Orbs IV_Exodus_Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction Survival Thriller

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “Bud, I got an idea,” Jeff said.

  David looked up at Jeff. His fearful expression had morphed into one of eagerness. “Yeah, what is it?”

  “You want to save everyone?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Then let’s do it,” Jeff said. He spoke louder, so Emanuel could hear. “Put us in the turret! The Organics can’t detect us, so if things get worse, we can hide more easily while the rest of you stay safe.”

  Emanuel hesitated. “No, we can’t…” There appeared to be some kind of battle going on in his head as he weighed the options. He glanced between the cryo chambers and Jeff. “Shit. Fine, go. Holly and I will prep the cryo chambers for moving, and wake the other two up.”

  “We won’t let you down,” Jeff said, already halfway to the hatch.

  “Sonya said we don’t have working comms or sensors up there,” Emanuel said, “so run back here if things get bad. Otherwise, Holly or I will come and get you.”

  “You got it!” Jeff said.

  “Please, be careful,” Emanuel said.

  “We will,” David said confidently.

  They ran up to the functioning turret. When they got there, Jeff settled into his seat and wrapped his fingers around the controls. He was ready to blast any Organics that dared to show their heads around here.

  “Uh, Jeff?” David asked. “Aren’t these pointed the wrong way?”

  Jeff glanced at the display, which showed that the turret couldn’t rotate toward the direction of the Radiant Dawn. They had no line of sight on the aliens. Jeff grimaced. These guns were next to useless. The spiders were going to come crawling all over the ship, and there was nothing they could do. Bouma wouldn’t get back in time to deal with this first wave, either.

  It was up to them.

  “Do you trust me?” Jeff asked.

  “Of course,” David replied with enthusiasm.

  “We’re going to need to get off the ship.”

  “Get off the ship?” David said, his brows arched and eyes wide. “Emanuel told us—”

  Jeff pressed a finger to his lips. “We’ve got to be quiet. It’s the only way.”

  David nodded.

  “Okay, let’s grab our rifles and go.”

  They sprinted toward the armory. Once there, they scooped up a few magazines and a couple of rifles each. Jeff wanted to make sure they had extra weapons. None of the armor suits were built for their size. Even the smaller ones were too heavy, and Jeff had to strip the non-vital equipment. They were left with the bare minimum of environmental protection and, Jeff thought, their comms. Jeff tried talking into the helmet where he guessed the microphone was, and was rewarded by his words coming out of David’s speakers.

  “Looks like they still work!” Jeff said, donning his gloves.

  The gloves fit loosely around Jeff’s fingers. He walked around the armory a bit, testing the suit, and tripped over his boots a couple times before getting used to the poor fit. If his plan worked, he wouldn’t have to do a bunch of running. He just needed to get outside with David and find a good spot. It shouldn’t be too hard, given how rocky the terrain was.

  They had to take out most of the armor plates from their suits. What they were left with was more of an oversized wetsuit than an armored suit, but it would have to do. Without the armor plates, they didn’t have much protection. Then again, if they were relying on the armor to stop a spider’s stabbing claws, they were doing something wrong. Jeff had seen that kind of armor break under a spider’s duress with very little effort from the alien.

  “We should take one of these, too!” David said, pointing to one of the portable RVAMPs Emanuel had made.

  “Definitely!” Jeff said. He hoisted the device over his back. It was heavy, and forced him to hunch. It hurt quite a lot, as the straps made his poorly-fitting suit dig into his shoulders. Maybe it would be better when they were outside of the Sunspot’s artificial gravity. He’d heard the gravity on Mars was much weaker. Besides, he could deal with some pain if that meant he helped the rest of the crew. “Take some of those EMP grenades too, okay?”

  “You got it,” David said, scooping several into his pack.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready,” David said.

  They scurried back out of the wrecked armory and toward the nearest emergency exit airlock, where Jeff scanned the controls. There were a myriad of flashing buttons and displays. Since coming aboard the Sunspot, he’d never once thought about leaving it. Now he realized he wasn’t sure how to initiate the right procedure to leave without sucking out all the atmosphere as they did so.

  “What are you waiting for?” David asked.

  “I need to figure out how to get out of here.”

  “Ask Sonya,” David said.

  “She’ll tell Emanuel. Then they’ll tell us not to go.”

