Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  “Ten-Squad!” I yelled out, but kept my eyes on the dead Jellie. “Sound off anyone!”

  There was just the slushy sound of the fluids still dribbling out of the Jellie. It was bleeding its equivalent of blood, or losing its atmosphere, or something. It was a large lump of dark purple whatever, sitting in its own brown slushy muck.

  I really wanted to run away, but I also felt a strange compulsion to see what was at the other end of that thick stem. The orcas had called them Jellies for some reason, and the thing I had just killed did not look like any jellyfish I had ever seen, or read about.

  Quenching my curiosity was my concern for Ten-Squad. So, I left the carcass of the Jellie and searched. I knew two members of Ten-Squad were dead, and as I hunted around the area, I did find the remains of the rest of the squad. The last ones I found were probably the first to have been killed. Parts of their bodies were still under the rubble where the Jellie must have broken through the wall. My anger boiled up as I realized that the bodies had been dismembered by brute force, and not be explosions. There were some marks of the frozen explosive weapons I had seen the Jellies use, but one of the bodies was clearly torn limb from limb. I am still not sure why that bothered me. Dying by explosion, or dying by dismemberment, was still dying.

  “LT?” I signaled through the transceiver. “The Styx coupling…no, that is not right… no wait… the corridor near the needle ship, where I am now, is secure… Ten-Squad… they are all dead.”

  “Kalju?” the LT asked in a soft voice. “How badly hurt are you?”

  “I killed one of the Jellies,” my voice sounded weird to me. “Is Eight-Squad alive?”

  “Yes. Stay where you are. Help is on the way,” the LT stated.

  “Help? The only help needed here is mortuary services. I said they are all dead! And I want to know where the bodies go this time!” I screamed out. “Where is Kulm’s body? My other friends are with dead whales! Is that forsaken island accessible to anyone now? Where are Tudeng? Or Matkaja? Or Radha? Did Carol get her legs?” I walked back away from the scenes of death and carnage.

  “Kalju, we are here for you. Are there any other enemies in your area?” The LT’s voice was calmer than I expected.

  “I killed the only Jellie here. Just one, but it killed everyone else. I killed it.”

  “Good. Then find a secure position and wait. Eight-Squad is on the way.”

  “They had two Jellies to kill. I only had one,” I stated. I looked around and carefully stepped on the dry parts of the floor to avoid the mush and gunk on the deck. I did collect a few unused grenades, and a full magazine for the bullpup. I could not identify whose uniform those came from, as it was in a pile up against a wall. The battle armor plates were bent, and the fabric had been torn apart. It was partially soaked in blood. I think it was a shirt and part of a belt, but even that was unclear. A boot was soaking in the brown sludge not far away.

  Instead of finding a hiding hole, I walked around looking for where the Jellies had broken in. I found two spots which had been sealed over using the method Canister-man and his associate had used. Checking the transceiver, I could see that behind those spots were areas which while I watched the display shifted from the brown color of flooded areas, to the red of decompressed areas filled with vacuum. I wondered idly who was doing that work, but did not care enough to ask. The face of Canister-man still haunted me. I am sure he was dead when I fired the grenade. I hope so. Yes, he was dead before I fired. Right?

  “Kalju?” Lazlo’s voice came through the transceiver.

  I turned and saw him running toward me. Not far behind was Ella, and back a ways Kensington and Prezsky were holding each other up and limping toward us.

  “I am here! I killed the Jellie,” I stated and gestured toward where the deflated purple carapace was. The internal stem was still sticking up out of it.

  “LT! Kalju did kill one enemy. Its body is here!” Immense excitement radiated in his voice. “We can get the sample the officers ordered!”

  “Dispatching security and transport automacubes. Highest priority. Sample everything. Protect that find!” the LT’s voice was even more thrilled than Lazlo’s.

  “You could have sampled the two you killed,” I said, as I looked at him.

  “We did not kill those, although we tried, oh how we tried. Kalju, we retreated and sealed that area. We were lucky to get Kensington and Prezsky out alive. We exhausted all our grenades, and most of our ammo in covering the retreat.”

  “Are they following you?” I spun about and pulled up the bullpup into firing position.

  “No. The whole section was vented into space. The Jellies along with everything in that compartment. I think your kill here is remarkable!” He slapped me on the shoulder.

  “Lucky, I guess. All of Ten-Squad is dead,” I said and looked down. “I was too late.”

  Lazlo pulled off his backpack. He pulled out a small can and sprayed me all over with it. “That should stop the gunk for eating your battle armor. Kalju, once these things get inside, they are deadly. It is not your fault at all.” He then pulled a small yellow box out. As he tipped it open, I saw it had numerous vials, and other bottles and jars inside it. There were also thick and heavy gloves. “Want to help me sample? It might take that vibration saw to cut off some sections. Put on some of these gloves, and there are also slip covers for your feet. That toxic stuff is corrosive. And I have little deactivator spray left.”

  “Kalju did the hard work, let me help,” Ella suggested. “If he does not mind.”

