Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  I choked, swallowed hard, and then gave a command, “What is the current status of the Marathon, and current battle assessment of the conflict with the Jellies?”

  The AI answered, “The Marathon has lost Styx, Foreigner, and Journey. Journey was lost when Jellie ship’s pink destruction weapon was fired against the hanger bay from which the assault on the Jellie ship was launched. Pink destruction weapon caused massive destruction of hanger bay, shell, and penetration into the biome. Journey biome was destroyed by explosive decompression to space. Emergency Containment Curtains were disabled. All life lost. Biome Eagles has severe combat happening, and severe loss of life. Shell is intact, but alien radiological weapons have been deployed inside Eagles. Eagles biome considered unfit for human life, and is being flooded with Jellie fluids. Kansas biome also has suffered a radiological attack by the Jellies to a similar extent to that of the Eagles habitat. Kansas biome considered unfit for human life and is being flooded with Jellie fluids. Chicago biome is currently under attack by concentrated Jellie forces. Human resistance to Jellies is failing. I conjecture total collapse of human forces in Chicago within ten hours. High probability of Jellie deployment of radiologic weapon in Chicago at any moment. No human survivors expected. The needle ship suffered from massive bombardment from Jellie forces inside it. The command bridge is gone. Operational systems are at nineteen percent and failing. Command and control of the Marathon is questionable. Major Gonzales is senior officer known to be alive. Main drive offline and the Marathon does not have capability to do repairs. Life support…”

  “Stop! How many humans are alive on the Marathon?” I blurted out.

  “Current readings show 10,847, and dropping.” IAM Lenore replied.

  “Include all those people in suspended animation! How many humans are on the Marathon!” I yelled. My fears were skyrocketing.

  “Current readings show 10,367, and dropping. That includes the 10,000 people in repository Q-93 which was moved to Pod 4 on exterior of Chicago habitat. That repository is the only one still intact,” IAM Lenore replied. “Jellies have been recorded specifically destroying repositories. It is a safe conjecture that the repositories are being deliberately targeted. Battlefield assessments show the Jellies are using much more hostility, larger weaponry, and with more deadly efficiency. Projected outcome is that the Jellies are aggressively converting human sustaining biomes into Jellie sustaining biomes.”

  “How do we reverse that trend? Journey had defense automacubes, and advanced weaponry. What do we do?” I screamed out.

  “I can conjecture no effective way to reverse the outcome of these battles to allow for human victory,” IAM Lenore replied. “I explained this as a strong possible outcome of Operation Peanut Butter, but General Adams rejected my concerns. I presented my concerns to Captain Francine Adams, and her senior staff, but they opted to follow General Adams proposal.”

  “Sergeant Kalju, I asked Lenore the same questions, and got the same answers,” Major Gonzales stated. “I had MC12, MC87, and MC223 run separate evaluations, and all came to the same conclusion. The Marathon is lost.”

  I could not accept that. I asked, “IAM Lenore, report to me anything which is not in my database but was extreme, unique, or out of the ordinary which has happened in the last three months, even if unrelated to the Jellies.”

  “Message sent to Earth,” IAM Lenore reported.

  “What?” Both Gonzales and I asked at the same time.

  “You must mean a routine progress report on our flight, right?” Major Gonzales asked.

  “Negative,” Lenore replied. “Message sent via probe which landed on Kansas habitat.”

  “Probe?” I asked.

  “Explain what you are taking about!” Major Gonzales snapped.

  “A robotic probe arrived and made contact with me. It was from Dome 17 on Earth. I sent the following message to its inquiries. ‘This is Insulated Artificial Intelligence Lenore. Marathon is in flight. Attacked by hostile aliens. Counter-attack begun.’ That was sent via a system on the robotic probe.”

  “How did a robotic probe get here from Earth? The light barrier is impenetrable, or so I thought. How did they manage it?” I asked. “Besides, Earth was dying when the Marathon left.”

  “It obviously did not die!” Major Gonzales whooped. It was clear I had tapped into something she had not heard about. “Like the Jellies they must have faster-than-light transportation.”

  “Where is that probe now? How can we use it? How did it get here? What messages were along with it?” I had a million questions, and they burst forth at once. “What is Dome 17? What kind of military do they have? How can this be a coincidence? Can they send us a rescue mission?”

  IAM Lenore replied, “Many of your questions have overlapping answers. Shortly after that probe from Dome 17 arrived, I sent the return message. The Jellies then attacked that probe with their pink destruction beam, disintegrating the probe and its technology. I was not able to ascertain its mode of operation, nor its mode of communication. I was able to virtually confirm it was of Earth origin, as it had no alien elements, and used accepted access codes which had been in use at the Marathon’s launch. I have no further information about what Dome 17 is now, but there are historic records indicating that Dillion Vermeer founded a group called Dome Survival Systems. At the time of the Marathon’s launch, they had built twelve domes, with the nomenclatures Dome 1 through Dome 12. It is reasonable to assume Dome 17 is part of that system. Dome Survival Systems had plans for 10,000 domes with 10,000 people living in each one.”

  “See, Earth is alive and well and looking for us!” Major Gonzales proclaimed.

