Battle- Earth

by Mark Harrison

  Before deciding to head off in the direction of the bunker and the forty-six people attacking it, Felix bent down to the ground and opened up his backpack. He loaded up his Z-49 with ammo and grabbed a few grenades. Sharon checked to make sure her shotgun was ready and gave Felix a quick nod when she was done. The two of them set off through the woods.

  For months, they’d perfected the art of not being seen. Felix was good at this. He’d spent much of his early life hiding from as many things as he could; whether they be social gatherings or mandatory meetings. He liked his privacy. Being one of the wealthiest men in the world, didn’t make this easy. But he got good at it. In fact, one of the things he’d learned the past few months was that hiding from the alien ships and other humans was a lot like hiding from the press. The first thing you had to assume when hiding from the press was to assume that they were constantly looking for you. As long as you accepted that, half your work was done.

  He ran through the forest in a crouched pose. He was quick and agile. He made sure that he didn’t stop running until he found a big enough tree to hide his slender frame behind. Once he’d found the tree, he’d catch his breath.

  Sharon adopted a similar approach, albeit a slower one. She was older, after all. That said, the wounds from living as a prisoner were starting to heal. She was starting to get most of her strength back. Before the invasion, she was an avid runner. She’d run ten kilometers each day. She was finally starting to feel like she was getting her endurance back. Sharon hid behind a tree close to Felix.

  Felix looked out from beyond the tree he was hiding behind. He signalled to Sharon to wait. They needed to wait for a break in the action before they could act.

  The break in action came quick. Almost as soon as they stopped running through the woods, six sticks of dynamite flew out from the large door that had been blasted open in the mountain. The sticks of dynamite landed close to different groups of attackers and exploded as soon as they hit the ground, sending bits and pieces of body parts in all directions.

  “What the fuck was that?” screamed Sharon.

  “Our way in,” said Felix.

  He jumped up from behind the tree and started firing at the attackers. He was hoping that whoever threw those sticks of dynamite would uphold their end of the bargain. If they didn’t, he and Sharon would be dead.

  His Z-49 made quick work of two attackers. Once their bodies hit the ground, he ducked back behind a tree.

  Felix peaked around the tree. The attackers were scrambling. They were in a panicked state. They couldn’t tell who was shooting at them. That’s when he noticed a group of attackers running toward Sharon.

  Sharon was behind a tree. She was concealed, but if anyone got close enough, they’d be able to spot her. She watched the group of attackers approach and got her shotgun ready. She’d only get one chance at this.

  There were six of them. They were dressed in dirty, ragged old clothes. They each had a crudely painted skull and crossbones on their shirts. If that was meant to intimidate, it wasn’t going to work. As they ran up to Sharon, she jumped out and fired two slugs from her shotgun. They all fell to ground, their bodies riddled by the pellets from her shotgun’s blast.

  As far as Felix could tell, there weren’t many attackers left. A lot of them had run off into the woods.

  He jumped up from the tree and popped off two more shots at nearby attackers. Two more attackers fell. This time, however, the other attackers got a glimpse of him.

  Felix had no choice now but to run back into the woods. He questioned his bold strategy. Was this just like Dallas? He ran in the direction of the Sharon. They were going to have to work together if they were going to take on the rest of these goons.

  As he ran toward Sharon, the people inside the bunker revealed themselves. They’d gotten the hint that there were some people outside who were helping.

  Sharon jumped up out of the bush and fired her recently reloaded shotgun. She didn’t hit anybody, but she deterred anyone from shooting at the running Felix, who dove toward her when he got close enough.

  “We need to get up to the door,” Sharon said. “We will be dead soon.”

  Felix nodded and got up from the ground and used a new tree as a cover. He looked back to the bunker’s entrance. Six people emerged from inside. They were heavily equipped. There were also seven attackers running toward himself and Sharon. There is no way the two of them would be able to take on that many people at once. They’d need the help from the people who had just emerged from inside the bunker.