  “No. He needs to do this,” Lazlo said in as stern a voice as I had ever heard. “Come on Kalju, let us do some dissection of that Jellie of yours.”

  Not only did the yellow box contain the gloves and foot covers, it also had facemasks. I donned the protective gear and removed the vibration saw from the side compartment of the collection box. It was charged and ready to go. I noted that Lazlo had a set of metal sheers which he was carrying.

  “You sure you want to do that?” Prezsky asked. Her voice was husky and rough, and she had a bandage patch on her neck.

  “That toxic junk is nasty stuff,” Kensington added. “Why not wait and let the automacubes remove it?”

  Lazlo sort-of nodded, as he considered what they said. Then he looked at me.

  “I want to see what a Jellie really is,” I replied.

  We walked over to the lump of purple which was not glowing, but was slimy and wet with the brownish liquids. I was glad the slip covers were over my feet, and I hoped we were protected enough. I actually longed for a spacesuit, just because of the smell. The reek was worse than I had smelled anywhere else.

  The stem, with its sharp and curved hook on the end was still protruding from the tear in the outer covering. I kept thinking of a turtle’s carapace, and I am not sure why. Maybe because of the turtles in annoying Dale’s lake, but it was more than just that. I could not see anywhere on the lumpy surface of the dead Jellie where its legs, arms, or tentacles had been. It was like a deflated balloon, and was just smooth and dull purple. All except for the slit and that strange stem which was jutting from it. The stem was about as big around as my thigh, and quite long. That was turning a tan color.

  “What do we sample?” I asked.

  “The LT said get a sample of everything. Start with cutting a section of the skin of this thing. I will lop off some of that barb. It is far too big to transport all of it anywhere, but take a bit from everything that looks unique or special.” Lazlo grabbed hold of the stem, just below the spike. With the metal sheers, he chopped down on the spike itself, and the bottom five centimeters or so came free. He had to exert a lot of pressure on the sheers to get them to bite through the spike. He slid it into a specimen container.

  “I am remotely measuring it all, and recording your work,” Prezsky stated. She sounded weary to the point of exhaustion, but was helping as she was able. “I will send the information along with the samples.”

  I took the vibration sa
w and cut a small cube of material from the exterior. It cut slowly, even with the vibration saw at maximum. I placed that cube into a container and tossed it to Ella who was standing nearby. She was wearing gloves and a mask too. I then felt the stem, and it was rough and bumpy under my touch, even though I was wearing the gloves. I expected it to be smooth like the exterior was, but it was more like tree bark, well sort-of like bark. I cut a section from that as well. It cut easily. I placed into a container and tossed to Ella.

  “I cannot get this ripped place opened up any further,” Lazlo complained as he tried to cut the exterior with the sheers. “I do see some of our rounds embedded into the flesh here, but they are all surrounded by a deeper purple colored stuff. Try opening up this slot so we can dissect the inside of this thing. There seems to be a space between the inside and the skin.”

  Using the vibration saw, I cut the slit open more, while Lazlo pulled on the stem. Adjusting the cutting force, I found how to slice it more quickly, but it was slow and tedious work. Finally, the opening was big enough that I could peal back part of the carapace.

  “I do not see where the stem is connected at all to the carapace. It is not like our skin and muscles, not at all,” I observed as I cut. “The stem is thick and heavy comes down from the middle of a dome thing, like a mushroom. That is not connected to the skin either.”

  “It is the alien’s spacesuit. That is why,” Kensington called out. “I have been thinking about this a lot. They flood places, because, as Kalju here said, they are marine animals. Not animals like we know, but creatures, or beasts, or whatever. So, to use his term, it is a Jellie’s spacesuit, or hydro-suit. We carry around our own stuff, so they do too. Drag that beast out of its hydro-suit and you will see it real form.”

  “I think that is right. They are called Jellies for a reason, and this does not look like a jellyfish,” I answered. And so, I cut the exterior open even more, and tried to avoid vomiting from the horrid odors. You know I have smelled all kinds of dead things back in Kansas. Opossums stink bad when they die. Skunks use their smell as a defensive weapon. And a rotting carcass does reek. None of that compared to the smell of the Jellie, even though my mask. But finally, I got the carapace cut widely open, and actually lifted a triangle of it away to expose what was inside. As Lazlo had observed, there was a gap between the stem and the carapace. But that had not prepared me from what we saw.

  The stem got thicker as it attached to some kind of body, that dome thing. Wrapped all around, and in various states of damage were tentacles. Lots of tentacles of various shades of blue or purple. I could tell the explosion of the grenade inside the carapace had sent shrapnel into the flesh of the Jellie. Rips, punctures, and tears were all over those tentacles. Most of the tentacles emerged from under a collapsed half circle which reminded me of a mushroom’s top. Maybe, like a half dome? I think I said that already. Well, anyway, the stem met up to that top thing which had segmented parts. Some parts were darker purple, and some were lighter, a few were even blue. I looked for an eye, like on a squid, but nothing like that was there. At the very top of the Jellie was a ball, or knob. Roughly the size of a grapefruit, that thing looked to be at the center of the body, or what might have been at the upper portion of it, if it was standing on its stem. I kept trying, in my mind, to visualize it in water, like a jellyfish, but it was hard.

