“We all need to get on that craft too” She said eventually, breaking the nervous and terrified mutterings from the room, “All of us, before it's too late”.
THE RESISTANCE
It took Haziq and Ed less than fifteen minutes to walk the last mile to the camp. By the time they had got there, their colleague had already reached there to transport them to safety. He had already cleared their passage so that they hit no resistance on entering. These camps weren't going to let anyone just wander in; there was tight security all around, all necessary in these dark days.
“There's a vehicle waiting for us on the other side of the camp” their colleague said, beckoning them to follow, “It's a short drive to the base from there, but we need to be quick”.
“Yeah we've been trying to be quick Andreas, but the Elite seem to be infiltrating everywhere” Ed replied.
“We think it's going to get worse” Andreas replied abruptly, “Our intel is saying that some factions are trying to hack into the Elite's central circle and attack them from within”.
“You mean hack some of the Elite? That's good yeah?” Haziq replied.
“Yes and no. If it goes wrong, we could have bombs dropping on us left, right and centre” Andreas said concerned, “I was speaking to a guy I know in this camp just now, he seems to think someone in this camp is involved in that. He didn't say who, he didn't give any specifics, but was told to expect a game changer”.
They continued racing to the other side of the camp, security guards hushing them through each section to safety.
“Isn't that going to ruin our plans a little?” Haziq said. Their plan was a violent free one. It seemed some people couldn't wait to fight back. It could be a costly decision.
“I guess we'll just have to adapt the plan somehow” Ed replied looking back, scanning the horizon.
“Everything okay?” Haziq asked him.
“I'm not sure. I thought I saw a couple of flashes on the horizon, like sunlight hitting something. I'd say it's nothing, but after the last hour, I wouldn't be so sure” He replied.
A low hum was now heard faintly, and a flurry of activity began to occur in the camp. Everyone was sensing danger. Ed knew he saw something briefly, and now the camps systems had picked up a threat on the horizon. Haziq, Ed and Andreas began running, planning to get far away before whatever was approaching could reach them. The noise in the camp got louder and louder, a hive of activity beginning to rustle up towards the front. Scores of rebels ran in the opposite direction to the way they were going, each one brandishing whatever weapon they could quickly grab.
They could hear the beginnings of gun fire and angry shouting, quickly followed by the sound of explosions. The floor beneath them shook with the force of the blasts. They sprinted harder as the sounds of the other rebels became ear-splitting, a mix of cries and angry firing weaponry. Ed glanced behind him to see a larger drone descending on the camp, one that seemed to split and rotate into successively smaller pieces to escape the approaching bullets, before re-assembling itself back together again. Another high-tech piece of kit the Elite were using for their nefarious goal, unleashing its full fury upon anyone who resisted. The Mother-drone began to spew flames down to the ground, one that engulfed everything and everyone in its path. There was no escaping it. The irregular gunfire could do nothing to stop it, and the flames spread ferociously through the camp.
They were closer to the vehicle. They just had time to make it before Momma-drone's flames would be close enough to wrap their fiery arms around them, when there was a sudden burst of light, a quick flash. The guard sat in the vehicle they were running to was shaking his fist faster and faster. He was trying to tell them something, his eyes wider and wider in fear. With no further warning he turned the engine on and drove away, zero to sixty in seconds, leaving them all far behind.
“What the fuck????!!!” Andreas screamed, unable to understand why they had just been left stranded.
A quick glance round gave him the answer he was wanting. In the far distance they could make out the shape of a huge mushroom cloud hanging hauntingly over the remains of a far city, its shadow casting a foreboding terror. The Mamma-drone seemed to suddenly lose control and began diving towards them. They ran forward as quick as their legs could take them and began to dive down an embankment to a river below. The Mother clipped the ground, flames still shooting from it. People's body parts were wrenched away from them by the shrapnel, the lucky ones shaking hands with an intense inferno. Whoever was controlling it must have been incinerated in the blast, back at the faraway city. There was no other reason for it to suddenly crash like that, Haziq thought.
Ed was behind the others as they started jumping down the embankment. Just as his feet left the ground, he felt a sudden warm pain. He stared in complete confusion to see his feet, and then legs, falling away down the slope leaving the rest of him behind. The shock turned to calm quickly, as his eyes watched the lower half his body make the escape downstream that his torso couldn't. His last calm but confused thoughts were that he was so happy that his legs had got away. The rest of him slipped away somewhere else, somewhere he was familiar with, he was certain he had been to this place before. His upper body lay half way down the embankment, the lower half stuck on some rocks as Haziq and Andreas were hurtled downstream,
