Battle- Earth

by Mark Harrison

  Felix looked down at the floor of the yacht. He cursed himself for bringing it up. “I’m sorry,” said Felix. “That sounds terrible.”

  “It was.” Sharon stared at the table.

  Felix could see that she was thinking of all the awful things that had happened to her. “How did you survive all these years in those conditions?”

  “My faith that one day I would get out.”

  “And what now?” he asked. “Will you come with me?”

  “You’re going to the last remnant of SpaceForce?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “You will?”

  “It’s where my husband will be if he’s alive. I have nothing else.”

  Chapter 40

  The light from the AOJ turned off. The moment of brilliance ended as quickly as it began. It returned back to its original state. It now looked as it had before. Lifeless. Dead. It didn’t matter to John. He’d spent years of his life trying to get something out of the machine and he’d finally got it. He knew how to activate them now. Whatever the little cube was, they’d need to find more of them. If those things could power the black boxes, then that would be what they would need. The boy’s cube must have been damaged, that’s why it didn’t last long. It also didn’t help that the AOJ was damaged, too. He would need to find more of them. It was his biggest break in years.

  He’d need to see the boy again. He’d need to find out exactly where he found the cube. If he’d found one, he’d surely be able to find another.

  He made his way to the elevator and down to the holding cell. He’d sent them down there once the light had turned on. He called the other scientists in the bunker, but by the time they arrived, it had turned off. They looked at John like he was crazy when he told them about the light. They didn’t believe him. But when John showed him the video he’d recorded of it, they understood. John was right. They needed to get the boy and find more of those cubes.

  Rick, Sandra and Bobby were with the rest of the camp members in the holding cell. Rick was pissed. He felt like whatever bargaining chips they had had been lost. Bobby was glad to be away from John.

  Rick sat in the holding cell with an angry look on his face. He didn’t like scientists. They were always so absent minded. It didn’t help that he no idea what the fuck was going on. They hadn’t seen the AOJ turn off. They didn’t know the alien ship was only on for a couple minutes.

  “What was that all about?” Tuck asked Rick.

  “They got what they wanted from us and now they’re going to send us on our way.”

  Tuck had sobered up. He didn’t laugh. He’d thought Rick would talk his way into getting the camp to stay at the bunker. Rick had a knack for turning the odds in their favor. He frowned at Rick’s response. The rest of the camp looked as disappointed as Tuck.

  Sandra was consoling her children. Bobby kept saying sorry to his mom. Sandra kept saying that he didn’t need to apologize. Claire was pissed off. Her mother had told her that this was where things would change. She believed her. She felt that the missing SpaceForce bunker would be where they found salvation. Instead all they found was more pain and more anguish. She was angry.

  The rest of the camp was confused. From the expressions they read on Rick, Sandra and Bobby’s faces they could tell that things weren’t going well. They’d be kicked out of the bunker soon. They’d be back in the wilderness. Back in the Rockies.

  The doors to the holding cell swung open and John walked in. Rick stood up and walked up to him, he wanted to give him a piece of his mind. The two SpaceForce soldiers guarding the door stepped in front of him, they weren’t going to let him get too close. “What’s going on?” he said.

  “I need to speak to the boy,” John said.

  “You’ll need to speak to me first,” said Rick. “We want some assurances.”

  “Whatever you want,” John said. “I’m sure we can give it to you. What that boy found will be the key to us taking on these things. That little cube he found is what I believed it was. It harnesses the energy of the alien technology and gives the alien ships their power. It’s what most likely gives the motherships their power, too. He’s found the energy cubes.”

  All the camp members remained silent. What John was saying sounded like nonsense to them. Cubes? Alien energy? What the hell was on Bobby’s necklace. They’d travelled so long to get to the bunker and now they were greeted by a mad scientist.

  Rick was about to respond when in walked Ethan and Oleksii. The three men made up the council within the bunker. Ethan was the head of command, John was the lead scientist, and Oleksii was the guy that made sure things worked. The three of them must’ve been running things for a while here. They’d managed well during these desperate years, but the cracks in the bunker were starting to show. If Ethan was right and food was scarce, and John was correct in saying that they weren’t working on some counter-attack, then they needed help and they needed it quick.

