Survivors

Bretnel was gone for over forty eight hours. When he finally came back he looked utterly exhausted. Holly made him a cup of strong sweet tea which he drank in absolute silence.

“That was a most challenging situation” he said in a quite, almost unrecognisable voice. “I think I need to rest”. He got up and staggered out of the room.

It wasn’t until late the next day that Bretnel got up and called them all together once more.

“We may have escaped detection, or we may not” said Bretnel. “I am convinced that the Aliens will check these co-ordinates in the very near future. We therefore need to take a number of precautions to make our discovery less probable. For a start nobody is allowed to leave the base for at least a month”.

“But..” began Joe

“Nobody!” Said Bretnel firmly. “Secondly we will keep a twenty four hour vigil using all of the external monitoring capabilities the base has at its disposal”.

“What’s that mean?” whispered Joe to Holly.

“It means master Joe, that I will instruct you in how to use the CCTV cameras, the motion sensors, listening devices and so on”.

“Cool!” said Joe.

“I have no idea whether it is cool or not. What I do know is that we do not want to be suddenly surprised by an all out Alien offensive”.

“What else?” asked Luke sulkily.

“The third thing we must do is continue your morphing training”

“What sort of training?” asked Luke, suddenly a little more animated.

Bretnel looked steadily at Luke before he replied. “As I think you have concluded I am referring to combat training. If the Aliens do arrive I’d like you to have the opportunity to defend yourselves and then make good your escape”.

“Oh wow!” gasped Joe.

“Armed or unarmed?” Asked Luke.

Again Bretnel paused. “Given the undoubted potential gravity of the situation, I would recommend... both”.

Luke was now almost incapable of keeping still he was so excited. “About bloody time” he said “When do we start!”.

“We start today” replied Bretnel. “Though I must stress that the techniques and weapons I will introduce you to must only be used as a last resort as they will, in the vast majority of cases, be fatal to the person..”

“Alien!” butted in Luke “They are not people!”

Bretnel paused, “To the Alien” he said slowly and carefully “Who is on the receiving end”.

“Whatever” said Luke “Let’s go fighting”.