Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  Lazlo put on a pair as well, and then reached over and fingered the holes in my battle armor. The permalloy armored part had actually been dimpled a bit from what had hit me. The cloth was shredded. “What kind of weapon did this? The cloth is bullet resistant, and the permalloy is damaged.”

  “Those aliens – the Jellies – use some kind of frozen liquid which explodes on contact. Nasty stuff. Ranges from small pops, to big explosions. The kid’s face wounds are from fragments which probably had already ricocheted off several surfaces before hitting him. We just started seeing them using these weapons too.”

  All of the Eight-Squad Blue Tigers got safety glasses, and some muffs which covered our ears. I felt strange, as these new people were calling the enemy by the name they had heard from me. The name Jellie just seemed to stick, and I do not think I ever told them about the etiology being with the orca’s language.

  I learned more about how we were defending that constituent joint, as we began our patrols. Our transceivers would show us our locations, as compared to the deck plans, and while they were bigger displays than what I had used with the old wristwatches, I still missed those. Yet, I adjusted and used the gear we had. The display showed the still pressurized decks in green, the flooded ones in an appropriate brown color, and the depressurized and vacuum areas in red. The green corridor was straight and connected between the needle ship and Styx. Overall, it was a small part of the whole constituent joint. There was no telling where the Jellies were, exactly, but the tube system had been shut and locked down at our location. No place closer to the needle ship had there been any breakthroughs.

  As I looked over the plans, I could see the decoupling locks were where the flooding happened and the Jellies had been stopped. I knew those places were made from the thickest permalloy, and I hoped that would be enough.

  The base of operations was an old storage room which had been converted into a barracks of sorts. Fifty people could have slept there, but most of the bunks were made up and unused. We had beds, a lavatory, and kitchen areas. Lazlo sent Kensington, Ella, and Prezsky to patrol the corridor, and he then sat me down in what he said would be our section of the barracks. I could see five bunks which had personal belongings around them, and figured that was for the others from Eight-Squad. The remaining bunks were just stacked with clean and folded blankets, pillows, and sheets.

  “You did good today, but treat those wounds,” Lazlo stated. “Get some food and rest. You lost blood and energy out there, so take the first shift of downtime.”

  “I am good to go.”

  “You are eager to go, but you are not good, not right now. We all will be rotating down time, and yours is now. Do not waste it. Someone will come and get you when it is your turn.” His tone did not allow me to argue with him. So, I just nodded.

  Several of the Ten-Squad were already lying down in their bunks, on the opposite side of the barracks. In a way, the emptiness of that place was sort-of creepy and foreboding. It felt like too many people were already lost. I thought again about Kulm’s body and wondered where it had gone.

  I selected a bunk next to the other others, and then took off my battle armor. Unpacking my stuff was easy, as I did not have much. I washed and treated my wounds, by looking in a foldout mirror from the headboard on the bunk. I never much like looking at myself, and as I did, I noted how many more scars I had. These new wounds from the Jellie’s frozen blast should heal better than my scar through the eyebrow, I told myself. I finished the treatment, then ate some food and made up my bunk. I fell asleep faster than I expected.

  I awoke when the transceiver went off with another alarm.

  “More incursions!” the LT stated. “All of Ten-Squad head toward the needle ship connection point. All of Eight-Squad, get to the Styx connection. Move! Move!”

  I grabbed at my battle armor, and my fingers went through some of the holes in the material. I slipped it on as fast as I could. The permalloy plates of armor were cool to the touch. I glanced over and the members of Ten-Squad were already on their way out. They must have been sleeping in their body armor. Rushing to get ready, I felt like a fool. I should have thought of that. I was ready faster than I ever got ready before, but still felt guilty. With the battle armor, and weapons ready, I rushed out of the barracks.

  I wondered where the next incursion would happen. I checked the transceiver display and saw that the corridor outside the barracks was still reading as green, from one end to the other. Outside the walls of that – where I thought the Jellies were must like to be – were the areas marked in brown. I doubted they would be in the red areas where the vacuum and depressurization had happened.

  I was wrong.

  A huge crash shook the whole corridor. I could not imagine what that was, but it was immense. Running along toward Styx, I heard gunfire. I saw the purplish glow as I approached, and was thankful for the protective eyewear. I could see the area, even though the colors were all muted.

  Blam! Blam! Blam!

  Someone was firing in single round mode. But that troop was taking cover behind a collapsed wall which covered about half of the corridor.

  “They will probably break through from where they flooded!” Lazlo’s voice came to me. It was the same thought I had, but the figure ahead of me did not look like him.

  “Who is up here?” I screamed.

  “Ella. Have you come to join the fun?” she responded as she squeezed off several more rounds.

  Blam! Blam!

  I fell in next to her and huddled behind some of the shattered wall. I could see the permalloy had been ripped into large chunks with jagged edges. I marveled at the strength that would take.

  “Decompressive explosion, but stopped by an ECC slamming home,” Ella chortled a bit.

  “An Emergency Containment Curtain deployed?” I was surprised.

