SKELETON WARS

By

Desire Luminsa

Skeleton Wars

By Desire Luminsa

Copyright 2015 by Desire Luminsa

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

CHAPTER ONE

PLANET GHOSTIA

Skeletons of almost all the dead had gathered in the Ruthst Square to listen to their elusive leader Lord Ghost who was set to address them that evening. They were in such a large number not because they loved him too much but because he had taken four hundred years without addressing them! Actually, they all resented him to the full and the expressions on the faces of their skulls could prove this.

The youngest of all, those that had joined the planet within those years were eagerly waiting to see him for the first time. However, the elderly ghosts who had seen him before, wanted to confirm whether he had not been overthrown by his deputy, Roth.

Every ghost was wondering why he had chosen to go into hiding for all that long. Where had he been hiding from and what had he been doing there for all that long? More still, what was he going to tell them at that moment? These and many other questions which were lingering in their minds could only be answered by Lord Ghost himself!

The young ghosts expected him to introduce some reforms for the planet especially in terms of their welfare but the elderly ghosts who knew him very well were very much skeptical! They believed that he was just going to renew all his coercive decrees!

The cause of his death was also a subject of debate among the ordinary ghosts. The elderly ghosts postulated that he might have lived a miserable life on earth. Probably, he might have been a thief or a murderer!

The absence of the right arm from his skeleton was the best evidence they could give. Probably, one day after stealing or killing someone, an angry mob might have lynched him to death. His right hand might have been cut off before he died! But that was just hearsay because none of the ghosts could prove that they were part of the mob that had killed him.

When he finally appeared, they looked at him disquietingly as he trudged the five steps that lead to the raised platform in front of them, from which he was going to deliver his speech. He was so much impressed by their number that he had to first look at them before he could start speaking. When compared to the number he had last addressed four hundred years before, they had increased by multiples. This made him grin as he raised his arm to attract their attention. They obeyed him and immediately lapsed into silence.

Throughout his speech, he talked with such unwonted enthusiasm and audibility that even the last skeleton at the back could hear him properly. But as usual, he was somehow temperamental whenever he was stressing some points!

“Dear comrades,” he began. “Let me use this moment to welcome all of those that have joined us of recent. Indeed, many years have passed without us meeting. But as I always told you, our presence here is irreversible. We are all dead and we must be proud of it because we shall never be humans again!”

“However, I have one question to ask you! How many of you have ever forgotten that sweet planet earth? Who cannot compare Ghostia, the planet of the dead with earth, the most diverse planet in the universe? Remember the beautiful sceneries on earth. The snowcapped mountains and the green flora that blooms with beautiful flowers in spring! What about snowfall in winter, flowing rivers, lakes and many other lively features."

"Then what about our planet.""Everything that we have here is either dead or made by us!”

He paused for a moment and looked at them . They were all standing still and absorbed in thoughts, probably thinking about their last days on earth! After realizing the effect of his message on them, he grinned again before he continued.

“Comrades, do not worry! I have brought some news which will console you. We are going back to earth very soon.”

“What?!” exclaimed the ghosts. Silence broke as the ghosts started murmuring amongst themselves in total dissatisfaction. They could not believe that it could ever be possible for the ghosts to return to earth. Lord Ghost gave them time to discuss his point because he had expected them to behave like that.

“I want to assure you on this, we are going back to planet earth where we have our origin,” he reaffirmed.

“We are returning to earth soon because we have reasons to do so. Look at our population. Every day we are increasing in number yet the size of the planet does not change. We must take control over man in order to limit their reproduction rate. That is the only way through which we can guarantee a better welfare for our planet.”

“But it cannot be an easy take over. We must be prepared to fight because humans cannot just let us settle amongst them. Perhaps, we cannot just begin ruling them, unless we outweigh them militarily."

"If we win this battle then in future, everyone will be able to choose whether to remain on earth or come to Ghostia after their death. We are more than ready to fight for that cause and we have been planning for it for the last four hundred years."

"However, I strongly want to warn all the dissidents. Do not think of trying to sabotage our progress because we shall deal with you in the best way possible.”

“From today onwards, I declare mankind an enemy to ghostkind!”

He spoke the last statement while moving towards the palace from which he disappeared, never to be seen again that day.

The idea of going back to earth sparked different arguments among the ordinary ghosts. They could not figure out how such a contentious issue had been developed. They became divided between those who were still missing earth and felt like going back and those who were proud of being on Ghostia.

But at least, after that gathering, they could explain where their leader had been hiding and what he was doing in his hideout!

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Ghostia is an extraterrestrial planet found outside the solar system. It is very different from earth both in size and structure. When humans, animals and birds die, their souls wander through space until when they reach this planet which becomes their new home. It’s from here that they “Rest in Peace” as they wait for that fateful day called Judgment Day.

There are only two gateways to this planet. The first one is located on what would be the planet’s North Pole. It serves as an entry point for only the souls of animals and birds that die from earth.

The second gateway is on the South Pole and it is called Arcacidia. It is a complex tunnel that was made above the ground. The tunnel has unusual gravitational forces which pull all human souls into it but repels any other thing, including animal souls. It takes each soul only ten minutes to pass through the tunnel but more than one hundred human souls can be taken in at ago.

By the time the souls come out of the tunnel from the other side, they would have been dressed in new skeletons. These new skeletons are all similar in size and height but the difference is in their shapes. This is because each soul receives an exact replica of the skeletons they would have left on earth. For example, if someone at the time of death was lacking a leg or hand, even the skeleton that they receive would be lacking such parts.

At the joints, like the ankles and knees, the bones of the new skeletons are held in place by bands of strong ligaments. The skeletons can thus move freely like humans but without muscles to operate on their bones.

The most interesting thing about these skeletons is their ability to talk yet they possess no vocal cords. It’s a matter of lifting their jaw bones and sound is produced! The only additional parts on these skeletons are the two unusual lenses that are fitted in their eye sockets to enable the ghosts to see properly. The skeletons do not eat nor sleep, but simply live in harmony with each other, day and night.

After coming out of Arcacidia, each skeleton is welcomed by a group of pioneer ghosts who help them fit into their new society. The new skeletons are always presented with a list of names to choose from, with guidance from their hosts.

In terms of structure, the equator of the planet is marked by a very large ocean that is almost twice larger than all the oceans of earth combined. The ocean acts as the dwelling place for the skeletons of all the dead fish. Actually, in some parts of this ocean, skeletons of dolphins can be seen jumping out of the water body and then diving back, reminiscent of their mortal days on earth!

The ocean also separates the planet into the northern hemisphere and southern hemisphere. The mainland of the Northern hemisphere is the dwelling place for the skeletons of all types of animals. Organization in this part of the planet is however not known clearly even to the ghosts themselves.

There are very turbulent waters in the ocean near the coastal lands of this hemisphere which none of the skeletons can dare navigate so as to reach there. It’s however thought that skeletons of all animals, starting from the ancestral dinosaurs to the present day mammals live there in peace without any preying on the other.

The planet is as old as the earth. The first human being to have died on earth was also the first ghost to settle on Ghostia. When the population of humans on earth increased so did their mortality rate and hence an increase in the population of the ghosts on this planet.

Initially, each skeleton was living on its own, without any cooperation amongst themselves. Some years later, a group of ten skeletons decided to organize themselves into a government that started leading the other ghosts. By title, these ten were referred to as the “Ghoes” which means leader of the ghosts.

Each Gho always put on a golden crown on their skull. The crown was ever shining spontaneously, whether in light or darkness. The most thrilling thing about these crowns was that whenever they put them on their skulls, the whole of their skeletons would become whiter than before and could illuminate this white color to the surrounding. With such supernatural powers, the Ghoes commanded much respect from the ordinary ghosts.

The Ghoes mobilized the pioneer ghosts to build almost all the structures that are found on the planet. They built houses to shelter themselves from the hotness during day and the coldness at night. They also set up entertainment centers like theatres and stadiums from which they would often gather to have fun. With all these structures in place, the ghosts lived in tranquility and were in position to forget about earth.

The palace of the Ghoes was built almost in the middle of the Southern hemisphere. Surrounding it is a tall perimeter wall that was made from iron only. The palace can be accessed by the ordinary ghosts from their residential areas through four gates which are found in all the four directions, North, East, South and West. In front of the palace is a large open field known as the Ruthst Square. The ordinary ghosts gather up from here once in a while to listen to speeches from their leaders.

During their reign, the Ghoes had chosen two ghosts to act as their deputies. The two, Roth and Luthus, always acted as a bridge between the Ghoes and the ordinary ghosts. They would solicit complaints from the ordinary ghosts which they would present to the Ghoes on their behalf. At the same time, they would take the feedback from the Ghoes to the ordinary ghosts.

Unfortunately, the more the Ghoes trusted them, the more they became proud and arrogant! Time reached when the ordinary ghosts were fed up with them and started demanding for their resignation. The Ghoes however were hesitant to fire them. They wanted to quell them down through dialogue.

As pressure mounted on them, the two deputies started living in suspicion as they believed that they were to be fired soon. Out of this panic, they secretly formed different groups of bandits from the ordinary ghosts and started training them in military tactics. They also armed them with stones and metallic clubs to use as weapons. After training for some time, they led the banditry to the palace to overthrow the government of the Ghoes.

At the time of the attack, the Ghoes were seated in a meeting in which they were coincidentally discussing about the future of their two deputies. They were taken by surprise by the thugs who stormed the boardroom at once. In no time, the thugs pulled off the crowns from their skulls before they could react.

In the struggle that ensued, two of the ten Ghoes managed to escape by disguising as palace servants. They ran away from the palace to the residential areas from where they disappeared completely after mixing with the ordinary ghosts. The remaining eight Ghoes were helpless because by then, they had not yet built a standing army that could have defended them. Even the servants at the palace could do nothing to save them because the bandits were outnumbering them.

It did not take long before the other ordinary ghosts learnt about the coup. Immediately, they staged a strike and headed straight to the palace to save the Ghoes. However, Roth and Luthus had already planned for them.

The first group of rioters that arrived at the palace was left to enter through the Western gate without impediment.When all of them were inside, all the gate were closed to prevent more rioters from entering.

The rioters, who were chanting slogans that were praising the Ghoes, moved straight to the Ruthst Square and started calling Roth and Luthus to come out of the palace. But they were surprised to see that none of the guards that had been deployed at the palace seemed to be bothered by their presence.

When Luthus came out of the palace to face them, his looks had changed so much because he was putting on a black crown on his skull, which made him look like a monster. He went straight to the platform and stood in front of them. He said no word but instead he raised his one arm and pointed at the sky.

Immediately a strong lightning came from the clouds and struck into the middle of the rioters. It burnt to ash some of the skeletons that were standing in the middle of the group. Others were lifted up in the air by the violent windstorm that followed the lightning and by the time they returned to the ground, their skeletons had been shattered into pieces.

The ghosts that remained standing were dispersed in different directions as they tried to run away from this mysterious lightning. The northern gate was intentionally opened to let a few of them escape so that they could spread the information about what had happened to their colleagues so that those who had intentions of striking could be warned in advance.

Those that were prevented from escaping were arrested and chained by the palace guards. The following day, they were forced to start constructing an underground dungeon which was to be their own prison. For the following seven days, they worked on this site without resting until when it was completed.

The ordinary ghosts were invited to the Ruthst Square to watch for themselves as their colleagues marched into the underground prison where they were to spend the rest of their time. The eight Ghoes entered into the prison first and were followed by the other ghosts.

From that day, Luthus announced himself as the new leader of the planet. He gave himself the title “LORD GHOST’’ and made Roth his deputy. The presence of the dungeon and his possession of unknown magical powers instilled fear in the ordinary ghosts. They were always reluctant to rise against his regime for fear of ending up in prison. But the more he stayed in power, the more the ghosts hated him.

The bandits that had helped him overthrow the Ghoes were further trained militarily and formed a standing army which he used to pass on his decrees to the ordinary ghosts. The army would perform raids in the residential areas of the ordinary ghosts in which it could arrest many that it could suspected to be harboring intentions of rising against Lord Ghost. For his first ten years in power, he concentrated much effort in looking for the two Ghoes that had escaped from the palace on the day he had attacked it.

Many ghosts who were suspected to be the two Ghoes and those that they suspected to be their accomplices were always arrested and imprisoned without trial, on a daily basis. But with time, Lord Ghost gave up on searching for the two Ghoes, thinking that he might have arrested them among the other prisoners. However, he maintained a strong spy network to track down the dissidents before they could invade the palace.

But all that had happened hundreds of thousands of years before. Not many ghosts were present in the days of the Ghoes. Actually, to many of the young ghosts, the story of the Ghoes was like a fare tale, that was always being told to them by the pioneer ghosts. Some even thought that the story had been concocted by the pioneer ghosts to make them hate their leader Lord Ghost!

CHAPTER TWO

THE FIRST RAID ON EARTH

From the Ruthst square, Lord Ghost had moved straight to the boardroom of his palace. He had scheduled to attend another meeting with all the ten generals with whom they had been planning for the attack on earth. Four of the generals plus Roth, had remained on planet Ghostia for all the four hundred years. They had been left in charge of the administration of the planet. They would only meet Lord Ghost once in a while for consultations. Lord Ghost and the other six generals had been underneath making preparations for the battle with man which was in the offing.