  “Oh,” David said, looking downtrodden. Then he scooted over to the opposite side of the airlock. “This says ‘Exit’.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  It was too late. David pulled down on a red handle. It locked into place, and the inner hatch slammed shut, followed shortly by the outer hatch spiraling open. Air rushed out like the winds of a hurricane. The suction picked Jeff and David up, and they tumbled outside. Jeff bounced over the rocky terrain, praying his suit didn’t take any damage. When he skidded to a stop, he stood shakily. A few painful bumps cropped up around his butt and on his arms, but he didn’t hear any hissing air, and there weren’t any cracks in his visor.

  “David!” he called over the suit’s comms. “Are you okay?”

  David was covered in red dirt. He stood and brushed himself off, then readjusted his pack. “I’m okay.”

  Jeff surveyed the horizon. Blue glinted over to one side. That must be the Organics. In the other direction, a rising dust cloud darkened the sky. That was probably the storm the adults were talking about earlier.

  “Follow me,” Jeff said.

  They loped off over the planet’s surface, winding between the rocky columns and ditches. Jeff enjoyed the decreased gravity here. It let him jump higher and farther. He whooped with joy as David bounced along beside him, tumbling and laughing. It took some getting used to, but once he had it down, he could move across the landscape like Mario jumping over Goombas.

  “There!” Jeff pointed to a rocky precipice overlooking the Sunspot. It was a perfect vantage point. There were plenty of nooks and crannies they could hide in if they needed to disappear, too.

  They scrambled up the rock face and hunkered down in a position that gave them plenty to hide behind. David’s eyes were glued to the incoming Organics.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” Jeff asked David, eying the spiders as they drew closer to the Sunspot. “It’s not too late if you want to go back in. I can do this myself.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” David said. “Dad told us to stick together no matter what.”

  “No matter what,” Jeff repeated. He almost grinned. This was like those days back on Earth in White Sands. Just him and his brother, fighting the monsters side by side. They could make a difference here. They could protect the Sunspot, make their dad proud.

  Dust filled the air in the wake of the advancing monsters.

  “Now?” David asked.

  “No, not yet,” Jeff said. His heart thumped faster. Adrenaline dumped into his blood vessels, and his fingers began trembling with nervous excitement. His body screamed at him to act now, but his mind was calmer. Bouma’s lessons about patience and waiting for the right moment were stronger than the primal reaction hammering through him. “Don’t do anything until they get closer. Then we use the RVAMP and blast them all.”

  More of the monsters accumulated in the narrow canyon.

  “Now?” David asked, aiming the RVAMP at the spiders.

  “Now,” Jeff said. He helped David yank back the trigger. The RVAMP whirred, and let loose its electromagnetic pulse.

  The spiders tumbled into the invisible force. David knew wh
at that meant without Jeff having to tell him. They both picked up their rifles and let loose at the Organics in a concerted volley of rounds that sliced into the arachnid-like aliens. Because of the distance between them and the monsters, Jeff and David could take their time to line up devastating, well-placed shots. The bug-like creatures’ heads burst in sprays of black armor and blue blood.

  Each kill filled Jeff with grim satisfaction. This was how they would save Sophie and the others. This was all they had to do.

  It was a massacre. The ambushed spiders didn’t stand a chance. They lay across the ground in heaps of twitching legs and bleeding bodies.

  “Nice job, bud,” Jeff said, standing. He patted David on the shoulder.

  David shook his head and pointed back toward where the first few spiders had come from. “There are more.” There was fear in his voice, and Jeff quickly saw why. His brother was right, and they no longer had the element of surprise. Some of the Organics were scuttling up the rockface toward their position. Their legs moved in a blur, and their mandibles clicked together, hungry for prey.

  Jeff raised his rifle again and prepared to fire, with David following suit.

  A shriek exploded from behind them before they could squeeze off a round. Several more otherworldly wails followed. The boys both whirled toward a pack of spiders that had flanked them.

  In the face of this new danger, all Jeff could think was that Bouma would be disappointed. His pulse exploded in a frenetic drumbeat, and the rest of the world seemed to fade away. The first spider reared up in front of him, slashing the air with a flurry of sharp claws. There was no good way to defeat these monsters here.

  There was only one option.

  “Run!” Jeff yelled.