  “You did not hear it? Biggest sound yet today in this melee. The ECC crushed one of those aliens, a Jellie as it fell. Two more of those Jellies got trapped on our side of the curtain.”

  I pumped a grenade into my launcher, and peered over the rubble.

  “No grenades!” Ella cautioned. “We have people down there! Lots closer than you were yesterday.”

  I took my finger off the firing stud, and left the grenade locked and loaded. Instead, I looked down the sights at what was before me.

  I saw the two Jellies, but they were mostly hidden from view behind some large sheets of perforated permalloy which had fallen out of the ceiling. I could see the purple glow through the neat and orderly holes in the permalloy, but I doubted a round would pass through those sheets. Then I looked more intently for the troops. Kensington was squatting in a corner next to the newly deployed and thick wall which the Emergency Containment Curtain had created by slamming down to stop the atmospheric leak. Those ECCs are nothing like the curtains in mother’s windows, but rather are like a solid wall once deployed. He was hidden from the enemy’s view. He had his rifle ready, but he had marginal cover, at best.

  Teewank!

  The Jellie’s projectile weapon struck right near where Kensington was crouched. An explosion of icy shards peppered all around him, but he seemed to be relatively safe for the moment, but trapped.

  Blam! Blam!

  Ella fired, but I could see sparks where the rounds caromed off the perforated permalloy. Her next round also was deflected away.

  Blam! My shot careened up and into the ceiling. I missed as well.

  I kept scanning the area, and saw that Prezsky was nearby, hiding behind a bunch of ventilation equipment which was in a jumbled pile. She was holding only a handgun. Her rifle was sticking up from part of the rubble some distance away. The whole area looked like a nightmare scenario from my training exercises at Raven Academy, but I knew this was all deadly serious, and my mind considered that there might not be a solution to this puzzle. I looked down at my transceiver and saw that it was still showing this entire area in green, and I wondered how accurate the deck plan reporting really w
as. It did not show that the ECC had fallen.

  Blam! Blam!

  Ella fired again at the closest Jellie.

  “Hit you this time!” Ella chortled. A chunk of purple was ripped from the end of an appendage and it snaked out from behind where the Jellies were lurking.

  From the outlines, I could sort-of tell that each Jellie was a lumpish round globe, again reminding me of a pumpkin, standing there on its four legs. Two – arms I guess you would call them – were projecting out from its front. Those were long and tentacle-like and were picking up chunks of rubble and lifting them up. Each time a tentacle secured a chunk, Ella shot at it. For only as the tentacles reached outward, were they extended past the perforated permalloy. I could see the purple stuff erupt where the Ella’s bullets entered. The tentacle would retract or shake, but then it sort-of reformed, and went back again to moving the debris. I think it was building a wall of debris or something.

  “Lazlo!” the LT’s voice came through the transceiver. “Ten-Squad is not answering and no readings on telemetry. Send someone to check on them.”

  “We have two hostiles trapped,” Lazlo’s voice barked back. “No one in position to assist.”

  “Understood, but I see Kalju and Ella are closest to Ten-Squad. One of them must go,” the LT commanded. I could almost hear her add ‘sorry’ under her breath. “I must know what has happened. I get zero, repeat, zero telemetry from Ten-Squad. Send one of them now – Kalju, take off for the needle ship coupling. Hustle.”

  I wondered why the LT had been speaking over the squad-wide band, but snapped back a reply, “Two of the troops are pinned down here!”

  Lazlo’s voice cut through, “Go Kalju. The LT knows our status.”

  “Affirmative!” I replied.

  Ella looked at me. Her eyes were big, but she smiled anyway. “We only have to save Kensington and Prezsky. All of Ten-Squad is your damsel in distress. Go off and be a hero. Outdo John McKinney.”

  I had no idea to what she was referring, but from the look in her eyes, it felt like she was saying goodbye. I sprinted away down the corridor, hearing gunfire behind me.

  “Kalju,” the LT stated. “You are now linked into Ten-Squad’s tactical network, and directly to me. Telemetry still showing negative on all of Ten-Squad.”

  “I hear you. Equipment failure?”

  “Doubtful, Kalju,” the LT said. “Stay alert. Get a situational report and watch yourself.”

  I felt like a deserter, but was following orders. As I got to the barracks, I rushed inside and grabbed another pack of grenades from the ammo locker. I am not sure why I did that, but I thought it was better to have more ammunition than I needed rather than not enough. I glanced only briefly at Ten-Squad’s bunks, but that image stayed in my mind. They needed me.

  The corridor was eerily quiet as I headed away from the barracks at a dead run. I kept thinking I should have been going the other direction. I did not know any of the people in Ten-Squad, except Canister-Man and I did not even know his name.

  I smelled the vile, toxic, Jellie gunk before I saw it. I hugged one side of the corridor but continued onward. I had my bullpup ready, and a grenade was already loaded. I saw jumbled wall sections, and places were repairs had been made. The fresh permalloy was hardened, and had stopped the inrush of the polluted waters, but the sludge was in small pools scattered all the way across the corridor. I tried to step only where chucks of debris were sticking up out of the liquids, or where the floor looked dry. I hoped my boots would protect me for a while, but I was not tempting fate if I could avoid it.

