Pursuit

Part 5 - Liftoff

Within a few moments of the first bombing, there were three more. One in the USA, one in China, and one in the Antarctic. Nobody knew how they got to those places without anyone noticing. The Trapitides started attacking humans. Something we all feared finally happened. They stopped responding to any communication attempts. Except for the one message we received from them.

'You killed our parent. We kill you'

All those years they waited for the right time to take revenge for Col's murder. And Gil was dead by then so there was nobody left who had a friendly relationship with humans. We had no option but to attack them, to protect humanity. Two jets were initially sent to the Arctic but they were attacked in mid-air by missile-like weapons by the Trapitides as soon as they entered their airspace. The Trapitides had developed weapons over the years and NASA never found out. They knew the blind spot of the surveillance satellite and they even figured out the blind zones of other satellites over time. They secretly developed weapons, and once ready, they started to attack.

At first, nuking the Antarctic didn't make sense. There were very few people there, such a big nuke hardly took the lives it would if it was deployed in a big city. But then they nuked the Arctic. A region far from their colony. After that, there was another explosion, and then another. That's when we realized what they were doing. They were trying to accelerate global warming, while simultaneously killing as many people as possible. This would mean in a few years, Earth would become too hot for other species, but the Trapitides could easily survive.

All governments sent their air forces to the Arctic. Every single jet was being bombed down in the air. It was like an invisible shield they created. They seemed to have an infinite amount of firepower. Random bombings kept happening all around the world. They were spread everywhere and nobody could trace them. Any part of the world could be bombed at any time. Nobody could feel safe anywhere. It was war. A world war.

All space agencies of the world were trying hard to track them. The polar satellites could see nothing. Not even a single Trapitide was seen in the Arctic. They had mastered the art of hiding from the satellites. All international and domestic flights were grounded. Military tried to protect their country while space agencies cooperated to track the Trapitides. I and the rest of the original group of scientists who first encountered the Trapitides were sent to NASA to work on Project 21FG. It was not a good time to find a creative name for a project. We had only one task. Find a way for humans to survive. That's when we received an anonymous message from an amateur astronomer. He claimed he found a pattern in the way the Trapitides attacked. He also said he had a solution to the crisis. His name was Alex.

In such a serious situation, we could not trust a stranger. But we weren't able to do anything in response to the attacks of the Trapitides, so we decided to give it a shot.

When Alex arrived at NASA, many were against the decision to get him involved in such a sensitive project. He assured us that he would stay out of any discussions that involved extremely confidential matters and that he would not communicate with anyone except for the team. He slowly started working with the team. He was a very nice person, always calm and understanding. He would stay up late nights running calculations and predicting where the Trapitides would attack next. He had an amazing sense of humor. In the times of most difficulty for the team, he would crack jokes that always made us laugh. He knew the right time to crack a joke. His jokes reminded me of Abhimanyu, the friend I had lost a few months before that time. But it was time to forget him, and everyone else. Because Earth's condition was getting worse, Alex's solution seemed to be the only way for humans to survive. He proposed we should leave Earth.

...

He was right. The more we delayed, the worse it would get. But here's the thing. We didn't have the time and resources to build something to take the rest of humanity to another planet. The only way was to send a few astronauts in hopes that they would find a habitable planet and take our species forward. It was a tough decision. If anyone would get to know about it, they would also want to join. Nobody would want to be left to die on Earth. So the mission was kept secret. Only forty-six people were aware of the mission and we had to choose six astronauts who would be sent in three spaceships to three different planets which had promising conditions for humans to survive. Among the forty-six scientists, there were only five astronauts. Joseph, Paul, Kelly, Michael, and me. Yes, I had been to space before.