  Felix aimed his rifle around the tree and fired a few shots at the approaching attackers. The people from inside the bunker seemed to get the hint. Whoever was hiding behind that tree was their friend.

  The attackers running toward Felix and Sharon were quickly taken of. Three dynamite sticks flew toward the seven attackers and exploded on impact. All seven attackers fell to ground at once.

  With the attackers dead, Felix grabbed Sharon by the hand and said “Now!”

  He pulled her up from the ground and guided her toward the bunker entrance, right into the thick of the battle. The people from inside the bunker recognized that they were allies and didn’t fire at them, but that didn’t stop other attackers from trying to take down Felix and Sharon as they made their way up to the entrance.

  Somehow, they made it. As they did, Sharon fell to the ground, she was exhausted. Despite her extensive endurance training, she wasn’t ready for something like this. Felix ran up to an old stout man with a funny mustache. “My name is Felix Sarsgaard,” he said.

  The man looked at him with a strange face, then he smiled. “I know you,” he said. “You’re that billionaire boy-wonder. The CEO of BlueStar. My name is Tuck McGregor.”

  Felix shook Tuck’s hands, the old man nearly ripped Felix’s arm off in the process. The others from inside the bunker came up and introduced themselves. Sharon was looking for any sign of Chris, her husband. She didn’t seem him. She asked a few of the people from inside if they had heard of a Chris Dellon. No one had heard of him.

  But the pleasantries were short lived. It was just a moment of reprieve. A crunching sound emerged from within the woods. It sounded like a large machine or vehicle crushing trees.

  “Is that a harvester?” said Felix.

  “No,” said Tuck. “It’s a goddamned tank.”

  Chapter 46

  The fog was starting to clear, but there was still no sign of Sandra or Bobby. They’d been searching through the woods for hours. It was quiet. It seemed that the survivors within the woods had cleared it of all natural life. They would have had to. It would have been the only way they could have survived out here for so long.

  “Over here,” said Jeremiah, pointing to something on the ground.

  Rick ran up to investigate. It was a boy’s shoe. It was Bobby’s. Rick put the shoe in his backpack. “This means we’re headed in the right direction,” he said.

  They continued to make their way through the forest in the mountains. The sun was setting and as it did, the fog was getting worse. Rick thought it was fitting. Nothing seemed to be going their way. As the sun set, Rick saw the feint glimmer of the stars above. But something else happend when it grew dark. The fog started to change color.

  “Is this the northern lights?” asked Darnell.

  John scoffed. “The northern lights? Are you serious?”

  Rick rolled his eyes. This guy had to work on his people skills. “No,” he said to Darnell. “This is something else.”

  “Rick’s correct,” said John. “But you are correct to assume that it looks like it is some sort of rare natural phenomena.”

  Rick pulled out his binoculars to get a better look. The fog was glowing green. The glow was milky in texture. As he looked through his binoculars, he noted that the tree branches facing the other side of the mountain looked strange. “I don’t think this is some natural phenomena,” he said.

  “Why?” said John. He grabbed the binoculars from
Rick’s hand and looked through. “My god.”

  “What is it?” said Jeremiah.

  “Yeah, what?” chimed in Darnell.

  “I believe we’ve found our energy cubes,” said John.

  Rick smiled, but that smile quickly faded. Finding the energy cubes was the reason why he came out here, but with Sharon and Bobby missing, it was bittersweet. As soon as they’d grabbed a couple of the cubes, they’d resume for their search for Sandra and Bobby. The energy cubes were the mission. They couldn’t deviate from the plan.

  They made their way to the other side of the mountain and the source of the green glow. As they got closer, they started to hear a gentle hum percolate through the woods. They walked slowly, just as they had in the dense fog. Every now and then the sound of the hum would be broken up by what sounded like metal on metal, like machinery in a factory. Both John and Rick looked at each other with the same disturbed expression. This was nothing like what Bobby had described. What the hell was going on in these woods?

  It took them most the night to get close to the other side of the mountain. As the light from the morning began to creep above the horizon, the fog lost a bit of its green glow.