In his speech to the generals, Lord Ghost first summarized all the events that had taken place in the four hundred years in their chronological order. They had started with enlarging the prison into a giant science laboratory, arsenal and a training ground for their soldiers and scientists, a process which took them over ten years. The prisoners that had been locked up in the dungeon by then were the ones that were used to construct this underground complex. From above the ground, it still looked like a simple dungeon which made it difficult for the ordinary ghosts to suspect that something different was taking place down there. The opening which served as both exit and entrance was heavily guarded by the palace guards to prevent any unauthorized intruder from ever getting access to it.

This underground structure was encompassing five hundred acres and went four stories deep! It had existed for all those years without any ordinary ghost knowing. But the truth was that only a small section of the facility had been reserved as a prison. In fact, only the eight Ghoes were being kept there. All the other ghosts that had been caught before and those who were caught after had been persuaded to join Lord Ghost in his attempts to subdue earth. Some had been absorbed into the military force, while others were used as scientists. Those that had refused to comply were forced to provide manual labor on the facility.

Lord Ghost explained that after building the complex, they started recruiting more soldiers and scientists. To persuade them to join him, Lord Ghost promised to free them after conquering earth and to give them better living places of their choice on earth. Half of the first floor from the top had been designed as a training ground for these soldiers. All the soldiers first underwent a basic training for fifty years. This involved learning discipline, marksmanship and military courtesy. They were also toughened by calisthenics, marches and close combat drills.

After that, they went into advanced individual training for more ten years. From there, they were assigned to different units to learn working as a team. From those units, they were further trained as specialists in different areas for example infantry squad leadership, aircraft operation and advanced computer systems. Training devices were always used to simulate conditions of spaceflight and different earthly environmental conditions. They were often placed in large centrifuges that could spin up to speeds of ten thousand revolutions per minute, to get acclimatized to some of the conditions in which they were to fight with man.

In addition, the warriors had been trained in tactics that could enable them survive, in case they were forced to land in a water body or any other place on earth with adverse climatic conditions, for example deserts and rugged mountains. Lastly, they received intensive scientific and spacecraft systems training plus rigorous drills in athletics. By the end of the training, all the warriors were specialists in sea, air and land based warfare. Each soldier could operate virtually every weapon they could come across, starting from simple stones and clubs to the most sophisticated war planes and missile systems. Each skeleton warrior was therefore far better than any human soldier on earth.

But the greatest venture the ghosts had undertaken was developing their air force. Right from the start, they had envisioned that an air force with a great striking power was to be the greatest decisive factor in any battle with humans. Many aircraft, which had high degrees of maneuverability coupled with hypersonic flight speeds were manufactured. The whole second floor of the underground facility was designed as an aircraft manufacturing and testing plant.

Work on these aircraft began with developing the alloy they were to use to build their bodies. It took them fifty years to discover an alloy which was lighter than manmade duralumin but at the same time two hundred times stronger than steel! In case of collision with a concrete building on earth, the aircraft could move away without any damage on its fuselage. The alloy could even resist blasting when hit by most anti-aircraft missiles.

These aircraft had been installed with the best weapon systems possible. They had a high energy liquid laser area defense system that could emit laser beams that were one hundred times hotter than an electric stove. Such lasers could shoot down any manmade projectile including rockets, missiles and artillery shells, with a lot of ease. By heating its skin, the projectile could be weakened and then fail due to high speed stress. These lasers were to be the primary antimissile weapons of these aircraft, but could also be used to shoot down military planes in a vicinity of two hundred feet during a dogfight.

More still, the aircraft had been armed with air-to-air missiles which had advanced computerized homing guidance systems. The missiles were semi-autonomous in a way that once fired at a target they could hunt it down wherever it would go whilst taking evasive action against counter anti-missiles. They could do this without need for external signals since they could guide themselves towards the set target until they could hit it.

The stealth system of the aircraft had been worked upon for more than seventy years. They were totally invisible to radar, infrared, sonar or any other detection methods used by man. With this stealth system, plus total silence during flight, they were capable of passing through the most restricted airspaces on earth unimpeded. Secondly, they had been equipped with advanced radar jamming systems which could fail even the most sophisticated Passive and Bistatic radars of the most powerful countries on earth. Speed was another plus for the aircraft. traveling hypersonically at Mach 40, the slowest would take less than twenty hours to reach earth.

According to size, they fell into three categories; large, medium and small. The large ones were about the size of a large ship and were the slowest of all. They were mainly utility aircraft, designed to perform miscellaneous missions like carrying large numbers of skeleton warriors and cargo loads. They could even be used to carry more than ten other small spacecraft. The medium-sized aircraft were the functional unit of the air force. Given their high speed and degree of maneuverability, they could serve as both fighters and bombers. The small aircraft, the fastest of all were mainly tactical fighters.

All the three types of aircraft needed no runways since they could land and take off vertically like manmade helicopters. Another unique feature was their ability to submerge in a water body and remain concealed in one place or steer through the water like manmade submarines. Apart from the warriors that had specialized as full time pilots all the fighters had been equipped with some knowledge on how to operate these aircraft.

Other weapons that the ghosts were to use had been manufactured from the last floor at the bottom of the underground facility. This floor was actually the strongest of all because it was their armory and missile test center.

After Lord Ghost’s speech, Gen. Cov, the commander in chief of their forces made a presentation about how the war was to be conducted. They were to attack earth three times. The first two attacks were to be preliminary raids and the real attack was to be the third one. The first preliminary raid was to be a reconnaissance mission on earth. It was to take place at the George Bush Centre for Intelligence, the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. To every one’s surprise, the general gave a detailed structural location of the headquarters and how they were to be accessed by their soldiers.

“The George Bush Centre for Intelligence serves as the headquarters of the US Central Intelligence Agency. The center is located at 1000 Colonial farm road in McLean, Fairfax County, in the US state of Virginia. It is found at latitude N 38o 57.1733’ and longitude W 77^0 9.1487’, two miles west of Washington along the Potomac River. The perimeter of the site is bounded by trees for most of its part, especially on the side of the river.

“The center consists of a New Headquarters building that is joined to the West facade of the original building. The new building is a six storied steel and glass structure whereas the original building is a concrete structure. The buildings and ground sit on an area of two hundred fifty eight acres of land. The center can be accessed via George Washington Memorial Parkway or State Route 123.”

“Our interests there are the CIA World Factbook and the CIA electric brain called WALNUT. The electric brain stores and retrieves countless information about every major topic that takes place on earth on a daily basis. This brain stores and updates details about all countries, in terms of weapons and the military capabilities they possess and biographies of all major people on earth. This brain’s information can be accessed by a CIA officer by means of a photo tape robot called Intellofax, but our spies shall simply hack into its computer systems in order to access this vital information."

“Our spies shall also get access to the scientific laboratory where CIA officers perfect their tiny weapons, unique explosives and other miniaturized devices. We may be intrigued to make advanced copies of some, just in case. This information about the headquarters had been gathered from the few dead CIA officers they had managed to get on their side.

To the ghosts, attacking CIA was equivalent to sending spies to all the Intelligence centres of all countries on earth because they believed that they could get all the information they wanted from this place.

The next day, two aircraft were brought to the surface from the underground facility. They started performing a flight test which lasted for two hours, in anticipation of their first mission on earth. Both aircraft were triangular in shape, but of different sizes. The first one was a medium-sized aircraft which was to carry over one hundred skeleton warriors. The second one was a small-sized aircraft and was to take a team of ten computer hackers on board

The warriors in the first raid were to attack the CIA Headquarters and place a jamming instrument in the New Headquarters building. The hackers were to remain in their aircraft and use the advanced computer systems they had carried on board, to pilfer all the information from the electric brain. According to Gen. Cov, none of the two aircraft was to engage the US military planes in a dogfight. Their main weapon was to be speed! They were to enter the US airspace at a blinding speed and leave it in the same way.

The send-off of the two aircraft was witnessed by Lord Ghost, Roth, Gen. Cov and the other nine generals only. All the ghosts, including the warriors, were not allowed to attend the event. With all crew on board, the pilots started the engines and within two seconds only, the aircraft were airborne. Throughout their flight in space, the aircraft moved in a close trail formation and always maintained the same speed. They succeeded in evading detection from all manmade space based satellites and telescopes.

After spending ten hours in flight, they reached low earth orbit, one hundred miles away from the surface of the earth. It was then that they separated, with the small aircraft heading towards the Pacific Ocean and the other towards the Atlantic Ocean. Above the Atlantic Ocean, the medium-sized aircraft first reduced speed before diving into the water body. It entered the water swiftly but without causing any sound that could have alerted sailors on the ocean.

The warriors went out of the aircraft by means of a pressurized exit system at the rear of the aircraft which could not allow any water to enter into it. They swam the whole distance from the ocean up to the Chesapeake Bay until when they reached the mouth of River Potomac. Once in the river, they continued swimming until when they reached Langley. Throughout the whole course, the skeletons maintained a deeper position near the ocean floor and river bed, to avoid being spotted by sailors and fishermen who were moving over the water surface. They only resurfaced at the time of leaving the river.

Upon stepping on the river bank, a strong whirlwind enveloped them. The wind then started blowing towards George Washington Memorial Parkway with the skeletons running within it at the same speed. For its path from the river bank to the highway, the wind caused no major structural damage. Branches of the large trees were thrown into constant motion while the smaller trees were left swaying. Most of the leaves from these trees were carried away by the wind. The wind was traveling at a speed of 70 Km/h while rotating counterclockwise like a tornado. However it was not a real tornado because it lacked a funnel contact with the clouds in the skies. In fact, all the skies had remained clear, indicating no major change in the weather.

The wind took everyone by surprise because there had been no tornado warning issued by the US National Weather Service. The sound of an approaching freight train had served as the only warning to those who were in its path. The lucky ones who had been quick to recognize it managed to run away while those that remained in its way found themselves being hit by piles of leaves and other debris that were floating in it.

Upon touching GW Parkway, the whirlwind increased its speed to 90KM/hr. Though the cars were not picked up, the light ones were pushed sideways which caused numerous collisions among the cars as the drivers panicked to stop them. Pieces of flying debris knocked the car windows and shredded their glasses into small pieces which the wind carried away. Many passengers sustained several cuts on their bodies from these broken glasses. Pedestrians who were on the highway were also blown sideways. Many fell to the ground but were not picked up by the wind. Walking became difficult to those who remained standing. They had to stand still and wait for the wind to pass.

Although the wind had picked up much dust which made it translucent, visibility had not been reduced very much. Passengers could see through it, but with some degree of obscurity. Cars jammed as drivers and pedestrians gazed at the sight of human skeletons which were running within the wind, armed with very glittering swords. Only those within the coverage of the wind could see these alien creatures. They tried to contact the police several times but their claims were taken lightly. Others went on to capture photos and videos of the incident on their smart phones and posted them on social media for the whole world to see.

Authorities in Fairfax County tried to reach the US National Weather Service and NASA for help. However, meteorologists at the two centers had already been puzzled. They were receiving numerous reports about the same incident from different sources, but they had failed to track the wind on their Satellite and Doppler radar systems. They could thus issue no appropriate response at the moment.

Local fire departments decided to sound sirens on their own. Traffic on GW Parkway was stopped and the police started directing all the cars off the highway.

When it reached the private road that links GW Parkway to the CIA Headquarters, the whirlwind changed course. It was now evident that the wind was headed for the headquarters! CIA officers who were at the headquarters started hearing sounds of rushing water rapids moving in their direction. The sound was continuously turning into a strong whooshing roar as it went closer to the headquarters. The ground and the buildings at the campus started shaking, a phenomenon which they had never experienced before.

All the CIA agents were thrown into a commotion after realizing that something dangerous was imminent. But before they could get out of the buildings to escape, the whirlwind blasted open the windows. Communication antennas fell from the top of the building and broke into smaller pieces. These broken pieces joined the piles of debris which were constantly knocking hard on the walls of the buildings to create ways for the skeletons to enter through. With the heavy forestation around the perimeter, the skeletons found yet another tool. Broken branches and barks scrapped from the trees added to the hitting power of the debris.

Within only two minutes, all the two hundred acres of the campus land had been engulfed by the wind. Surprisingly, Instead of blowing to other parts, the whirlwind became stationary and started rotating over the headquarters only. The sound from it could be heard even at a distance of a mile away.

Although the wind was very strong at the periphery, it had a very calm center of extremely low pressure, especially near the buildings. The wind was therefore throwing every solid it had picked, from the periphery to the center. These were the solids which were puncturing holes in the walls of the building, which provided quick entrance for the skeletons.

The agents who had been entrapped in the building had no way of escaping. Many had already been seriously injured by the huge chunks of debris which were passing through the holes that had been punctured in the walls of the buildings. More to their disadvantage, visibility was very low, which made it hard for them to see the solids that were flying towards them plus the skeletons on time.

As they would be wandering in different directions looking for safe hideouts, they would come across one or two skeletons that were also searching for them. Using their double edged swords, the skeletons would slash them into pieces before continuing with the hunt for others.

Due to poor visibility, the security guards at the headquarters had been forced to start shooting aimlessly in different directions. At some instances, they ended up shooting their own colleagues who were running away from the skeletons. The skeletons would attack them by surprise and cut off their arms that were holding the fire arms. As they fell to the ground in pain, the skeletons would further go on to slice their bodies into pieces

As some skeletons were checking within the buildings for CIA agents others were busy manipulating the jamming instrument. It was a small triangular instrument which was constantly rotating in air within one room in a clockwise direction, whilst flashing blue light sequentially. The warriors had no control over its movement as it was receiving signals from the hackers that had stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

It was not until when the whirlwind became stationary over the CIA headquarters that a military solution was sought by the authorities. The National Weather Service together with NASA contacted Pentagon and the Joint Canada-US North American Air Defense Command, NORAD. With request from NORAD, the Federal Aviation Administration which controls the whole US airspace imposed a temporary flight restriction on all civilian planes which were in the US skies at the moment. Air traffic controllers started issuing orders to all pilots of these planes to descend to designated airfields. This was done to avoid collisions between civilian planes and the military planes which had started rising to patrol the skies.

