Shuri spoke some strange language to the ship codebreaker, who nodded and responded in the same language, typing furiously on a keyboard attached to a desktop computer in front of him.
He had instructed the codebreaker to hack into the language spoken by the inhabitants of this location.
A few minutes later, the codebreaker nodded with satisfaction as he successfully hacked and downloaded the spoken language, sending it to each hooray's file for updating.
One of the advancements of hooray technology was that every hooray could learn any spoken language in a minute.
"Henceforth, we will be communicating in English terminology," Shuri said, speaking his first English words and looking mystified as the language rolled on his tongue.
He checked the ship wall clock. A minute to zero hours. He waited patiently.
At zero hours, the hooray in control of the EMP pressed a red button on his keyboard.
The downloading of the virus started immediately.
Shuri nodded, well-satisfied.
Worldwide, the same set of viruses was released to stop human technologies and advancements.
Now, humans had a fairer chance of fighting for their claims of leadership in a simple one-on-one fight.
Not that the hoorays were afraid of human technologies and advancements in warfare—they were just a tip of the iceberg.
Hoorays surpassed humans in all ramifications.
But there was no honor in such ways.
Honor lay in killing your opponent in a fair fight, looking into his eyes as you snuffed the life out of him.
Or when, eventually, your time came, and life was snuffed out of you.
What honor lay in killing innocent people with chemical weapons?
Innocent people who had no idea who killed them or why?
True honor lay not in this. The law of nature must be obeyed: survival of the fittest.
Humans had erred and corrupted all existing protocols. They had failed in all ramifications. It was now left for the hoorays to clean up the humans' mess and put them on the right path—the only path.
Whatever put Mother Earth in danger had been abolished and would remain so.
In an hour, the comet would strike, distracting humans' attention. An hour later, the hoorays would land, marking the beginning of the biggest alien invasion in human history. The beginning of a new world.
The jet bumped vigorously as the lights in the jet and on the switchboard suddenly switched off.
"What's going on?" Bobby asked the two pilots in the cockpit.
"No idea, buddy," replied the pilot with curly hair and brown eyes.
"The jet engine just suddenly stopped working. Surprisingly, the other engine isn't working either, and there seems to be no apparent reason for this—except that everything has stopped working. We are on emergency manual mode for landing."
"How far to our destination?" Brenda asked.
"Two hundred and fifty kilometers. You should be able to cover this in two hours by driving," the pilot replied.
Bobby brought out his pack of cigarettes and lit a stick.
"I will be staying with my co-pilot to try and fix this stuff," the pilot continued.
Sebastian, the priest, bowed his head in meditation, counting the long rosary beads on his neck.
"Holy priest, praying to your God for a safe landing?" Brenda asked.
Sebastian made the sign of the cross, looking bemused at Brenda, who seemed to have hated him at first sight.
He bowed his head and continued his meditation.
One pilot gave a scornful laugh at the dry joke. "This jet is built with a manual engine for instances like this, though I never imagined I would ever need it. I bet we will have a jolly safe landing."
The screen was blank due to the breakdown, and he couldn't see what lay ahead. He could only guess and pray.
"Why get the poor priest worked up?"
Bobby shrugged, unconcerned. He and Brenda had been in more difficult and deadly situations than this.
They had survived it all.
They had once made a maddening, unbelievable ten-thousand-foot fall into a rocky land filled with hostile inhabitants during the Third World War.
Together, they had broken the enemy's defense and walked through their territories with broken legs and bullet-shattered bodies.
Brenda had a hip dislocation and was hospitalized for some time.
It was a gruesome experience, yet it was one of their numerous near-death escapades.
Brenda grinned, reading Bobby's mind. "This is getting more interesting," she said. "More than I ever imagined, and I'm glad you are here."
Bobby nodded in reply. He was even more glad to be here.
Boredom was almost killing him at home alone, and he would have strangled Brenda if she had come here without him.
Brenda told both pilots to step out into the passenger section and took over control of the plane while Bobby worked the checklist for engine restart.
The aircraft slowed but continued to descend, accelerating to 105 knots. At 1:14:05, it descended through seven hundred and twenty feet.
"Brace for impact!" Brenda shouted over the noise as things flew across the inside of the plane.
The landing was one impact, no bounce, followed by a gradual deceleration.
Within seconds, the whole plane was already filled with water gushing in from the rear left door, which was opened by the priest out of panic.
Water was also entering through a hole in the fuselage and cargo doors that had come open.
As the water rose, the five passengers struggled to exit the plane, fearing an explosion.
Bobby opened the cockpit door and gave the order to evacuate.
They all evacuated through one of the four overwing window exits and onto an inflatable slide deployed from the front right passenger door.
Soon, they were met by two men on a boat, who helped them into the boat and paddled off toward land. Brenda checked her wristwatch—dead.
Amazed, she immediately felt it.
The darkest of all auras. Something strange had happened while she was still in the jet.
Something unimaginable, leaving her speechless all through her time in the boat.