Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  “I am here to talk to you about what you experienced. I understand you actually saw them?” Colonel Caldwell said. “Tell me all about it! Oh, I wish this window were not here, so I could give you a hug.” She put one hand on the clear permalloy window, and I could see her palm pressed against it. The thought of her hugging me was repulsive, but I did not say that. “So, what were they like?”

  “My friends were great. I want to talk to them.”

  “Of course you do. That is perfectly understandable,” Colonel Caldwell quipped. “But tell, me what they were like?”

  “I want to talk to me friend,” I repeated.

  “That is not possible, I am so sorry,” the smile never changed. “Tell, me what you thought when you first saw them?”

  “Do you mean the people on that island? Did any of them get rescued? The Hellcats said they were not going back, but did anyone else escape?”

  “Oh dear, no. Every island in Foreigner was lost,” Colonel Caldwell stated. “It was a real shock, I tell you a genuine shock, I say, when I learned you got out at the last moment like you did. Shocking. Just shocking.”

  “So, who are you asking about?” I was rubbing the scar which ran through my eyebrow. Some of my hair was starting to grow back in, I remember now, so maybe I met Caldwell, after meeting Gehlen.

  “Why, the aliens of course!” Then she put both of her hands on the window.

  “The Jellies?” I asked.

  “Oh dear, yes. You were part of Sylvia’s and Earle’s team who figured out how to speak to the aliens. Yes, tell me what you know about the… Jellies.”

  My emotions were bristling up, but I was weak. I did not like thinking I was part of those oceanographer’s team. We had rescued them, after all, and they had left those dogs down there to die. So, I just spat back a response, “Why do you want to know?”

  “Oh, my dearest, that is my job. I am a specialist in understanding life on other worlds.”

  “Except for the dead remnant of ancient life on Mars, and Triton, no life has ever been found outside of Earth. So, how can you be a specialist?”

  I saw a brief flare of anger in her eyes, but she said, “Of course, you are absolutely correct. Such a bright and intelligent boy you are. And so brave too. I am trained to anticipate what kinds of life we will find on the destination world.”

  “A sleeper?” I asked. Now I was shocked. “I thought all the cryptozoologists were sleepers.”

  “A better description is xenobiologists, exobiologists, and astrobiologists.” With that, I was certain the anger flared behind her eyes, but that smile never wavered. “Yes, we were in suspended animation, until not long ago. Oh, yes, you are a bright one. You may call me a xenophobologist, if you need a fancy word. That is my field of expertise. I study how well humans interact with these aliens.”

  “What? Humans die. That is how we interacted. I saw a bunch of my friends die. Do you want to know how that feels too?”

  “Oh, I am sure it was a terrible experience, just terrible,” Colonel Caldwell said. Her eyes and face, except for the smile, told a totally different story. “I do feel for you and all your pain, I truly do. You know, Kalju, this is so hard for me as well. I do not enjoy seeing you suffer as I ask these question, not at all. Oh, no, no, no. How could I want such a sweet and brave cadet to be in angst and anguish? This is the worst part of my job, that is a certainty, to expose you to those alarming memories.”

  “You sure seemed pleased with it all, at least to me,” I said. “You said I would adore what you were to tell me, or something else utterly ridiculous. What is it you really want?”

  “I just stopped by to introduce myself to you, and to let you know I am here to listen and help. I have been assigned to your case, and I know we will be best chums. I just know it.”

  “Doubtful.” Then it occurred to me, so I just blurted it out. “They woke you up for this battle on the Marathon, right?”

  “Cadet, we are all in the same ship. We are literally in the same boat, to quote an old idiom.” Still the smile never faded or flickered. It was just stuck on her face, much like my scar was stuck on mine. “Now, if you could just describe to me what…”

  “They woke you up, en route, right here, to help battle the Jellies, and you did not get to stay in suspended animation until the end of the voyage. You must feel so cheated.” I gave her my own faked smile, but it did nothing to rock her composure. Those brief glimpses of the real Colonel Caldwell, and the seething pit of anger which brewed in her soul, did not show up again. Not ever.

  “So, what was it like when you first saw the enemies?” she pressed after an answer.

  I blew out a frustrated breath, and repeated what I thought I had already told her. “I never really saw them. Just some object in the water, and some odd glowing purple colors.”

  That mention of color sparked a huge barrage of additional questions. She asked me so many about that color purple, that I cannot even relate how many or what they all were. Finally, she relented as I repeated for the billionth time the fact I had not seen the Jellies directly.

  I was sweating, and feeling nauseated by the time she finished. Just as she was stepping away from the window, I said, “I did not like this, not at all. I do not know why you ever thought I would.”

  “Oh, yes, the present I have for you. You are no longer a cadet. You are now Private Kalju. You have been promoted, young man. Bravo and well done! I just knew you and I would be a match. I must take my leave now, but fret not, I will be back again, really soon, and we will begin some psychometric testing. See you then, Private Kalju. Cheerio!”

  “I want to talk to my friends!” I yelled, but it did no good.

