Mission Orion: The Travel through Time

Chapter 43

"All units, lift off at 10:00A.M Standard Time. All personnel must report to their designated tagging rooms by 7:00A.M. standard time. We are at T-minus 6 hours."

"Wake up man!" Reneesh said, standing right above me. "Hope you are right in your senses now. You were blabbing some weird stuff yesterday. You good now?" He continued. All the events of the previous day came rushing back into my head again but it seemed more like a dream than of something which actually took place. "Must have been seeing stuff which didn't happen. You're right, could have been the stress." I replied, rubbing my eyes. "Well, we're leaving in six hours, get ready." Reneesh said. "And by the way, Montwik came in after you had fallen asleep. Gave us new military outfits to wear. They look so cool, man!" Reneesh said. "That's cool." I replied. "And somebody better wake this sleepyhead up." I said, pointing towards Souvik who was still sleeping without the slightest sign of disturbance. "You do the honours, captain." Reneesh replied, laughing.

I took my shower and put on the new military outfits Montwik had given us. They had this new symbol which seemed to be a fusion of both the symbols of the Crux and the Vortex armies. Reneesh, Souvik and I stepped out of our temporary cabins on the surface just in time to watch the sun rising above the horizon. "C'mon man. There seems to be a cliff at that far end." Souvik said. All the three of us walked over to a part of the base which we'd never seen before. En route to this place, we could see groups of soldiers, wearing the same uniform as ours, walking towards the cafeteria for a bit of caffeine. Well, I guess people of every universe need a bit of caffeine to kick off their day.We spent most of our time underground and our cabin was set up on the surface just yesterday night. We walked over to the edge of the cliff and we could see miles and miles of ocean spreading all the way to a point where it seems to touch the sky. "That's a beautiful view there." Souvik said, in awe. "Probably would be the last time we'd be seeing anything like this in our life." Reneesh muttered, loud enough for the both of us to hear it. "We are going to make it guys. Trust me with that one." I replied. The trees acted as a visual barrier which explains why we never saw the ocean. And Base One was the other way, so we couldn't see the ocean during arrival and departure. But wow, what a sight I was. The orange light of the rising sun reflected on the surface of the ocean, and it seemed like it almost was glowing. "C'mon man, we should get going. Montwik said that we needed to discuss a few things before the lift off." Reneesh interrupted my thoughts. "Fine, let's get going." I said, turning away, taking one last look at the wonderful view on this planet. It struck me again, how good it would be if this could have been our home. Montwik had once told us that all we saw with our telescopes were a lie. It was all planned by the kenjah. It was all an attempt to lure us into their world. But something just did not add in. This universe was actually created artificially by this civilizations for themselves, which explains why there are just three planets in a single system in the whole of this universe. And they found other naturally formed habitable planets for their experiments in creating new species, just like the humans. But why go through all that pain? They created us. It wouldn't be hard for them to kill us. What stopped them from just blowing our planet up into a million pieces? This was a question only a person from their civilization could answer.

We had reached the main complex and took the elevator down to level 600. We found Montwik in the middle of a discussion with one of the army generals. "Hey, Montwik." I greeted him, immediately after the end of his discussion. "Hello, guys! You look very smart in these uniforms I must say." He exclaimed, smiling at us. "Thanks for these uniforms, Montwik." I replied. "You feeling alright?" he asked me. "Oh yeah." I replied. "It was most probably the stress which cracked me up yesterday. I'll be fine." I continued. "And oh yes, there are a few things which we need to do before we lift off. Please, people, follow me. We have to get you tagged first." He replied, leading us through groups of people in military uniforms. Mostly soldiers, but a few generals and pilots as well. "What is tagging?" Souvik asked Montwik. "You'll see." He replied. We went down two more levels before entering into a corridor where there were rows of soldiers waiting in a line in front of about ten rooms. Montwik took us to the last room and flashed his ID before breaking the line and taking us to the front. "Tagging is the process where each of you is assigned a number. These numbers are tattooed on your left arm and the ink consists of micro particles which help keep a track of your location, your vitals and can also do a lot of other stuff. They contain certain chemicals when activated enhance your senses and also provide you with a boost of adrenaline when needed. This ink has been modified to suit humans and your DNA." Montwik explained. "That's some pretty cool stuff!" I replied. "Believe me, it just keeps getting cooler." Montwik said, grinning. "Alright, let's get tagged." Reneesh said, pointing the machines which were at the far end of the room. "Yep, please lay down on these beds." Montwik said, referring to the row of beds which you'd normally see at the dentist's. "Place your left hand on the stand." He instructed us. Three people, with the doctor's coat and the surgical masks on came near us and strapped our hand to the hand. "This could hurt a bit." My doctor told me as he took his seat right next to me. He pulled down a rod kind of structure with needles and with wires all over it, and he placed it on my hand. I could see that the other doctors were doing the same thing with Reneesh and Souvik. "Ready?" he asked me. I nodded my head and he pressed a red button. A could feel the heat of the machine on my skin and the needles piercing through my skin. It wasn't pain. It was just an irritating feeling on my hand. Moments later the machine turned off all by itself and retracted back to his original position. "It's done." the doctor said, smiling. "All the best out there." He continued. "Thanks for that." I replied, giving him a firm handshake. I looked down and saw 'A4(R)-7830(4)' inked on my hand. I saw the tattoo of Reneesh in which he had the same thing except for the part after the hyphen in which he had '7831(5)' on it. But Souvik's tattoo was a lot different than ours. His read 'B4-8034'. 

"What do these numbers indicate?" I asked Montwik looking at this jumble of numbers on my arm/. "It is simple." He replied, taking my arm. "The 'A' indicated Alpha Team, 'B' indicates Beta and so on. The number right after the letter denotes your base number. The 'R' in the bracket is only for those involved in the rescue team. So only a couple of people have it and all of them are from this base. The number after the hyphen is your unique identification number. It starts from 0001 in every base. And the bracketed number on you and Reneesh is your roll call number in the rescue team. You will be getting your helmets shortly and you will be connected to the base directly as you are in the rescue team. Whenever you are communicating you must say 'A4-7830' before you say anything. And just for your information, Alpha Team is the team which goes around the planet and mounts the attack from behind. Beta Team is the control and command team which monitors and analyses the situation from a far distance. Charlie and Tango teams mount the main attack from the front. Alpha is a mix of both destroyers and battleships, Charlie are only battleships and Tango are destroyers. Everything clear?" Montwik said. "You haven't given us the scope for any questions." I replied, smiling. "That is good. And by the way, Profus and Emanta too are on the rescue team. Both of them put in a special request for it."  Montwik informed us. "Emanta is good, but Profus?" I asked. "Rithvik, there is nothing wrong with Profus." Montwik replied, exasperated. "No, that's not what I meant. I mean, he would be more useful to you than to us, right?" I asked, trying to cover up about what I said before. "Nope. You don't know about Profus, he is one of our best soldiers on foot." Montwik replied. "Montwik, can I talk to your for a sec?" Reneesh interrupted us suddenly. "In private." He continued. "What is it about, Reneesh?" I asked him. "Nothing, man. Just a little chat." He said. I saw as both of them disappear along the hallway. "Let's go down and grab some food." I said to Souvik and we made our way down to the cafeteria for our breakfast.

"All personnel, be advised. T- minus 150 minutes for lift off. Please head to the armory to collect your weapons after being tagged. I repeat, we are at T-minus 150 minutes."

----------------------------------

Thanks for reading it! 

Hope you like it and as usual, please vote if you like it and let me know your suggestions.

-LPS21/ Rithvik.