  One troop was lying face down in that gunk. The brown was mixed with red. I did not stop to assess further, because the huge gaping wound in that person’s back was something no one could survive.

  “LT,” I reported, “Some of Ten-Squad are dead. Visual confirmation.”

  Then the bluish-purple light blazed in front of me, distracting me from what the LT said. Out from a side passage which should have been sealed by a bulkhead door, a Jellie lumbered. Even with the eye protection the glare was immense. In one of its tentacles was Canister-man. His face was staring at me, and his eyes flickered. I am not sure if it was recognition. I hope not. The pain was evident in the deep wrinkles and furrows of his face. The purple tentacle was wrapped tightly about his body, the uniform in shreds, and the battle armor plates were gone. His left arm had a smaller tentacle wrapped around it, and the hand sticking out from there was flapping about like a bag of cherries. Almost as if every bone in his arm, wrist, and hand had been crushed. His other hand was holding onto his rifle, its sling wrapped about his wrist, but it too was just flopping about without purpose. I stared into his eyes.

  I tapped the grenade launcher’s firing stud.

  Plop!

  I pumped another grenade into the launcher. My first grenade flew true right for the Jellie.

  Boom! I sure hope Canister-man was already dead when it exploded. If not, at least I ended his suffering. The detonation of the grenade obliterated the human remains the Jellie was carrying. The Jellie’s front arms, the tentacles, or whatever you would call them, broke into large fragments, and the smaller one which had been crushing the soldier’s arm fell like a coil to the floor. The changed from purple to tan as they struck. The stumps of the tentacles sealed over, as the purplish glow faded from the truncated parts.

  Plop!

  Boom! The second detonation went off right where the stumps were sealing themselves off. Purple splatters rose up and smacked into the ceiling. I raced forward while I pumped in another grenade.

  Plop!

  That grenade struck right where the stump had just been blown open. Somehow it slipped into the purplish mess as it was sealing over.

  Vooump!

  That detonation was not nearly as loud as the others, although my ears were ringing, so maybe that was part of the reason it sounded different. Yet, the results were also vastly different.

  The front part of the Jellie, right where the stump emerged from the main body, cracked and split. Brownish fluids slavered out. It stunk so badly. The legs under the Jellie disappeared and the pumpkin shape dropped to the deck. I ran at the thing, and flipped my hand to the bullpup’s trigger assembly. I toggled it to ‘B’ and pulled the trigger.

  Bruupuupuupuup!

  I kept my aim right on the section where the brown fluids were leaking out. I knew I was too close to detonate another grenade, but I poured every round in the magazine into that section of the Jellie. The split grew wider, and more fluids dribbled out.

  A tentacle, from who knows where wrapped itself around one of my legs and pulled down on me. “No!” I yelled as I slammed in a new magazine.

  Bruup! Bruup!

  I fired burst after burst after burst into that split on the Jellie, ignoring the squeezing pain in my leg. The tentacle was wrapped tightly around my leg and thigh, and its tip was ripping into the materials of my pants. I could feel the permalloy armor plates in my uniform slowly bending in on me.

  Bruup!

  The split kept trying to seal over, but my bullets kept ripping into it again. As I changed magazines, the split sort-of quivered and then tore downward. The leaking brown fluids because a rush. I saw it was coming right at me, and I tried to step out of the way. The tentacle made that difficult as it was still squeezing my leg, and like a vise was preventing me from escaping. I jammed the bullpup into the gap and fired again.

  Bruup!

  The top of the Jellie caved in on itself, the split widened, and the interior waters poured out in a cascade of filthy, foul smelling, gunk. The purplish glow was fading as the fluids were spluttering out. I could see that the thing in front of me was like a nearly solid bag, or carapace, or shell. There was something inside, and I did not think it was internal organs, so much as some internal organism.

  Then the whole thing went dark, and collapsed onto itself. Something writhed about inside of what looked more like a deflated balloon, than a pumpkin, or sphere. The pressure on
my leg was lessening, and I stomped down hard on that tentacle, until the coils dropped from around my leg. As they fell off, it was only then I realized that I had not been watching anywhere else.

  I whipped my head around, and looked, but fortunately, there was not a second Jellie anywhere around. As I looked back toward the split in the side of the Jellie’s casing, I saw a last bit of moment. Sometime lunged at me. A dark blue stem shot out at me. On its end was a very sharp looking curved spike. I dodged out of the way, and it fell just shy of striking me. I put several more round into it, before I was convinced it was not going to move again. It lay there, sticking out through the split in the purple casing. I was convinced that the outside of the Jellie was not its skin – so to speak – but was rather some kind of suit or covering. For as that stem was sticking out, I could see a visible difference in the texture, composition, and construction of it, as compared to the appearance of the rest of the Jellie. That stem part looked more organic, or biological, than the carapace of the exterior. Glancing down I saw the buckled permalloy plates which had armored my leg, I and just knew I was inside a protective suit, so why not the Jellie as well?