  Lazlo was busy snipping off samples from various places on the Jellie. “This is a creature, and that outer coating is its technology.” His voice sounded amazed. He took a part of a tentacle, then a part from the crown, as he called it. He tossed the collected specimens back to Ella.

  As I looked closely at that grapefruit-sized knob on the crown, I saw that it had been pierced by a chunk of metal from the grenade. For some reason, seeing that fragment of metal, made me feel immensely blessed to still be alive.

  “Some of these limbs — tentacles — are differentiated for various tasks. These have a broad and flat tip. See how it is rolled up on that one,” Lazlo pointed. “While these others are pointy and taper to almost a hair’s width. I bet this thing has incredible dexterity and can do extremely fine manipulations with these digits.”

  “Lazlo? Do you see its weapons? How it shoots those icy bombs? Any ordinance inside there?” Prezsky asked.

  “Or controls on its hydro-suit?” Kensington questioned. “Maybe some kind of machines or technology?”

  “Nothing I can identify.”

  I added, “Just lumps and bumps inside the shell thing. The inside is sleep and smooth like the outside, but had to know what its shape is supposed to be. I know it had arms and legs. I saw them in use.” I did not explain about how it had been carrying Canister-man. “It must have a way to stretch or manipulate the carapace.” I stepped back and then walked alongside of the Jellie’s body as it lay there exposed. “If it was upright, from top to bottom, the Jellie is a little bigger than a person. I would think it would weigh maybe a hundred kilograms.”

  “In our gravity,” Ella called over. “I wonder if its home world has gravity like ours? If that is a hydro-suit, and I think Kensington is right, then who knows what the planet is like where this monster evolved.”

  From down the hallway, a bulkhead door opened.

  Prezsky and Kensington had their bullpups aimed and ready, before I could even turn at the sound. They pulled up nearly immediately as they saw a security and transport automacube enter. The security automacube was in really tough shape. It red chassis was dented, scraped, and marred in countless places. Two of its six drive wheels were missing chunks from them. The main gun mounts at the front looked worn out from repeatedly being fired. The multijointed arm on its top was folded flat, but looked in no better shape than the rest of the machine.

  The yellow automacube was spotless in comparison, although it was much smaller. The two machines rolled up to us, and I noted they too avoided the brown fluids on the deck as much as possible.

  “This is IAM Lenore,” a mechanical voice came from the red automacube. “Please load the samples and specimens into the transport automacube’s cargo hold.”

  Something inside of me reacted to hearing from an artificial intelligence system. I rushed over to the red machine. “I demand to know where my friends are now! What happened to Carol, Tudeng, Matkaja, and Radha?”

  “Private Kalju, those people are part of the Marathon Defense Forces, and are not assigned to your unit. They are not your concern,” IAM Lenore replied. “As soon as the specimens are stored, this automacube will dispose of the alien’s remains.”

  “You will tell me where my friends are. Right now!” I screamed.

  “Personnel distribution and allocation is not your concern,” IAM Lenore responded.

  “They are my friend! Where are they!” I screamed again.

  A man’s voice came on, “Private Kalju, you will stand down immediately!”

  “Drop dead Adams!” I hollered. “You worthless piece of scum!”

  “Corporal Lazlo, Private Kalju had battle psychosis. Please restrain your soldier, and complete this mission.”

  Lazlo threw off his gloves and stepped over to me, “Kalju, now is not the time.”

  “Adams knows where my friends are? Just tell me!” I cried out.

  “Major Adams, it might be simpler to just supply the information,” Lazlo said.

  “Major Adams is addressing urgent issues,” IAM Lenore interjected. “Send the samples.”

  I stomped away, as I knew I would not get any help.

  Ella and Lazlo packed in the specimens, and the yellow transport automacube spun around and left. Ella commented, “Maybe you should take the entire carcass?”

  “Representative samples are sufficient. We lack containment equipment for larger specimens, and there is rick of contamination. Please clear this area,” IAM Lenore ordered. “Incineration will commence in sixty seconds. That will be followed by depressurization and vacuum cleansing.”

  “There are dead people here! They should be treated
with respect, reverence, and honor!” I yelled. My throat was hoarse from screaming.

  “The casualties will still be deceased no matter what kinds of rites, ceremonies, or religious rituals are performed. Clear the area now,” IAM Lenore commanded. “Failure to leave this area may result in injuries or death.” Then the mechanical voice began a countdown, “You now have sixty seconds to reach minimum safe distance. You will only be safe beyond the Emergency Containment Curtain line. Go now.”

  Lazlo grabbed me by the shoulder. He pointed to a flashing light on the floor. “We must get beyond there, and quickly.” He, along with Ella, forcefully pulled me away. Kensington and Prezsky also hustled, even though limping, and retreated to where an Emergency Containment Curtain would fall. Moments after we crossed that line, the ECC slammed shut.