2050,
It is mid-November. The festive atmosphere of another Christmas has taken over every nook and cranny of the metropolitan New York City. Roads are lit with a light blue colour, resembling snowflakes. Every corner, there are sounds of the bells jingling and the sound of excited people, talking to each other while holding big boxes of present. The sense of business can be felt even more than a month before the real festival, as people rush to buy goods, before prices start to spike.
In the centre of the city, the headquarter of the Counter-Extraterrestrial Association sits majestically like a king. In the office room, Lieutenant Colonel is sitting behind the big screen, watching every dots moving on the digital world map. Numerous abnormal activities have been detected recently, mostly in remote areas, and there have been countless times that he and his comrades have received sudden calls in the midnight, because something is found. The burden is not only on him, but also thousands, maybe millions, of squadrons that have been travelling to every single corner of the Earth to collect traces of something unknown. He has not had enough sleep since the middle of the year.
Suddenly, he receives a call from the squadrons near the island clusters in the Southern Hemisphere region.
- Sir, we have detected an artificial infrastructure beneath the island. Permission to breach the underground facility.
- Permission granted. Proceed with caution.
After many years only detecting abnormalities, especially the recent few months, this is the first time the association has had an official encounter with real foreign creatures. Lieutenant Colonel is calling other heads around the world to deploy support squadrons, as he excitedly stares at the screen.
Suddenly, the communication is cut. An electromagnetic attack. Lieutenant stands up from his chair, slamming the table, desperately trying to reconnect with the lost squadron. After a minute, the connection is recovered, but every blue dots representing the squadrons on the world map have vanished.
Without a doubt, they have likely been killed. Lieutenant Colonel, losing the only light of hope, and his underlings which he has been working with for years, is too stunned from everything that has happened. His heart has jumped out of his body.
The screen shows an incoming message. Lieutenant Colonel clicks on it. A video footage, about one or two minutes long, filmed by a soldier right before the sudden attack, shows the interior of the underground facility. It does not look like it is built by human. The last few seconds, the video is suddenly cut, and exactly at the last frame, a shadow, which does not look like the shadow of a human, dashes through the camera. The video is automatically sent to the New York City's headquarter the moment it is permanently damaged.
The last frame is golden evidence of a non-human threat that the association has been trying to detect for years. Lieutenant immediately sends the video footage to the analysis department. With an unwavering resolution, he pleads that his people's sacrifices will not be wasted.
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The central section, luckily, concentrates the most important buildings of the military camp. When the air assault strikes, the metal and stone blocks collapse onto the ground, creating a region with many covers and hiding spots. More conveniently, since it is a stronghold, it has excellent connections to key areas of the military camp, even in a destroyed state.
There is about two minutes left before the second shot is fully charged. I hide under a chunk of collapsed stone blocks. Although I am not sure in what way they would detect me, but similar to buildings, stone absorbs heat from my body, especially big ones, which renders thermal sensors useless, and any type of cover will reflect sound waves, protecting me from ultrasound detection.
Soon, there are loud footsteps, from many directions. Four Intruders, rating of fifty or slightly higher, two armed with layers of armour and a heavy weapon, and the other two with light, close combat weapons, stand in a circle, discussing the strategy. However, they are not talking in Earth language, compared with the one we met before.
After thirty or forty seconds, they all scatter around the area, and check every corner. Maybe they all know that I am still hiding in some corner.
Another snowstorm comes about. It again lowers the temperature, and the heavy snow blocks the view again. I use the only chance and surreptitiously crawl out of the stone blocks. I placed a mine on the ground, and try to move out of the area.
Instinctively, I jump to a side, dodging a flinging throwing axe. It hits a pole nearby, and upon the impact, immediately explodes. Behind me, there is a blurred figure of a lightweight-type Intruder.
Amidst the snowy weather, I barely figure out the distance between us, so I hold on my gun tightly, prepare for any moment to defend myself. The Intruder charges forward, and I try to back down, while shooting at it to slow it down. I need to keep a good distance.