  “John, I’ll take it from here,” Ethan said, patting the scientist on the back.

  John stood behind Ethan with Oleksii.

  “We’ve come to a decision,” said Ethan. “We unfortunately, can not take you all into our bunker.”

  The camp members began to protest. Rick yelled out, “Fuck you.”

  Tuck followed by saying, “Fuck that shit.”

  Dirk gave them the middle finger and stuck out his tongue.

  “I know, this is an unpopular decision. I know your…” Ethan stopped, he looked like he was about to laugh. His arrogance made Rick sick. “…leader has convinced you all that this would be the place where you could all fight back against the aliens, that this would be the place that would protect you. But that isn’t true. We can’t take you in. We have neither the supplies nor the space. We’re sorry for this inconvenience.”

  The camp members started to shout. Tuck took off his boot and threw it at Ethan. Ethan ducked. Rick had never seen his camp get so upset. It was time for him to step in. He needed to neutralize the situation before it got violent.

  “Calm down,” Rick said, waving his arms. He turned to Tuck and gave him a dirty look for throwing his boot. He then turned to Ethan and said, “We’ll go. We’ll leave. And we will take everything we know with us.”

  Rick was monitoring the situation. He could see that John was anxious. He could tell that Ethan’s unannounced presence was causing John’s hands to shake. He knew it was the alien ship and Bobby’s cube that was making him anxious. Rick knew that their best chances of staying in the camp were to coax John to intervene. It worked.

  “Well, wait a minute,” said John. “Before these people leave, we need to know where they found the cube.”

  Ethan looked from John back to Rick and then back to John. Ethan had heard about the cube on Bobby’s neck. He’d heard about the AOJ ship turning on and then off. He knew it was a big deal, even if he didn’t quite understand it. Oleksii was the one who’d informed him of the matter, but Oleksii’s accent was difficult to understand sometimes, maybe he’d missed something. “Okay, okay,” said Ethan. “Rick, get the boy to tell Dr. Slate here where he’d found the cube. That’s an order. Then you all can leave. I’m sorry. But if you don’t tell him, it’ll be serious.”

  His plan had worked. Rick looked at Ethan and smiled. “I’m not telling you shit.”

  The camp cheered when Rick spoke to Ethan.

  “I order you to tell Dr. Slate where the boy found that cube or I will keep you all in this holding cell until I see fit.”

  The desperation on Ethan’s voice rang loud and clear for all to hear. Keeping them in the holding cell was not a threat. In a way, it was what they wanted. It meant they could stay. It meant that they wouldn’t be leaving the bunker. It was dangerous out there in the woods, what with the hostiles and cannibals. Rick didn’t think much of Ethan but he didn’t think he was this dumb. The asshole no doubt knew that his threat was empty. Rick took advantage of the situation.

&n
bsp; “I’ve got an idea,” said Rick. “How about this: you let the camp stay here if I go out and find more of those cubes for you?”

  “You think I’m an idiot,” said Ethan.

  Rick didn’t want to honestly answer that question. “No,” he said. “I think you’re a man that is trying to keep everything together.” He knew that was true, even if he disagreed with Ethan’s process. “But I know you need us. I know you’ll run out of food and supplies and when that day happens, you’ll be like we were out there. You’ll be like every one else. You’ll be fighting for food and survival. And you’ll have no fucking chance against those alien ships. You know as much as I do that that cube gives you a chance. It gives your scientists the chance they need to design a weapon that can take these things on. So go ahead, keep us here. Arrest us. Keep us caged. It won’t help you. But if you take us in and you let me go out there and get you more of those things, then you’ll get you what you need to be the hero you so desperately want to be. I’ll give you the fighting chance you hunger for. The fighting chance we all hunger for.”

  Ethan was about to say something when John interrupted him. The two men whispered for a long while. Ethan then turned to Rick. “Okay,” he said. “You can go and find the cubes. But on one condition.”