When the airspace was cleared, it became militarily controlled by NORAD. The US National Weather Service also ordered for an immediate evacuation of all locals from all towns near Langley because they could not determine where the whirlwind was to head next.

Troops were amassed in different parts of the state of Virginia but mostly in Fairfax County. Foot soldiers and others who were moving through armored cars began patrolling the streets which the civilians had abandoned. Special military teams were deployed in Washington DC at all major US landmarks like the White House, Capitol Hill and Pentagon itself. Each of these buildings was assigned an F-15 fighter plane and a B-52 Stealth bomber to patrol the air above them.

Police helicopters and convoys of armored cars were sent to those buildings to help in the evacuation of all VIPs who work from there. The US President had been taken on board the Air Force one before it soared into the skies. The Vice President had been rushed to a secure bunker underneath the White House. The Secretary of Defense and the other high ranking officers of the US Military had also been transferred from the Pentagon to Site R.

NORAD ordered for the scrambling of two fighter planes from the 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base to patrol the air above the occupied headquarters. The fighters had not been ordered to shoot into the whirlwind at the moment because there were still hopes of having some CIA agents who had not yet died. Plans were underway to have them rescued.

The vortex of the whirlwind later changed mysteriously after the all skeletons had entered the buildings. Instead of pulling more debris into its center, it started throwing them away. Many piles of such debris were reaching as far as two miles away from the headquarters. They would act as ammunition wherever they fell, resulting into massive structural damage and casualties.

The greatest concentrations of the military forces were on GW Parkway and State Routes 123 and 193. The highways had been blocked by the falling debris which the wind was throwing from the collapsing CIA headquarters buildings. These falling debris prevented the soldiers from stepping out of their armored cars for fear of being hit on their heads. Military officers at Pentagon were uncertain of what to direct the troops to do! The whole periphery of the wind was by then encircled by a cloud of flying debris which made it difficult for the infantrymen to cross into it.

But after the wind had occupied the headquarters for over one hour, the US Military decided to use force. Two teams of artillerymen each consisting of one hundred soldiers were sent into the howling wind. These brave soldiers who were moving inside heavy military tanks and armored cars entered the wind from two different directions. Their mission was to search and rescue the CIA agents that were still stranded inside the buildings.

However, immediately after entering the whirlwind, its spinning speed more than doubled. All the tanks were blown, rolled and mangled on the ground. The skeletons hurriedly attacked the soldiers and pulled them out of their disfigured tanks. They sliced them into pieces with their swords and released them into the wind. The pieces started floating in the wind until when they were thrown in the neighborhood. Many of these body pieces landed in the nearby highways where the majority of the troops had been stationed. The soldiers who were seated in their vehicles could see countless body parts of their colleagues knocking on top of their vehicles before falling to the ground. The body parts were followed by metallic fragments that had been broken from their tanks. It was as if the whirlwind was dropping them on the troops to deter them from attempting to enter it again!

The extermination of the two artillery teams signified to the army that no CIA officer was still surviving inside the wind. Plans to destroy the whole headquarters had to be devised in order to kill the skeletons before they could move on to another area.

A B-52 stealth bomber from Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts arrived at the scene with an order to bomb down the whole complex. The first bomb it dropped was directly targeted at the New Headquarters Building but it did not reach the ground. It collided with the huge chunks of debris that were floating in the wind which caused it to explode before reaching the building.

After the failure of the first one, the bomber dropped two more bombs in succession. Although they did not explode from within the wind, they still did not reach any of the buildings. Instead, the wind captured them and forced them to float within it just like the other debris. One minute later, they were released by the centripetal forces of the wind into the surrounding. One fell on GW Parkway while the other fell in a nearby town. Both of them exploded upon landing on the ground, causing many casualties and serious injuries to the civilians and the troops.

The military was left with no other option apart from watching from a distance! The wind was by then spinning at a greater speed than before. It was constantly dissipating metallic splinters in the neighborhood. All the cars that were in the CIA parking were broken down and their parts added to the splinters the wind was blowing away. Some of the small cars were completely lifted up and then thrown on the troop concentrations on the highway.

After occupying the headquarters for two hours, the wind started compressing dramatically and reduced its area of coverage. As it compressed, its strength kept on increasing. It leveled all the buildings and swept their foundations completely clean. It then shredded the rubble into smaller pieces before scattering them in different directions. When it reached the size of two football pitches, it gathered the remaining debris into one huge pile at its center. It blew them up at an upward velocity of 5m/s. They reached as high as 1500 feet off the ground and by the time they started falling back, the whirlwind had already left the campus.

When leaving, it moved at a peak speed of 300m/h. From the campus it headed towards the agency’s southern main entrance on State Route 123. It avoided the State Route’s interchange with GW Parkway by moving eastwards to Old Keene Mill Road, and descended back into Potomac Valley. The wind then fizzled and dissipated into the river. It emptied all the piles of debris, leaves and dust in the river which caused temporary obstruction of the water flow in the river.

On its way from the agency to the river, the wind ripped off pavements of asphalt from the two roads and blew them hundreds of yards away. All what was left were numerous trenches of over two feet deep which it had dug in both highways. All the cars that had been abandoned on SR 123 were piled up on each other while the small ones were blown away. The F-15s had managed to chase the wind and were in good positions above it but were restrained from shooting into it for fear of repeating the incident that had occurred at Langley.

Immediately after disappearing into the river, seven F-15 fighters were assigned a Combat Air Patrol mission above the river and nearby areas. Three of them were flying above the whole extent of the river, two over the Chesapeake Bay and the other two above the Atlantic Ocean but closer to the coast of Virginia. The fighters were stationed in nearly low altitude and were flying tactical patterns around their positions whilst carefully screening the areas, in search of the alien attackers that they were expecting to rise out of the water very soon.

Unlike in the Atlantic Ocean, It had been a different incident for the small aircraft as it was entering the Pacific Ocean. There had been a fleet of three fishing vessels in the same area where the aircraft had planned to enter the water body from. The ships were probably returning with their catch to the Siuslaw Port in the state of Oregon. The aircraft did not reduce its speed and ended up colliding with the ship that was in the middle of the fleet. Due to its great speed, the impact was so strong that it caused the ship to wreck into pieces at once. The aircraft however did not receive any damage because of the strength of the alloy which the ghosts had used to build its body. It instead moved up to the floor of the ocean and settled there.

Even when the aircraft disappeared beneath the water surface, the water on the surface continued churning violently without stopping which prevented the other two ships from escaping. They were completely covered by the series of high water tides that developed and ended up colliding with each other. All the crew on board got no chance to escape. All of them perished with their sinking ships.

I was when the aircraft settled at the bottom of the ocean that the hackers had started controlling the jamming instrument which their colleagues had placed in one of the buildings at Langley. They successfully hacked into the computer systems at the headquarters. They pilfered all the information that was on the electric brain and stored it on the storage devices they had carried along.

Throughout their stay at the floor of the ocean, the water at the surface never settled at all. When the water tides faded away, a violent whirlwind formed above the ocean surface in the same area. This caused the water to start spinning like a cyclone. The inward spiraling vortex of the wind was however unlike that of usual cyclones that rotate only in counterclockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere. This cyclone could spin in both directions. It would rotate in a counterclockwise direction for some time and would then abruptly change to a clockwise rotation. It kept on changing like this over and over again.

For every moment that it changed the pattern of rotation, huge volumes of water would be displaced to the coast of Florence town. Some of this water was driven by the wind back into the Siuslaw River and reached as far as the Siuslaw Bridge. The wind ripped part of the bridge from its mount, tossed it up in the air and then dropped it into the river which carried it to the ocean.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Center was receiving numerous reports about the unusual phenomenon that was occurring on the Pacific Ocean but it could not trace it with its satellite earth imaging systems. When several witnesses who had seen the UFO colliding with the vessels reported to NOAA, it was prompted to seek military intervention.

NOAA contacted the US Pacific Command Headquarters at Pearl Harbor Naval Base for help. USS Stockdale, a guided missile destroyer from the command center was sent to the scene to verify the claims. However, it was forced to keep a distance away because it could not ride the turbulent waters it found. Even its helicopters had to remain on deck lest they could be damaged by the strong whirlwind that was blowing over the water.

When the triangular aircraft was about to rise from the depth of the ocean, the cyclone disappeared for some minutes. A search for the bodies of the fishermen and wreckages from their ships was started immediately. USS Stockdale had to move closer to help in this operation. The rescuers were joined by teams from the US Coastguards and Marines. Dozens of civilians also thronged the coast to help the police pick up the ship wreckages that were being washed ashore by the tides.

Another team of frogmen who were also attached to the US Coastguards dived into the ocean to find out whether the said UFO was on the ocean floor. However, the divers had only spent twenty seconds in the water when the ocean was mysteriously driven back for a distance of quarter a mile. This resulted into recession of the shoreline and the exposure of the normally submerged parts of the ocean. The wreckages of the ships that had been scattered on the exposed shoreline attracted the policemen and civilians to move forwards from the coast to pick them.

Ten seconds later, a strong wind mysteriously forced its way out of the water body at once. It lifted all the divers from beneath the water surface and threw them up in the air! Stockdale quickly sensed danger and rushed away from the scene at a fast speed of 35 knots! It only stopped after reaching two miles away, where the water was still calm. The policemen and civilians also tried to run back to the coast but failed. Before they could reach the dry land, the ocean recoiled with redoubled force, in a tsunami-like style. The smashing force of the wall of water that travelled to the coast knocked them down. All of them drowned and were carried away by the water as it returned to the ocean.

The wind quickly turned into a whirlwind which caused another cyclone to develop over the ocean. This swirling wind started lifting a dome of water which turned into an unusual waterspout. The waterspout kept on increasing in height but was stationary in one place. The funnel of this vortex was blue in color and was even visible from a distance two river miles away. Its diameter was however large enough to cover the UFO which was rising through it.

The crew on Stockdale guessed right that the aircraft was rising through the funnel and thus fired two harpoon missiles into it. They had targeted the middle of the funnel where a bulge was, but the two missiles exploded midway. A hot laser beam produced by the aircraft cut through their skins which caused them to explode and fall into the ocean before they could reach it. The explosion of the missiles was followed by multiple failure in the control and weapon systems of the destroyer, preventing it from firing more missiles at the rising aircraft.

The life span of the waterspout was short-lived because as soon as the aircraft emerged out of its funnel, it dissipated abruptly. Even the whirlwind that was blowing over the ocean lost strength which caused the cyclone to disappear. It was then that the destroyer regained control over its systems and managed to move closer to help in the intensive search and rescue mission that followed.

The small aircraft ascended back into space before the medium-sized aircraft. This was because the skeleton warriors from Langley had to first swim the whole distance from the river up to the Atlantic Ocean. Their hideout in the Atlantic Ocean was however never found out by the US Military because it had concentrated much of its efforts on the river. They thought that the skeletons had stationed their second aircraft in the Potomac River because it’s where the whirlwind from Langley had been seen disappearing from.

But unlike in the Pacific Ocean where the skeletons had used a cyclone to shield themselves from human interference, the water in the Atlantic Ocean remained calm even when the aircraft was rising. There was neither a whirlwind nor a cyclone that developed but the aircraft relied on its speed to evade man’s interception.

The F-15 fighter that was patrolling over the Ocean noticed the aircraft in time but the UFO attacked it before it could respond. The UFO produced a hot laser beam which cut through the fighter’s fuselage and caused it to go out of control from its pilot. The lucky pilot however managed to escape by ejecting moments before the plane crash landed into the ocean. But before crashing, it had managed to notify the two fighters that were patrolling the Chesapeake Bay about the UFO. These two fighters tried to chase the UFO by flying supersonically after it, but they were out competed by the triangular aircraft which was flying hypersonically.

In the hours that followed, the Governor of Virginia declared a state of emergency in Fairfax County. A massive search and rescue mission was launched by the Federal Government and volunteers in all areas that had been hit by the whirlwind and floods in McLean and Florence towns respectively.

At the CIA Headquarters, a special team from the US military started combing through the rubble in search for both digital and hard paper copies of classified documents that had been scattered over the area. No member of the general public could be allowed to reach the site because the documents were still considered ‘classified.’ The hard copy documents were packed and loaded on military trucks which drove them to Pentagon for temporary storage.

No CIA agent had managed to survive the tragedy. Their sliced body parts that were being removed from the rubble were wrapped in body bags and then driven away by police ambulances. They were taken to different hospitals for DNA testing in order to establish their identities before they were buried in honor in different military cemeteries. Most of the trees at the perimeter had been uprooted and broken into pieces by the wind. Those that had survived were left completely devoid of leaves and branches.

Initially, a handful of dead bodies were found in the other areas where the wind had passed, but in the days that followed, many were found buried in the rubble and many others were pulled out of the Pacific Ocean. By the fifth day, the death toll had reached five thousands, with two thousands estimated to have died at Langley only. According to the experts, the energy that had been released by the whirlwind at the CIA headquarters only was estimated to have been more than two hundred Hiroshima atomic bombs combined.

