LINX

Fort Wahn

Chapter – 5

Every great conquest has never been out of curiosity or free will. It has always been out of necessity.

History has been it's evidence and man it's witness.

By the end of the 21st century, human population had reached a level such that the demand was much greater than the resources available. Man built it's cities mostly afloat the oceans and to energise the cities built reactors on the ocean floor, their by-products leaking out into the ocean polluting bit by bit the very essence of life, water.

With time and countless hours and minds set to a common purpose to eliminate the energy crisis, man stumbled upon a discovery. He figured out that if he treated water with a certain chemical and energised the liquid under radioactive conditions it would give rise to energy unlike anything he had seen before. It had potential a hundred times greater than nuclear energy and a million times more than fossil fuels. He named these special kinds of reactors, the HYDRA reactors.

At first the process was carried out with great ease and with outstanding results but with time man discovered this laboratory bred chemical was radioactive and was polluting the seas. Apart from the fact that the pollution was on a minute scale but with time it had consumed a majority of the earth.

Human cities fell to the radiation sickness, in weeks few thousands dies and millions hospitalized. It was a concern that was starting to make headlines, UN councils were summoned, political agendas were raised science projects to fight the pollution were funded but all in vain, human extinction had taken pace and would not stop.

In a desperate attempt, the wealthiest of the planet pooled in all funds they could get their hands on and built large spaceships and imperial vessels and set on a course to leave the planet that had housed them for millenniums before and had the capability to house for ages forth if they had not been so greedy.

The entire population was shipped into the cargo vessels and spaceships and within weeks they were all out of the planet except for the few unlucky people who could not buy their way into the ships and had accepted their fate that they were going to rot in this filth and eventually meet their creator.

The last ships departed earth and likewise teams of few volunteers and mostly mechanised workforce started to work on rehabilitating earth. Their actions mostly funded by the rich who did not have in their least interests to be the habitants of any other planet the human had annexed.

Amongst these outbound vessels there were a family of three. A rich Iranian family displaced from their homeland. In the weeks that had preceded, Ahmed had pulled all his finances from his industries liquidised the funds put it into the space voyage and left with his family leaving nothing behind. Unlike the others who had dreams of returning, he despised earth and knew despite whatever attempts the governments put in they will never be able to reverse the damage and convert it back into the earth their ancestors had lived in.

Ahmed Sheikh along with his wife Zainab and daughter Miriam had settled into their lush quarters onboard the newly designed CSC Kozan luxury cruise ship. This was built for the elite class of gentleman and their families who had funded the space program and as a symbol of gratitude, the governments had assigned them to lead  life in luxury until they reached their destination which would take a few years.

One night in his sleep, Ahmed jolted awake and sat upright on his bed. The alarm being the murmurs he heard in the kitchen of his lavish duplex bungalow on the ship. He heard a few vessels fall off the cabinet. He got off his bed, tip toed to his cupboard and picked his pump action shotgun.

In the shadows he walked through his balcony and took cover behind the wall that lead to his open kitchen. The maids had all left and he was left alone here. He could still hear the murmuring in the kitchen. The distinct murmurs of two kids.