Dare Quest - The End of the World, Page 3
Brian Smith
2
After enjoying the thrills and excitement of London for a few days, Edward and Anthony had the chance to romp about Hyde Park one morning. While the boys were running around their parents relaxed in the huge open space in the middle of the city.
Hyde Park
“Hooray!” the children shouted and ran across the grass.
“I’m Mallard,” Anthony called and ran as fast as he could.
“I’m a Vulcan,” Edward called and ran faster than Anthony.
This made Anthony cross.
“You’re cheating,” he yelled and cried.
They played like this for a long time, watched the birds in the lake, and put some apple seeds in a quiet spot in the ground after eating some apples in the hope that an apple tree would grow there.
Hyde Park
When it was time for lunch the family made their way towards Wellington Arch to hop on the tube at Hyde Park underground station. They were crossing the road when they noticed something strange. People stopped walking all around them and looked up at the sky.
Wellington Arch
In the distance there were purple streaks high up in the sky.
“What is it, Daddy?” Edward asked.
“I don’t know,” his father said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
The traffic light was about to change from green to red so they hurried to the other side of the road. Suddenly the loud roar of a jet engine tore across the sky.
“Look at the plane!” Anthony shouted pointing at a fighter jet.
There was a loud bang in the sky and Anthony began to cry.
“What is it? I don’t like the noise.”
“Why did it do that?” Edward asked.
“That was a sonic boom,” their father said. “It means the plane broke through the sound barrier, it’s flying faster than the speed of sound. Something must have happened, they don’t normally do that over inhabited areas as it’s too loud.”
They gazed after the plane as it sped off into the distance towards the purple streaks in the sky.
Hyde Park Underground Station
Everywhere around them people were talking excitedly. Then there was a new sound. It was something the children had never heard before, yet their parents knew from bad days in the past. The sound was so loud they couldn’t hear the traffic anymore, they could barely hear people shouting, it was a scary wailing sound that sounded like a slow siren of a police car, only a thousand times louder.
“What is it, Daddy?” Anthony cried. “Mummy, Mummy!”
“It’s an air raid siren,” their parents shouted.
Near the entrance to the underground station two police officers listened to a message on their radio. Then they blew their whistles and waved to people.
“Get down!” they shouted. “Get down, now!”
Everyone began to run at once. People crowded into the entrance of the underground.
Escalator to Underground Station
There were few people on the escalators at first, but then a huge crowd started pushing down. Someone pressed the ‘Emergency Stop’ button on the escalator going upwards and people were rushing down to safety deep down below.
Outside of London a modern fighter jet stood in a hangar. It was part of Britain’s QRA force. QRA, Quick Reaction Alert, was a small group of aircraft that were ready day and night to respond to any potential threat to British air space. The jet on stand-by was a Typhoon, one of the most modern fighter jets in the world. The Typhoon was fully armed and ready to engage and, if necessary, to destroy any hostile aircraft over Britain. There was a pilot right next to the plane twenty-four hours a day, all year long, ready to take the jet off the ground in less than a minute. Sometimes the QRA jets were called to deal with foreign aircraft approaching British air space and occasionally a civilian plane veered off course and was intercepted, but the last time a fighter was called to fire on another plane was in World War Two, which ended in 1945.
11.56 am.
Numerous supersonic objects are detected entering the Earth’s atmosphere all around the world. As they are coming from outer space it is thought that it is a meteor shower.
11.58 am.
Many of the objects change course and slow down during their descent. It is clear that these are not meteorites.
12.00 noon
The order comes through “Scramble, scramble, scramble.”
QRA receives orders to deploy. 55 seconds later the jet fighter takes off and speeds across the sky towards its target. While it crosses London it breaks the sound barrier in an effort to reach its target in time.
All available jet fighters on the ground are readied for take off, but they are attacked and destroyed before they can take off.
RAF Typhoon firing missile
The few jets that get into the air in time are given orders to engage. Their pilots fire all the missiles they carry at the mysterious targets. The missiles thunder through the air. Sudden purple flashes erupt through the sky and the missiles are destroyed. Moments later the fighter jets share the same fate.
Military commanders around the world realize: This is an attack on Planet Earth, an alien attack!
12.03 pm.
The alien craft begin their attack on cities around the world. When the alien craft deploy their weapons, temperatures of more than a million degrees rip through cities and towns everywhere.