The US Secretary of Defense, Dick Murphy hastily organized a press conference in which he expressed his worry about the future of the planet. “Alarm bells are ringing for the whole world. An attack on earth from extraterrestrials may be imminent. We should be ready to put aside all our political differences if we are to preserve our dignity as humans. I would like to assure the world that the US Armed Forces shall always be committed to preserving the sanctity of humanity by all means .........., " he said.

In a press release from the White House, President Anthony .F. Shaw, unlike his secretary of defense avoided mention about extraterrestrials. “Our sincerest prayers go to the parents, relatives and friends of all our innocent citizens whose lives have perished this day. We have them in our hearts and we shall always remember them. With special honor, we shall always remember our officers that lost their lives in this regrettable experience. They were true heroes who died on duty. But I want to assure the whole world that the ‘War on Terror’ shall continue, with or without CIA! We still have the capacity to defend our interests and the interests of our allies both at home and abroad………….. From today, we are even more committed to guaranteeing the security of mother earth, the only planet we have in this universe…..." it read in part.

The press and authorities started interviewing some of the witnesses and survivors of the tragedy to gather information about the attack. Both NORAD and NASA admitted that they had completely failed to track any of the two UFOs on their radars and satellites.They admitted that the two aircraft were operating at speeds that were hundreds of times faster than their supersonic fighter planes. According to the soldiers who were on USS Stockdale, the smaller aircraft had an extreme rate of climb, maneuverability and general lack of noise. The radar systems on their destroyer had been completely switched off as the aircraft emerged out of the waterspout. They reported to have used binoculars and naked eyes to see it as it emerged from the waterspout because all their computerised systems had been jammed temporarily.

More than 80% of the people who were interviewed by the press in USA and Canada believed that the aircraft were to return soon. They postulated that the second attack would even be more disastrous than the first one. Their main worry was that if the aircraft had managed to pass through the world’s most restricted airspace unimpeded, then what would happen if they were to attack a poor country in Africa?

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 other 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 sixty 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.

The skeletons tried hard to slash them with their swords, but the soldiers would perfectly use their swords as shields against them. Even the slashes that could reach their bodies would be deflected away by the thick rubber strap of their uniforms. When they failed to cut them, the skeletons plotted to first disarm the soldiers. However, as the skeletons concentrated their efforts on taking away the guns, it gave more chances to the soldiers to do more offensive to them. By the tenth minute, the soldiers had not registered any injury on their side despite the efforts the skeletons had put in to cut them.

The skeletons decided to first run away from the battle scene because the human soldiers had started overpowering them. When they reached one hundred meters away, the wind became stationary again. Its spinning speed and strength more than doubled. A minute later, the skeletons and the whirlwind returned with renewed vigor. The soldiers were made to lose their balance by the strength of the wind, forcing them to start struggling to hold onto the armored cars for anchorage. One by one, the ghosts would come across them and would cut them several times all over their bodies. The soldiers’ ability to fight back had been reduced because they had to maintain one arm holding onto the vehicles in order to avoid being blown away.

But the greatest challenge which the soldiers were facing was the way the wind kept on changing its pattern of rotation. It would rotate in a clockwise direction for a while and would then change abruptly to a counterclockwise pattern before going back to the clockwise direction. It kept on doing this over and over again and whenever it would change pattern, some unlucky human soldiers would be lifted aloft. As they floated within the wind, the skeletons would find it easy to stab them repeatedly and after some time the rubber coating of the outermost layer of their uniforms loosened. The metallic plates of the second layer also started protruding through the cut areas and later dropped off.

The soldiers were then relying on the innermost layer of Kevlar for defense against the stabbing effects of the swords. Though they were not being cut, they were constantly feeling pain from the bludgeoning attacks. Due to this pain, the company started losing the courage to continue with the fight. They had not only become tired, but had also started registering some casualties. The skeletons were however even more determined to see them die.

The last blow to the human soldiers came when the wind started moving up and down in a series. As it rose, it would lift the soldiers up to a distance of over ninety feet off the ground. It would then push them down to the ground as it returned. It was through this regular rising and falling of the wind that the greatest number of the soldiers were killed. Whenever the soldiers would be carried up in the air, three or four skeletons would hold their swords vertically on the ground below them. As the wind raced back to the ground with them, they would fall on the tips of these swords. The swords would then manage to penetrate through the Kevlar lining of the soldiers’ suits and hence pierce through their flesh.

Lt. Col. Tim also died in the same way. After being lifted up by the rising wind, four skeletons staged their swords below him. When the wind pushed him back to the ground, he fell on these swords. One pierced through his thoracic region and reached his heart which caused him to die instantly.

All along, the soldiers in the helicopters had just been watching the ground fight from above. Though they were also armed with M16 rifles, they had not tried to take action for fear of injuring their colleagues who were battling with the skeletons on the ground. But when the wind started blowing away the sliced body parts of their colleagues, the pilots decided to call for help from their seniors. “Bodies of our colleagues are being thrown out of the wind, sir!” one pilot reported. “We need an elite squad sir! Team Bravo has been eliminated….,” reported another pilot.

Their seniors responded by sending a more elite squad of US Navy SEALS. The SEALS were putting on a similar personal armor, but their heads were covered with Modular Integrated Communications Helmets instead. The communication gadgets that had been installed on these helmets enabled them to communicate with each other and to receive orders from their team leader, Col. Davison. The helmets had also been fitted with AN/PVS-14 Monocular night vision devices, to provide a better vision through the translucent wind.

At the time of their arrival, the skeletons had killed almost all the soldiers of the first squad and had started opening the armored vehicles to obtain the two scientists who were by then lying unconscious in their car seats. The SEALS started by shooting into the wind to disperse them away from the cars before they dashed into the howling wind.

They were using XM25 Individual Airburst Weapons as their rifles! These computerized firearms were capable of shooting a next generation of 25mm grenades that could be set to explode in mid-air at or near the target from a distance of up to five hundred meters away.

The detonating distance of the grenades could also be manually adjusted by the user, ten feet longer or shorter before hitting the target. These firearms were a perfect choice for the skeletons which were running in unarmored targets because the grenades could detonate at a proper distance to produce an airburst effect. The resulting fragments could then distribute evenly over a wide area, but without penetrating the armored entrenchments of the military vehicles in which the two scientists had been abandoned. The soldiers continued shooting without stopping and five minutes later, they had managed to injure five skeletons. The five skeletons had been shattered into pieces and their bones had been lifted up and were also floating in the whirlwind.

The SEALS had also come with remote controlled Black Knight military tanks which they sent into the wind first. As soon as they entered the wind, they started shooting at the skeletons with their 30mm cannon guns. With their advanced autonomous navigation system, these tanks had the capability to design and follow their own routes without dependence on outside sources. This enabled them to trace and target the skeletons with a higher degree of accuracy on their own. The tanks were also moving in groups of five, being separated by very small gaps which made it difficult for the wind to blow down any of them.

The helicopters had also been ordered to fly back to Moffett Airfield. They had been replaced by two F-15 Eagles from the 144th Fighter Wing at Fresno Air National Guard Base. An MQ-1 Predator drone from the 163rd Reconnaissance Wing at March Joint Air Reserve Base in Riverside was also sent to the scene. Although this unmanned aircraft was armed with two air-to-surface Hellfire missiles, its mission was capturing live streams of the events that were taking place at the battlefield. It was feeding the videos directly to the US National Military Command Center in Pentagon. The whole action was thus being watched live by officials at Pentagon and other US Military Command Centers.

Before entering into the howling wind, the SEALS changed weapons from Airburst firearms to double edged swords and large diamante shields that could protect the whole of their bodies. Apart from intercepting attacks from projectiles, the shields could also be used as bludgeoning weapons against the skeletons. When in the wind, the soldiers occupied the gaps between the tanks to avoid being blown away because the tanks were acting as their wind breakers. Others went on to anchor themselves to the tanks by fairly long chain straps just in case the wind became more disastrous. Those that went far away from the tanks copied the skeleton’s style of running in the same direction as the wind to maintain balance.

The wind had reduced in strength because there were a few remaining skeletons. This served in favor of the SEALS since they could then fight well with the skeletons without facing much resistance from the wind. Soldiers from each side were swinging their swords in the best way they could in order to slash their adversaries. Sounds from these swinging swords filled the place as they constantly hit each other. The skeletons would have been better at fighting with swords than humans but the shields the soldiers were using could not let any sword reach them. Instead the SEALS were successful in cutting the skeletons at some instances.

After fighting with the SEALS for a duration of twenty minutes, the remaining skeletons decided to give up. They stopped attacking the human soldiers and rushed to the armored cars. They pulled out the two scientists and wrapped them in their body bags. They took them alive without dissecting them because the soldiers could not permit them to do so. They ran away from the scene towards the Pacific Ocean in which they dived out of sight. The SEALS tried to run after the whirlwind but their heavy personal armor could not allow them to move faster. The two F-15 Eagles and the Predator Drone were able to follow the wind until it disappeared into the ocean but they never attempted to shoot into it.

Although they had not rescued the two scientists, the SEALS team had a reason to celebrate. Thirteen of the twenty five skeletons had been shattered into fragments. The broken bones of these skeletons had been scattered around the area by the wind before it left. A Utility Military Plane from Plant 42 Palmdale, an aircraft manufacturing plant in the Antelope Valley, landed at the site. All the broken bones were loaded on it and were flown to the home of the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. Research on these bones was later carried out by US scientists in order to determine their origin. The two Pave Hawk helicopters together with four others returned at the site to help in the rescue and evacuation of the wounded soldiers.

A water search was initiated immediately especially in the area where the wind had been seen dissipating into the ocean. Multiple government agencies were eventually involved in trying to identify the ghosts’ underwater cover. Though the ocean had remained calm throughout, all US warships were ordered to keep a distance away. Civilians and the policemen who had thronged the coast were restrained from going near the ocean to avoid similar mistakes that had occurred at the coast of Oregon during the first raid.

Deep down in the ocean, after the arrival of the last small aircraft, the airship started planning to leave. The ship rose through the water silently, causing neither a whirlwind nor a cyclone. When it came out of the water surface, it was reflecting a very bright dazzling light which made it impossible to be viewed by the naked eyes and even through the finest binoculars. All the fighters that tried to fire missiles at the UFO were faced with multiple failures in their weapon systems. The few that tried to move closer to it had all their computer systems failed completely and ended up crash landing into the ocean. The Us Army further tried to fire surface-to-air missiles at the ship from the coastland, but none survived the hot laser beams that were being emitted by the airship.

Initially, it was flying slowly but when it reached 100 feet from the water surface, its speed increased. It started flying hypersonically until when it disappeared in space without being intercepted by any manmade plane. More still, it was totally invisible to both radar, satellite and other detection methods and therefore when it entered space, the army lost track of it.

On reaching planet Ghostia, the airship landed amidst cheers from the skeleton warriors who had lined in the Ruthst Square to see the scientists that had been brought from earth. The skeletons of the five scientists who had been dissected before being brought to Ghostia were removed from their body bags and forced to march out of the airship first. The other two living scientists went out last. The ghosts were surprised to see the two living scientists walking out of the aircraft. Those at the back had to stretch their necks to see them properly. The most excited were those who had left earth thousands of years before. They wanted to determine how man had evolved through the ages. Among them was Lord Ghost himself. He could not help hide his happiness and as Professor McDonald walked passed him, he forced him to stop for a moment. He gave him a strong handshake and said, “Welcome to Ghostia, sir.” “You shall always be remembered by man and the ghosts as the first humans to reach the planet of the dead.”

The seven scientists were then separated according to their professions. The physicists and computer scientists were taken to the armory on the last two floors to help in the manufacture of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. These missiles were to be used against distant countries that would try to rise against them. These ICBMs could be armed with either conventional or non-conventional warheads, depending on where they were going to hit. The nuclear physicists were also to be used to devise ways through which the ghosts were to take control over the world’s nuclear stockpiles which the ghosts feared most.

The microbiologists were added to Lord Ghost’s team which was manufacturing deadly pathogens which the ghosts were to use as Biological weapons against humans. The microbiologists had been ordered to engineer slow killing bacterial spores which would inflict untold pain on the victim before killing them. These pathogens were to be used as the last resort in case humans tried to defeat the ghosts.

The five slain scientists were to retain their helmets. These helmets had replaceable fluids that were supplying nourishment to the brain and the whole head region via small tubes that had been incorporated within. Without these fluids, their brains would stop working and the scientists would feel much pain before dying slowly. Limiting the supply of these fluids was the only way the ghosts could control these scientists. The two living scientists were promised to be taken back to earth at the end of the mission. But if they failed to comply, a torture team had been set up by Lord Ghost to check them! Professor McDonald was given the privilege of heading the microbial team but he was to work under close surveillance lest he sabotaged the whole process.

After working hard for some good days Dr. Christine fell sick. She had been infected by the pathogens they were culturing. It was a trying moment for Prof. McDonald as he watched his wife falling and rolling over the ground in total pain. She was crying out loud whilst holding onto her swelling tummy. Her screams attracted Lord Ghost who was by then in a nearby room supervising the work of the other scientists. He rushed into the building only to find her isolated on the ground.

By then, an antidote for the infection had not been made and she was destined to die. Lord Ghost knew this and hence ordered his guards to rush her to Arcacidia and kill her from there. They knew that her soul was to be attracted into Arcacidia to be dressed into her new eternal skeleton. By killing her from there, it would be easier to follow her up as she came out of the tunnel. They would then bring her back to the laboratory to proceed with her unfinished business.