  Both those colonels came to visit me during my decontamination and treatment. Neither answered questions about my friends or my family. Neither of them got any better, no matter how long I endured their sessions with me. Colonel Caldwell was always probing, prodding, and pestering me about what I saw in my encounter with the Jellies. She called them, “aliens” or “exotic entities” or some other silly name. I knew them as Jellies. Colonel Gehlen kept telling me about chain-of-command structures, and how the Marathon Defense Forces were organized. I already knew about military organization from the lessons by Mister Fisher, yet Colonel Gehlen droned on and on about it. His history lessons were boring, and besides, Mister Fisher had covered the material already. I knew that the structuring of the Marathon Defense Forces was hierarchical. The Marathon’s Captain was at the top, then generals, colonels, although I doubted if either of the colonels I knew could lead anyone across a simple bridge, but they were followed by majors, lieutenants, sergeants, corporals, privates, and cadets. It was old news, as Mister Fisher had taught us that the use of formalized ranks, in various forms and a myriad of different titles, set in a hierarchical structure had existed for millennia. As I thought about it, I did wonder about the quality of the leadership on the Marathon. The two colonels I had met, and that one dog-murdering, cruel lieutenant, made me wonder about a more anarchistic approach. I never shared that with Colonel Gehlen, as he did not want to listen to much of what I said. The rule with him was, he dictated, and I was supposed to listen.

  I stayed quiet with him, or just kept reciting the same things I had said previously. At one point Colonel Gehlen said, “I see you are doing a broken record again.”

  “I want to talk to my friends!”

  “A broken record deserves no attention,” he answered. “It goes round-and-round but gets nowhere.”

  After that strange comment, he just left. I guess that was some kind of phrase about the log entries he was making or something. How could broken recordings be anything I was doing? Again, with him I did not ask.

  If I asked Colonel Caldwell anything, on those rare times I did ask, I would just get some fake sincerity, and a nebulous reply that contained nothing of substance. I would have been better to ask the library access point on my display. It would either give me an article or recording, or just fl
ash, “Access Denied” to my inquiries. I respected the automatic library system more than either colonel. Some leaders, huh?

  The decontamination treatments continued, and I was also put into exercise programs by the white automacubes. A treadmill for walking, and then running, as well as a muscle training machine which I could adjust for my arms, back, abdomen, and overall stamina. Days passed, and I improved. Finally, my day of release came, and that involved a different situation.

  “Private Kalju?” a new voice spoke to me. It was a quiet whisper.

  I glanced at the window, expecting one of the two colonels, but neither was there. At first I thought it was the woman solder who had stripped off my clothing, but that was just a superficial similarity because this new person was wearing the same kind of uniform.

  As I looked at him, he spoke more forcefully. “I am Corporal Lazlo, and I am here to get you out of this godforsaken place.”

  The man was wearing the blue, black, gray, and white speckled uniform I had seen before, or something much like it. But what drew my attention was his thick, but curly, brown beard and mustache. He had an olive colored beret on his head, with a red patch on its front. Set into the red patch was a silhouette of a blue cat. At the edge of that beret, I could tell his hair was cropped very short, nearly down to his skin. That made the beard and mustache even more prominent. His eyes were a bit close together, but overall his face had a look of muscular strength. I guessed him to be about father’s age, although at that time I had not seen our dad for a long while.

  “Private?” Corporal Lazlo asked. “You are recovered enough to leave, correct? That was the report I was given.”

  “No one told me,” I managed to say. “I expected Colonel Gehlen or Colonel Caldwell to be here.”

  He snorted a bit. “No officers here at the moment. Come along private, we have a job to do, and not much time to get it done,” Corporal Lazlo stated. “First to the armorer, and then back to the post. Come along now.”

  A side of my compartment rotated open. It was a door I never expected. I looked down at my simple sweat suit, one of three I had alternated wearing while in decontamination.

  “Private, you will be fitted up properly. Suitable clothing, weapons, and equipment. Now, come with me. You are now part of the Blue Tigers of Styx. We are Eight-Squad.”

  I rolled off the bed, and walked out the door. The chamber sealed shut behind me. “So, I am going to Styx?” I was kind of excited to see a different biome, and was going to be very happy to leave decontamination, but the way he said Styx made me cringe just a bit. I recalled that Styx was the other predominately water habitat, and that worried me. “Will I meet my friends there? Matkaja, Tudeng, Radha? How is Carol doing? When may I see them?”

  He placed a hand on my shoulder. “You are physically younger than I expected. I have no orders to pick up anyone else. I know nothing about the people you mentioned, sorry.”

  I turned away so he would not see me start to cry. “May I talk to my parents?”

  “Communications are very limited right now. The nonphysicality suffered much damage, but I am not sure the full extent. Again, I am sorry to tell you that. I thought you already knew,” Lazlo stated. “I did find out about you, Private Kalju. You are one lucky troop. From the reports, you are well trained, and battle hardened. As part of the Blue Tigers, we are guarding the routes out of Styx, especially the tube transport system.”

  I wiped my eyes, and snuffed up some snot that was threatening to run out of my nose. It sounded garbled, but then I spoke, “So, we are not going into Styx itself, but just stopping the Jellies from getting into Styx?”

