nodded, and Ryan also reminded us that the other survivors would also need to know about our plan. Thus, he volunteered to be the one who would notify them slowly and comfortably, a decision which all of us also immediately agreed upon since he seemed to be able to quickly mingle with the other survivors.
Each of us then headed to different directions, with Jonathan sat still at the same spot and resting there, Ryan and Captain Quentin headed to the stairs perhaps to converse with the other survivors, while Kyle headed to the restroom probably to wash her face. I decided to go back inside the staff's room and sat on the floor as I realized that I was in a serious need of an alone moment after the things that had happened and been decided for the day. After I took a few deep breaths, I decided to rest for a while as I closed my eyes and my consciousness began to drift away…