  “And they have ways of getting here!” I added my own exuberance. “This changes everything. What is their system for breaking the light barrier?”

  IAM Lenore replied, “I am sorry I cannot describe that probe’s superluminal or faster-than-light capabilities. The evidence strongly supports the conclusion that on Earth they do have some technology which allows for both transmission of mass at superluminal speed, and message transmission at superluminal speed. Current hypothetical concepts for how to accomplish that are usually around quarkite tunneling and…”

  “Forget the hypothetical,” Major Gonzales snarled. All joy was gone from her tones, and an urgency was deep in her words. “There is no time for that. Did the Jellies detect the fact that you sent a message back to Earth?”

  “You think they learned Earth’s location?” I immediately understood what she was getting to.

  IAM Lenore did not answer.

  “Lenore! Did the Jellies know where the probe originated, and did they know you sent a message back to Earth?”

  “I conjecture a sixty-one percent possibility that the Jellies did detect my message being sent via that probe. They had penetrated the lattice of compeers many years ago, and were clandestinely witnessing all that was happening on the Marathon since their arrival. I also conjecture a ninety-seven percent chance that the Jellies are aware of the Earth’s location. Not just from the probe, but also from the records in the lattice of compeers, and from simply backtracking the course of the Marathon. The Marathon leaves a discernable trail through space, and the level of technology known in use by the Jellies renders their ability to follow that trail at a near certainty.”

  “They must be stopped here!” Major Gonzales stated. I could not see her face, but the determination in her words was ferocious.

  “And we must save those 10,000 people in suspended animation,” I added. “They cannot be left to die.”

  “Agreed,” Major Gonzales affirmed. “Lenore, funnel lists of all available resources to Sergeant Kalju for his mission to go get that repository. I am ordering all the MC AIs to help him as much as possible. We will just tow it along behind this Jellie ship if we have to, but it is not to be left behind. Lenore, you and I will plan how to kill the rest of the Jellies.”

  “Yes, Major Gonzales,” Lenore responded. “I conjecture the most likely met
hod to eliminate the Jellies is by nuclear detonation of the remainder of the Marathon. That can be accomplished by overloading the solar mimicry fusion reactors of the remaining biomes coordinated with unrestrained release of the accumulated energy in the main drive’s Shah of Persia Energy Concentrator. Even the tough Jellie carapaces will not be able to withstand explosions of energy of that magnitude.”

  “So, we will need to be somewhere else as well. That means we must learn to fly this bird with the repository,” Major Gonzales said. “Amend my previous order. Link MC12 with me, and Put MC87 in a link with Samuels, and have it work here to decipher the way this Jellie spacecraft works. This will be our home, and if we can get it back to Earth and warn them, then we will do that. If those accursed Jellies can fly it, so can we! Kalju, you take MC223 and go rescue those people in the repository! You can take three other Bilokos with you. Move fast! Bring back whatever you think we will need, but get those sleepers.”

  I heard Major Gonzales switching over to summon Samuels, and I shifted some communications to Dietermeyer, Lawrence, and Wanagi. “You three meet me in the cargo hold, where we left our trojan-horses. Hurry, we do not have much time!”

  “On the way, Sergeant!”

  “Sergeant Kalju, this is MC223. I have been instructed to assist you. I have located a Class 5 shuttle which is in a hanger bay of Kansas. May I bring it to this location?”

  “MC223, will that be able to tow the repository here?”

  “A Class 5 shuttle is not designed for engineering type applications,” MC223 replied. “However, it is the only functional shuttle I have located.”

  “Is it radioactive?” I asked, recalling that the Jellies had set off some kind of radiologic weapon.

  “That shuttle shows normal radiation levels,” MC223 replied.

  “Then excellent! Yes, bring it here. We will make it work. Are there any survivors in Kansas?” I asked, but my voice cracked and my lips trembled. I was finally getting information about Kansas.

  The mechanical voice of MC223 just replied, “Biometrics show there are no signs of living humans in Kansas, my condolences.”

  I briefly thought of my parents, and family, and even of Mister Fisher. I wish I could have wiped my eyes, but inside the combat armor that was impossible. “Get that shuttle here fast. We will fly it to get that repository. Give that shuttle the designation as the Raven.”

  “Yes, Sergeant Kalju. The Raven is launching now.”

  In the cargo hold, I saw that others had been busy. Somehow a section of that cargo hold had been sealed off, and all three of the central memory cores were securely fastened into that compartment. The soldiers had used the stimulators, as well as vibration saws to cut and then seal back together the three carapaces which had hauled those memory cores. It was a rough work at best, but it was functional. That did mean we only had four carapaces which were still functional. I looked at the racks of unused Jellie carapace suits which were suspended over our heads. There were probably a hundred or more, but none of them had the periscope, and all were probably filled with the disgusting brown Jellie fluid. So, our battered and repurposed trojan-horses would have to do.

  Dietermeyer, Wanagi, and Lawrence were waiting for me. That cargo hold was lit by the helmet lights from the soldiers, but still seemed to be dark and shadowy. Maybe that was from the holes which were gaping to the exterior and the blackness of space that was beyond them. The three soldiers were standing by one of those holes in the exterior of the Jellie ship. I walked over to join them, amazed that the artificial gravity the Jellies used was still working, even though most of their ship was now open to space.

