Free Range Protocol- Tales of the Tschaaa Infestation

by Marshall Miller

  Approaching at speed were two of the six-wheeled ATV robots described in the intelligence reports, carrying something. As they neared, Torbin made out what they were. Bodies—human bodies—which were not moving. Torbin had seen death on enough occasions to recognize it again.

  “Unleash the hounds of hell,” Torbin murmured as he fired the flare, arcing it towards the approaching vehicles.

  The artificial intelligence in the robots saw the approaching flare and fixated on the movement. Motion meant possible prey, to be investigated. The two six wheelers turned towards the flare, as it arced low overhead.

  The 50 Caliber from one of the Humvees turned the two harvester robots into flaming wreckage, the gunner knowing, as did Torbin, that the humans aboard them were already dead. Then the two human assault vehicles broke from cover, hell bent for leather towards the arks loading ramp. 50 Caliber rounds and 40mm grenades peppered the side of the ark, as the Humvees screeched to a halt next to the loading ramp.

  “Move it, move it, move it!” Torbin yelled as he leapt from his vehicle and went up the ramp. He had a live video feed unit on his helmet, so if there was a good signal, what he saw was being beamed back and would be transmitted to their transport MC-130 and the AC-130 air cover. The AC-130 would try to re-beam the message to Edwards Air Force Base.

  Torbin was met by a gray, slender, humanoid shaped being that had something in its hands. He fired a burst from his assault rifle , and was satisfied that the .223 rounds had the desired effect. The “gray” went down, an odd colored bluish blood spurting form from its wounds. Then all hell broke loose.

  A brace of the harvester robots boiled out from the confines of the spacecraft. The ball turrets swung towards Torbin, so he automatically dove behind a very human style looking table. Thus his eyesight was spared when the robots unleashed their extremely bright spotlights. Some of the side and back flash from the blinding lights caught the first troops behind Torbin, causing them to yell out as their vision degenerated into blobs and shapes. Torbin felt the heat from the light beams, realizing that at close range they could not only blind human prey, but burn it up also. With practiced ease, he grabbed a handy grenade and lobbed it over the table.

  “Fire in the hole!” he yelled, warning his personnel to duck down.

  The shrapnel grenade landed between the two robots and exploded. Wheels were shredded and sides were punctured. They began to spin around, damaged, but still trying to complete their programmed mission.

  Shots rang out from further down the ramp, and the robots turned into sparking and burning toasters. Torbin popped up from behind the table.

  “Those who can still see, follow me. Those who can’t, stay here until you can.”

  Everyone, including a couple of newbies, functioned flawlessly. Eight armed men and women followed him up into the bowels of the spacecraft.

  Several more “grays” popped up, trying to operate some types of projectile weapons, at which they were not very good. Then, for the first time, humans in the U.S. came into contact with lizards. Bipedal creatures, they looked like the work up some scientists had done years prior as to what a humanoid dinosaur would might look like, if the ancient asteroid had not hit Earth. They were more efficient, and a couple of troops went down. Then the lizards were chopped into lizard meat.

  Torbin and five of the effectives left made their way further into the holds of the ship. He found the combination stairs and ramp that seemed to go up to the large cockpit area, which sat (just like human aircraft) right above the large ramp loading area. Torbin hadn’t paid much attention to the windows or vision set up for this control area when they busted in, but he knew that he had to make sure anyone in it did not try and launch the ship with them aboard.

  “Sergeant Robbins, take the rest of the people and clear this ship’s hold. I need to make sure there is nobody up stairs.”

  “Got it, Gunny.” Robbins was one of the combat vet Pararescue troops, so the Marine Gunny knew the job would get done. Torbin clambered up the almost two story tall combination ramp and stairway to the doored off area, where the ships operating controls seemed to be. He knew he was being macho going it alone, but the unit needed to clear the holds of any surviving humans before they set the charges to destroy the ark. Otherwise, they’d have to stand off and use the AT-4s and the LAW to destroy the engines, or punch holes in it large enough in it that so the Ark could not head back up into orbit. Still existing radar sites and some civilian telescopes had told the intelligence types that this was the way the arks operated. Land, take what they needed, then blast off within twelve to twenty four hours.

