Human Error

Hunted

"Goddammit!" came the yell, followed by a loud thump on the desk below. "Send more men to them and get them on route to TRAPPEL-1 now, sergeant."

"Yes sir!"

Another call was made and more Fighters took off, along with 3 elongated, nearly flat ships that took up the rear. These ships were carrying 10 soldiers each. With 10 Fighters and those 3 ships you'd think they were fighting a mini army.

"Sergeant Madison, keep monitoring your men. I've got my eye on--"

"Sir, we've lost one of their trackers." There was a pause. "Make that all of their trackers."

"Clever little shits… keep going. We know where their pod landed, they can't have gone far."

The cyber operatives got back to work. Some had a sonar radar tracking the fleet, others had a map of TRAPPEL-1, and the rest were trying to locate the 7 children from their crash point. People were talking through headsets, giving information to the fleet about oncoming space junk or asteroids.

"Commander, you might wanna take a look at this," a female voice spoke up, raising a hand to wave him over.

He made his way there and bent over a little to look at the monitor.

"Extraterrestrial… Sergeant Madison, get your men ready for a fight."

"Aye, sir, I will." came the swift, gruff response.

"They killed one."

"What?"

"They killed it, sir," she repeated and pointed to the blinking red dot where the alien was. "But there's more on the way from that mountain," her finger glided towards the raised terrain on the screen.

5 more were headed for the blinking red dot, which was now by the lake.

"Requesting permission for hyper jump, sir!"

"Permission granted, Squad Leader," the Commander patched through, then returned to his desk.

"We've got two fights to worry about, boys. Let's try for as little casualties on our end as possible; and try to get those kids here alive."

"Yes sir!" came the chorus from the room and his earpiece.