Chapter 146: One Last Stand

Khaled looked at the ground for a moment in turmoil, then looked at him. "This happened years ago," he said. "This Gladious sent me one of his masked soldiers and told me a story about a civilization called the Astra that wanted to colonize our planet. Of course, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen an alien in front of me. Gladious’s messenger asked me to gather the best and smartest humans on ships whose hidden purpose was to search for life in space, but the main goal was to train soldiers with superpowers who could repel this invasion. Indeed, the ships were named Enix after Gladious’s special squad. I sent two ships into space, and they did not return as we had planned. And in order to silence the people’s anger, we sent a ship with a robot on it and tampered with it so that it would attack humans and then destroy itself, which would make people panic that there were aliens in space who had hijacked the ships, and conspiracy theories about this matter would spread. So the people fell silent and did not blame us after that. Then Gladious came to me and said that the Super Soldier project would be very delayed and that the invasion would arrive before he finished preparing them. He asked me to prepare a huge ship to carry as many humans as possible and to escape with them to a habitable planet whose location he (Gladious) knew. Of course, I was confused and skeptical, but I could not disbelieve him. I prepared the ship and loaded it with people, and the invasion began as Gladious had predicted. We fled through space and followed his instructions until we reached this planet. Gladious helped us build the ruins of a destroyed city and asked us not to tell the people anything about what was happening so that they would not panic. Then we were surprised by machines attacking us, and we asked him for help. He told us that on this planet lived a mad being named Gaia who surrounded himself with robots, but that he would build us an energy shield to protect us from them, and thus we would live here in peace. He told us that this was the only planet that was currently suitable for us and that he would help us destroy Gaia’s robots so that the planet would be entirely ours. But the invasion came when we made a mistake while trying to expand, and the city was destroyed, thousands were killed, and the rest were displaced. Our resources have begun to run out, and the food is not enough for everyone, and we do not know what to do. We cannot contact Gladious, and according to what you said, Gladious has deceived us so that we would fight his dirty war here because we are masters of wars and destruction. We are doomed for sure."Ares sighed, his soul constricted and the earth, for all its vastness, felt tight. "So Gaia’s story contains a lot of truth. We are now between the jaws of a lion. Either we are crushed by Gaia and his machines, or Gladious will destroy us if we disobey him and rebel against him. And our planet has now been colonized by the people of Atlantis, and we have no refuge from all this. We are just mercenaries that Gladious uses to fight his wars for hegemony, nothing more and nothing less."

"So what are we to do?" Khaled said, his face pale and gaunt. "Are we to stay here until we perish?"

"Of course not. We have no choice but to fight. Tell me what weapons you have here."

Khaled told him about all the soldiers, weapons, and equipment he had, and about the huge robots they had left for when the predicament worsened.

Ares smiled, feeling a glimmer of hope. He asked the president to hand over these huge robots to him and to head with all his forces to the center of Atlantis to prepare for this huge attack. Khaled reluctantly agreed to hand over the huge robots and asked his soldiers to get ready for war and to show Ares the location of the robots and how to pilot them.

After Ares had learned everything about the robots and how to use them, he asked the president to leave and to catch up with his comrades, because they would be of great help to them in this war. The president gave him permission. Ares got into one of the huge robots, while he activated the autopilot feature in the other four robots, and he drove his machines through the camps. The people came out and gathered, watching these huge machines that their eyes had never seen before. They gathered on both sides of the road and began to watch the situation with mixed feelings. An idea came to Ares’s mind. He stopped the machines, opened the door of his cockpit, came out of it, turned on the loudspeaker in the robot, and began to speak in a loud, enthusiastic voice, wanting to move their feelings.

"People! As I speak to you now, there is a huge army of robots coming to finish us off and to work to completely wipe us out from the face of this earth. We do not have enough men to stand up to this large army, but we will fight to the last moment until we win or are killed while defending ourselves with courage. Today will be a fateful day, and I give you the choice in what follows: either you join us in this fight, or you sit here until death comes to you from in front of you and from behind you. Either you balance the scales and help us destroy these accursed ones, or you stay in your places until you rot under the feet of the machines. Today is the day of the end of the human race and its annihilation forever, or perhaps it will be the day of its resurrection, and you are the ones who will decide this! You have no other choice, so what will you do?"

The people were silent, stunned by what he had said, and some seemed hesitant and afraid. But one young man rushed out from the ranks and announced that he was joining him. Then many young men, old men, young people, and some women followed him, and the numbers continued to grow until more than half the people had joined Ares.

Ares smiled, his heart reassured. "Gather all the weapons you can and join the army that will leave from here."