Skeleton Wars Read online

  They could not believe that the most sophisticated military in the world, which is able to strike miniaturized targets from thousands of miles away with their laser guided missiles and precision radar equipment, had failed to track any of the triangular aircraft. They were wandering how such state-of-the-art military planes, capable of flying supersonically at speeds of 1200 mph had failed to locate, engage and intercept the UFOs.

  The attack attracted lengthy debates on social media from all corners of the world. Although most of the comments were condolence messages, a few sadists used that moment to express their hatred on the US army. One controversial post from a Middle East blogger thanked the gods of the universe for eliminating what he called ‘the world’s institute of torture," the CIA.

  CHAPTER THREE

  SECOND RAID ON EARTH

  A team of more than one hundred computer specialists was set put up to analyze the information that had been collected from the CIA headquarters during the first raid on earth. These specialists were required to make detailed reports on various topics which Lord Ghost had specified to them. They were to present their findings to another committee of five generals that was to be led by Gen. Cov himself. These generals were to read and summarize their findings in order to make strategic plans for the second raid and the final day of the attack. Lastly, the generals were to submit the plans to both Roth and Lord Ghost for approval.

  From the biographies of all the prominent people on earth, the generals were able to select a group of seven scientists who needed to be fetched from earth to be added on their team. Despite the level of technology the ghosts had reached in the four hundred years, they still had some fear that man might be better than them in certain fields of science. The mission of the second raid was to collect these scientists from earth and take them to Ghostia.

  More skeleton warriors were chosen and trained for that purpose. They were to bring the scientists partially dead and partially living! On capturing a scientist, the skeletons were to start by placing a helmet over their head. The helmets had been equipped with advanced computer systems that could preserve both the head and the brain. It could ensure that the brain could continue working normally for a longer period of time in the absence of all other body parts.

  The warriors would then proceed by making a vertical incision through the abdominal region of the scientist. All the internal organs were to be pulled out and left on earth. Lastly, they would peel off the skin of the scientist to expose their skeleton. The remaining skeleton and its helmeted head would then be wrapped up in a special body bag which was to be carried back to Ghostia. The whole procedure had to be done at a very fast speed, but with such consummate skill in order not to injure the brain and the skeleton.

  This time one large-sized aircraft was to be used to carry the warriors and other eight small aircraft to earth. This large aircraft was to dock into the Pacific Ocean and would act as a coordination center for the smaller aircraft. Once in the ocean, seven of the eight aircraft were to come out of the airship to spread to all parts of the world where the required scientists were to be found. Each of these aircraft was to carry a platoon of twenty five warriors. Each platoon had been assigned its own scientist to collect and would hence move towards the area where they were to meet them immediately after leaving the airship. The eighth small aircraft was to stay on board, ready to defend the large aircraft in case of attack from the US Navy.

  Before descending into the US airspace, the fast moving airship first launched a miniaturized satellite in space. This satellite which was about the size of a ball was launched into geostationary orbit to help track the positions of the scientists where ever they were. It had specialized transponders that could receive uplinked radio signals from earth and transmit them back to the ground teams in a very short period of time. The purpose of this was to provide situational awareness, readiness assessment and deployment applications which the underground teams would require to effectively plan where and when to find the scientists. Further still, the satellite had been installed with advanced jamming equipment to avoid being detected by all manmade satellites. The satellite had also been programmed to destroy itself at the end of the mission.

  The first of such atrocities happened at Prof. Clifton Clark’s residence in Tampa, Florida. At 11:00 PM, this Physics Nobel Laureate was having an alfresco wine with his fiancée at the poolside in his compound. They had spent less than ten minutes at the place when they started hearing sounds of an approaching freight train that seemed to be heading towards them. The strange sound was accompanied by vigorous shaking of the ground which scared both of them. But before they could run back to their house, a strong whirlwind enveloped the whole homestead.

  The two security guards who were running towards the swimming pool to help their erudite boss were shocked to see a group of more than twenty human skeletons which were armed with double edged swords also running towards the same place. When the skeletons saw them, five stopped and attacked them while the rest continued running towards the swimming pool. The guards were too frightened by the sight of the skeletons and could hardly fight back. Using their double edged swords, the skeletons stabbed them to death and then cut their bodies into pieces. These pieces were later lifted by the whirlwind and thrown into the neighborhood.

  At the poolside, two skeletons seized the helpless woman before she could run away. Another skeleton picked one of the pieces of wood that were floating in the wind and used it to hit her at the forehead.She fainted instantly and the skeletons lifted her up and released her into the wind. The whirlwind carried her and blew her to the rooftop of their house. Another group of five skeletons caught the professor, undressed him and placed the helmet over his head. They then dragged him to the bottom of the swimming pool where the operation to remove his skeleton was carried out. Rescuers who rushed to the residence after the whirlwind had left found his internal organs floating over the blood filled water of the pool.

