The tank was burning earlier, but apparently while we were talking with Hector the fire had been extinguished due to the cold weather. Since the left door where the aliens had come out from was still opened, I saw it as a chance to see what it would look like.
Also, even though Yeon did not say anything, I could sense him eager to look too. We took very careful steps as we were getting closer to the door, still keeping in mind if there could one or a few aliens waiting for us inside even though the chances were very slim.
"Do you want to take the lead?" I asked Yeon in a low voice once we were right outside the door.
Again, he did not say anything but he did raise his left hand slowly and giving a signal for everyone to get ready to burst in. His hand then gestured about the moment we should storm inside.
Three…
Two…
One!
I was the last person getting inside the tank since I had to make sure that there were no other aliens on our surroundings waiting for us to get inside before suddenly ambushing us.
"Whoa…" Alek looked like he could not believe his own eyes.
"Jon… does any of these… features… look familiar to you?" Yeon also seemed to be out of words.
Yeon was asking about how most of the interior of the tank could literally show us the view outside as if it was a giant window, and with extremely sharp details. With the exception of what seemed to be the turret controls, and some other devices, there was absolutely no obstruction whatsoever for us to know what it looked like outside from here.
I quickly noticed that the aurora was also absent from the view, further implying that the aurora was created by the aliens, and not of a natural cause. It was exactly the same on how the view from inside the aliens' aircraft from five years ago was not affected at all by the fog that they had released.
"Yes… very much." I tightened my grip on my rifle.
First of all, unlike conventional tanks, even with the average build of the aliens and with the total of eight of them inside, I believe that they would not feel cramped because there was still a wide space between the ground and the ceiling even though the distance between them must be shorter than twice the height of a city bus. The distance between the right and left wall was also might be about one and a half more than the width of the same bus.
There were three turret controls at the front, and which their position must be right under the right, middle, and left front turrets. One rear turret control was also present, which must be for control the booster tail. All of the controls seemed to be simpler than the ones I had seen inside the aircraft five years ago, because the controls had less than five buttons, all of which are shown inside a board with touch screen.
There were a couple of control boards with real physical buttons though, which were located several steps away from the rear turret control and each with a screen right in front of them. One of the screens seemingly showed the overall condition of the tank because it had a figure of a top view schematic of the tank and I saw it still bleeping with black color at the parts in which the turrets I had seriously damaged, if not destroyed earlier were at.
The other screen apparently showed some sort of a mapping of the surrounding because there were multiple contours representing different levels of ground elevation. Some strange words were also displayed on the right corner of the same screen.
But, that aside I still could not comprehend the words written there because they were clearly in their language and not ours. Also, if the interior inside the aircraft from five years ago had a purple color ambience, the tank had a dark orange color ambience instead.
Another difference when compared to the aircraft was that the control for the movement of the tank seemed to be at the front-middle side, and a little bit in front of the middle turrets' controls because there was an octagonal shaped steering wheel on top of a short pole-like object sticking out of the ground there. There was also a pretty large but thin screen several steps behind the steering wheel, showing the exact same view like what the rear wall was showing.
Even though I did not take a closer look, but seeing that there was a gap on the front and the back sides of the pole, I guessed that the tank was commandeered in a similar way as the alien hover boat detailed by Travis two years ago at the debriefing of his operation.
The last feature that I noticed, and which I was completely sure would be the first one for Travis to notice once he got his feet inside here since his hearing was far better than mine, was the sound dampening effect of the interior ground and it was a similar feature found in the aircraft from five years ago.
Assuming that each controls needed one alien to be in charge of, that would mean that one among the three others were the tank commander, while the other two are reserves.
Unfortunately, I could not find one which among them who might be the commander earlier since they all looked the exact same to me.
"We do not have anything like this back at our base…" Derek gasped nervously, still in awe with what he had just seen.
"None of us does, Derek." I patted on Yeon's back and signal him to take a look at the rear turret control.
Each of us were then focused on the different parts of the tank; Alek on the steering, Yeon on the rear turret control, Derek on the front turrets' controls, and Takeshi on all of the interior walls.
As for me, there were several things that had been bothering me for a while.
If they had that much of a clear view of us, they could actually just aim their turrets towards us and blast us off. But, they did not, and instead they backed down and fled at the last moment so the only possible reason for that was because they let us live intentionally. Why did they do that?
They attacked most of us that were still breathing here, except for me. Not a single of them seemed to try to harm me earlier, even when I already had my rifle at the ready. They had a good chance of getting me completely surrounded by taking down all of the others if they somehow wanted to capture me, yet they also did not. Why so?
Lastly, about the tank, I still had not yet seen how the aliens would load the projectiles into the turrets because there was nothing inside that would indicate they would do it from inside. So, the only possible way was that it was somehow loaded from outside, but how exactly?