  “Are you sure this is where the energy cubes are?” asked Darnell.

  “No,” said Rick. “But we’re looking for some weird alien tech out in the Smoky mountains and this is weird and alien looking. So we’re on to something.”

  Despite the fact that they were two experienced soldiers, Darnell and Jeremiah looked scared. The last time they saw alien tech was when the invasion started. For years, they’d been holed up in the bunker, free from the worry and threat of an alien attack. They’d spent years working out in the bunker’s gym, chiselling their bodies so they’d be capable of taking on any potential threat, but they didn’t spend enough time preparing themselves mentally. Rick could see it in their eyes. “You guys want to turn back?” he asked.

  Darnell and Jeremiah looked at each other. Rick’s offer was a challenge. They didn’t respond to him, they just continued to push on. That’s what Rick wanted them to do. It was only natural to be scared. If they weren’t scared, that would be a problem. But they’d have to learn to accept that fear and push on. That’s what Rick had learned to do. That’s what all the survivors outside the bunker had learned to do.

  John didn’t looked scared at all. His excitement mitigated any fear he had. If they could find some working energy cubes, then they could power the AOJ in the bunker and reverse engineer it. Once they understood the technology, they’d be able to harness it for their own good. This would be the biggest scientific discovery of the century and they were so close to it.

  They made their way to the top of the hill. They all looked at what was on the other side but were disappointed. The fog hid what was on the other side. They were close. The hum and the sounds of the grinding metal grew louder as they made their way down the other side. Rick gripped his rifle. Something about this place made him feel uneasy.

  That’s when he heard voices. He pulled out his binoculars and scanned for heat signatures. There was nothing.

  John, Darnell and Jeremiah heard the voices too and were crouched down behind Rick. “Anything?” asked John.

  “No,” said Rick. “They sound close, but I don’t see anything.”

  They continued to make their way downward and as they did so the soil below them changed in composition. John bent down to investigate. He pulled something up from the ground.

  “This is a piece of metal,” he said.

  “Is it part of an energy cube?” asked Rick.

  “No,” said John. “It looks human. Like something from an old vehicle.”

  “Let me see,” said Rick. He took the piece of metal from John’s hands and looked at it. “This is from the frame of an old GM car. You can tell by the way its rusted.”

  “Most unusual,” said John.

  “So where are the energy cubes?” asked Darnell.

  “I don’t know,” said Rick. “But we have to be getting close. We need to keep going.”

  They pushed forward. About seventeen yards from where they found the piece of metal from the car, they heard more voices. Rick motioned for everyone to stay quiet. He pulled out his binoculars to look for heat signatures again. Again, nothing.

  They kept walking and then, from out of the fog, right in front of them appeared a giant metal wall. It was made from a patchwork of old car doors or steel plates. Above the edge of the wall, the green glowing fog became thick. Whatever was making the area around the forest glow, it was behind this wall.

  “Now we know why you don’t see any heat signatures,” said John. “They’re behind the wall.”

  Rick just looked at him. “You like to state the obvious, don’t you?” The relationship between the two men was getting less hostile, but every now and then Rick would remember why he didn’t like scientsts. John didn’t respond to Rick’s question.

  “How do we get in?” asked Jeremiah.

  “I don’t know, but we should be careful,” said Rick. “There are voices on the other side. Most likely, they related to the people who kidnapped Sandra and Bobby. With any luck, we’ve just found the energy cubes and our two missing party members.”

  They circled the metal wall. It was large. It was more than fifteen feet high and seemed thick, like it could withstand a bus or a tank. They kept hearing voices from the people inside, but couldn’t hear them clear enough to discern anything. Making matters worse, the fog didn’t let up. It was so bad that Rick could only see a few yards in front of him.

  They circled the wall, trying to find the entrance point. That’s when they heard a scream. It was Sandra. She was in pain. Rick started to run. Against his better judgement, he didn’t stop. A few yards in front of him he found what looked like a door. He began to pry it open. He heard the scream again.

