Ever since they came to that Island, it is their first time to see everyone: all the teams, the uppers, even the guards and bodyguards. Most specially, him. The boss himself, Lux.
A huge door that is seemingly more like a gate opened in front of them. A lengthy hall was inside, just as white as everything else in the facility. One by one, in order, all of them seated with only their breathing, swift moving and silent footsteps could be heard. With that number, she heard no voice, not even a whisper.
“Good day, everyone!” Lux greeted that if not for the monitors, the ones at the back could barely see him from afar.
“For those who have already forgotten, I am Lux. The boss and the only one who is the reason why there is this organization. But whatever happened after founding this association was all because of you. For that, I recognized you all. First and foremost, I am thankful that all the people here—in the organization, are present today. From the very first team to the very last one; to the Captains and Heads; their members; to the Uppers; Heads of Bodyguards and their squads; Heads of guards and their men, thank you for acknowledging the invitation to attend this event.” He started and glanced at the crowd, eluding the same authoritativeness he has always been showing off to everyone he meet.
“Years ago, years behind from anyone of you here can think of, I have thought of establishing an organization wherein I can share everything I know about astronomy. As you can see, I succeeded. With the help of every one of you, of course. I never thought that one day, some of our teams will be sent to the outer space and do some explorations. And just recently, our very own Echo Group First Generation Team One, Headed by then was Captain Eulysis, Head Eulejius and Head Epharil, had successfully completed the mission given to them. And that is to blast the asteroids coming this way—to the Earth.” He looked at their way, and so her team stood up for the others to see them.
“With the first observations gathered by Gamma Group Third Generation Team Four, Headed by Captain Gerome and his Heads, Captain Eulysis’ team had figured out how to deal with those planetoids. You might be wondering why we had to prepared that intricately and why this deserves to be recognized. For you to know, those asteroids aren’t like the usual asteroids. And during the mission, it was only us who had dealt with most of those. The other Aeronautics Space Administrations had barely helped us out.”
He roamed his eyes around, intimidating all of them. “Everyone, I am beyond proud to introduce you, the Echo Group First Generation Team One! A round of applause, please.”
Only then, the hall was filled with noise. She saw no one that didn’t clap his hands. Together with her team, they went to the stage and stood up right next to the man.
After introducing them, her teammates seated on the fancy seats reserved for them, while she remained standing.
“Go ahead. Show them how terrible is your team, Captain,” Lux whispered but was enough for her to hear.
She nodded as he gave her the space to formally start the presentation.
“Greetings, everyone! To the Uppers, Teams—Captains, Heads and members, to our security forces, good day! I am Eve, the new Captain of Echo Group First Generation Team One. It is such an honor to be here and share with you our success. Years ago, our teams were told that this year, we will be sent to the outer space for a crucial mission. And not long ago, we dealt with it.” She went to the other side where the uppers are sitting.
“During the mission, we came to the point that we thought no one of us will be able to go back. We are well-prepared, 101%! We are equipped with the best among the best things that the organization has, and we were allowed to use two Programs. But then, no matter how prepared we are, there are still circumstances that you had to sacrifice few for you to succeed. We can’t pull back. We had no other choice but to continue what we had started. Thus, to complete the mission, we barely had managed to take home half of the team.” She stopped and looked at the uppers, who bear nothing but just the position of being an officer.
“It cost us the lives of our nine teammates. And three of those are Captain Eulysis and our two Heads, Eulejius and Epharil; and the team’s doctor, Dr. Fresnon.” She paused as she glanced at her members. They are looking back at her as if they’re telling her it is just okay.
She bit her tongue. If there is something that she hated she had learned upon joining the organization, that is to lie.
“Unfortunately, the programs had malfunctioned at some occasions. We didn’t ask for backups, though at some point we expected that the organization will send some help. That is because we know no one else was prepared for it. It was just us. But then, during our last days out there, when we no longer have enough explosives left, we had to use our satellites. Yes, the weaponized ones. We are aware how important it is but if we hadn't done that, we are certain, a large area of this planet’s surface should have already been wiped out.” Her breathing became restless as she remembered how they prevented that to happen.
“Here on the right side are the images of those asteroids captured by the spaceship DEE–851216E’s cameras in different angles. As you can observe, compared to these on the left side, regarding with the sizes, there is no difference. But with the structure in terms of appearance and their compositions, they are completely different from each other.” She zoomed the pictures for them to see clearly.
“While the usual ones are rocky objects which is made up of clay and silicate with different known metals, mostly iron and nickel, these newly discovered ones are composed of almost no clay nor silicate at all—they are mostly made up of metals. However, we have seen few that are rocky in the inside but are coated with the same substance that the newly discovered asteroids composed of.” She smiled as she saw a hint of interest filled their eyes.
“Eons ago, based on scientific history, an asteroid has killed the dinosaurs to which scientists believed that its diameter measured 6 miles, that would be 9.6 kilometers. And here is the 670 km in diameter Asteroid AE-010E, the last one that we—no, that our Captain and Heads had dealt with. If not for the barrier of the mother ship and the shuttles we used, the impact of the blasting could have wiped out more or even had possibly blasted everything around the area of the explosion. Certainly, the range of that explosion would have reached farther if the spaceship hadn’t deployed its defense barrier to its full extent.” She leaped, stealing away their excitement.
'There is no way that I will give you everything. We worked hard for it, while you did nothing.' She thought as she watched the greedy lost their poise.
“Fellows, there are usual asteroids out there that are surely bigger than Asteroid AE-010E. But those can’t reach Earth easily, not unless it is something like or huger than the Chicxulub impactor—if that happens, it’s no longer dinosaurs that will get killed. But, worry not. The possibility of it to happen is…” she paused and raised her hands to make a quotation sign. “Not much in our lifetimes.”
“I will tell you later how did our late teammates blasted Asteroid AE-010E after discussing how these asteroids behaves.” She then turned the slide.
“These asteroids are almost alike to magnets. They are being attracted and repelled, too. The only and big difference is that it doesn’t depend on the charges, but to the force stored in something. One more thing is that it behaves in opposite manner. That is, instead of magnetizing or be magnetized, they do three things. For some reasons, they behaved like what we call in human’s way is 'cautiously'. If force is being exerted, they go away from things that has a stored force larger than they have; they target those things that has lower force than they had in store; and if placed near something that have just the same amount of force as theirs, they are being hold in bay.” Eyes and ears are all on her. But instead of feeling awkward, she felt even more motivated.
“Thus, in able to take Asteroid AE-010E, we had to lowered down the force that the spaceship is exerting. And when they finally got it inside the defense barrier, slowly, they raised the force being exerted by the spaceship and initiated self-destruction.” She gulped as she conditioned herself for the next words she’s about to say.
“But before that, five of our teammates had to sacrifice themselves to explode the smaller ones.” The hall became silent again. So quiet that it made her feel what she felt exactly that moment.
The solemness that devoured the few seconds was broken when someone hemmed. She is not expecting for anyone to raise his hand and ask, but she was surprised to see an upper raising his hand.