The guards put her onto a stretcher on which they were to carry her out of the facility. Prof. McDonald was not aware of their plans but he could not let her suffer to that extent yet he knew that she was going to die by all means. As the guards walked passed him, he grabbed a gun from one of them and used it to shoot her twice in the chest. She died instantly and the guards dropped her down. They immediately aimed their guns at the professor and they were ready to dismantle his brains if it were not for Lord Ghost’s intervention. Knowing the loss he had registered, Lord Ghost could not let them kill him because he was the one in charge of the whole process.

The professor was given the benefit of the doubt and was forced to return to work. However, Lord Ghost could not hide his anger. He put more pressure on the scientists and forced them to work for longer hours in order to complete the weapons in time.

CHAPTER FOUR

EARTH DOWN

According to the war plan Gen. Cov’s committee had executed, attacking all the countries on earth at once was not only going to be costly but it would also be impossible for them to win seven billion humans at once. Instead, they had planned to attack the United States first and then use its military advantage to subjugate the other countries. Their first task was to use their advanced computing skills to switch off and then take control over the world’s communication and computer networks. Without proper means of communication, humans across the globe could not be able to mobilize and stand against their common enemy.

The warriors had been divided into four divisions. The first division was made up of infantry skeleton warriors only. These were to arrive on earth first by means of Lord Ghost`s magical powers. The second was the Air Force division which was to move to earth using the small and medium-sized aircraft. The large airships had been left for the third division. The fourth division was the reserve force which was to remain on Planet Ghostia.

Each division had been assigned a different mission to execute. The infantry skeleton warriors were to be dispersed in all major urban concentrations in the US. They were to keep running on the streets and perform minor attacks on both civilian and military installations with an aim of causing confusion in the country. The ghosts expected the US to respond to the attack with all her military strength, only to be taken by surprise by the arrival of the second division. The aircraft of the second division were to engage the US Air Force in an aerial combat and an anti-ship warfare with the US Navy. Computer specialists also attached to the second division were to wage an electronic warfare against the whole world in order to take over the world’s communication networks. The commander of the second division was to be Roth himself.

The large airships of the third division were to be loaded with different sets of equipment which their engineers were to use to assemble ballistic missile launch centers on earth and laboratories from where they were to perform their clandestine experimentations. All the scientists, including Prof. McDonald and the others who had been brought from earth were to be relocated to earth to work in these laboratories. Lord Ghost was to command this division himself. He expected to find when man had already been defeated by the first two divisions.

Gen. Cov had volunteered to stay on the planet to command the reserve force. He had chosen Gen. Path to stay with him as his deputy. The reserve force was to retain a quarter the amount of all weapons the ghosts had manufactured. The reserve force was to be on standby, waiting for a call from Lord Ghost or Roth in case the attack went out of their expectations. Its second role was defending the planet and the palace, just in case Lord Ghost`s opponents chose to use that opportunity to overthrow his government.

When time to leave had come, the underground facility was opened for the first time since its construction. The triangular aircraft rose out of the facility, one at ago, and soared into the skies. They started performing aerobatic shows in the air which attracted the attention of the ordinary ghosts who had been quarantined in their residential areas. The warriors also marched out of the underground facility and paraded in the Ruthst square. They went on chanting different slogans which were praising Lord Ghost, his deputy Roth and their commander Gen. Cov.

Immediately, the warriors of the second and third divisions started boarding their respective aircraft. Those of the first division remained in the Ruthst Square waiting for Lord Ghost to tell them what to do. Lord Ghost climbed to the platform and stood in front of them. All of them kept quiet and looked at him as he performed his charms. He raised his one arm and pointed at the skies. All of a sudden, a black cloud appeared on the sky directly above the area where these skeleton warriors were standing. The cloud started extending downwards until when it covered all the warriors.

The area where the warriors were standing was covered by total darkness and the planet started shaking. At first, the tremors were very faint, but they kept on intensifying up to an extent that caused some weak structures in the residential areas of the ordinary ghosts to collapse. A strong flash of lightning which was accompanied by a very violent thunder struck into the dark cloud and by the time it disappeared, all the skeleton warriors had vanished mysteriously.

At 15:00 hours GMT, it was night time in all US States, when a strong thunderstorm developed throughout the whole country. Surprisingly, the lightning and the loud sound of the preceding thunder could only be seen and heard by those in USA but not in the neighboring countries, Canada and Mexico. When the thunderstorm ceased, the sky was seen splitting apart. In only ten seconds the split elongated and cut across the skies. Out of the split came out a large bolide which traveled towards the ground at a speed of 25Km/h. At an apparent magnitude of -15, this mysterious fireball was brighter than a full moon and could be seen from everywhere in the contiguous USA.

This burning meteor was extremely bright and the light from it was mistaken by many as daylight which had broken out in the middle of the night. Many of those that were asleep were awoken by the light. They rushed to the windows and joined the others who were gazing at the specter of the bolide. Those who were found walking were stricken with panic and took to different street corners to hide. When the fireball touched the ground, it exploded like fireworks and gave out yellow beams of light and clouds of fire. These clouds of fire raced to the buildings but they did not set any house ablaze. In fact, temperatures remained unchanged everywhere. In spite of the fact that every citizen in the contiguous USA had managed to see the bolide with their eyes, satellites and telescopes at all US observatory centers still failed to track it completely.

There was total silence all over the country for the five minutes that followed. The silence was only interrupted by tremors which quickly developed in all major US cities and towns. The shaking of the ground lasted for over thirty minutes. It was initially weak but intensified with time and turned into a real earthquake of magnitude of 2.5 on the Richter scale. There was however no major structural damage that occurred except for the windows of some buildings that shattered in some areas. The earthquake was replaced with weak windstorms which blew continuously throughout the whole night.

By the morning, the winds had intensified into strong dust devils in all major US cemeteries. Gravestones from most of the graves were blown off, leaving the graves open. Skeletons of the dead who had been buried there arose and jumped out of the open graves. They started running in different directions following the winds which were blowing towards all urban centers.

The whirlwinds were blowing strongly over the houses that had been unknowingly built over old graves. Deep cracks developed in the floors of such buildings and skeletons of the dead rose out of them. Occupants in these houses were shocked by the sight of human skeletons cropping out of the floors of their bedrooms or living rooms. Such skeletons would run out of the buildings to join the others that had started occupying the streets.

A tragedy had befallen the nation! Sudden, panicked predawn order to evacuate from all streets was given to the civilians by the authorities. Sirens from speeding police cars could be heard in the vicinity. Numerous police helicopters were also roaming above the buildings in all major US towns. They were dropping papers with worded warnings to the civilians, urging them to stay indoors. Local televisions and radio stations stopped their normal programs to broadcast guidelines which the citizens could follow to escape the danger.

The military was quick to console the civilians with a promise to contain the situation. Foot soldiers from all US Army divisions were deployed on the streets to fight the invading skeletons and to provide rescue and first aid to all those that been injured in the attack.

The soldiers started shooting at the skeletons but at first, the skeletons were not shooting back. Instead, they were just running aimlessly in all directions and causing chaos wherever they reached. But with time, the skeletons started attacking nearby gun stores and police stations from which they obtained different firearms and started shooting back at the human troops.

Taking a precedent from the first two raids which the skeletons had performed on earth, all US Tactical Forces had been given orders to concentrate firepower on the skeletons’ joints especially the knees and ankles. It was the only assumed way of causing casualties to the skeleton ranks.

Though the soldiers were trying hard to put the above order into effect, the skeletons were hard to hit because they were not standing in fixed positions. After firing stray bullets to disperse the human soldiers they would run away before the latter could respond appropriately.Unlike the US soldiers, the skeletons were not fighting to win but to confuse and disrupt the US Army, a mission which they had achieved. However, very few human soldiers were being injured because many of them were moving through armored vehicles. Others were snipers who were shooting from a distance, especially from the top of tall buildings where the skeletons could hardly locate them.

As soon as the shooting began on the streets, the US Federal Aviation Administration issued an order to all civilian planes that had taken to the air that morning to take emergency landing on nearby airports. The airspace was cleared for the military planes which were planning to rise into the skies. NORAD issued standing orders to all USAF airfields to have ready squadrons of military planes, armed and prepared to take to the air to the defend the skies in a moment’s notice.

The US President decided to drop the Continuation of Government Readiness Conditions from level four to zero and all US armed forces were ordered to DEFCON 3. The president was evacuated via the White House Tunnel System to the underground bunker at Camp David. The Secret Service took the US Vice President and other top ranking White House officials down into the White House bunker.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency issued an order directing the 1st Helicopter Squadron from Andrews Air Force Base to the Capitol to evacuate the top Congressional leaders to the Mount Weather Emergency Facility. Army Helicopters from Davison Army Airfield evacuated all senior Defense Officials to the Raven Rock Mountain Complex, the alternate Pentagon where they to command the battle from.

The attack had started at a time when Foreign Ministers from the world’s most powerful countries had gathered in Moscow. Following the second raid which had occurred on almost all continents, the world had realized that everyone was a potential target for the skeletons, but not only the US. Nations had decided to put their political differences aside and their foreign ministers had convened at the Russian Foreign Ministry Building on Smolenskaya Square at the center of Moscow, to discuss the future of mother earth. They had plans of forging a supranational force which was to be ready to defend the world in case such an attack occurred. The force would also aid civil authorities in maintaining law and order and maintaining a supply of basic services to the populace, during and after the skeleton invasion.

However, in the course of the meeting, a secret service agent approached the US Secretary of State. He leaned over him and whispered into his ears, “Sir, the US is under attack! Countless human skeletons have already occupied the streets of all our major towns and cities!” All delegates turned their attention to the US secretary of state as he stood up with a frowny face. He picked up one the microphones and shouted, “The world is already under attack! They have started with us……”

He had not yet finished speaking when soldiers from the Russian Army stormed the building and called off the meeting. They were working on orders from the Russian President, who had also received the information about the attack on USA from their classified sources.

The Russian Army offered to disperse all these foreign delegates to different army controlled underground bunkers to guarantee their security. Many of them were rushed to Ramenki Emergency Bunker, six miles away from Moscow. The Russian President had also evacuated to this underground town that was designed to shelter him and his family and many other VIPs in such periods of war.

The US secretary of State and his Russian counterpart were flown by helicopter to the Russian National Defense Center, a top security fortified facility near Moscow River. For the first time in history, this Russian wartime complex was linked to the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center, its US equivalent. With request from the US Secretary of State, it was also receiving updates from NASA’s Headquarters in Washington D.C. Agents at the three facilities were tasked with round-the-clock monitoring of the world’s military situation. Russia and other countries were willing to provide any assistance to the US government mainly in terms of military support in case they needed it.

A few hours later, their Satellite Early Warning Systems presented images of over twenty triangular aircraft on their computer screens. The aircraft seemed to be moving at a slow pace and were about to enter the US airspace. These UFOs had managed to evade all the countries’ space surveillance systems, despite the great effort each nation had put in to detect them in space.

However, it was not too late for the US Military to intercept them. The US Army air defense fired their newly modified MIM-107A Patriot Guided Missiles to hit the UFOs before they could descend to the ground. traveling hypersonically at Mach 4, these surface-to-air missiles reached their targets and were seen hitting all the twenty aircraft with at most precision. Military officers, whose eyes were glued on the screens by then, cheered as they saw the last UFO exploding into fragments.

Immediately NORAD ordered for the scrambling of more than fifty Lockheed Martin multirole tactical fighters from various US Air Force Airfields to the air. The squadron was consisting of more than ten F-22 Raptors while the rest were a mixture of F-15s and F-16s. Their mission was to spot any remnants of the UFOs which might have evaded detection and give them a deserving welcome before they could land on earth. Flying supersonically at Mach 2, the F-22 Raptors entered the skies first. However, just a few second later, pilots of the other fighters were shocked when they saw all the Raptors exploding at once. With a closer observation, the pilots saw a fleet of hundreds of triangular aircraft that were coming from space.

Laser guided missiles fired by these triangular aircraft were the ones that had hit the Raptors and many more were homing against the remaining fighters. The pilots had no option but to eject their seats from the fighters. Many of such abandoned jets were hit by the missiles while others were seen in a circling descent before they crash landed on the ground.

Actually, military officials had cheered for nothing because the Patriot Missiles had not hit any of the aircraft but they had been jammed into self-destruction by the arriving UFOs. The explosion of the twenty aircraft the Military officers had seen on their computer screens had been a computer simulation which the ghosts’ computer specialists had intentionally fed into their computer systems.

After shooting down the fighters, the UFOs switched off their stealth and radar jamming systems. They did it intentionally such that they could reveal their arrival to the whole world. Radar screens at all military control centers in the world were crowded with a fleet of triangular aircraft which were flying in right echelon formation towards the earth.

When the UFOs reached near low earth orbit, three small aircraft from the middle row echeloned through and moved straight to the International Space Station. All the three docked on the station and a group of twenty skeletons jumped out of them and entered into the station. They killed all human crew that was on board and took full control over the station. These twenty skeletons were the finest of all computer specialists the ghosts had trained. They were tasked with turning the station into the main computer hacking and jamming center for their operations.

They installed the station with high-end computer systems, which had state-of-the-art data encryption programs and advanced means of automation, all of which had been made by the ghosts. They started with hacking into the altitude and orbit control systems of all manmade satellites in space. They orientated all the satellites that were to be of use to them towards their desired positions. Those that they were not to use were driven away from their set orbital positions while others had their antennas positioned in wrong directions. This resulted into disruption of their signal transition and reception from earth.