  “You would think that a ship that glowed purple all the time would have some interior lighting, right?” I offered as I approached.

  “Sergeant?” Dietermeyer asked, “I think if some of the other soldiers will pick me up and throw me outside, I could escape this ship and then fire my maneuvering jets enough to try for the Marathon. Looks like it is only a few hundred kilometers away.”

  I looked out through that ripped gap in the Jellie ship, and saw the Marathon through my optics. It was a huge ship, but really a mess. I considered using the magnification on the optics, but rejected that. Instead, I just sort-of gazed at the stars which were behind it, and wondered which one was the home sun of the world the Jellies had come from, and which one was Earth’s star. I did not waste much time, only a moment with those thoughts. The stars were pretty, the Marathon was a wreck.

  “MC223 is bringing us a shuttle. I guess one survived all that destruction,” I answered. “I am hooking all three of you into my command links. That means there is a link directly to Major Gonzales, but only open a channel to her in case of drastic need. She is working a big issue right now. Otherwise, what I hear, you will hear, what I say you will hear. We are a team, and we must make this work. MC223 will be working with us. Our goal is to go get that repository, Q-93, and bring it back to the Jellie ship.”

  “Sergeant? That is a big task. Would it not be better to leave it docked in Pod 4 on Chicago?” Lawrence asked.

  “I wish we could, oh I really do. The Jellies are overrunning all of the Marathon,” I gulped as I had to force myself to relate the bad news. “Repository Q-93 is the only surviving repository, and I think that is because we moved it once before. The Jellies seem to have studied the nonphysicality and know where things were. All the others have already been destroyed.”

  “Bloody rot! There were 150,000 sleepers in those repositories!” Lawrence’s voice sounded as dazed as I felt. “All those people dead?”

  “And many more. The habitats are being systematically turned into death chambers for humans, and breeding grounds for Jellies,” I gestured over to the Marathon in the distance. “Styx and Foreigner are gone. Major Gonzales is going to have to destroy the rest of the ship to kill the Jellies. They must be struck down before them can figure out that we have their ship, and wage a counterattack on us!”

  Jorgensen spoke up, even though she was not in on our network. “Sergeant, pardon me for intruding, but you told me to keep this place secure. I cannot do much with my leg all messed up, but that will not inhibit my sniper ability. If those Jellies globes come off the Marathon and approach this ship, may I blast them out of the galaxy? The enpol can hit them from extreme distance, and if they do not move any faster than our trojan-horses did, I can pick them off from here one by one by one. That tear in the hull over yonder will be cover enough for a decent sniper nest.”

  “Great idea! I am hooking you into our team,” I replied. Then I switched over to the private channel to Major Gonzales. “Major, I need Jorgenson as my sniper to cover us, is that acceptable?”

  “Go for it! Now get that repository,” Major Gonzales answered. “I am busy with this mess, so use your own discretion, and remember I trust you. Go get them!”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  “Your shuttle, the Raven, is approaching your position,” MC223 announced.

  “The Raven?” Lawrence asked.

  “For an old friend,” I replied.

  “I thought it might be so we nevermore have to deal with the Jellies,” Wanagi chuckled a bit.

  The shuttle was on a fast approach. It was a delta-winged spacecraft whose overall color was orange with a green trim. The fuselage was a triangular tube with rounded nose. The wings were slung under that tube. It was sleek and I wondered how it had survived all that the Marathon had endured. Its twin propulsion engines at its rear on either side of the tall rudder were glowing slightly at their front, and probably brighter at their rear. That shuttle barrel rolled and altered position several times. Doing an end-for-end flip in its flight. As its stern became visible, I saw in the glow of its engines that there was some damage to its upright rudder. The markings of ‘KN-209’ were barely visible through the damage as the back section of the rudder had been charred off. I knew it would never function properly in a planetary atmosphere, although it looked like it was adequate in space. Thruster no
zzles were visible at various spots on the Raven’s fuselage, and they were firing at intermittent moments bringing it into position alongside of the Jellie ship. The wingspan was something like twenty meters, and overall height about twenty-five meters.

  “The Raven is as close to your position as I can make it. Ready for boarding,” MC223 announced. “Remote links and couplings to the Raven are secure for now.”

  The Raven was about fifty meters away from where we stood looking out from that hole in the Jellie ship’s side.

  “Let me make the crossing,” Dietermeyer called out as he ran along and dove out the hole. He used his combat armor’s small jets to correct his own trajectory as he floated out and over toward the Raven.

  “That was not a request, was it?” I laughed a bit, despite the grimness of our situation. “I am supposed to be the leader here.”

  “That was why I jumped, Sergeant. You are too important to risk!” Dietermeyer answered. “I am trailing a line, so if I miss you can fish me back out.” His flight path was taking him right toward the Raven, and I was thankful for that. His combat armor was spooling out a thin wire behind him. He made a few minor adjustments with his jets, and then landed precisely on the shuttle’s side, near where its hatch was located. “The Raven has been captured.”