  Besides, Torbin had often worked alone, doing things he could never talk about, and he still had speed and surprise on his side.

  Torbin met nothing on the stairs, then he stood at what looked like the cockpit access door. Of course it was locked, the lever type door handle did not move when he yanked on it.

  “Time for some creative door breaching,” he mumbled to himself. He took a small amount of C-4, placed it next to the door handle and slid an explosive blasting cap into it. Stepping back atop the stairs some seven yards away, Torbin pulled a squeeze type remote detonator from his small butt pack and disengaged the safety. Crouching down, he activated it and was immediately rewarded with a substantial explosion. He was up and moving towards the door before the dust and debris settled. A hard kick and he removed the remains of the door from his path.

  Sitting stunned on the floor was what he first thought was a human, even down to the tan jumpsuit he/she was wearing over its slender body. Then Torbin saw the eyes and nose. The spacing just seemed a little off, as it there had been a birth defect that required surgery.

  “Show me your hands,” he ordered, and the being complied. It then began to speak English, which almost floored Torbin as it sounded like it had learned British English, accent and all.

  “Please, I am a man, like you. I did not want to be here. Can you take me with you?”

  Torbin looked into the dark eyes set too far back, saw the odd angled sloping head. Then he heard the weirdest combinations of clicks, almost musical notes and grunts emanating from a good sized video screen. Torbin glanced at the screen and almost froze. He saw very large eyes, a large head like structure which looked like an octopus, but with a dome shape to it. He also saw what looked like tentacles moving, shifting, and waving.

  “What the…” He never finished the thought as the false human lunged at him, swinging what seemed like a glowing wire at him. As he automatically parried it with his rifle, he saw the wire slice through its handguard and barrel, leaving him holding two pieces.

  “Fuck you!” he yelled as he lashed a booted foot into what would be a human’s kneecap. He thought he heard and felt a crack, though that might have been his imagination. The being let out a scream and toppled forward, dropping the wire weapon and grabbing at its wrecked knee. Torbin dropped his useless rifle and pulled his Ka-Bar fighting knife in one quick motion. He wrapped his left arm around the neck of the creature and grabbed its chin. A quick pull upwards, a slash of his blade, and red, human-appearing blood of the creature was spurting out on the cockpit floor of the cockpit.

  Torbin took a deep breath, then looked up at the large video screen. The tentacled creature seemed to be waving its appendages in an agitated fashion, which meant that the vision screen worked both ways. Torbin stepped forward, gave it the universal one finger salute.

  “Sit on this and spin, you slimy fucker!” he yelled just before he picked up the remains of his rifle and used it to smash the screen. With rage fueled speed, Torbin prepared another small C-4 charge with a small timer detonator he had brought, squeezing it in a gap on the side of what had to be the main control board. As he finished, his secure frequency radio crackled.

  “Need you here ASAP, Gunny.” It was Robbins.

  “On my way.” Torbin grabbed the magazine from his broken rifle, left the rest of it there. Someone may need his ammunition. He also gingerly
pinked picked up the wire weapon, and found a stud that retracted the business end into the handle. Intelligence would love this.

  Torbin slid and clambered down the ramp/stairs in record time. He went further into the ark, where he had sent the rest of the squad. An ashen-faced Sergeant Robbins met him before he entered a large bay, lit by very subdued light.

  “It’s a scene from the lower levels of Dante’s Inferno, Gunny.”

  “Dante’s hell…” Torbin began to say as he strode forward. Sgt. Robbins had not exaggerated.

  Even in the dim light Torbin could make out the human shapes hanging from a large ceiling rack, like so many sides of beef. Several were child-sized.

  One of the soldiers began to vomit all over the deck of the spacecraft. Torbin pulled out his tactical flashlight, and against his better judgment, illuminated the scene.

  “Who has the camera?” Torbin asked, as he slowly played the beam of the flashlight around the large bay. “I hope my helmet cam is broadcasting all this, but I have to make sure we have a record.”