All computer and telephone networks on earth were switched off at once. The ghosts also took over T.V, Radio and Military Communication Systems, causing a massive communication failure all over the world. Military officers at Pentagon were uncertain of what to do because they had lost control of the US Global Command and Control System to the arriving ghosts. They had no means of coordinating their soldiers on the battlefields to launch joint military offences against the aliens. But the last blow to their attempts came when the hackers switched off the US power grid which nullified most of their operations.

When the aircraft started descending, seven of them remained in space and started shooting down the satellites which they were not ready to use and those they had failed to get access to. Each of these aircraft also launched a miniaturized satellite into low earth orbit to boost their communication systems. Three of these seven satellites were killer satellites which had been equipped with hot laser emission pumps. The ghosts hoped to use them to destroy missile war heads from other countries that would try to help the US.

As the aircraft descended into the US airspace, darkness appeared throughout the whole country for a period of three minutes. The darkness was punctuated by strong lightning which deterred further attempts by the US Air Force to have more fighters take to the skies to intercept the UFOs. Even the Patriot Missile and other anti-aircraft systems had been switched off by the ghosts and hence the US army had no other means of preventing the aircraft from reaching the ground.

By the time the darkness disappeared, all the skies had been filled with the triangular aircraft. The UFOs had managed to occupy strategic positions over all US landmarks. Due to lack of any means of communicating with Pentagon, pilots of all the military planes had to follow orders from their airfield commanders. Military planes from different US Air Force airfields started rising to the skies to battle with the UFOs. They started firing countless air-to-air missiles at the triangular aircraft. Their missiles were however exploding before reaching their targets after being hit by hot laser beams from the aircraft.

In the first minutes of the aerial combat, the triangular aircraft concentrated on producing laser beams that were destroying the air-to-air missiles from manmade fighters. They waited for the fighters to expend most of their missiles before they started firing back. Their missiles had higher accuracy rates of hitting the target because of their advanced homing guidance systems. They were semi-autonomous in a way that once fired they would stick at one target and would follow it wherever it went, whilst taking evasive action against other projectiles and aircraft that had filled the US airspace.

Many fighters were shot down in a very short period of time. When the UFOs started firing their missiles, pilots of the fighters that had exhausted their missiles decided to abandon them. But still, as they tried to descend by parachutes, some would be hit by fragments that were coming from the explosion of their former planes which the missiles would have hit. Other pilots attempted to ram their planes directly into the UFOs after running out of missiles to use. But this was rather futile as it gave the skeleton pilots better chances of shooting the jets down with greater accuracy before they could reach them. Huge clouds of smoke and fire had filled many areas in the skies which greatly reduced visibility to the extent that some fighter planes ended up colliding with each other.

After crippling the US Air Force, the UFOs separated into three groups. The first group which was consisting of highly maneuverable aircraft remained high up in the skies to continue with the aerial combat with the few US fighters that had persisted. These aircraft were also supposed to perform a reconnaissance patrol mission for the underground skeleton warriors. All the aircraft of the second and third groups descended to lower altitude to support the infantry skeletons, but they were assigned different missions.

Those of the second group became long-range strategic bombers whose mission was destroying the enemy’s fortifications, artillery and supply lines. They started firing air-to-surface missiles at strategic targets like factories, US Army forts and shipyards. This was intended to demoralize US soldiers and to diminish their ability to wage further war. Bridges and cloverleaf interchanges of major state highways were completely destroyed to interdict communication and supply routes to the frontlines.

The third group consisted of tactical bombers whose aim was countering enemy activity on the ground and supporting infantry skeletons in their offensive operations against human troops. They could at some points do dive bombing to obtain greater accuracy of the target before hitting it. The aircraft had been equipped with anti-collision sensors which enabled them to fly swiftly through urban concentrations with very tall buildings at very low altitude without colliding with any building. In open fields, they could operate at very short ranges to shoot directly at troop concentrations using powerful, accurate and rapid firing guns that had been mounted on them.

The infantry skeletons were highly boosted by the aircraft’s ground invasion. They immediately changed their mission from fighting to confuse to fighting to defeat the US Army. The skeletons started forming groups that would encircle a platoon of human soldiers and kill everyone. Then they would confiscate their weapons and use them to drive other platoons away from major towns and city centers.

Artillery men started fleeing to the outskirts of major towns and cities to escape the might of the skeletons. The soldiers that tried to surrender in advance would not be spared. The skeletons were shooting them down even when they dropped their weapons! The clever soldiers decided to put off their uniforms to disguise as civilians. Some even joined the groups of refugees that had started streaming from USA to neighboring Mexico and Canada. But the aircraft would still attack them! They would drop fragmentation bombs on them which could kill multiples.

The most disastrous weapons that the ghosts came with were the flying drills which had been designed to cripple the US Navy. Each of these contraptions consisted of a cylindrical body with a hemispherical end and a sharp pointed front part. The front part was a driving attachment which could perform much the same work as a drill of boring holes through a barrier. Their bodies had been built from an alloy that was five hundred times stronger than steel. They could hence pass through the concrete walls of earthly buildings or titanium hulls of warships without registering any damage. Inside the cockpit, the pilot of each flying drill was facing an instrument panel on which various gauges and dials could indicate the drill’s position, altitude and the target to hit. The single seat cockpit was covered by a small polycarbonate canopy which could enable the pilot to see what was taking place above them.

In true sense, the drills were flying submarines that had been designed to hunt and sink down warships including aircraft carriers and submarines. Not less than six of these would fly above an aircraft carrier and use their rapid firing guns or their small missile launchers to destroy all the planes on the ship’s deck and to disperse the crew on board. As the crew tried to escape from the attacked ship, the drills would soar high up in the air before returning at a blinding speed to collide with the ship intentionally. During the collision, they would use the driving attachment in front of them to bore holes through the deck of the carrier. At the same time other drills would attack the ship from below the surface of water to bore holes through its hull. The carrier would then start sinking after taking in water through these holes. Before attacking any warship, the ghosts from the International Space Station would first jam its weapon systems which made it impossible for the ship to defend itself.

The drills had also been equipped with high-end torpedo computer targeting systems which they could use to shoot down the submarines from beneath the water surface. With their advanced stealth systems, they would remain concealed in the depths of water for a long time before attacking the submarines by surprise. Below the water surface, they could travel at speeds of over 90 knots, twice faster than any man made sub! But even when moving at such a speed, the skeleton pilot could still properly calculate their position, orientation and velocity without external reference, using the advanced inertial guidance systems that had been mounted on board.

US submarines could not clearly identify their locations nor get directions to follow because the ghosts had switched off the Global Positioning System. They instead had to resurface from below the water body in order to use their periscopes to view what was ahead of them. This was multi disadvantageous to the submarines because apart from the periscopes having poor and short visibility ranges, it made easy for the drills that were flying above the water body to spot them. The drills also had sonar detection systems that could enable them to detect the submarines that tried to use sonar telephony to communicate with each other.

Many submarines decided to maintain radio silence and remained submerged in one position in order to avoid detection. In others, the crew decided to abandon them by means of their Escape Immersion Equipment whenever they suspected an approaching drill. When those escape systems failed or when they failed to use them early enough, they got no chance to survive after the collision between the attacking drills and the subs.

Right from the start of the attack, the fight on the ground had been greatest in Arlington County, in the US state of Virginia. There had been a stronger whirlwind at the start than anywhere else. The wind had blown off many gravestones from almost all the graves in Arlington Cemetery, just near the Pentagon. Skeletons of the dead arose from the graves, many of which were probably former US Servicemen. They were joined by skeletons from other cemeteries to wage an attack on the Pentagon, the US Army headquarters. Over four hundred of these human skeletons quickly occupied all the highways leading to Pentagon on the complex Pentagon Road Network.

Initially the Pentagon Force Protection Agency, together with the US army had tried to repel them backwards by shooting heavily at them. However, the arrival of the ghosts’ air force and the switching off of the Pentagon’s Computer and Communication Systems plus its electrical power supply had helped reinvigorate the skeletons on the ground. The fighter UFOs had also weakened them further by dropping bombs on all interchanges that link different highways on the Pentagon Road Network, limiting further access to the Army Headquarters by the US soldiers from other areas who would have wanted to help their colleagues.

Also the fragmentation grenades that were dropped on the soldiers and on their artillery greatly demoralized them. Many decided to retreat in order to save their lives. Despite the effort the PFP agents had put in to defend the building, the skeletons proved to be militarily superior and were able to conquer it. The skeletons killed everyone at the headquarters and even moved to the bunkers and butchered all the VIPs that had taken refuge there.

As soon as the infantry skeletons finished taking over the Pentagon, the third division of the skeleton warriors arrived. They came in very large aircraft which were actually flying airships. With 20 decks, a height of 75 meters and a width of 320 meters, the largest of all was arguably larger than Oasis of the seas, the largest manmade cruise liner at the moment. It arrived last and was accorded the greatest hospitality by the fighter UFOs because it was the one carrying Lord Ghost. As it descended to the ground, twenty fighter aircraft kept on flying closer to it in formation. They escorted it until when it landed in the central courtyard of Pentagon.

Many of the other airships landed in the highways that lead to Pentagon. The skeleton warrior helped the engineers to offload the equipment which these airships had carried from Ghostia. Using the trucks the skeletons had confiscated from humans, they transported the cargo load to Pentagon. These different sets of equipment were used by the ghosts to assemble different structures at Pentagon and in other parts of the country. Many missile launch centers were set up in the Pentagon’s central courtyard. The ghosts expected to use them to launch Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles against any foreign country that would try to rise against them. Many of the ICBMs were armed with multiple warheads that would carry mixtures of deadly chemicals and pathological spores which could kill thousands of humans in a short time. These missiles were however to be used as a last resort because their air force was strong enough to counter any foreign attack.

Pentagon’s last basement level, Level B was turned into a science laboratory for their clandestine experimentations. Lord Ghost sent a special group of skeleton warriors to the streets to carry out raids in all man’s hideouts. They kidnapped all the babies below the age of three that they would come across. Using the trucks they had looted from the streets, they drove all the children to Pentagon and handed them to a team of the skeleton scientists. The children were taken to the laboratories in which they were forcefully laid on operation tables in supine positions.

Every child was injected with sedative drugs that made them motionless. The children were then undressed immediately and the skeleton scientists started dissecting them. Their internal organs were disemboweled and their skins were removed to obtain their skeletons. The bare skeletons would then be dropped in very large centrifuges. The centrifuges had inbuilt grinding tools that would crash the bones of the babies’ skeletons to extract out their bone marrow. The bone marrow would then be collected and put in very large glass test tubes.

The ghosts had come with a team of cytologists who had devised methods of stimulating the pluripotent stem cells in the bone marrow to reverse them back to totipotent stem cells which they would then use to develop all body organs and tissues. Their aim was to use these cloned tissues and organs to dress up their bare skeletons! All along, this had been the main reason as to why Lord Ghost had decided to attack mankind! He hoped to obtain another arm and new flesh which could transform him into a half-immortal-half-mortal being which was to rule both the earth and Ghostia.

This operation had been kept secret from all the skeleton warriors including their battlefield commanders. Only Lord Ghost, Gen. Cov and Roth knew about it. The other skeleton warriors were fighting with all their strength because they had been promised better living conditions on earth. After conquering earth, each skeleton was to be allowed to live in all the beautiful places of their choice! But none was told about this plan!

Prof. McDonald, being a specialist in Molecular Phylogeny, was forced to be part of the team of the cytologists. In their pilot experiments, they were able to develop different body tissues in a short period of time. Five skeletons were put in separate closed test tubes which had been connected to delivery tubes through which they were feeding the test tubes with the bone marrow solutions and other mixtures of different chemicals. Gradually, skin tissues started forming over the skeletons and within ten minutes, they were all covered with flesh. Their next operation, which was perhaps the hardest but most important was developing internal body organs, blood and its vessels. According to Lord Ghost’s plan, all the skeleton warriors were to receive these cloned bodies and organs. The brains which the warriors were to get were to first be programmed in such a way that they could listen to orders from Lord Ghost only. This was the best way Lord Ghost would be secured against attack from his own soldiers.

The ghosts turned the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center into a communication hub for the whole world. They were using it to provide accurate, complete and timely information for the operational chain of command for their armed soldiers both on the ground and in the air. Lord Ghost himself went to the Pentagon’s Briefing Room and ordered his computer specialists to connect Pentagon’s communication system to all the secure underground military bunkers in different countries where the world’s leaders were hiding. In a live video feed to these bunkers, Lord Ghost issued a series of threats to the world’s political and military leaders across the globe. Leaders in different parts of the world were able to watch him speaking from the comforts of their covers and many took his message seriously.

“Don’t be fooled to think that by hiding behind those heavy blast doors you are out of reach!” he warned. “You must know that we don’t need any explosive to kill you from there. We have enough dangerous chemicals to saturate the ventilation systems of all your bunkers to kill you in just seconds without a single blast. Most importantly, remember we are in control of all your nuclear stockpiles. If any country tries to intervene in this fight, we shall be forced to nuke your own cities. If not, we shall self-detonate them at once from their silos. I hope you can all guess what will happen if we reach that far.”

He first paused for some seconds before he resumed. But midway his next sentence, “We have not come to kill all………..” all the computers at Pentagon went off at once due to an abrupt signal transmission failure. Lord Ghost was stricken with panic and rushed to the Pentagon’s war rooms to find out what had happened, but he was humbled down when he found his specialists equally confused. They were trying as much as they could by pressing all possible buttons on the computer keyboards to restore the condition but it was not an easy task.