  “Wait,” said John. “Wait! We don’t want to give our position away.” John tried to pull Rick away from the door, but Rick didn’t budge. “Get away from the door, you fool!” John said.

  “She’s in there,” Rick said.

  “I know,” said John. “But you’re going to give away any advantage we have away.”

  Rick calmed himself down. John was right. When he heard Sandra scream once more, he did his best to resist the urge to pull out his rifle and shoot at the door.

  “That sounded like the Connor woman,” said Darnell.

  “It was her,” Rick said. “Who knows what the fuck they’re doing to her in there.”

  The door to the metal wall was large, twenty feet wide. Large and wide enough that a tank could enter with no problem. This wasn’t some basic camp of survivors. This was more like a military fort.

  As the four men stood outside the door, trying to figure out a way to get it in the camp without being noticed, the humming and grinding metal noise grew more intense. They stepped back away from the wall. Something was happening. Then, the door started to move, it raised itself up, like a castle’s entranceway.

  They crouched behind a small log. They could see the metal gears of door rotate, raising the heavy door. They could also see how thick the door was. It was three feet thick.

  “How the fuck did they build all this?” Rick asked.

  “They must know how to harness the power of the energy cubes,” said John. “That’s the only way to explain it. But why are they using them to make such rudimentary simple things. They could be using this power for the good of humanity. Not building some fortified camp.”

  “Whoever we’re dealing with, they are one organized unit,” Rick said. He then heard the click of a gun. He turned around slowly.

  The metal door started to close.

  “Should we run in?” asked Jeremiah.

  Rick didn’t respond. He couldn’t. When Jeremiah didn’t hear any response he turned to Rick. Rick had his hands up. A man was holding a gun up to Rick’s head. Jeremiah reached for his gun but before he could grab it he heard a click, although unli
ke Rick’s, this one was followed by a thunderous sound. Jeremiah flew back. He was dead.

  Darnell screamed in rage, jumped up from the ground at one of the men holding them up. They weren’t clear in the fog, but he could tell that they were human. Before he could reach them, he was shot down. Like Jeremiah, he was dead.

  Rick and John remained on the ground, there hands in the air. They’d been captured. From out of the fog emerged six men holding guns. They had a symbol on their jackets, a symbol like the one Sandra pointed out in Knoxville. They belonged to the cult she’d escaped from. They were Quinton’s men.

  Chapter 47

  The twenty-first century military tank was impractical in design. It was a lumbering piece of metal and gears and not fit for any modern war. Tanks were almost never used. Most conflicts were settled either by covert groups of NAVY seals sneaking deep behind enemy lines and assassinating specific targets or through coordinated drone strikes. The tank was a relic from a bygone era. When Felix was designing the Z-49 rifle, he studied tanks. He wanted to know why they were still made. Why did the military still stock them? If they were never used, than what was their purpose. As he saw the tank emerge from the trees in front of the SpaceForce bunker, he finally got his question answered.

  Everyone outside the bunker ran back inside and hid behind the blasted open doors. The tank was making its way to the entrance. Nothing was going to stop it. It was a slow moving wave of destruction. They all were helpless, they could only watch.

  Felix looked around the hangar. There were three military trucks inside and a bunch of supply crates. He turned to Tuck and asked, “Do you think I can get into one of those trucks?”

  The old man looked at him with a confused expression and said, “You want to drive out of here already?”

  “No,” said Felix. “I can stop the tank. I just need to get into one of those trucks.”

  “Ask the head SpaceGoof over there,” said Tuck, pointing to the SpaceForce soldier on the walkie-talkie. Felix ran up to him and asked the ‘SpaceGoof’ if he knew where the keys to the trucks were kept. The SpaceForce soldier’s mouth dropped when he saw who was talking to him. Felix had to ask him the question twice to get a response. He didn’t have time for this. Had it been anyone else, the SpaceForce soldier would have declined the request. But this was Felix Sarsgaard, one of the most influential people on the planet. He handed over the keys to the truck.