The Last Day On Earth (Book 1 of The Galaxy Series)

Chapter 11

I had never seen so many people meeting in a calm and peaceful setting before, and it was something that was just awe inspiring. The last time I had seen people gathered like this, it was for an announcement from the Wasps about our workload, usually, being increased. There was always dread and tears, sometimes hope that the work would be reduced, but that was rare.

Right now, there was none of that. People were talking amongst themselves, laughing, talking about what this meeting could mean for their cause...

The security and happiness in this room... I have never felt it before, not even that brief moment in that small village on the lake was like this.

I looked at Whitney and Oliver, talking between each other. "Is this normal?"

"The noise?" Oliver asked with concern. "Yeah, it's normal. Sorry."

"No, not that." Well, maybe that too, a bit. "The atmosphere."

My friends both smiled at me; Whitney nodded. "Yeah, as long as we've been here anyway. Isn't it great? There isn't a shred of fear right now."

"I can't remember a time before being here that I felt like this," Oliver added.

Whitney shook her head. "Me either." She looked like she was about to say something, but there was a noise like someone hitting a wall and the room fell silent.

Moments later, Darren and another man walked out in front of us. Now, as the lights dimmed and a spotlight shone on them, I could see Darren's black hair streaked with grey, and his face lined with shallow wrinkles. The man beside him looked older, had more grey in his hair and deeper wrinkles on his face; he introduced himself as John.

"I introduce myself today because we have a new member. Tiffany Belmonte," he said my name slightly louder, "please stand up." He looked at me, dark eyes seeming to pierce my being, when I did. "Tiffany, tell us how you came to be in our presence."

Not seeing a reason to mince my words, I told him about my long day. How I managed to walk across a fair chunk of what was once known as Indiana, the eyes on me in French Lick, the people I met in the small village, and how I came to know about the people being sold into slavery. When asked about my home before that, I told him about how I was a slave in Indianapolis, alongside Oliver and Whitney, and how I left when I finally felt like I could.

John nodded. "I am sorry to hear that you were a slave that we could not free. I am glad you are here now, though, and just being here means that you must be willing to fight, at least on some level."

"Yes, I am," I responded. "I did have a question though." He gestured at me to ask. "This... Coalition? Team? You've been around since the initial invasion, right? How did you manage to stay free and not get caught for all those years?"

That made John and Darren both smile; they must love to talk about this. The elder brother answered, "Our grandparents founded this branch of the Anti-Wasp Coalition whilst in slavery in West Virginia. They rallied the others together in solidarity and killed the Wasps in charge. Many died, and many have died since, but it has all been in the pursuit of freedom from the Wasps, ever since the beginning. Since then, the group has moved slowly from West Virginia to here, picking our battles as we went. Outliers were usually easier to liberate, but we have managed a few cities. We actually liberated Louisville not even a full week before the Wasps decided to just randomly fuck off."

"Unfortunately," Darren continued, "it wasn't long after that we got word that our remaining scientists were promising people a one way ride 'to a better life' in the stars." The brothers exchanged a look before he added, "We knew better. We did some intelligence gathering here in Evansville, and with the assistance of other branches of the Coalition around the globe, and discovered that the Wasps promised certain people that if they would send slaves to their homeworld every so often, they would leave the rest of the world alone."

"That is where people like you come in," John gestured to me, "because although we know we have to stop the ships, there isn't much we can do right now. All we can do is save those that we can until we get the strength to do things en masse."

Wait, did they just say...? "We're not going to stop that ship?"

John gave me a sympathetic look. "I understand your frustrations, but like I said, we don't have the strength to do a large operation like that yet. We hope we have that strength before the next--"

"They said this was the last ship!"

Darren shook his head. "They always say that to be sure as many people rush here as they can cram onto those ships. The first ship was the 'only' ship, the one after that was the last, but so was the next, and the one after that, and the one after that. They will not stop sending people."

My jaw dropped. I had rushed here because I fell for a manipulation tactic meant for those about to be sold? I sank back into my seat in shock, wondering how much else I had heard the last few weeks had just been a lie.

The meeting continued on from there, but I barely heard anything. From what I gathered, it was nothing terribly complicated, just strategies on convincing people to not board the ship until it left in the morning. People were assigned to certain zones of the city to try and intercept people before they got beyond a specific gate leading to the ship. Once they were past that gate, there was no turning back for them; had to be absolutely sure to get them before that point.

However, Oliver, Whitney, and I were not going out into the city. Oliver had to stay behind to continue programming the communications array for the Team. Whitney was assigned to showing me around and helping get me more acquainted with the building and how things were expected to run.

The meeting ended not long after that, with people helping to clear the room of the chairs once again, and then leaving to the zones assigned to them. Oliver went to what he pointed out to be John's office, and Whitney lead me away to an area she called the training room. She said it was where combat training was held, and where I would start mine tomorrow afternoon.

I didn't hear anything she said though, I just looked out of a nearby window toward the center of the city, where I could barely see the top of the ship I had meant to board. I couldn't believe I was about to just stand by and doom others to a fate I wouldn't wish about the worst of people.

Whitney must have seen my distress, because she came up and hugged me, staring out the window too.