MINE

Chapter Thirty Nine

When Nathan sat in front of the computer, all he could focus on was Brooke. Her face was like a wallpaper in his head. He could see her beautiful smile and the light in her eyes when she was happy. He could hear the sound of her giggle when she found something funny. He could also hear her scream of terror that was his last memory of her. He channeled his rage into his work, not bothering to lift his eyes from his screen.

He remained like that for hours, before someone tapped his shoulder from behind. Turning around, he was a little surprised to see Becky.

"Hey, Mate." Becky whispered.

"Hey, Becky. Why are you whispering?"

"I don't want anyone overhearing me. You're great with navigation systems, right?" Becky asked.

"Um... yeah. Why?"

"We will have to secretly design a spacecraft that will get us out of here. I already have a couple of guys working with me to take care of the other parts." Becky replied.

Nathan looked at him like he was crazy. Get out of MoonEx? Why in the world would he want to do that? Where did he intend to go? The last thing he needed was to be crammed in a small spacecraft without an actual destination, floating aimlessly in the vast expanse of nothingness called space. For all he knew, those scary looking aliens could be lurking just outside MoonEx's barriers.

"What are you talking about?" Nathan asked.

"I figured it out, mate. We don't have much time. Everything they made us believe is a lie..."

Becky was still speaking when Nathan spotted two MoonEx soldiers walking towards them. Before he could warn him, the soldiers grabbed him by the arm and began pulling him away from Nathan's location. It was all very confusing. The fact that the soldiers came for Becky told Nathan one thing. Colonel Ford did not like whatever it was that Becky figured out. One thing remained unclear though. He was sure Becky was speaking in low tones and couldn't have been overheard. How did the soldiers know what he was talking about? They could just have been having a normal conversation like he saw numerous other people doing. The soldiers never approached them, let alone drag them out of the building. Something was clearly amiss. He wondered what they were going to do to Becky. If his suspicions were right, they were going to have him killed or worse still, thrown out of the colony. That was the punishment for breaking the rules but what rule did Becky break? If the problem was the conversation, why didn't they take him too?

The questions continued to spin around in Nathan's mind but he knew this was not the right time to dwell on them. He got back to work, typing more and more lines to the code his navigation system depended on. When he got to the part where he was to input the target location, something stood out to him. He was provided with coordinates. They weren't just any coordinates, but those he had heard being repeated on a number of occasions on MoonEx.

38.8719 N, 77.0563 W.

Why in the world were a good number of the missiles being directed to the coordinates of the Pentagon? It made no sense. The Pentagon no longer existed.

Nathan read the design description again. According to the summary, some alien warships were believed to be originating from that location.

"That area must have been colonized by the aliens after the destruction of the Earth." Nathan thought, getting back to work.