Thinking back, there was also absolutely no hint about it back inside the aircraft five years ago too. But even so, they had the exact same projectile that came out from their turrets or cannon; laser, although the form might be different.
And back then even though they cut the electrical powers for the whole town, they did not use those electrical powers to charge their weapons….
So the only possible option left was that they used and still use solar powers….
Wait, does that mean they used solar-powered lasers?
.
Once that thought crossed my mind, I quickly approached Alek and asked him to help me with something.
"Alek, I need your help. Please come with me." I rushed outside once I called him.
"Can you give me a boost so that I can get on to the top of the tank?"
"Sir, it is even higher than the height of a city bus…" Alek voiced his doubt.
"I just want to make sure about something. Please, Alek." I only nodded.
He raised his eyebrows, but still proceeded to get on his knees and gave me a signal that he was ready. I walked backwards several steps, and then rushed towards him before stepping on his hands and grasped on the top surface edge with my right hand.
Great… I will have to hold the pain on my left arm for now until I have successfully lifted my body up and climbed to the top of the tank.
Sharp pains and sore were felt on my left hand, but I managed to get to the top of the tank nonetheless, so it was not exactly for nothing.
Flat surface with no dents at all… just like the top of the aircraft from five years ago….
I still do not know how exactly they harvested the solar energy and converted it into laser projectiles, but if I assumed that the whole exterior armor of the current tank and the aircraft back then also acted as solar panels since flat surfaces could be covered or replaced with them, then basically they were gathering their ammunition whenever they were going in broad daylight.
If that was true, then that would also explain they basically would not need to bring with them any ammunition inside because the solar energy would directly be transferred and mounted inside the turret, ready to be fired on their target.
But, so far that only explained on how the lasers on their war machines worked. Once they were on foot, they obviously brought some of their beam rifle magazines with them just like what Travis had witnessed on the first night of the invasion five years ago.
And how they could contain those solar lasers into a much smaller container would be another matter to think later on….
The possibility led me to consider the real reason behind the aliens' invasion five years ago too….
Gabe once told me that the Solar-based Direct-Energy Weapon (SDEW) prototype which was supposed to be revealed on the first day of the joint training between all armed forces had the concept of harvesting solar energy and contained them, before it would be then released as a laser projectile. A formidable weapon indeed, but its full potential could also replace the effectiveness of a nuclear weapon, especially since it would not give out any radioactive waste like any conventional nuclear weapon would….
And I could recall that not until a minute after the weapon was going online, they experienced multiple technical errors, before the whole town went blackout due to sudden massive electrical power loss.
Then, the very first invasion took place right after it….
There just might be a chance that since the basic concept of our prototype laser, although still not portable, was similar to those owned by the aliens, they saw us as a potential intergalactic threat, and therefore decided to invade us in order to destroy it before we were able to make more or even enhance them.
The incident did not only take place in United States, so it clearly proved that some other countries also had their own similar prototypes.
Being aware of what the top brasses would want to do if they realized it, I could only fully understand now why Gabe was so insistent five years ago inside the mothership to destroy all traces of the aliens' technologies. It was all because he sensed that the top brasses would want to abuse the technologies for their own advantages, guising it under the name of the interest of the armed forces.
I wonder if Travis and Ryan have also realized this. Especially Ryan, who had secretly assisted Gabe a couple of years ago in arresting the Navy Vice Admiral responsible for threatening and attempting to blackmail a subordinate in active field duty using the upgraded prototype.
.
"Major? Are you okay up there?" A familiar light voice snapped me out of my thought.
"Yeah. Thank you, I am done here." I nodded once I saw that it was Takeshi who was asking me from down there.
Apparently, while I was still deep in thought, all of them had done inspecting and were all waiting for me outside for our next move.
"I have already pinpointed the second island from this point, so we can go back to the truck and continue on." He pointed towards the truck.
"Much obliged." I raised my eyebrows.
"Did you find out anything up there?" Yeon turned to me.
"No. But I figured out something." I shook my head.
"I will tell you along the way later on."
Hopping towards the back of the truck again, I was quite surprised that aside from a few dents, the truck could still move and the engine still working almost perfectly despite the seemingly serious damage from the sudden attack earlier.
"We are just going to leave the tank right there, huh?" Derek sighed as he sat down.
"We have no other choice." Alek shut his door and turned on the truck.
"No, we do not have to worry about the tank no more." Yeon chuckled.
"What we need to worry about is if there could be another one waiting for us along the way."
Everybody seemed to fell silent the moment he addressed it, like having their mouths duct-taped.
"Yeah, no shit…" I just looked towards the tank, as the truck began to move and slowly getting further away from the thing that had tried to destroy it.