The source of that confusion was from Beijing, China. As soon as Lord Ghost had started talking to the world leaders, three hackers attached to The Second Artillery Corps which manages China’s ICBMs gained access to Pentagon’s computer systems. For over five minutes, they took control over them from the ghosts. After locating where Lord Ghost was talking from, the hackers launched a DF-41D ICBM from Jiuquan launch center in Northwest Gansu Province to destroy the Pentagon.

Unfortunately, the ghosts managed to regain control over their computer systems before this Dongfeng missile could reach the US airspace. Using one of their three killer satellites in space, the ghosts managed to blow it out of the Pacific sky in time. Luckily, all the ICBM’s Multiple Reentry Vehicles were carrying conventional warheads. Their explosion in the sky did not cause any irradiation effects to humans on the ground, as it would have been if they were nuclear warheads.

Lord Ghost was greatly angered by that action. In retaliation, he ordered his computer specialists to fire one manmade ICBM at one of China’s large cities as a warning to the world. They launched a RS-24 Yars missile from the Russian 31st Missile Army Centre, a silo based ICBM complex near the town of Dombarovsky. It was carrying a 50 megaton nuclear warhead and was destined for Shanghai, China’s most populated city. It was recorded live by their satellites as it followed its trajectory and the videos were fed live to all the bunkers to ensure that all world leaders could see what would happen to their countries if they attempted to attack them again.

When it reached Shanghai’s airspace, the missile made a dive and raced towards the ground. Its center of explosion was to be in the People’s Square, near Shanghai Museum. But before it touched its ground zero, the ghosts diverted it back into the skies. It soared back in the air from where the ghosts weakened it and then forced it to fall in the nearby East China Sea without exploding. When it dropped in the water body, world leaders took a huge sigh. They were relieved of the stress they had developed after thinking about the millions that were to die at ago.

That was a good warning which the three Chinese hackers would have lived to remember had they survived the wrath of the ghosts. The skeletons were able to establish their location and sent one of their hypersonic aircraft to destroy the building from which they were operating. The aircraft reached Beijing and dropped only one bomb at the building which demolished it at once. It then returned to the US airspace without bombing any other place in China

CHAPTER FIVE

THE COMING OF THE GHOES

Back to Ghostia, the moment Lord Ghost’s third division left for earth, Gen. Cov and Gen. Path invited all the ordinary ghosts to the Ruthst Square. Gen. Cov had planned to address them for the first time in his new capacity as the acting Lord Ghost. When they started arriving, he ordered the warriors of the reserve force to surround the palace in order to tighten the security. Over one hundred warriors were ordered to escort Gen. Path to the last floor of the underground facility on mission known only to the two generals.

Four hundred years before, after the construction of the underground facility, all the prisoners had been forced to work on the facility either as experts, warriors or casual laborers. Only the eight former Ghoes were left in custody. Each Gho was heavily chained and placed in a metallic box that had been made from a very strong alloy. These eight boxes containing were locked up in one vault that had also been made from thick walls of a similar alloy. Their golden crowns were also packed in two separate boxes and locked up in the same vault. The twenty ton metallic door of this vault had only one key and it was only Lord Ghost who knew where he kept it.

When Gen. Path and his one hundred escorts reached the vault, he opened it and ordered the warriors to carry the metallic boxes to the Ruthst Square where the ordinary ghosts had gathered. The warriors were not aware of the contents of the boxes because the presence of the vault was a secret that was known to a few skeletons. The procedure of locking them up had been done by Lord Ghost, Roth and their trusted bodyguards only. No other ghost had been told about it.

Meanwhile, by the time they came back, Gen. Cov had already started addressing the assembly. The sight of a group of skeletons who were carrying the metallic boxes attracted the attention of the ordinary ghosts. Gen. Cov’s speech was interrupted for a while as the warriors lifted the boxes to the platform and lowered them next to the general. After putting them down the warriors were ordered off the stage and left it to the two generals. There was total silence among the skeletons as they could not understand what was taking place.

When Gen. Cov resumed with his speech, he abruptly changed the topic and started speaking about the boxes. “Comrades, since time immemorial Planet Ghostia has been known as the planet of the dead. It was given to us as a gift by the gods of the universe. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the first person to die on earth arrived here. He was followed by many like you from the same planet. But by then, very many of you had not even been born. A few of you were still immortals on earth. But for us we were here!”

“We started planning for you because we knew that one day you would be born and you would then die to join us here. We laid the foundation for this planet. We built all these structure that you see to ensure that every ghost that would come to Ghostia could live in peace and harmony. We achieved all our dreams. There was bliss everywhere. Love, equality and justice flowed. We had got the comfort that could make us forget planet earth. All our differences on earth were put aside and we were one.”

“I want to remind you that all that success had been achieved because of the courage of ten ghosts. These ten comrades tirelessly mobilized us to build a new earth. They deserved respect for that. We owed them much for their courage! However, does any one of you know how we chose to pay them?’’ After asking the question, he looked at them. They were just looking at him because they could not understand what he was saying and he knew it also. But still, he waited for some seconds and when they failed to reply, he requested Gen Path to open all the boxes.

Eight skeletons that had been heavily chained jumped out of the boxes. Gen. Cov was forced to call for assistance from the warriors to help unchain them and to prevent them from running away. The last two boxes that were containing the golden crowns were also opened. The generals removed the crowns and placed them on the skulls of the eight skeletons. One by one, the crowns started shining yellow and their skeletons became whiter! “They are the Ghoes! ….. The Ghoes!…..” shouted the ordinary ghosts in unison. The sight of the Ghoes was a vivid flashback to the pioneer ghosts. But to the younger ghosts, it was a fairytale that had turned out to be true!

The ordinary ghosts continued shouting “The Ghoes….. The Ghoes,” until when Gen. Cov signaled to them to stop such that he could continue with his speech. “Comrades, before we fully celebrate this triumphant moment we should first recall that these great leaders were ten not eight? Now where are the others?” Again the ghosts lapsed into silence. For all that long, they had been thinking that Lord Ghost had managed to arrest the two missing Ghoes but they couldn't figure out what he might have done to them. There was silence for the few seconds that followed as the skeletons waited attentively for the generals’ next action.

Gen. Path removed the two crowns that were remaining in the metallic boxes. He handed one to Gen. Cov and retained the other. They simultaneously placed them on their skulls. Immediately, the crowns started shining and their skeletons also turned whiter. Everyone present could not believe it. The ordinary ghosts plus the warriors started looking at their lost leaders in amazement for they could not believe it also!

For all that long, the two generals were the two missing Ghoes. They had been arrested by Lord Ghost’s soldiers but were never identified. When Lord Ghost started recruiting soldiers from the prisoners, the two agreed to join him. They exhibited good military and leadership skills which impressed Lord Ghost. This enabled them to rise through the ranks in a short time until when they became full generals. Gen. Cov was made the overall commander of the warriors, second only to Lord Ghost and Roth. Gen. Path was made the commander in charge of training the recruits.

They showed so much loyalty to their two leaders that it was had to suspect that they had other intentions. But they kept a close link to each other and would seldom meet to discuss the ways through which they would regain their leadership. They had intentionally requested to stay in charge of the reserve force such that they could use that chance to overthrow the regime. Lord Ghost had not objected this request because he trusted them to the full. When Lord Ghost was leaving, he had left the key for the vault with Gen. Cov and requested him to keep it with all his might.

After donning their crowns, Gen. Cov invited Gen. Path to address the audience.

“Comrades,” he began. “The last time that you were here, you were informed about Lord Ghost’s intention of attacking earth. But as I speak now, they have already reached earth. I want to let you know that the children, spouses, relatives and friends whom you left on earth are dying in the hands of our colleagues right now! Some have already died and will join us here very soon. The only bad thing is that our colleagues have no prudent reason as to why they are doing this!’’

“We must know that humans are the ghosts and we are the humans. Ghostkind survives only because mankind survives! We cannot kill the people who buried us. The people who continuously pray for us to ‘’Rest in Peace.” It’s malicious for us to start admiring the beauty of planet Earth. We were the ones who laid the foundation of that beauty and we can do the same here! If we could do that in that short time that we spent on earth, what about here where we are going to spend all our eternity?”

He paused for some seconds and looked at them. They all seemed to be absorbed in thoughts, as they tried to integrate his message. “Dear colleagues, if we want to rebuild our planet, we must start with earth. We must first go back to earth and rescue the human race. It is then that we shall be able to reunite when we come back to Ghostia. It seems to be suicidal but we have no choice. If they conquer earth, they will use it as a base to destabilize us here. Therefore, we need some of you to join us in this counterattack. Others should remain here and guard our planet such that no one robs us of our success again.”

All the warriors voluntarily crossed to the side of the Ghoes and were willing to escort them to earth even though it meant fighting their colleagues. They moved straight to the underground facility and pulled out all the weapons and aircraft that had been reserved for their force. They were joined by more ghosts from the general populace, especially those who were former soldiers on earth. Among the volunteers, came the skeleton of Dr. Christine. After being shot to death by her husband, her soul had travelled back to Arcacidia and was dressed in a new skeleton. Lord Ghost did not bother following to re-arrest her because he had no time for that. This scientist was ready to go and help with the destruction of the Chemical and Biological weapons which Lord Ghost had carried to earth.

They first marked all their aircraft with white stripes before leaving for earth in order to distinguish them from Lord Ghost’s fleet. The aircraft ascended into the skies amidst cheers from the ordinary ghosts who were watching from the Ruthst Square. The Ghoes were doing everything in a hurry because for every minute they delayed, dozens of humans were being killed by Lord Ghost’s team. Even the plan which they were to follow on their mission was discussed by the team en route!

As soon as they entered the solar system the skeletons on earth noticed them. At that time Lord Ghost was in the laboratory supervising the progress of his scientists, but he was hurriedly called back to the Pentagon’s war rooms. “It’s a coup,”” he shouted when he saw the fleet of what resembled their aircraft on the computer screens.

“Shoot them down before they reach low earth orbit,” he ordered.

However, Gen. Cov also knew that they were being observed because he was the one who had designed the war plan they were following. He thus ordered two aircraft to fire air-to-air missiles at the International Space Station, which was the main computer control center of Lord Ghost’s team. By the time the skeletons on earth orientated their three space based killer satellites to start shooting down the invading aircraft with laser beams, the two missiles had already passed their position. They were able to shoot the station and it exploded at once. Even the twenty computer specialists on board perished.

The loss of the station disrupted the communication systems of the ghosts on earth. They had to shift to other satellites more so those they had launched themselves. Gen. Cov also ordered the computer specialists of the invading army to hack into these satellites and take full control over them. This resulted into an intensive Cyber-attack from both sides. To weaken them more, Gen. Cov ordered his pilots to shoot down five of the seven miniaturized satellites that belonged to Lord Ghost’s team before they entered into the US airspace.

Due to the great pressure that had started mounting on their side, Lord Ghost ordered for the launching of the ICBMs against humans, in order to deter Gen. Cov's group from advancing further for fear of hurting more humans.The first to be launched travelled hypersonically at Mach 40 and hit Ottawa the capital of Canada. Its killer prowess was not in the powerful explosion nor the great structural damage that resulted because these were minimal. It was the gaseous mixture of poisonous chemicals and biological pathogens that came from it which were the most deadly. The fumes were twice denser than air and hence travelled near the ground and saturated in the ventilation systems of many houses in the city.

Once inhaled, the victim would take in programmed HMX12 bacterial spores which Prof. McDonald and his team had engineered from the normal Helicobacter pylori strains. These bacteria had been programmed to produce solutions that stimulate the secretion of gastric juice in the stomach. This would result into increased acid content in the stomach. The acid secretion would continue and in a period of one minute only, the victim would start regurgitating it hence causing a very painful heartburn.

The more the acid would increase in the stomach, the more the multiplication and action of the bacteria would increase. Five minutes later, the bacteria would start invading the gastric mucosa, resulting into inflammation of the stomach lining. This would be followed by progressive swelling of the stomach, reaching almost twice its normal size in only three minutes. Distention of the stomach would inflict a sharp piercing pain to the victim. He or she would lose strength and would fall to the ground and start rolling over.

Simultaneously, the inhaled gases would pass quickly to the alveoli of the lungs. After building up a good partial pressure there, they would dissolve into the blood more especially in the pulmonary veins which transport oxygenated blood from the lungs to the left atrium of the heart. The gas would stimulate the action of platelets and the clotting factors in blood. Small clots would start forming and after a short time emboli would form which would obstruct the flow of blood in these great vessels. This could even result into total blockage of these blood vessels after some time.

The result would be labored breathing and pain during inspiration. At a point of total occlusion of the vein, the victim would start coughing up blood before they would die. The combined effect of the bacteria and the poisonous gas would take less than an hour to cause death to an individual. Each bomb could produce enough fumes to kill over two hundred thousand people. Though the victim would not die in just seconds, the pain they would fill before death was enough to deter other nations from ever thinking of rising against the ghosts.

The ghosts launched many more missiles which were aimed at almost all major European cities, but none of them reached their destinations. After hitting Ottawa, Gen. Cov’s computer specialists fought hard to gain access to the ghosts’ killer satellites which they used to shoot down all the other ICBMs before they could leave the US skies.

The hackers also took over the world’s communication system from Lord Ghost’s team and used it to guide their aircraft which had already started entering the US airspace. An intensive dogfight between the aircraft on Lord Ghost’s side and those on the side of the Ghoes ensued immediately. Lord ghost had more aircraft than the Ghoes but many of them had expended most of their ammunition in their fight with the US fighter jets.