From afar, a second bullet from the railgun blasts through the sky, overcoming the strong winds trying to sway it. The Intruder in front of me, getting dealt a full impact of the massive kinetic energy from a heavy metal bullet and penetrated through its core, is knocked to the ground and killed. That is the second shot from Mirai, and another five minutes to cool down.
The communication signal has not been recovered, but deep inside, I know what I can do. I attach a bomb on the Intruder's corpse, and retreat to another section.
The wind has stopped. The other three Intruders, after losing signal of their fourth friend, gather at the corpse, but just to get detonated to their faces, after they accidentally lift up the corpse and detach the safety pin. The explosion sound is so clear, I laugh so hard at the North-West section after hearing the explosion.
Temporarily having the upper hand in the fight, I decide to play with them a bit. I intentionally shoot a few bullets to attract them. The North-West stronghold has a high tower, which is also linked to the North-East and South-West section, and I stand on top, watching them desperately finding an unknown phantom.
From the sky, a friendly drone, carrying a communication device, flies towards me. I take the device, gear up and start connecting.
- Yuusha, can you use this proximity provisional communication device? Three more minutes until recharge, and inside the box attached is another drone for you to fight them off and buy some time. If you like, you can destroy the annoying birds up there that jams our signal.
- Can. I think that I can hold off this area for quite a substantial amount of time, but make sure that we retreat before they send reinforcements.
- OK, noted. Try to hold off for another fifteen minutes.
Speak of the devil, these annoying creatures have arrived. Three of them, not missing any. I send the two drones out, and from a good height, attacking them with normal bullets. On the top of the tower, I make laser beams rain on their heads. They will not deal significant impact, but will make their stupidly strengthened armour malfunction and maybe crack a bit in the process.
As expected, the three Intruders split up into three directions to surround the tower, but as the team with the upper hand, I move to the South-West section. I place some traps on the way to slow them down, on top of the drones that will annoy them until the magazines run out of bullet.
Suddenly, one of them, specifically the heavily armoured one, appeared in front of me. It seems like two drones cannot hold off three Intruders. I reload my gun and get into the ready for combat position.
The Intruder charges forward with its magnificent rocket launcher, but I manage to get out of its way, with mosquito-itch laser beams that barely leave burns on the Intruder's armour. I use the ruins terrain to move between obstacles, approaching him. With my middle finger placed readily on the secondary trigger, I place the barrel right on the Intruder's back, and press on the trigger. A high temperature beam of photon bayonet appears, melting his back armour, leaving a small exposed region.
The Intruder looks furious after being backstabbed, and it starts to launch rockets randomly. I use the obstacles to avoid them, and retaliate with a further few shots. It charges towards me, and knocks down the whole pile of stone blocks. I barely made it out of the rumble, and try to keep a distance from it.
- Yuusha, third shot is loaded. Please render him immobilised for a few seconds to initiate the third shot.
- Roger!
The Intruder launches a second load of rockets that fly randomly, and I dodge all of them by switching between collapsed pieces of the buildings and partially shooting them down. Before it charges towards me again, I place a Compact Shield. The Intruder, charging and hitting the shield, was stunned for a short interval, which is sufficient for me to stab his legs with the photon bayonet.
The third bullet propagates through the air with great force, penetrating the core of the third unlucky Intruder, killing it in an instant. I search all over its corpse to loot any valuable item, before continuing to run away.
But, it is weird. Why do the other two Intruders take so long to reach here? Are the drones that effective?
Suddenly, the signal is restored. I open the tablet, just to see the map of the military camp completely free of red marks. I zoom out, just to arrive at a shocking revelation.
The two red marks are moving at uncanny speeds, towards the second blue mark on the screen, which represents my only ally, Mirai. They probably have discovered her position after analysing the shot.
- Mirai, they have found you. Prepare to retreat. I am coming.
- Noted. Rendezvous at this coordinate I mark on the map. We will launch an aerial attack on them.