Battle- Earth

by Mark Harrison

  Felix made his way back up to Oleksii in the radio tower room. As the elevator’s doors opened, Felix knew that the data from the radio tower signal they’d sent out had come back. The news wasn’t good.

  “There’s thousands upon thousands of them,” said Oleksii. He looked stunned.

  “I knew it,” said Felix. “It’s the next wave.”

  “Next wave?” said Oleksii. “The first wave was bad enough.”

  Felix looked at the data. Oleksii had interpreted it correctly. There were massive objects just outside the Kuiper Belt. They were definitely alien ships. Felix could tell by the heart patterns and the direction they were moving. “Tell me about those energy cubes your colleague John is after,” he said.

  “John believes that these small translucent cubes that we found in a destroyed alien AOJ, are what powers the alien ships. Once we figure those things out, we could have unlimited power.”

  “That would only make a difference if you had a place to use it,” said Felix.

  “That’s true,” said Oleksii. “I don’t think John’s thought about the next step. He just wants to learn. He’s a strange guy. How’d you know about him?”

  “The woman I travelled with,” said Felix. “John’s her ex-husband.”

  “Sharon?” asked Felix. “John’s talked about her. He’s going to be thrilled to see her.”

  “She’s not going to be thrilled to see him. I think I have a place we can use once we learn how to harness the alien tech.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” said Felix. “I have an underground assembly plant just west of Seattle. We could use it to manufacture weapons, ships, whatever we need.”

  “We should tell Ethan about that,” said Oleksii. “We should also let him know about the alien ships.”

  “That tool,” said Felix. “The ‘SpaceForce’ commander who didn’t seem to care about more alien ships headed our way.”

  “We need him,” said Oleksii. “He has the trust of the military personnel. We will need him on our side if we are going to head to Seattle.”

  Felix shrugged. Oleksii was right. The two men grabbed print outs of the data and brought it to the bunker’s Mission Control room. They presented their findings to Ethan.

  “What do you two want?” asked Ethan.

  “Nice to see you, too,” said Felix. “But I don’t give a rats ass about your feelings. We have bigger fish to fry.” He threw the printouts onto Ethan’s lap. “There’s more ships headed our way.”

  “More of them,” said Ethan. He sounded defeated. “How long until they get here?”

  “I don’t know,” said Felix. “Could be days, months, years. They seem to be in some sort of holding pattern, like they are waiting for the first wave of the attack to finish.”

  “We’ll never be able to take them on,” said Ethan. “It’s hopeless.”

  “With an attitude like that it is,” said Felix. “I’ve learned about the energy cubes and how John was trying to harness the alien tech, I think I can help.”

  “Help?” said Ethan. “If John survives and manages to bring some of those cubes back here, what are we going to do with them? Study them? Write a paper on them?”

  “I’ve got a place we can go,” said Felix.

  He told Ethan all about the assembly plant outside of Seattle. At first, Ethan seemed hesitant, but he changed his mind when the other military personnel voiced their disapproval of his leadership. Not everyone in the bunker was willing to through the white flag up like Ethan. Felix was happy to see that.

  Felix was about to go tell Dirk and the camp members about their plans to head to Seattle once they’d got some energy cubes, but before he got there, the emergency lights within the bunker started to go off. The bunker was underattack.

  Chapter 52

  Days later…

  They’d be arriving back at Starpeak tomorrow. They raced out of the Smokies, and out of Knoxville. John didn’t let his foot of the gas once that first day. They wanted to go back and look for Rick, but they couldn’t. They couldn’t risk it. John had the energy cubes. And the hills leading out of the Smokies were swarming with harvesters. They would have been spotted. The sooner they made it back to Starpeak, the better.

  John didn’t speak much during the trip back to Colorado. It wasn’t because he wasn’t sympathetic to Sandra’s ordeal or Bobby’s. He knew Sandra had been tortured. She was in terrible shape. The sick fucks had done their work on her. The reason he didn’t speak much was because his mind was racing. Quinton had showed him how he’d harnessed the energy cubes. It wasn’t that difficult. Despite the fact that they were an alien technology, the material that the energy cubes were made was from Earth. It seemed that the harvesters would create the energy cubes from the debris they collected. That’s why the harvesters were so selective with what they’d destroy. They were looking for specific materials. What John didn’t understand was why the harvesters were stock piling the energy cubes in the mountains? Quinton told John that when he awoke from inside the harvester, the giant had dropped him on top of hundreds of energy cubes. The idiot thought that he’d been left there for some devine purpose. John rolled his eyes each time he thought about it. Quinton quickly realized that the energy cubes were like batteries and contained a vast amount of energy. He used the cubes to power his fort. It must’ve taken him months to build a fort of that size. He must’ve used countless energy cubes in its construction. Quinton was so shortsighted. He didn’t understand the power and true potential of the cubes. They could be used to power next-generation space tech, maybe even weaponry. The cubes were so small that they could put on almost anything. Moreover, Quinton wasn’t interested in understanding the energy cubes beyond plugging them into basic objects. John didn’t just want to use the energy cubes, he’d want to recreate them. If they were made of Earth materials, he’d be able to do it. Once he got to Starpeak, that’s the first thing he’d do. He would throw himself into his work and not rest until he could figure it out.