The white striped aircraft were also fighting in groups which increased their chances of destroying the target. Two or three of them would attack a single aircraft at ago. They would then fire their missiles at the target simultaneously. Although the alloy that had been used to build their bodies was strong enough to resist blasting, it could not survive explosions from multiple missiles. Many of them started exploding after being hit and they could be seen descending towards the ground.

After shooting down a good number of them, some skeleton pilots on Lord Ghost’s side started ejecting their seats in the same way human pilots had done at the start of the aerial combat with US fighter jets. Within only two hours, more than fifty percent of the aircraft on Lord Ghost’s side had been shot down. But even with that success, the remaining aircraft on Lord Ghost’s side were still more than those on the side of the Ghoes. The Ghoes thus decided to descend to the ground to seek man’s help.

Three white striped aircraft headed straight to Pentagon to conquer it from Lord Ghost such that they could use it to communicate to the world. These aircraft began by shooting all the missile installations the ghosts had erected in the central courtyard before landing there. As soon as the first missile from these aircraft hit one of their structures, Lord Ghost started panicking. Quickly, he rushed to the laboratories on the last basement level of Pentagon . By then, even the scientists had made much progress in their experiments. They had managed to synthesize almost all body organs and tissues. Their next and last experiment was to coordinate these organs into functioning body systems.

Lord Ghost ordered the scientists to hurriedly perform the next experiment on him. He was badly in need of a new arm and a human body and he could not stand to lose the battle without gaining them. Before climbing to the operation table, he ordered his special bodyguards, the most trained of all the skeleton warriors to move to the central courtyard and arrest or shoot down any ghost that could set foot out of the three white striped aircraft which had landed there.

These warriors quickly surrounded the whole courtyard and aimed their firearms at the doors of the three aircraft. They were only waiting for an order from their commander to shoot down any skeleton that would come out of the aircraft. But to their surprise, when the doors opened, the skeletons that came out were very different from all the other skeletons. Their skeletons were very white and were putting on shining golden crowns on their skulls. Their appearance was made even more beautiful when the yellow rays of the sun’s light touched their crowns and skeletons.

These warriors were so much impressed by their angelic appearance that they even feared to shoot a single bullet at them. Surprisingly, their commander raised his weapon high up in the air and shouted, “They are the Ghoes! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot….!” He later dropped his weapon and ran towards them. He was then followed by many of his juniors. However a few others refused to join them and instead ran back to the level B to report to Lord Ghost what their colleagues had done.

Upon learning that they were the Ghoes who had attacked him, Lord Ghost was stricken with panic again. ‘’Who has released them?” was all he said as he jumped off the operation table. He quickly ran to one of the lifts which carried him straight to the last floor of the Pentagon building. From there he climbed to the rooftop of Ring E from where he was able to see the Ghoes for himself. He became even more furious after seeing the Ghoes interacting with some of his bodyguards.

Without saying a word, he raised his arm in his usual style and pointed at the sky. Immediately, the sun became covered by a dark cloud which obstructed the sunlight. There was total darkness allover Arlington which scared both the few human soldiers and the skeletons who were still clashing on the streets. They ran to different areas to hide away from the phenomenon which they could not understand. The darkness had filled every place in Arlington County except in the middle of the Pentagon’s courtyard where the Ghoes were standing. Their skeletons were giving out white light which was covering a small area near them. Also, the yellow light from the crowns on their skulls had formed a beautiful hallo over them which could be seen by anyone who was nearby.

The Ghoes moved closer to each other and formed a concentric ring, with eight of them on the circumference and the other two in the middle of the ring. When a roaring thunderstorm from the skies started threatening, Gen. Cov, who was one of the two Ghoes that were standing at the center of the ring put off the crown from his skull and threw it at Lord Ghost. Even as it moved in the air, the crown continued emitting its yellow light which made it to look like a moving fireball. Lord Ghost did not see it coming his way because he had concentrated all his attention on the sky. It was not until when it reached near him that he noticed it. He tried to move away from its way but it was too late.

The golden crown collided with the black crown off his skull and knocked it off. Both crowns fell to the ground, but the black one continued rolling on the floor until when it slid off from the rooftop and fell to the ground. When it touched the ground, it exploded like a bomb and broke into three pieces. Lord Ghost had tried to run after it but when it slid off from the rooftop, he gave up on it and decided to run back into the building. But before he could enter, he was struck by a flash of lightning from the black cloud but his skeleton was never burnt up. Instead, he lost strength and fell down on the floor of the rooftop.

As soon as Lord Ghost fell down, even the skeletons that had arisen from the graves lost their strength. They dropped all the weapons they were holding and stood still for two minutes. Within those two minutes, the lightning intensified into a strong thunderstorm but there was no property nor life lost despite its strength. When the thunderstorm faded away, windstorms formed throughout the whole country. All towns and cities in USA became wreathed up in strong whirlwinds which lifted up most of the infantry skeletons. The skeletons were blown back into their respective cemeteries. Upon reaching the graves, the whirlwind would drop the skeletons into their former graves before dissipating away. The skeletons that were not lifted up ran after the whirlwinds and also fell back into their former graves.

At Pentagon, a strong whirlwind enveloped the whole building and pulled out many of the skeletons that were inside it. Many of them were blown back to Arlington cemetery where they had come from. The few that remained were those that had come via the aircraft of the second and third divisions. They were left with no option but to surrender to the Ghoes and started following their orders. Gen. Cov sent a team to the rooftop to bring back his golden crown and to arrest Lord Ghost in time before he could regain his strength.

Gen. Cov was then taken to Pentagon’s Briefing Room such that he could address the world leaders who were still hiding in their bunkers. With his shining skeleton and bright crown, Gen. Cov appeared on the screens of all their bunkers. His unique appearance attracted all the leaders’ attention. He spoke compassionately and he maintained his composure throughout, which convinced them to trust him.

“Dear brothers, we regret this incidence that has occurred on your planet. This unforgivable crime has been committed by a section of our comrades because of their greed and jealous. It does not mean that every skeleton you see is involved, no! Not all of us are bad. We have come to your rescue and we expect a positive response from all of you. We have almost defeated them but we can’t finish our mission without you. We urge you to come out of your bunkers and start commanding your armies to take to the streets. Many innocent civilians have been left fatally wounded so they need your help. Send rescue teams to help them and to secure their places from further attack….”

The most demanding issue that Gen. Cov wanted to resolve was that of the ICBM that had been dropped in Ottawa. The first victims had started dying and many others were on the verge of death. Something had to be done immediately to help them. Another white striped aircraft landed in the Pentagon’s central courtyard and out of it came the skeleton of Dr. Christine who was taken direct to help Gen. Cov coordinate the rescue operation of the victims because she had been part of the scientists that had manufactured the bacterial spores.

The two were escorted to the laboratories on the last basement level where the skeleton scientists were still locked up. They found when the scientists had destroyed most of the solutions and equipment they had been using after learning that Lord Ghost had been overthrown. The lucky children that had not yet been experimented on had been resuscitated and the scientists were planning to help them escape from the building.

The sight of her living husband triggered Dr. Christine to run and hug him. The professor was taken by surprise and if it were not for the two bullet holes in the rib cage of her skeleton, it would have taken him time to remember her. They hugged for some good time until when Gen. Cov interrupted their moment by reminding them of the innocent who were dying in Canada. He requested the couple to hastily start planning for the ways through which they were going to save them.

The ghosts were still in control of the US communication system and hence used it to call upon human health workers to join the team of the skeleton scientists who were about to be flown to Ottawa. Over three hundred nurses and doctors from different parts of the US especially Arlington volunteered to join the ghosts. They handed themselves to the US Army which took them to Pentagon and handed them to the Ghoes. All the living scientists first dressed up in special suits and face masks to protect themselves from the poisonous fumes and bacteria that were still spreading in Ottawa. Prof. McDonald and his wife were assigned the responsibility of leading the team whose work was to be supervised by two of the ten Ghoes who were to accompany them! The team boarded the ghosts' hypersonic aircraft and within no time, they had already reached Ottawa.

When they were programming these bacterial spores on Planet Ghostia, Prof. McDonald and his wife had ensured that the ailment from them would have a simple treatment just in case a chance came when the affected humans needed a first aid. The treatment involved swallowing several anti-acid drugs to neutralize the hydrochloric acid in the stomach. The reduction in the acid concentration was an indirect way of killing the bacteria because they could not thrive in neither alkaline nor neutral PH. Victims were also administered with Low Molecular Weight Heparin, an anticoagulant that could help dissolve the emboli in their pulmonary veins. In severe cases, the patients were put on life support and were admitted in area hospitals.

Gen. Cov and the other seven Ghoes remained at the Pentagon to conduct the process of withdrawal of the skeleton forces that had remained on the streets. Meanwhile, pilots of the few US fighter planes that had not been destroyed by Lord Ghost’s air force had managed to get the courage to fly back into the airspace to help the white striped UFOs. They were joined by more fighters from Canada, Mexico and later UK and France which had volunteered to help their ally. These fighters were mainly tasked with helping the US troops that were carrying out rescue operations on the ground. The aerial combat between the white striped aircraft and those that were on Lord Ghost’s side had almost ended after the Ghoes promising to pardon the pilots that were on Lord Ghost’s side if they agreed to surrender freely. Many of these aircraft had started landing on the ground to avoid being shot by the white striped aircraft and manmade fighter planes.

Other fighters were deployed over the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans to hunt down the drills. At the same time, the Ghoes were trying their best to convince the skeleton pilots of these drills to surrender freely to avoid being shot by manmade fighters which were hunting them down. Those that agreed to surrender had to first identify themselves before resurfacing from the oceans. Then they would be escorted to the dry land by squadrons of military planes and sometimes the triangular aircraft themselves. The fighter planes were given orders to shoot down the drills that refused to surrender and those that tried to continue attacking the remaining US warships. However, this was not easy given the strength of the alloy from which their bodies had been made. Even when they were shot by manmade missiles, the drills could move away without any considerable damage!

The fighters tried several times to shoot the drills whenever they would spot them but in vain. It was not until when one F-16 accidentally shot down one of the drills that had attacked USS Carl Vinson that the fighters managed to determine the only weak point on these drills. By targeting the small polycarbonate canopy of the drill’s cockpit, the fragments from the missile passed through it and crashed the skeleton pilot and the control panel which sent the drill down. But it was still not easy to target this area on the drill because of the speed at which they were moving especially below the water surface.

Other drills decided to remain submerged beneath the water where it was hard for the fighters to spot them. For that reason, the US Navy was forced to deploy their remaining submarines to search for them. These submarines were later joined by many others from Canada. After losing their computer communication systems to the Ghoes’ computer specialists, the drills had been weakened since they could not perform successful raids without being seen by the fighter planes. That is why many agreed to surrender to the Ghoes.

By the morning of the next day, the US army had managed to regain control over most of their cities and towns. The Ghoes had started making plans of going back to earth because their mission was almost over. A ceremony was organized in Pentagon’s courtyard on which all the scientists that had been collected by the Ghoes were handed back to humans. The helmets that had been preserving their brains were removed so that they could die completely. It was a sigh of relief to these scientists since they had started feeling pain due to shortage of the fluids that were preserving their heads and brains. Their remains were flown to their respective homelands for burial. With request from the Ghoes, all of them were buried in honor. The Ghoes even attended the funeral processions of the late Prof. Clifton Clark who had been obtained by the ghosts from Tampa, Florida.

It took a full week for the ghosts to collect all the weapons and the other equipment they had brought to earth. The equipment were loaded on all the large airships and some medium-sized aircraft. These aircraft would rise immediately as soon as they got filled to their capacity and would then fly back to Planet Ghostia. The ghosts’ engineers were joined by different US aeronautic engineers who volunteered to help the ghosts to repair their damaged triangular aircraft which were to carry them back to the Ghostia.

A colorful ceremony was organized by the US Army at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia to bid farewell to the Ghoes and all the other skeletons that had gathered up there to board their triangular aircraft back to Ghostia. In attendance were the US President, Vice President, high ranking military officers from the US Army and foreign dignitaries from many countries across the globe.

The most touching moment which attracted everyone’s attention was when Prof. McDonald was given chance to hug the skeleton of her former wife. The professor could not hold back the tears in his eyes as she hugged him with the greatest affection she could afford. Though they were existing in two different worlds by then, love still flowed between them. The only consolation the woman had was that they were destined to meet one day!

As the ghosts walked towards their aircraft, Pershing’s Own, the United States Army brass band ensemble was playing different tunes that could fit into the mood of the ceremony. Flags of all the countries in the world were being raised one after the other. To symbolize the peace which humans had regained, the United Nations flag was raised last. The Ghoes were the last to board the aircraft. A red carpet was laid on Runway 19 for the Ghoes to walk on. As they moved towards the two aircraft that were waiting to carry them back to their planet, they went on shaking hands with the US President and all the other dignitaries who had lined the runway.

Although the Ghoes had managed to rescue the human race, the US had been left in ruins. It was now up to humans to help the Americans to re-build their great nation. A similar task was awaiting the Ghoes on planet Ghostia. They had to reconcile the ghosts who had been divided by Lord Ghost’s lengthy regime. The greatest challenge to them was to rebuild the planet such that they could prepare it for the humans who were to join them soon. Indeed, Gen. Path had been right,

The Ghosts are humans and the humans are the ghosts! The Two are just separated by time.

THE END

TO BE CONTINUED

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

I am Desire Luminsa, a medical student at Gulu University in Uganda, East Africa.

Contact me on,

http://twitter.com/desireluminsa

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Thank you for reading my book, I request you to leave for me a review on your favorite ebook retailer.

OJW Conversion -

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE