Astra stood up covered in dust with her elbows and knees bruised, as soon as she raised her head towards the cliff, she saw the figure of professor Jada lying down, covered in dust and bruises. Without wasting a single second to think or consider the situation, she dashed towards the old woman.

Professor Jada has not always been her  mentor alone, she was also the only family she has. After her parent’s tragic demise in the failed mission to Mars years ago, she was dumped in an orphanage in the outskirts of Chrome City, the orphanage was struggling to feed the children that were there, Astra spent her early days looking for food scraps to eat and there didn’t seem to be any hope for her, until Jada showed up one day looking for help.

She was on a trip to one of her research units situated in the desert when the battery of her travel rover exploded and strand her in the outskirt near the orphanage, she was old but even when Astra saw her for the first time, she could tell that she was no ordinary person, her skin is saggy and her stature has bent to the will of old age, yet her eyes retain a fierceness that intimidate whoever she gazes at.

Having only seen the transport rover on the screen, Astra jumped at the opportunity to help her. Even as an eleven years old child, she has outstanding knowledge about machines and the principles that surround how they operate. Astra provided Jada with a few tools she needed to create a makeshift battery that will power the rover with just enough voltage to take her back to Chrome City.

It took only a day of interacting with the young girl for Jada to want to adopt her. After a week since her rover broke down, she came back to adopt her out of the orphanage to live with her in the city; Astra had since that day been in the care of the professor, who meticulously trained her to be the engineering genius she is today.

She has raised her as her own daughter, taking care of her, putting her through school and personally taught her proper engineering from the scratch.

 Just before the arrival of the alien crawlers, Astra has won himself a scholarship to the most prestigious engineering college in the human federation.

Having reached her on the floor, she reached her hands to her and Jada held them, using her as support to get up. The two of them ran to the gate of the shelter as fast as they can, upon reaching the large metallic door, Jada stepped forward and grabbed a metal rod on the door, placed about the same height as her shoulder.

She pulled the rod down, revealing a small keypad with numbers and letters, she input a series of codes and pressed a button that has a blue don on it, this immediately made the little screen on the keypad flash green light.

Astra wanted to ask so many questions on how Jada knows how to open the doors, but the large metallic door, large enough to fit an air plane through begins to make an unfamiliar sound that was followed with the opening of a portion of the larger door, revealing a smaller entrance into the shelter, she saved her questions for later and run inside the door, closing it from behind where a large screen next to what Astra recognized as periscopes were mounted shows a live feed of the other side using specially hidden cameras on the door.

On the other hand, Khan and Tim have piloted for five minutes on their hover-bikes, they have just caught sight of Rhoda and the rest of the students running in their direction, behind them is a dust storm emerging from the direction of the city, spreading out in every direction and currently only a few tens of kilometers from them.

Rhoda has assessed the situation and declared that it would be safer if they ran to the underground bunkers and hide there before Jada and the three students she took with her will eventually arrive if they survived whatever is coming at them so fast that it is making a cloud of dust rise with it.

As soon as Rhoda saw the lights of the hover-bikes, she summed up what they are but cannot believe Jada only sent two hover-bikes to rescue them instead of the rover. The two bikes hovered their way to where Jamie, Rhoda, Lawrence and Lucy were, both Khan and Tim pressed a few keys on their bikes, initiating an automatic merge which will allow them to carry their four classmates to the bunker.

The bikes merged into a quad engine hover-bike. Having merged, Tim transferred the control of his bike to Khan who if better at piloting than he is. Rhoda, Jamie, Lawrence and Lucy climbed the bike as fast as they can, strapping themselves with seat belts and immediately, Khan flew if upwards and started heading back to where they left Jada and Astra near the bunker as the hoards of alien crawlers keep poring out, chasing and killing anything covered in the dust they rise with them as they move.

After five minutes flying, they finally arrived at the shelter, but there was neither sign of the rover, nor Jada and Astra, they stopped the bikes and got down.

“where the heck are they, shouldn’t they be here to help us get in?” asked Jamie who has pushing and pulling the large bomb-proof metallic door in all directions but realizing that there is no hope, no matter how many of the there are or how much they pulled it, the door wont budge.

“Astra! Where are you? We have returned with Rhoda and the rest of the team so open the door” Lawrence said, having realized that it is entirely possible for them to have out the rover inside of the shelter of they were able to open the gigantic doors.

“Maybe they drove off, maybe they have been killed already, or maybe they have gone in and shut themselves, and just wont risk opening the door for us and getting killed as well by whatever the hell was coming from the tower that landed in the city. You saw it too, the dust clouds that will be reaching us in about an hour or so, when I looked at it carefully, it was as if there were monsters running at high speed, raising enough dust to make the clouds of dust” Rhoda said with her face bearing the usual expression she makes whenever she pipes out her hyper pessimism.

Just at the moment, they heard a clanking and creaking sounds of metal being dragged on the surface of something solid and hard, the sound was coming from their right, exactly opposite direction of the door to the entrance of the shelter that has been built into the base of an inactive dead volcano.

“is that a cliff?” asked Tim and Rhoda responded “yes, that’s a big cliff that goes all the way down the hill we are on”.

The creaking sounds keep intensifying by the second, as if something is climbing its way to the top of the hill from all the way down. Khan and Tim pulled out their high caliber pistols which the received from Jada and walked to the edge of the cliff, peering down and immediately running back towards the door as fast as they can.

“it is coming back,  dragging the rover with it. We must get in the shelter otherwise there is no escape for us” Tim shouted.

“what is coming back?” Rhoda asked and before she closed her mouth, a large alien creature arm reached the edge of the cliff, stabbing the ground and anchoring itself in preparation to climb the rest of its body upwards as well.

“what the hell is that?” she shouted with a shaky voice that shows how terrified she is.

“that is the Alien monster that Killed Sam, it crawled out of the giant pillar that landed from the spheres, it is bullet proof and can run faster than the hover-bike” Tim said.

The large metallic door started to crank up and within a few seconds, a small entrance has opened, they all ran into the shelter just in time for them to escape the alien monster that has finished crawling up the hill dragging their rover. Jada pushed the door as soon as the last student entered the shelter, barely missing the claws of the monster.

It started to hit and attack the door ferociously in an attempt to break in, but quickly realized that it was hopeless. The group stood behind the door monitoring the monster as it stood studying the metallic door through the screens there.