  Bobby cared for his mother the whole ride back to Colorado. At first he objected to John’s plan to drive down the major freeways back to Starpeak, but when he realized the condition his mother was in, he changed his mind. His mother needed medical attention quick. The first two days after leaving Quinton’s fort, she didn’t wake up. She was now waking up, but only for a few hours a day. Making the situation worse was the fact that they didn’t have a lot of food. Bobby could tell his mother was weak. They’d need to get back to Starpeak soon.

  Starpeak mountain’s peak appeared on the horizon. John stepped on the gas a little harder than usual. They’d been lucky to avoid any motherships, harvesters, AOJs, or hostile humans on this trip. But that luck seemed pale in comparison to what they’d gone through back at Quinton’s camp. They needed some luck. If they could hold on for one more day, they’d be alright. They’d be safe. They’d be back within the safe walls of the bunker.

  Chapter 53

  They’d lost floors one, two and three. The hostiles who’d been attacking the bunker were relentless. Every camp of hostiles in the area must’ve heard about the bunker. They all wanted a piece of it. Felix looked down the barrel of his Z-49 rifle and fired two quick shots. A hostile who’d been running through the corridors of the fourth floor dropped dead. It’d been like this for the past several days. “Have you heard how the camp members are doing?” Felix asked.

  “The lower floors are safe,” said Oleksii. “The attackers haven’t been able to breach even the first floor of the basement yet.”

  Felix laughed. “Who’d a thought?” he said. “A ragtag group of survivors are defending this base better than the military trained SpaceForce soldiers on the upper floors.”

  Oleksii knew what Felix was hinting at. Ethan was to blame for all this. Despite his years of training and his high-rank within SpaceForce, Ethan wasn’t fit to lead. He didn’t have any of the soldiers ready.

  The attack came swift and fast. The hostiles broke through t
he open bunker door quickly. They didn’t bring a tank to the battle this time, but they didn’t have too. All they brought was numbers. Hundreds and hundreds of them appeared from within the forest. They rushed the blown open bunker entrance and stormed into the first floor of the base. Now that they owned the first three floors, they understood that they had the advantage. They’d send a couple runners up to the fourth floor, where Felix, Oleksii, Ethan and other SpaceForce soldiers were every now and then to test the resolve of the bunker’s occupants. The hostiles knew it was only a matter of time before the bunker occupants ran out of ammo or food. Felix understood that this would be their strategy. He tried to convince Ethan to coordinate an attack with Tuck and the camp members in the basement, but the SpaceForce commander had refused. Ever since he’d heard the news about the new alien ships heading toward Earth, he seemed different. Ethan had always been an ass, but now he seemed like he was just giving up. Felix knew what he had to do.

  “We have to reach out to Tuck and coordinate a counter-attack,” he said.

  “I agree,” said Oleksii. “But that would be going against Ethan’s orders.”

  “I don’t give a fuck,” said Felix. “I’ve got a plan.”

  Felix shot up from the ground and approached Ethan. “Hand me the com mic to the lower floors?”

  Ethan looked at him with a dazed look. The once proud commander was slouched in the corner of the fourth floors corridor. “What?”

  “Give me the mic?”

  “You know my orders,” said Ethan. “We’re not risking any more lives. We will stay here, where it is safe.”

  “You’re risking everyone’s life with your inaction,” said Felix. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  The rest of the SpaceForce soldiers who were in the hallway looked nervously at Ethan and Felix.

  “Is that a threat?” asked Ethan.

  “You’re threatening my life with your poor judgement,” said Felix. “Hand over the mic.”

  “Guards, arrest him,” said Ethan.

  No one moved.

  Ethan looked shocked. “I said arrest him!”

  Again, no one moved.

  Felix knew that Ethan had no sway over his subordinates. He knew that he wasn’t the only to notice Ethan’s poor leadership. “I don’t think your in charge here anymore,” said Felix.

  Ethan scoffed. “So what, you’re in charge now?”

  “No,” said Felix. “I don’t give a fuck about that. I just want to live. If these folks think I can help, then they will follow. Give me the mic. You know you’re just being an ass.”

  Ethan handed over the mic. Felix grabbed it and walked away. He didn’t have time to be dealing with some weak ass commander. He wanted to talk to people who actually had some guts.

  “Tuck, you there?” asked Felix into the mic.

  “Loud and clear, big guy,” said Tuck on the other end. “Ethan finally wants to use us for something?”

  “No,” said Felix. “But I do.”

  “Uh, okay,” said Tuck, confused. “What do you want us to do?”

  “In a few minutes, we’re going to hit these bastards with everything we got. We’re not going to conserve a thing. We’re betting the whole hand.”

  “You sure that’s a good idea, boss,” said Tuck.

  “Positive,” said Felix.

  “Alright, big shot,” said Tuck. “What do you want us to do when you go ‘all in.’”

  “I want you to remain where you are,” said Felix.

  “Wait a damn minute,” said Tuck. “You said you were going to use us!”

