The last thing she wanted was to confront the thing, but she knew she would have to make a stand if she wanted to survive and not let herself be forced into a corner where she would surely die. She couldn’t remember if tardigrades breathed oxygen, but figured they must, and that a creature this size had to be depleting the reserves at a rapid rate.
She drifted backward toward the hatchway that led into the Tranquility module while Rob floated beside her like a companion taking a leisurely swim in the lake. She contemplated going into the next compartment and closing the hatch, but that meant shutting herself off from being able to access food, water, and the ham radio.
No, she was going to have to find a way to dissuade the steadily advancing tardigrade. She glanced around for some sort of weapon that she could improvise but there wasn’t anything within reach. Perhaps she could order Rob to intercede but had no idea how she would instruct the robonaut to try and kill the living creature.
Just as she was about to give up hope, something caught her eye. It was gangly and gold-colored. She saw another appendage reach over and touch the tardigrade’s back. Then a yellowish head with eight eyes came into view. The giant spider climbed onto the tardigrade—it looked exactly like the one Cass had seen in the laboratory.
But how was that even possible?
The arachnid found a bare spot where the hard shell had fallen off and buried its fangs into the tardigrade’s soft flesh. The spider’s head bobbed as it pumped its prey with its venomous poison.
The magnificent water bear shuddered and rolled upside down.
Clambering over its kill, the enormous spider kicked off with its rear legs. The movement did two things; it caused the upturned tardigrade to drift away, and propelled the spider at Cass. She could see its vicious fangs as the mouth opened. She tried to shove herself out of the way but there was nothing to push off from. All she could do was raise her arms and duck away in a last-ditch effort to protect herself as the...
Rob catapulted off the padded bulkhead like a torpedo with one arm extended straight out like Superman flying through the air.
The arachnid was caught completely by surprise, especially when Rob thrust its hand and arm down its gullet. The gigantic spider bit down on the robonaut’s arm with its deadly fangs. Unaffected by the venom, Rob churned its arm inside the spider’s body like it was making butter and eviscerated the internal organs. The spidery legs went limp like bent tree branches floating underwater.
Cass had to shield her face from the liquids. She couldn’t tell if the droplets were blood or lethal venom but wasn’t taking any chances. When Rob pulled out its arm, the appendage was covered with green slime and gore.
At first, Cass was speechless and completely blown away at what she had just witnessed, but then she finally found the words. “Thank you, Rob.”
“You are welcome, Cass.”
31
When Frank regained consciousness, he was surprised to find himself hanging upside down by his seatbelt harness. He looked over and saw Wanda, unconscious, suspended with her arms bent and her hair draped on the headliner.
“Jesus, what just hit us?” Wade said from the back seat.
“I’m not sure,” Frank replied, reaching up and unsnapping his seatbelt. He slid awkwardly off the seat and shimmied out through the window. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the side mirror. His face was pocked with tiny red gashes made by the flying shards of safety glass.
He got to his feet and rushed around the front of the overturned Suburban to the passenger side. He reached in, undid Wanda’s seatbelt, and made sure she didn’t fall on her head and break her neck when she came down. He grabbed her arms and carefully pulled her out.
“Wanda! Can you hear me?”
Wade crawled out the back. “Is she hurt?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” Frank said and dropped to his knees next to his wife. He put his head down by her face to see if she was breathing and felt a faint puff of air against his cheek. He tried to wake her up by gently shaking her shoulder.
Wanda slowly opened her eyes. “What just happened?”
“Thank God you’re okay.” Frank glanced across the wide span of asphalt and saw a massive gray cloud beyond the suspension cables, covering the eastern foothills of Berkeley. He looked down at Wanda. “A meteor took out the East Bay.”
“Holy shit!” Wade yelled.
Frank stood and helped Wanda up. They followed Wade over to the school bus, which appeared to have tumbled a few times as the roof was crumbled and the side was smashed in. The vehicle was resting up against the cement barrier that ran along the side of the bridge. Scores of other abandoned cars and trucks had been picked up and tossed across the roadway like a bunch of Tonka toys.
Wade climbed up onto the battered hood and got down on his hands and knees so he could see inside.
“Are they okay?” Frank asked.
“Give me a second,” Wade answered and climbed through the smashed-out windshield.
Frank could hear Wade moving about inside the bus. A minute later, Crandall’s head popped out of the opening. His face was cut up like everyone else. He managed to squeeze his big frame out and scooted down off the hood. He made a face when his boots hit the pavement and grabbed his shoulder.
“Are you badly hurt?” Frank asked.
“I think I dislocated my shoulder. Just give me a sec.” Crandall went over to the side of the bus, took a deep breath, and slammed his shoulder into the hard metal. He let out a grunt and smiled at Frank. “There, right as rain.”
Wade crawled out of the bus and slid down on the asphalt. “Crandall, where’s Jack?”
“What, he’s not in there?”
“No.”
“You don’t think he was thrown out of the bus?” Wanda said.
“Let’s hope not.” Frank and the others made their way over to the railing.
“Oh my God,” Wanda said. “There he is.”
