"Alright, on my mark…" I had my left shoulder and right hand against the truck cabin roof.
"One… two… three!"
Creaking sounds are heard once the turned truck began to stand upright again, and thanks to Alek's assistance who apparently did not have to drop too many of a sweat despite of trying to turn the truck with one other people-me, I did not have to show my weakness to the others.
Well, at least so I tell myself….
"How is it?" Takeshi stood up, but still regaining his breaths.
"Some dents on the back that is for sure. But, there does not seem to be any serious damages for the engine." I peeked towards Alek, who is about to try and turn on the truck.
.
"Phew, thank goodness it still works." he chuckled and gave out some relieved sighs the moment the engine started.
Of course, the engine serves as some kind of a mood booster for the whole men. I can feel the atmosphere around us lighten up as well, even though those three others do not show their smiling faces.
And for me, time to reload my automatic rifle as well.
.
Wait… why does the sky look like its color has turned a bit towards orange?
What is going on?
"Come in, Phoenix unit, Vulture unit. This is Bronze Falcon. I repeat this is Bronze Falcon! Does any of you read me, over?"
Wha- just up until our skirmish with the amphibious submersible tank thing, the radio communication installed in our helmet would not give out any sound at all!
"Phoenix unit, Vulture unit! Does any of you read me, over!?"
"This is Gray Phoenix. Crimson Vulture and the rest of some of us are also here with me. Yes we read you, over." I tried to take a grasp of the current situation in the base.
"Major Xenov? Lieutenant Colonel Kim?! Good grief… Finally, I can get a respond from any of you…"
A respond from any of us? What does he mean by that?
"We lost contact with the whole Polar Bear and Dark Bison units. It has been quite some time since my last attempt to get in touch with them." Major Gavalas sounded like he is out of breath, implying he has been restless all this time.
"Was there something wrong during their last transmissions?" I was still unable to take a guess.
"No. In fact, I was the one trying to contact them in the first place. The base, Nest, had never contacted us again ever since they told us to address them by the name Nest and that was all!" His tone got higher with every sentence he finished.
So the base has never contacted his unit other than telling him to call the base with the name 'Nest'….
That was exactly the same thing for both my and Yeon's unit!
Great… that means I have no choice but to hear what has happened from the very start.
"Okay. Calm down, Hector…" I tried to put him at a little more ease.
"I can relate to how you feel. Both me and Yeon lost our men in combat and to make it worse, we most likely will not be able to recover their bodies."
"Dear God… I-"
"Yes, we understand, Hector. So we will really appreciate it if you can tell us in detail what has happened to your unit." I felt as if a few weights inside my body lifted once I heard him took a deep breath as I was speaking.
"Alright…" Hector finally began to explain to us.
Before he started explaining, he mentioned to us that since there were absolutely no watches and clocks working correctly, his whole team had zero awareness about the time, and the current weather around the Arctic area just made it worse.
Right after he took the compass, he went back to his unit in order to give them their last briefing before giving assistance to the base in providing medical aids to the people exposed with the aurora effect. For some moment, there was nothing strange in particular, until they had finished giving aid to the tenth patient.
One of his men suggested him if they had to give a report to the command room on the fourth floor of the base. At first, he thought that it would not be necessary since they could just contact them through the communication device installed in their helmets. However, he soon noticed that the device was not working at all.
Confused, he left everything on the second floor to his vice commander, and headed straight towards the command room. He knocked on the door a few times, but there was no response from the inside. He tried to eavesdrop for a while to make sure if everyone inside the room were too busy that they could not hear someone knocking outside the door, but he heard nothing.
So he decided to open it, but to his disbelief, the door was also locked. He headed towards the other two doors, did the exact same thing but the result was also the same. Since there was no one holding the spare key to the room, he had no choice but to break the door open by force. What he found immediately afterwards, baffled his mind and made him as if he was frozen from his head to his feet.
As far as his eyes could see with both of them wide open, there was not even a single living thing present there. Long command boards with multiple hologram figures, large digital compass screen that only showed static lines, the detailed data of each active personnel in all units on the rest of the other screens, and another hologram showing the overview of the designated area of operations.
The sophisticated computers were working perfectly, sure but he was the only person standing there amongst the complex machines. He immediately tried to get in touch with both Dark Bison and Polar Bear units through the communicating device, but no matter how many times he tried there were no response. With no way to contact someone outside the base, he knew for sure that all of us were practically isolated from the outside world.
He was about to go back to his men and tell about the whole situation, but suddenly he noticed that the aurora on the sky above seemed to have changed in color, becoming somewhat of a dark orange. Following his instinct, he took out the compass that he kept in one of his pockets, and he saw what he had least expected; the compass needle was not turning as violent as it was before, and with a slower pace.
Willing to try his luck again, he tried to contact the other units but instead of the same ones, he tried to connect with my and Yeon's units. He could not tell us how relieved he was when the both of us could respond.
"Oh that is right, we have not yet checked our compasses again." I signalled Yeon to take a look at his compass too.
Hector was right all along, the needles in our compasses also showed calmer rotation and with a slower pace too.
Does that mean that defeating those aliens and taking down the tank has something to do with it? With the change in color of the aurora?
Also, why was the command room empty? General Diatrich and Gabe did not mention anything about the units working without assistance from the outside!
And more importantly, who the hell contacted us back at the communication post if it was neither General Diatrich nor Gabe?!
As confusing as it was, I should not loosen my awareness of my surroundings for the moment…
"Jon, do you think our communication will get disrupted again later on?" Hector asked with a heavy hint of worry.
"Let us hope not…" I only sighed.
"Then again, I guess that as long as the aurora does not change back to red again, we can still keep in touch with each other."
"No kidding." he gulped.
"Okay, then I will fill you both in again after I-"
"Wait, Hector. Do not hold up yet, please…" Yeon suddenly interrupted.
"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel?" Hector sounded a little bit confused.
"No, please just call me Yeon. It is okay." Yeon chuckled a little.
"Do you mind if you assume the position of Nest? I figure out it will be easier for us to keep in contact that way since your unit are in the base after all."
"Sure, I do not mind." Hector sounded certain without any second thoughts.
"Well, I will fill you in again once my unit is halfway done with aiding the patients. Should any of you feel like giving me some new information, please do so without any delay. Nest out."
"You hear that, gentlemen?" Yeon turned to the rest of us.
"Yes, sir." Everyone nodded.
I was relieved that Yeon did not mention anything at all about getting a call from an anonymous caller disguising themselves as Nest, as it could make him more restless and lose his focus on his task.
"I am glad that you did not say anything about the call we received back at the communication post." I turned to him.
"I just do not want him to mess up with those complicated machines in the command room, nothing more." He shook his head.
"I do not know about you but, the machines might already have a setting that help us to communicate even with the aurora still around. I certainly do not want to mess with that."
Yeon did have a point, especially since we still did not know how the presence of the aurora disrupted our communication too. All we knew was that it did.
"So what should we do now, commanders?" Derek walked closer towards us.
Both me and Yeon stared at each other for a little while, before I came across something that might give us more understanding about the alien that invaded us.
"Well… let us see what that tank will look like from the inside…" I turned and began to head closer to the tank, with my rifle at the ready.