  “Let me finish,” said Felix. “When we throw everything at these guys, they’ll probably respond with an equal attack. We’re going to run up to the fifth floor. We’re going to give up some of our territory.”

  “I’m not following,” said Tuck.

  “When I give you word that we are on the fifth floor,” said Felix. “I want you to hit them with everything you have. There should be a moment where they come after us that they will pull back some of the people stopping you from pushing forward.”

  “It sounds like your gambling,” said Tuck.

  “We’ve got no other option.”

  There was a moment of silence of the intercom. Felix waited. He needed Tuck to be okay with this. It was the only way they were going to get out of here alive.

  “Alright,” said Tuck. “We’re in. We’ll wait for you to tell us your on the fifth floor.”

  Felix ended the communication. Oleksii was looking at him with a stunned expression.

  “That idea sounds crazy,” he said.

  Felix laughed. “This is just like a boardroom deal,” he said. “We’re going to go in strong, and then back off a bit. Then, when they think we’re weak, they’ll reveal their own weakness by coming in just as hard as we did. That’s when we sweep in from behind and take em all out.”

  “You better be right,” said Oleksii. “Or we will all end up dead.”

  Felix ordered every able bodied soldier to listen up. He was now in charge. For the first time in years they were about to take orders from someone with vision and confidence.

  “On my count, we charge down the corridor and rush to the stairway,” said Felix. “From there, we will head down to the third floor. We’re going to hit them with everything we’ve got. No holding back. Don’t conserve your ammo.”

  The soldiers looked scared, but they were invigorated by Felix’s brash confidence. They’d follow him wherever he went.

  “I’m going to lead the charge,” continued Felix. “When we’ve finally exhausted everything we have, we’re going to retreat!”

  “That’s crazy,” said Ethan.

  “No it isn’t,” said Felix. “Crazy is sticking around here hoping for a miracle. The world I come from, you make your own luck. That’s what we’re going to do today.”

  The soldiers let out a big ‘whoo-rah!’ after Felix’s speech.

  It was time to act. Felix decided to take the lead. He counted to three and then ran down the corridor toward the stairwell. The SpaceForce soldiers followed him into the battle.

  Chapter 54

  John cautiously drove through the woods leading up to the bunker. It looked like a war zone.

  “What happened?” asked Bobby.

  “A battle,” said John.

  Bobby looked at the destruction that surrounded the bunker in awe.

  As they pulled up to the entrance to the bunker, they spotted the shell of an exploded tank. John shook his head. The bunker had been through hell since they left. He wondered if anyone inside was still alive.

  Sandra was in the back of the truck. For the first time in weeks, she had stayed up for longer than a few hours. She was feeling much better. “Are we there?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Bobby. “We’re back at Starpeak.”

  John parked the truck outside the fort and then helped Bobby carry Sandra into the base. As they walked up to the entrance, they were careful not to step on any of the debris from the blown open bunker door. John wanted to tell Bobby not to look at all the dead bodies, but thought better of it. The boy had killed people. He’d seen death and destruction before.

  John didn’t know what to expect when he walked into the base. He was relieved when he saw Oleksii talking to a group of SpaceForce soldiers just inside the door.

  “John!” Oleksii said, running up to the tired scientist.

  “Good to see you,” said John. “Ow, ow, ow!”

  Oleksii gave John a tight hug. John was still feeling some of the pain from getting beat up by Quinton’s men.

  “Sorry,” said Oleksii. “Is everything alright? Where is Rick and the two other SpaceForce soldiers.”

  “Dead,” said John. “There was a hostile group of humans guarding the energy cubes. We barely got out alive.”

  “Damnit,” said Oleksii. “John, you’re not going to believe who is here!”

  “Who is it?”

  “Sharon,” Oleksii sa
id. “Your ex-wife.”

  John collapsed. Oleksii helped him up. As the two men continued to talk, Bobby and Sandra were helped by some SpaceForce personnel to the lower levels of the bunker where the camp members were. They were greeted by Claire, who had a few battle scars of her own. They learned that Claire had been incredibly helpful in the fight to defend the bunker.

  “Where’s Rick?” asked Tuck.

  Bobby shook his head.

  Tuck fell silent. For the first time since his wife’s death, he seemed at a loss for something to say. The rest of the camp took the news about Rick’s loss just as hard. They’d lost their leader. They’d lost their friend.

  “Did you see the body?” said Tuck.

  “No,” said Bobby. “We drove out of the fort as fast as we could, but no one could have survived that. There were harvesters everywhere.”

  “Poor bastard,” said Tuck. “He’s in a better place now.”

  After learning about Rick, Tuck left the camp members and made his way to Mission Control. He needed to find Sandra and doctor and he wanted to find out about the status of the evacuation.

  The camp members were now free to go to any floor in the bunker. They’d more than earned the trust of the military personnel within the base. If it wasn’t for the camp members, the base would have been lost.

  Ethan had resigned as commander. He handed it over to Felix. After the battle to defend the base was won, Ethan stayed in his sleeping quarters. Felix let him be. He didn’t want to rub any salt in the wounds.