Survivors

In the end the whole thing felt like a bit of an anti-climax. They reached their transmission sites, they sent their messages, they flew like mad to their hiding points and then they waited. The waiting seemed to go on forever. They saw nothing, they heard nothing, they felt nothing.

At some point during the twenty-four hours of waiting they all wondered if they had actually sent their message, had the radio worked? Was the reason the Aliens weren’t pursuing them because nothing at all had actually happened? They just didn’t know, and they wouldn’t know until they got back to the base and checked with Jack that he had also received their transmissions. It was really tempting to send the message again, or send a different message directly to Jack just to make sure that they were at least properly transmitting. Each one of them, some with more of a struggle than others, resisted the temptation, they all stuck to the plan and they all got unbelievably bored waiting.

When it came to the time for them to start their journeys back to the base they were about as ready for the off as athletes waiting for the start of a 100 meter sprint. Each of their journeys included some flying, some swimming and some running. The idea was that if the Aliens were tracking them then constantly changing their mode of movement would make that much harder, if not impossible.

On the way back only Holly saw any Aliens at all and as far as she could make out it was just a normal patrol with a couple of scouts and a hunter killer. She was flying when she saw them, so a quick soar, a bank and a dive and she was past them and away.

Luke was first back. Jack watched him come in with a pair of binoculars. As he landed Jack beamed at him.

“Well done” he said “All the messages were perfect. Did you have any trouble?”

“Not a thing. Are the others back yet?”

“No, not yet. But I always thought you’d be back first. You’re the strongest and the quickest. So you saw nothing at all?”

“No nothing. I didn’t see a single Alien the whole time – but you say the messages were loud and clear?”

“I got everything, even Joe got his morse code right”.

They both grinned.

“Shall we go and have a cup of tea while we wait?” Asked Jack.

“No, I’ll stay here and wait for them to come back”

“Do you want these then?” Said Jack offering the binoculars.

“No thanks, don’t need them” replied Luke tapping his temple. Luke’s eyes changed into an eagles and he started to scan the horizon.

“I’ll bring the tea out here then”. Jack turned and walked back to the base shaking his head, he wondered if he would ever get used to the things these kids could do. It still freaked him out every now and then.

Holly was the next back, shortly followed by Joe. They all hugged and told their tales. This actually didn’t take very long because there wasn’t really very much to say, apart from how boring it had all been.

Later that evening they were double checking everything to get it ready for the evac (as Jack called it). They had gear they were going to carry. They had gear that they were going to stash at the base that they could grab if everything went wrong and they had to run for it. They had gear that they wanted to keep safe, just in case they ever came back to the base at some later point. It was all necessary stuff, but pretty boring to do. When all the equipment had been checked, bagged and stashed they sat down for something to eat.

“So twenty-four hours till the pick up” said Jack “It’s all going really well, so far!”

“I don’t know what all the fuss is about” replied Joe grinning “This is going to be easy”.