  “What’s the condition?” Rick asked.

  “John has to go with you,” said Ethan. “Along with the mother and the boy.”

  “Agreed,” said Rick.

  John, Sandra and Bobby were speechless.

  Chapter 41

  Months later…

  It was early Fall and the leaves were starting to change color. Rick was holding a special class AR-99 rifle. It was an updated edition from the model he’d been using for years. Along with the infrared heat scope, it also came equipped with a built in grenade launcher. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. When he picked up the rifle, Dirk gave him a jealous look.

  They’d been walking for months. They were getting close to where Bobby said he’d found the energy cubes. Rick knelt down to the ground. They’d make Knoxville by nightfall. He wished Domino was here. The dog would have made it easier to track things. He’d decided that Domino was better left at the bunker. The animal had grown close to Oleksii. Five years away from its owner will do that. Rick was pissed. But a dog was a dog. He’d be back soon. He promised himself that. And when he did get back and was sure that the camp members were safe, he and Domino would head off to South Dakota.

  The travel from the bunker back to the Smoky Mountains had been arduos. They took the long route around every city and when there was a hint of a human presence, they’d avoid it altogether. They’d spotted a few camps, towns, cities that had large human presences, but they avoided them all. There was no point in taking any unnecessary risks, not now, now that they were so close to making a major breakthrough in the fight against the aliens. If John was right, and he could find a way to harness the alien technology to their benefit, then maybe they’d have a chance. Maybe the war wasn’t over yet. The apocalypse might have to be delayed.

  Along with Rick, was John, Sandra, Bobby, and two SpaceForce soldiers from the bunker, Jeremiah and Darnell. Rick wanted to keep their numbers low so as to make it easier to hide. Ethan wanted the SpaceForce soldiers to go along with Rick to make sure that Rick didn’t try anything. It pissed Rick off, but he understood.

  The majority of the trek was made by foot. They were going to take one of the trucks in the bunker, but Rick thought against it. The main roads would be dangerous and the sounds from the engines would attract unwanted attention, alien or human. The only time they used a vehicle was when they travelled through Kansas City. Rick hotwired an old beatup Truck and they hightailed it down a highway for half a day before they were spotted by a group of hostile humans. They took care of the hostiles and vowed not to travel by vehicle again.

  Once they got to the other side of Knoxville, they’d be only a days journey from where Bobby said he’d found the cubes. Rick looked at the boy. He hoped that the kid’s memory was a good as the kid said it was. If it wasn’t. This might be another long search.

  Sandra still hadn’t forgiven Rick for risking Bobby’s life with the tank. It made the journey awkward. She and Bobby kept to themselves. They’d update the group with information on how far they were from the energy cubes. That was it. Bobby wasn’t happy about his mother’s treatment and paranoia. When she slept, he’d talk to Darnell and Jeremiah about what life was like in SpaceForce. When he was old enough, he said he’d enroll. Darnell and Jeremiah laughed. They told the boy that there wasn’t much of a SpaceForce to enroll to. The boy didn’t care.

  Darnell, Jeremiah, and John were beside Rick. Sandra and Bobby were a few yards back. Rick walked up to a small ridge and looked over it. Knoxville’s skyline was in the distance. Rick pulled out his binoculars to get a lay of the land. He needed to check for a human presence or if there were any harvesters, AOJs or motherships in the area.

  He scanned the city. “That’s unusual,” he said.

  John was lying on the ground beside him. “What is it?”

  “There’s nothing in the sky. There’s nothing on the ground. It looks like a waste land completely abandoned.”

  “The harvesters must have done their work,” said John.

  “Done their work?”

  “Yes,” said John. “They seem to strip an area of any materials they can use and then move on. Surely, you know this. You lived out here with them for years.”

  Rick looked at John and clenched his fists. He resisted the urge to punch. Fucking scientists, they’re always so patronizing. “Yes,” Rick said. “I know what the harvesters do. They harvest. I just haven’t seen a city empty like this before. It’s eerie. If there’s no alien presence, there’s usually a human presence. It’s odd.”