  “Here, Gunnery Sergeant,” another of the combat vets, this one a Ranger, answered. Torbin glanced and saw it was a small digital one. Then he saw another young troop pull out an old disposable type with a built in flash.

  “You two with cameras. Record everything. Someone else get a light up here to help with the picture quality.” As the personnel complied with his instructions, Torbin walked further into the bowels of what he could now see was a mobile slaughterhouse.

  He found a large door that looked suspiciously similar to a door leading into a butcher shop cooler. He figured out the latching mechanism and swung it open. Inside was a shop of horrors.

  Torsos, arms, legs, even a couple of heads were either hanging or stored on shelves along the side of the large cooler. He saw it had the size of a railroad refrigerated unit, used to ship perishables across the U.S. This unit would go into space instead of riding on rails.

  Torbin cursed and spat. “This doesn’t leave here,” he said to no one in particular. He turned and walked back to Sgt. Robbins.

  “Time to wire this thing for destruction. There’s no one here to save.”

  He then spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  “Two minutes. You with the C-4. Stick the charges against the hull. We don’t have time to examine the engines on this thing. Those two thermite grenades we put with the remains here, along with anything that looks flammable. If we are lucky, a lot of these… victims will be cremated. We don’t have time for decent burials.”

  Then his anger boiled over. “But I’ll be damned if I leave anything, anybody for these monsters to chew on.”

  There were a couple of “ooraughs” and then everybody got busy.

  “What happened to your rifle, Gunny?” Sgt. Robbins asked.

  “It’s in two pieces. I’ll explain later.” Just then, his secure radio crackled to life. It was Lt. Roth.

  “Gunny Bender, we have a lot of threats approaching. Time to blow this place.”

  “Roger that,” he answered. He turned and yelled. “No time for anything extra. We have enemy approaching and we need to bug out.” As soon as he said that, he heard echoes of weapon fire from where the Lieutenant had the cover force emplaced. He jogged to the front ramp, picking up the two troops whose temporary blindness was finally going away.

  “Can you two see to shoot?”

  “Yes, Gunny,” they both answered together.

  “Out to the end of the ramp, man the weapons on the Humvees. Nothing gets in.” The two, combat virgins, did not have to be told twice. They beat feet to their new assigned positions. Torbin yelled back into the ark’s interior.

  “Grab our two wounded and let’s go. Time’s a-wasting.” He pulled out his M-9 pistol. Better than nothing, he thought.

  Torbin heard the automatic grenade launcher of the Lieutenant’s squad begin thumping rounds, followed by the report of the Barrett 50 Caliber rifle. Then the rifles and machine guns opened up. Things were now hot.

  He keyed his radio. “SITREP, Sir. How many, what type?”

  Lieutenant Roth radioed right back.” At least a dozen wheeled robots, some human shapes. They must have been recalled when you hit the ark.”

  “Roger.” Torbin turned to yell “Hurry up!” when he saw Sgt. Robbins was just yards away.

  “Left them a nice surprise, Gunny,” the Sergeant said as he strode up. “Got the wounded, ready to blow this joint.”

  “Sounds good to me. Mount everyone up. I still have a small piece of C-4 to use.”

  As Sgt. Robbins yelled orders, the Marine went over to what looked like part of the huge ramp’s motor mechanism. A quick shaping of the clay like explosive, slap in the detonator, and Torbin was beating feet to the Humvees. The two young troops manning the weapons atop the vehicles began firing across the overpass. Torbin looked up.

  It appeared that there were still about a half dozen of the wheeled harvester robots approaching at speed, playing their combination light and heat beams at where the Lieutenant had his people dug in. He could hear the screams, as one troop began to smolder under the effects of a direct hit. They did not have a very long range, but those lights were dangerous.

  He then noticed the sounds of angry bees as someone was firing human projectile weapons at both his people and the Lieutenant’s squad. He crouched down by the Humvee’s front left fender of the Humvee and tried to count muzzle flashes. He thought there were at least four.

  “I need a rifle!” Torbin yelled.

