The Ultimates (Watty Awards 2011)

Chapter 18

(A.N. I feel as though I'm very, very screwed. Oh yes, it's because I am. I have five days to finish this! And I still have to make like...three more chapters! Oh well...)

I woke up at early dawn in my cabin. I rubbed my eyes, yawned and got out of bed. Most people were still asleep. I walked up onto the surface of the ship. I liked observing the sea’s beauty. The waves splashed against the ship gently and the smell of seawater filled the air. It was a truly magnificent sight. I did not go out on the sea very much and I thought this was a very good time. I could see why these people joined the navy.

I must have sat there for hours just enjoying the scenery of the sea, the freshness of the atmosphere. As more people came onto the surface of the ship and the sky became brighter, I got up and stretched. The sun began to show through the clouds and it began to beat down on me.

That’s when that sailor shouted. He panicked a bit, running and screaming. I ran up to him, held him and asked him what was wrong. At first all he said was mixed up madness but then eventually he gave me his binoculars. He directed me to a spot and told me to look through the binoculars. I looked through them and saw it.

An entire fleet, obviously battleships moved in the waters not too far from our fleet of battleships. My eyes bulged. I was shocked and chilled to the bone. They were here, they were finally here. The Revolutionaries were here to destroy America.

“Jesus Christ.”

I didn’t know what to do. But then, I remembered something. Knowing how long he slept, he was still in bed.

“Andy.”

I threw away the binoculars and ran into the interior of the ship, rushing towards the cabins. When I got there, I approached Andrew’s cabin and kicked the door open. He was dressed in casual clothes, not efficient for a battle, but there was no time. I grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him vigorously, trying to get him to wake up. Finally, his eyes opened and he shook his head.

“Huh? Arckine?”

“They’re here.”

“You mean-”

“Yes.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

“We have to go.”

Andrew and I rushed out onto the surface of the ship and were met by the admiral who had come aboard with us. I spoke to him:

“Admiral, you need to-”

“Don’t worry. We’re not firing.”

“What? What do you mean you’re not-”

“You heard me. Everything’s under control. Those people might not even be hostile. There’s nothing to worry about. Although, if they attack us, we’ll attack them. That’s how you start a battle.”

“Nothing to wo….nothing to worry about! Are you mentally retarded? Are you touched in the head? America is expected a damn war and when a fleet and ships that are obviously battle armed are in our horizon, you say they might not be hostile!”

“How dare you-”

“I think you’re forgetting who your superiors are. Now, you can leave my presence and I’ll command this fleet to initiate a pre-emptive strike on that fleet before it’s too late, or you can try to stop me and when they attack us, we’ll both be dead in the ocean.”

The admiral stared me down with a look of anger mixed with hopelessness on his face. I turned and walked away. I smiled to myself and my, in a sense, “victory” over the admiral.

“Fire everything you got at that fleet! Right now! Alert everyone in the other states! Give us air support! We’re at war!”

The sound of almost immediate explosions, gunfire, aircrafts taking off from aircraft carrier ships and more filled the air. I walked back to get my gun and Andrew followed. I said to myself:

“Now that’s how you really start a battle.”

I picked up an M16A4 and Andrew did the same. Men were running around, using the ships weapons to attack other ships or just plain hiding. We needed to get off of the ship. By then, bullets were flying everywhere around us. There were lifeboats on the other side of the ship. We could have used those to get off of the ship.

“Get to the boats! I’ll follow you after you’re off!” Andrew shouted over the gunfire. I nodded and started crawling to avoid the gunfire. My gun was in my right hand which I made sure to bring with me. I looked at my clothes and realised how vulnerable I was with just casual clothes on.

Finally, I was able to get to the boats. I jumped into one of them, pushed the release button and the boat dropped, making a big splash in the water. I started up the engine and moved a bit away from the ship. I waited to see if Andrew had gotten over to the life boats.

And sure enough, he did. He gave me a “thumbs up” sign and smiled. But from the left came something. I looked at it. A guided missile came from the right. I saw where it was headed towards. It was headed towards the ship. Andrew was just about to get into the life boat.

“Andy!”

The missile hit the ship. It went up in flames and it began falling apart and sinking. I just sat in my life boat in pure shock, ignoring the bullets and explosions flying around me. My jaw flew down as I watched the ship go into the ocean. I couldn’t believe something like that had happened again. I’d lost so many important people in my life. Yet, I still clung to the idea that he wasn’t dead. I held onto a hope that a miracle would have happened. I don’t know why I thought that in war.

I waited for a while to see if Andrew came up to the surface. I only waited a couple of minutes because I needed to move quickly. Unfortunately, he didn’t come up to the surface. Although it was hard I tried to block my emotions as best as I could; I was in a full out war and I needed to concentrate on surviving.

I sped off on my boat. I just hoped to myself that despite the evidence, Andrew was alright. I decided it was best to head off back to the city as they were sure to attack there. They had probably done it already. I manoeuvred around, trying to find an area where I could effectively dodge bullets while proceeding to the city. Unfortunately, that was completely impossible considering that I was out on the open sea. I have no idea why I even considered that possible. Anyways, after realising that what I thought of doing could not be done, I was just hoping that I could move fast enough to dodge the bullets.

Suddenly, I screeching sound filled the air. The gunfire died down a bit when this happened and I even stopped my boat a bit to see what was going on. It stopped and then started again. Faster than the eyes could see, multiple things plunged into the ocean, sending the water flying upwards. More and more of those objects plunged into the ocean.

Some of them landed on some of the ships. They were large, purple, nut-shaped objects. There were numerous explosions in the air. More of these strange objects flew from the sky. I picked up my gun and shot at some of them. Most of my bullets missed and some of them hit one of them and it spiralled out of control and plunged into the sea.

At it was as if all hell broke loose. The sea rose in a huge pillar into the sky which swirled around and leaned from side to side. It shot out those objects again. Those objects shot out objects which were headed towards the city. Something came out of the objects on the ships.

They were humans dressed in full white…no, they could have been humans. I told myself this. They looked exactly like humans it’s just that…and then the realisation struck me. They had come as well. On the same day we were being invaded. The Jhunges had come to destroy us.