Jack was dangling below, fifty feet down off the side of the bridge. His right arm was entwined in a tattered length of silk still attached to what was left of a spider web and was the only thing keeping him from falling the rest of the way down to the ocean. The channel below was filled with floating debris, capsized sailboats, and even cars, destroyed structures ripped from their foundations by the flood and smashed apart like balsa kindling.
“Jack! Can you hear me?” Wade hollered down.
Jack looked up. “Hey, there!”
“Hold on. We’re going to pull you up.” Frank turned and yelled over to Crandall, “Grab the rope out of the Suburban.”
Crandall dashed over to the wrecked truck.
“Maybe we could snare that webbing and pull him up,” Wade said.
“That stuff’s like crazy glue.”
Crandall came back with a large coil of repelling line, and a semiautomatic pistol tucked in his belt. He’d also grabbed two assault rifles. He handed one gun to Frank and the other to Wanda. He tied off one end of the rope to the railing and threw the rest down to Jack.
“Tie it around your waist,” Crandall instructed.
Jack grabbed the end, looped it around his midsection, and cinched a knot with one hand as his other hand was trapped in the webbing. Suspended by the rope, Jack was finally able to use one of his knives from his belt, and began sawing away at the thick, silk strand.
The vibration drew three orb weaver spiders out from the bridge’s understructure.
“Jack! Stop cutting!” Frank yelled.
Wanda aimed her rifle at the spiders. “I can’t get a clear shot without hitting Jack.”
“Give me your weapon,” Wade said. “I think I can pick one off from here.”
Wanda turned and tossed her rifle to Wade, who caught it, and immediately lined up his shot. He fired off a short burst. The bullets ripped through the giant spider’s body, exploding it like a limejuice-filled water balloon.
Another orb weaver crept toward Jack, and was only a couple feet away from it
s prey, when Frank got off a quick round and obliterated the arachnid, severing three of its legs and causing it to detach from the web and plummet to a watery grave.
“I’m loose!” Jack yelled up.
Frank handed his rifle to Wanda and helped Crandall hoist Jack up.
Wade fired off a few more shots at the remaining spider, scaring it back under the bridge.
Once Jack was free of the strong adhesive, the group decided to climb over the center divider barrier to the pedestrian walkway on the opposite side of the span to get a better look at the devastation.
“Oh my God,” Wanda gasped when they reached the fencing and gazed out.
Frank put his arm around Wanda as she began to cry.
A flood surge was flowing out of San Francisco and retreating back into the bay. It reminded Frank of the horrific news coverage he’d once seen when an unstoppable 23-foot tsunami devastated a coastal city in northern Japan.
“There’s no way... they could... have survived,” Wanda said in between sobs.
Frank wanted to comfort her and tell her not to give up hope.
But he knew she was right: No one in Fort Mason could have escaped that.
32
The terrifying drive up to the observatory wasn’t half as bad as coming down the mountain. Each time they came to a sharp curve, Ryan was tempted to stare out through the windshield at the sprawling terrain below. Instead he kept his eyes on the winding road and tried not to get distracted by his peripheral vision.
He’d been riding the pedal and could smell the brake pads. Twice he saw Celeste lean toward him, afraid to look out her window as if she might fall into the abyss. He knew exactly how she felt, as he had that hollow feeling in his stomach he often got when flying in an airplane.
They came down a short grade and his ears popped. He hadn’t realized the difference in atmospheric pressure until now. He opened his mouth and yawned, clearing his ears even more.
For the next forty-five minutes, Ryan tackled the hazardous roads, crossing the next mountain down to the outskirts of San Jose before stopping almost at the base of the foothills.
Even though some of the floodwaters had retreated back to the San Francisco Bay, there was still standing water in the streets. It was impossible to determine how deep the water was unless there was something visible like a partially submerged car or a traffic sign. Most of the streets looked impassable.
“Maybe we should have stayed on the other side of the mountain and found another way,” Ryan said.
“Well, we’re here now,” Celeste said, her tone suggesting that she had no desire to return back up the mountain. “There has to be someway we can go.”
“I really want to get back to the city. See if everyone’s okay.”
“Let’s see if we can get to the Dish. We can call Fort Mason on the landline.”
“All right.” Ryan scanned the streets below, and after some consideration, chose a stretch of flooded roadway the low-frame Mustang might be able to drive through. He knew if the water got too deep it would enter the tailpipe, and once the pressure of the exhaust wasn’t unable to push the water out, the engine would stall and they would be stranded.
“Cross your fingers,” Ryan said. He drove down the hill and slowly entered a stream that ran between a neighborhood of houses. The front of the Mustang dipped slightly as the water level got higher. He lowered his side window and looked out. The murky water was a third of the way up the door.
Ryan pushed down on the accelerator and gunned the Mustang. He prayed the water didn’t get any deeper and that they didn’t hit a submerged object that might tear up the undercarriage.
The muscle car moved along like an improvised watercraft and finally emerged on a dry stretch of roadway and then onto an overpass that crossed over the freeway.
Celeste looked out her side window at the abandoned wrecks on the freeway that were piled up by the flashflood. “There’s no way we’d be able to make it down the 101.”