  “Here, take this one—it’s from the wounded,” one of the other squad members yelled back. His two casualties had taken projectiles to the legs, the human chest armor stopping the grays’ and the lizards’ projectiles. Bad and multiple hits, but they would still live.

  Torbin caught the tossed rifle, checked the magazine. Then he dashed at an angle from in front of the Humvees. There was a small ditch and a few large rocks on the side of the road that would provide cover. Torbin went prone and began to fire at the human shapes, as the Humvees’ heavy weapons began to find the harvester robots and make junk out of them. Torbin could tell the Tschaaa were not used to organized resistance with effective weapons.

  He heard human screams from the figures approaching, as he and others hit them. So the stories were definitely true about there being organized cells of traitors and Fifth Columnists fighting with the invaders. The creature who Torbin had killed with his knife was something else. But it had looked human enough to pass in many situations.

  Torbin keyed his radio. “Time to leave, Lieutenant. I think you have a date waiting.”

  “Moving, Gunny. Cover us.”

  Torbin used his tactical flashlight to get the attention of Sgt. Robbins and pointed towards the cover unit’s position, hand signaled signaling him to have the Humvee-mounted weapons to provide cover fire, as the squad moved. Torbin watched, as a couple of the six-wheeled robots continued on despite .223 hits, until rifle grenades and the heavier machine guns took them out. Torbin thought he had better glom onto a 30 Caliber rifle, as the standard assault rifle round could only reliably penetrate the metal and some other substance that made up the body of the harvester robots at about fifty meters.

  Torbin dashed back to his squad’s vehicles, and made a quick check that they were ready to move at a moment’s notice. He used his binocs and saw the Lieutenant’s squad vehicles move out, heading to an agreed upon rally point about a mile back.

  “Let’s move!” Torbin bellowed. A couple of troops still under cover jumped aboard the Humvees, as Torbin squeezed his remote detonator. The charge on the ramp mechanism went up with a solid “whumpf”, a few pieces of metal flying outside the ark. Good, thought Torbin. They won’t be able to leave anytime soon even if none of the other charges fail. But soon he wondered—were there any other “they” out there?

  Torbin’s group arrived at the rally point near an abandoned convenience store just moments after the Lieutenant and his squad arrived. Eve
ryone who could deployed automatically into a three sixty degree formation to cover the rally point. They were still in enemy controlled territory. Torbin hustled over to Lieutenant Roth. As he did, he noticed what looked like a wrapped body secured on the top of the Humvee.

  “I lost one dead, Gunny,” Lt. Roth proffered before asked. “Took a human bullet to the head from those goddamned quisling traitors. I have another with third-degree wounds and one blinded…probably permanently.”

  “My squad has two with leg wounds from alien projectile weapons. A couple were temporarily blinded, but seemed to have recovered.”

  Torbin looked at the young officer, and saw the sorrow in his eyes.

  “Sir, you did good. Soldiers and Marines die. That’s part of the job description.” He pointed towards the still illuminated ark.

  “Any minute now, that thing should start blowing up, thanks to all the C-4 we placed in it on timers. We also have some photos, video, and good intelligence info. We did good, Lieutenant…”

  A large bolt of energy came from the desert in the direction away from the ark. It struck the Lieutenant’s Humvee, causing it to explode like a giant firework. Torbin was knocked down, stunned for a moment by the explosion. Through his ringing ears, Torbin could still hear the troops on the perimeter firing at whatever had launched the attack. Through sheer will, Torbin stood up, looked into the desert. Illuminated by the bullets whizzing by it, as well as striking it, was an extremely tall figure, moving very fast for a bipedal creature, closing the distance at what could be called warp speed. It had a large object in its arms, and was bringing it to bear again.

  Torbin tried to bring his rifle into play, but the Barrett 50 Caliber sniper rifle beat him to the punch. The impact of the half inch round sent the weapon in its arms spinning off into the darkness. Another round slammed into the figure, knocking it over. Then a third round hit the figure as it, against all logic, tried to rise up. Torbin thought he saw an electrical discharge as the third round hit, and the figure finally laid still. Some dry brush and tumble weeds had been set a fire, throwing flickering light into the desert.