  John saw Rick’s clenched fist and got the hint. He was wearing thin on Rick. He learned quickly that if you didn’t speak directly with Rick he would get pissed off. That conflicted with John’s personality. He spoke with nuance and liked to weigh his options. The two men had avoided each other for most of the trip.

  “So what do we do?” said Sandra.

  “The shortest path to the mountains is straight through Knoxville,” said Rick. “And we’re short on supplies. If there is anything left in the city, than we should grab it. We’ll need it.”

  “You think it’s the best idea to walk through a city like that?” she said, unconvinced by Rick’s logic. “You told us to avoid cities at all costs.”

  “Look around,” Rick said. “The city is empty and we need food. We have to think and plan for the trip back to the bunker as much as we have to think about finding the cubes.”

  Sandra nodded and turned to Bobby. She gave a worried look which Rick caught. He knew that she was worried about her boy. He understood that. Entering the city would be risky. But everyday was a risk. They’d have to travel through Knoxville. It was a risk they’d have to take.

  Rick put his binoculars away, stood up from his crouched position and said, “Alright, let’s go.”

  The group of six walked into the outer suburbs of the city. Most of it was burnt down. A few buildings remained. Every one was on edge. Every one except for Rick. He kept his rifle draped over his shoulder. The others were less confident. Sandra had drawn her crossbow, Bobby his bow. John was holding his rifle, but the way he was holding it made Rick smirk. He’d have to tell the smartass MIT scientist how to hold a weapon later. The two SpaceForce soldiers also had their weapons drawn. One of them was holding a RX-20 sniper rifle with a special class tracking scope, it’d anticipate the direction of your target if it was moving and suggest changes for you to make to hit the target. The other was holding an AR-99 much like Rick’s.

  As they made their way through the outer suburbs of the city, the landscape began to change. There was less destruction. Bungalows, town houses, picket fences, remained untouched. It was eerie. It astonished Rick how much of the city was still standing. It look
ed as if things had been frozen in place. That thought never lasted long. As soon as they’d passed an untouched area, they’d soon be reminded of the terror that had befallen the world. A string of houses would look fine, untouched, and then, right next to them, would be a crater, standing in place of where a house once had.

  Every house they passed they checked for supplies. Most of them had been gone through already. But they did manage to find the odd useful item. Things like tape, string, or small steak knives were always useful and helpful for crafting.

  Before they went into each house, Sandra told Bobby to wait outside. At first, Rick thought it was silly to leave the boy outside, they could use him to help search for supplies, but he learned that this was something Sandra had done with her children before. She knew that they’d find more than just supplies in the empty houses. She’d seen the horrors of the post-invasion. Inside one of the houses, where two bodies hanging from the ceiling. Two people who’d killed themselves. They swung gently from the breeze that came in through an open window. As Rick searched through the house, he saw glimpses of who they were. They were an elderly couple. They looked happy. Many of the pictures hung up along the house’s walls featured them and their kids. The morbid details of their life and death became even more clear when John found a suicide note in a drawer:

  Dear Sally and Tom,

  If you find this letter, it means you’ve found us. We’re sorry we gave up. We’re sorry. Each night we pray that you’re still alive. I’ll take that hope with me to the other side. Although, I’m surely going to hell now. We’ve been holed up in the house for months. The alien invaders for some reason skipped over us. They destroyed the O’Reilly’s house. You must know that. If you made it here, you’d have seen it. If you made it here, it also means that either the aliens have left or the military fought them off. In the new world, give us a proper burial. Give us a proper place. It’s important that you realize this decision wasn’t made easy. Your mother had taken sick these past few weeks. She needed her medicine, and, while I made it to the pharmacy to find some, it had been ransacked. There was none left. The pain grew so intense that she had no other option. I tried, I did. But looters have arrived... I managed to kill a few off. But I know they’ll be back. And the things they’ll do to us. It’s better if we finish the job before those bastards get the chance. Goodbye, we love you. -Darryl and Clarrisa Morton