  Lazlo answered, but my mind was elsewhere. I missed my friends, and it felt like forever since I spoke to mother and father. So, I looked around, and stretched my body. Even though I had exercised regularly, it was still refreshing to walk and see somewhere else. It distracted me from the anguish and loneliness in my heart. I should have asked the date, but I did not think of it. I looked into the windows as we proceeded onward. We walked along the bright and sterile corridor, and turned a corner. I did not realize how big the hospital was, or how many other patients were there. I was momentarily distracted by room after room of patients, many of whom were in far worse condition than I had been in. Some were floating over their treatment tables, surrounded by a gravity manipulation field, with a myriad of life-support equipment connected into them. Others were amputees, and had limp regeneration devices on them. I thought of Carol, but did not see her. A few of the other patients made eye contact with me, and that was disconcerting, dark, and dismal. Their eyes revealed hardship, haunted, and hallow.

  “Private? Did you hear me?” Corporal Lazlo asked.

  “Huh? Oh, excuse me sir. I did not hear you.”

  “You need not call me sir. I am a corporal, and not much of a stickler for rules and regulations. Besides, officially only officers need to be called by a fancy rank. You just call me Lazlo,” he replied. “But what I did say was important. We are not keeping the enemy out of Styx, we are trying to keep the aliens contained within Styx.”

  “What do you mean keep them in?” I asked. “The Jellies are in Styx?”

  “Private Kalju, you keep saying Jellies. Is that what you call the aliens? The enemy?”

  “Sure, absolutely. The oceanographers said that was the name of that species, or race, or whatever they are. The Jellies,” I replied. I almost said the orcas had named them, but caught myself. It sounded sort-of strange to tell that to this new person who had just taken me away from decontamination. I feared he would think I was mentally unbalanced, and send me back. I was still trying to figure out where my friends were.

  “Interesting. I have heard rumors about some scientists who were in Foreigner before it was flooded. Gossip says they made some breakthroughs, but nothing is official. Rumors say the enemy has been here for decades. Yes, the aliens are in both Styx and in Foreigner, where you battled them before,” Lazlo stated. He took a deep breath. “Both biomes are lost to us. The people you see here are almost all refugees from Styx. The Blue Tigers got them out before we blew the connections and causeways, but the alien enemy—those Jellies—to use your term, are trying to get past our barricades. And that, my dear Private Kalju, is what we are going to go prevent.”

  I spied a white automacube rolling toward a patient’s room. I rushed over to it and jumped in its way. “I must know about my friends. Carol had lost both legs, and my other friends were brought here the same time I was. Please tell me where they are and how I can find them!”

  “I am Doctor 72N. You are Private Kalju, recently released from our care. I am unable to give you any information about any patient status as that would violate confidentiality, and reduce Marathon security consideration. You have been discharged, and I suggest you continue on to your new assignment.” The white machine’s mechanical voice basically gave me a variation of the same answer I had heard every other time I had asked. I was not surprised, only disappointed.

  Lazlo put one of his big hands on my shoulder and led me away and to the armorer. There he entered in a sequence on the nine-section color control pad. He then also inserted an antique looking key into a box which was sloppily welded onto the seam between the door and frame. “Added security since the lattice went down.”

  “The lattice went down?”

  “Wow, you are behind the times, but I guess being that long in decontamination will do that. Yes, the lattice went down during Operation Barnacle,” Lazlo answered. “Now, in we go.” He twisted the key, and the door unlocked and slid open.

  Inside there were several people standing or sitting behind a counter. They too were wearing the same kind of uniform that Lazlo wore, except here they were also carrying automatic rifles slung across their backs. I looked around, and there were racks with weapons, shelves with uniforms, and hangers with armor, along with multiple other stacks of supplies and gear. All the uniforms were the same spackled colors of blues, grays, black, and whit
e.

  “Here is Private Kalju. He was in Foreigner and just got out of decon,” Lazlo stated.

  “So, one of the Hellcats comes to join the Blue Tigers? How fitting. Eight-Squad gets a transfer,” the seated man said. He too had a full beard, a bit darker in color than Lazlo’s and his head was shaved. His olive colored beret sat on the counter. “Welcome.”

  “Hellcats? I came originally from Kansas, in the militia,” I replied. I thought of that soldier who had stripped me of my clothing. She claimed to be a Hellcat. I looked at the man who was sitting there. He was roughly the same age as Lazlo, and I was feeling very young compared to those people. “Yes, I am from Kansas.”

  The seated man looked at Lazlo. His face was puzzled, but grinned a bit.

  “Do not give me that look, Kensington. My orders came down from the LT. She told me to pick up Private Kalju. The info just lists him as from Foreigner, trained, and having battle experience. I just ran it through IAM Lenore, and I found out he got out with some of the last to escape Foreigner before it was flooded,” Lazlo said. He had a device in his hand. It was a somewhat smaller version of the transceiver I had seen before. It had a bigger display than the wristwatches, and some additional functions. He turned to me. “You were in Foreigner, right?”