After some navigating and considerable luck, Ryan found an onramp that took them onto Interstate 280, which wasn’t flooded. Junk cars blocked most of the lanes, but Ryan was able to cut a path between and around them.
Twenty minutes later, Ryan and Celeste were back at the Dish. An Eco-Marine greeted them at the front entrance. They went inside and found Milt sitting at the console with his headphones on. He turned in his chair and slipped his headphones down around his neck. “Good, you’re here.”
“Do you still have contact?” Celeste asked, sitting in the chair next to Milt.
“Yes, I have Flight Engineer Cass Freeman on the radio now. She’s the only remaining survivor on the International Space Station.”
“My God, it’s a miracle she’s still alive.”
“I’ll put her on speaker,” Milt said, and turned a switch on the console. He picked up the microphone. “Cass, can you hear me? This is Milt Tabors again.”
“Yes, your signal’s a five.”
Milt looked over at Celeste. “Cass said they had to make repairs to their antenna and this is the best signal strength we can expect.”
“You said ‘they.’ I thought she was the only one alive up there?”
“Technically, she is. She’s managed to program a robonaut to help her.”
Ryan leaned against the console and crossed his arms as he listened in.
Celeste picked up the mike. “This is Celeste Starr of the Astronomical Consortium.”
“It’s so good to hear your voice. You might say I’ve been going a little buggy up here.”
“I can only imagine.”
“No, I mean I literally have a bug problem. Rob, my robonaut, had to kill a giant spider. I have no idea how it could have gotten so big.”
“Are any of the alien life forms inside the space station?”
“Yes.”
“How did they get in?”
“We accidentally brought them in after we returned from our spacewalk to repair the antenna.”
“Do you have any other insects in the lab?”
“Yes. There are ants and fruit flies.”
“Kill them immediately. If they eat the life forms they’ll grow as big as that spider.”
“What if I ingest a life form?”
“You needn’t worry. We don’t know why, but for some strange reason they’ve only been transforming insects. Every time one of those meteorites strikes Earth, they unleash the life forms. We’ve been fighting giant bugs ever since.”
“That’s incredible.”
“That’s not the half of it. We’ve been hit pretty hard by these meteor strikes.”
“Is that why all of the major cities have gone dark?”
“Almost everyone is dead.”
For a moment no one spoke.
“I thought it was bad up here. This asteroid belt has destroyed just about every satellite up here. We’re holding on by a thread.”
“Have you seen Mother Lode? It’s what we’re calling the biggest asteroid.”
“Yes. We should be passing...”
Celeste waited for Cass to come back.
“Cass, can you hear me?” Celeste asked. She glanced up at Ryan with a worried look on her face.
“Try her again,” Ryan said.
Milt shook his head. “Don’t bother. We’ve lost the signal.”
Ryan walked across the room. He picked up the landline receiver off the cradle on the desk and dialed the number he had for contacting Fort Mason. He couldn’t tell if the line was dead or if no one was picking up. He glanced over at Celeste and Milt and saw they were both staring at him.
“There’s no answer.”
33
Ally wasn’t sure which way to run as she looked over at Gemma, Max, and Julie who were backing toward her as the horde of giant black ants made its way down the hillock. Dirt mounds were appearing on one side of the pastureland as more black ants pushed their way out of the ground. They varied in size, the larger ones as big as a medium-size car,
others half as big. Their numbers were steadily increasing and soon they had become a small army.
She turned in the other direction and saw the swarm of giant red ants coming at them. “What do we do?”
“Head for those trees!” Max yelled. But as soon as they started to run toward the small grove of oaks, a band of black ants came out from between the thick trunks to cut them off.
“Which way now?” Gemma shouted.
“Maybe we can hide in that gully,” Julie said and pointed to a narrow depression twenty feet away that might have been caused by the recent earthquake or natural erosion over time.
“It might be our only chance,” Max said.
Ally dashed over with the others and got down inside the ditch. It was just wide enough for her to lie down on her back next to Julie while Max and Gemma slid in on their backs with the soles of their boots touching Ally and Julie’s. The Eco-Marines pointed their assault rifles at the sky.
The ground trembled as if they were experiencing another aftershock but it was the rumble of the battling giant ants converging in a skirmish. Larger ants straddled the furrow and formed a bridge so their comrades could crawl over their backs. The mute warriors clacked their mandibles and butted heads as they clambered over one another.
Ally could see the smaller red ants double-teaming the larger black ants, even attacking them from behind.
The manic battle was vicious—unlike anything Ally had ever seen—as each frantic ant tried to immobilize its opponent with its deadly stinger or sever a head or a leg with its razor sharp jaws. The fury of clashing bodies started to pile up over the narrow trench.
When one of the black ants pushed its head down, sensing that there was easier prey to be found below the carnage, Max opened up with his assault rifle and riddled its exoskeleton. The dead ant collapsed across the fissure.
Soon the sky was no longer visible, blocked out by the thatching of dead ants, but still Ally could hear the battle ensuing above ground.
“What now?” Gemma whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.
“We wait it out,” Max said.
Battleground Earth Page 12