  Dr. Rumsfeld, a software engineer with several accolades in computing was found having fun at a comedy club in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Eastern Canada. A strong whirlwind enveloped the building at once and shattered down all the glasses from the windows. It lifted aloft all the loose objects in the bar, including chairs and wine glasses. The objects formed huge piles of floating debris which were constantly hitting the stranded patrons.

  The patrons were thrown into a state of commotion as they tried to run away from the building but could not be allowed by the piles of solids that were floating in the wind. They registered several cuts and other injuries after being cut by the broken glasses and the other flying solids. Some fainted instantly while others died in this stampede after being stepped on by their colleagues.

  As the scientist staggered in the wind looking for a place to hide, the skeletons caught him. They dragged him to the counter table from which the dissection was carried out. He was seen by the patrons writhing in pain as the skeletons operated on him. They could however do nothing to save him because the flying solids that were hitting them had made them busy enough.

  Dr. Nikolayi Gastov was a particle physicist who was working as a special researcher at a secret Russian Nuclear ballistic missile facility. He was found moving by train from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod where he was a visiting professor at the Lobachevsky State University. The Sapsan train in which he was seated had reached a peak speed of 250 km/h when the passengers started hearing a very loud deafening sound that seemed to be running after their train. Two hours away from Moscow, the whole train was engulfed by a very strong wind which forced the passengers to apply emergency brakes.

  But before the train could stop, the ferocious wind mysteriously knocked off the sixth car in which the professor was seated. The whirlwind left the train and followed the car as it rolled over the ground for a distance of a mile away from the rail line. By the time it stopped all passengers had died from multiple injuries which they had sustained after being cut by broken glasses from the windows and o
ther solids which the wind had carried along. The professor’s internal organs were found scattered over the blood soaked dead bodies of the passengers. Fortunately, the rest of the train had managed to stop without a derail.

  At 11:00 Am local time, Prof. Mustafa Bin Sayed was moving in a convoy of five cars on the Garmsar-Tehran Highway. He had spent the morning at Kavir National Park, a recreational park found in Dasht-e Kavir desert in Northern Iran, 60 KM away from the capital Tehran. This nuclear physicist was a professor at the Department of Physics Science at the Iran University of Science and Technology. He was heavily guarded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards because of his clandestine work at a very secret Uranium enrichment plant in Qom.

  A dust storm from the desert swept through the highway and reduced visibility to almost zero, which forced the traffic to come to a standstill. There were several collisions among the cars as the drivers who could hardly see what was ahead of them tried to stop their cars abruptly. The dust storm proceeded forwards and turned stationary after enveloping the convoy that was escorting the professor. This mysterious haboob had picked a lot of sand on its way and thus created a thickened wall of sediment which was covering all the five cars.

  The cars in the professor’s convoy came to a stop, the bodyguards jumped out and tried to run towards the third car in which their boss was seated. They could hardly see through the whooshing wind and hence found themselves being cut unawares by the skeletons. Their body pieces were picked by the wind which blew them to the other cars that had parked in the highway. After wiping out his security detail, the skeletons reached the scientist and pulled him out of the car. After the dissection, the haboob moved back to the desert via the same direction through which it had come from.

  Dr. Germaine Glance, a female microbiologist had taken her two daughters to one of the amusement parks in Perth in Australia. She was watching her daughters from a distance away as they were enjoying a ride in the park’s Ferris wheel. All of a sudden, the whole park became wreathed in a ferocious whirlwind. The speed of all the rides more than doubled and some started breaking away from their mounts immediately. One by one, children started dropping from the gondolas of the Ferris wheel. The crumpling wheel rolled over the ground for some distance before it fell after colliding with other rides.

  Everyone at the park was running in different directions, trying to save their lives from the disaster. The female scientist tried to run after the Ferris wheel in order to save her daughters but was met by a group of ten human skeletons on her way. The skeletons striped her naked, laid her on the ground and carried out the operation on her. They vanished away with her head and skeleton and left the whole park crumpled down.

  Dr. John FitzWorth was a respected Canadian Computer scientist of French origin at the prestigious University of British Columbia. Early that morning, he was traveling by car to the countryside with his family. As they were rounding a bend in one of the forested areas, they were shocked to see a dozen of human skeletons standing in the middle of the road waving for them to stop. The driver stopped the car and tried to make a reverse but was stopped by another group of skeletons that was coming from behind.

  This time, there was no wind and the skeletons were operating in the open. The driver who doubled as the family’s bodyguard tried to attack the skeletons but was overpowered. They stabbed him several times with their double edged swords and left him fatally wounded. The skeletons then pulled out the whole family from the car and took them to the forest. At a distance away from the road, the skeletons stopped. They forced the woman and their daughter to kneel on the ground while the man was separated from them.

  The skeletons wrapped the scientist’s head with a helmet. They undressed him and forced him to lie on the ground in a supine position. When they started cutting him, his wife fainted! His daughter started screaming out loudly and tried to cover her eyes but she could still hear the death rattles from her whining father. The ghosts put the scientist’s skeleton and its helmeted head in a body bag and disappeared with it in the forest without trace.

  Early in the morning of the following day, the US federal government ordered for a protective arrest of all high profile scientists in the country. Local radio and television stations were running ads that were advising all scientists to take themselves to nearby police or military installations. Plans had been made to disperse all the scientists to different secure underground facilities of the US Army.

  Special military teams were dispatched to different universities to help in the transfer of the scientists to different US military bunkers. At San José State University in California, the soldiers arrived at around 8:00 am. They were from the 91st Training Division at Fort Hunter Liggett, a US Army fort in Southern Monterey County. They came by a convoy of armored vehicles whose make had not yet been revealed to the general public. The armored cars were being escorted by more than ten military tanks. Patrolling the air above the campus were HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters from the 129th Reserve Wing at Moffett Airfield, North East of San Jose.

  Activities at the university were put to a standstill as the students and staff came out of their lecture rooms and offices to gaze at the army that had invaded their university. They were wandering why an entire arsenal had to be emptied and a full battalion had to be brought just to protect a handful of the scientists that were at the university at the moment.

  The most disturbing thing about the soldiers was however their type of uniform which made them to look like free moving robots. Basing on the first raid on the CIA offices, this personal armor had been designed for foot soldiers by the United States Army Soldiers Center in anticipation of a second attack from these obscure aliens.

  It was intended to absorb or deflect slashing, bludgeoning and penetrating attacks from swords and flying debris, which the skeletons had used as their main weapons in the first raid. It was consisting of three layers. The innermost layer had been made from Kevlar, a synthetic fiber of high tensile strength. Given its excellent fragment stopping power, it could provide full protection against slash attacks from swords and other close quarter weapons.

  The middle layer had been fitted with metallic plates to provide protection from rifle rounds. The outermost layer was a thickened strap of rubber. This could perfectly deflect off bludgeoning weapons and flying fragments. A special insert had been put at the back to protect the spine. Each soldier was putting on a helmet that had been designed in almost the same way as the uniform. It was a full suit that was covering even the limbs. It was however ridged at the joints especially the knees and ankles, to allow for flexibility when moving.

  The soldiers separated themselves into different companies and each company was assigned two or three scientists to escort to different military sites. From that university, there were two scientists from the department of Microbial Evolution who happened to be married at the same time. These two were Prof. McDonald Ressy, a specialist in Microbial Evolution and Molecular Phylogeny and his wife Dr. Christine Ressy, a specialist in Bacteriology and Molecular Biology. They were being escorted to a secret underground facility in Santa Cruz Mountains in a convoy of ten armored vehicles which was being accompanied by two Pave Hawk helicopters which were also full of soldiers.

  When the convoy reached at the north end of Scotts Valley where State Route 17 begins winding an ascent of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the soldiers started hearing sounds of a fast moving wind which was accompanied by strong shaking of the ground. The soldiers were forced to stop the vehicles and turned their eyes behind. They were shocked to see a large translucent wind which had covered the whole road. The wind was sweeping a damage trail along its path on the highway. It was blowing away all the cars that it was coming across and it was piling them onto each other. Wreckages from these cars were being released into the surroundings, causing extensive structural damage and casualties wherever they fell.

  Surprisingly, the wind moved passed the convoy without causing damage to any of the vehicles. When it reached si
xty yards away from the convoy, it became stationary but kept on rotating. It was spinning at a faster speed than a dust devil. Lt. Col. Tim the commander of the company ordered the soldiers to jump out of the vehicles. They took up different positions behind the vehicles with their guns aimed at the rotating wind.

  Lt. Col. Tim pulled out a megaphone and started giving instructions to the wind. “If there’s anyone there freeze……. freeze.” He paused for five seconds before shouting again, “freeze….. I said fre--eee--eze!” As if to obey him, the whirlwind lost its strength at once and exposed the skeletons. They were twenty five human skeletons in total and were all armed with glittering double edged swords. One of the skeletons was carrying a body bag in their other arm and another was carrying a toolbox which was containing the dissection apparatus.

  When the skeletons started walking towards them, Tim was prompted to pick up the megaphone again. First, to his soldiers he said, “Don’t shoot!! Night visions on…..!!” and again to the skeletons ‘’Freeze…..Freeze….” But the skeletons just continued walking and when they reached twenty yards away from the vehicles, the whirlwind reformed and covered all of them. The wind kept on expanding until when it reached the cars. When it started enveloping them, Tim shouted his last instructions to the soldiers, “Show time…”

  The soldiers started shooting heavily into the wind, but it was hard for the bullets to hit any of the skeletons. This was because the skeletons were just running around the area, in the same direction as the wind. After shooting without hitting any target for over five minutes, the soldiers decided to resort to an arm-to-arm combat. A heavy exchange of blows and kicks from both sides broke out immediately. Although both sides were equally good at close quarter fighting, the US soldiers were invulnerable to all forms of attacks from the skeletons thanks to their personal armor.