  ***

  The corridors of the Radiant Dawn echoed with the shrieks of the spiders as the Sentinel crashed through them, choking the corridor. Bouma’s nerves fired like powerful lightning blasts. Each step he took seemed like it wasn’t enough. Adrenaline poured through him, but still he seemed to be moving far too slowly. The Organics were closing the distance at a gut-wrenching pace.

  “We’ve got to do something,” Ort boomed. Bouma glanced at him, and could see the sweat pouring down his face behind his visor. “If we don’t, we’re spider food.”

  “Almost to the Rhino,” Diego said. “Just hold tight.”

  Sure, that might save them. They could take off and easily outpace the Organics. But Bouma knew what would happen if they raced straight back to the Sunspot: the Organics would follow. At the back of their minds, Ort and Diego were probably thinking the same thing, and Bouma guessed they didn’t want to condemn the defenseless group sheltering there either.

  Sonya’s voice broke over their comms. “I’ve detected more Organics headed toward the Sunspot.”

  “More from the Dawn?” Bouma managed to ask as they ran.

  “Negative, Corporal,” Sonya replied. “There appears to be a considerable Organic force using the dust storm as cover.”

  “Shit,” Bouma said. “Emanuel knows about this?”

  “I have just informed him, as I have informed you.”

  “How many is considerable?”

  “I’ve detected several dozen lifeforms ranging in size,” Sonya said.

  “No chance that they’re human?” Diego asked.

  “The probability is exceedingly low,” she replied.

  Now he knew with dreadful certainty that they couldn’t lead these Organics back to the Sunspot. The battle there was going to be bad enough. Adding a hundred more of the aliens wasn’t doing Emanuel or the others any favors.

  “We’ve got to do something, and now,” Bouma said.

  “I’m nearly out,” Diego said between strides, slapping the magazine hanging under his rifle.

  “Wish we had one big bug bomb!” Ort said.

  What Bouma wouldn’t give for an oversized can of Raid…

  Then it hit him. They did have a bomb.

  “Sonya, you can access some of the Dawn’s controls, right?” he asked.

  “That’s correct,” the AI replied.

  “Can you access the ship’s fusion reactor?”

  “Yes,” Sonya said.

  “What’s the status?”

  “The reactor appears functional, but it was deactivated due to catastrophic damage to the containment chamber.”

  The wheels in Bouma’s head continued to turn. This would be a long shot, but it might work. “Meaning what?”

  “Catastrophic damage will lead to catastrophic failure and all but certain destruction of the Radiant Dawn.”

  Diego caught Bouma’s eyes for a brief second. The cold, nearly emotionless look usually present in the soldier’s eyes had been replaced with one of abject fear. But Diego nodded back at Bouma, beginning to understand.

  When Bouma risked a glance backward, his helmet-mounted light flashed over the ghoulish maw of a pursuing spider. The aliens continued to shriek behind them, and the Sentinel thumped through the corridor. The clicks of their joints snapped like staccato gunfire against the bulkheads.

  Ahead was the hatch that would take them to the Rhino. It would be so easy to slip out of here and escape it all. But doing so would only delay the confrontation between man and alien.

  “We have to detonate the ship,” Bouma said.

  Diego nodded, arms still pumping and boots crashing against the deck.

  Blowing the ship was the right choice. But it came with a cost.

  “All the supplies,” Ort said.

  “Doesn’t matter if there are supplies if we all die,” Diego said.

  “We’ve got to save the Sunspot,” Bouma agreed. He hated what that meant. It was practically a death sentence for Sophie. The whole point of rushing this mission had been to save her life. Now they were risking everyone’s.

  “Sonya,” Diego said, “overcharge the reactors.”

  “I am afraid I cannot do that, Lieutenant.”

  “Why the hell not?” Diego said. There was desperation in his voice now.

  The hatch to the Rhino was directly in front of them. Spiders still churned behind them, and the Sentinel was battering its way through them in the choked corridors.

  “There is a manual override for the engine shutdown that cuts off the reactors,” she replied. “The previous crew must’ve set it off to prevent the ship from detonating. The only way to reset the override is to manually reset the switch in the CIC.”

  “Then I guess that settles that,” Bouma said. “To the CIC. LT?”

  “To the CIC,” Diego repeated.

  The exterior hatch that promised them a swift escape to their Rhino practically beckoned them. They could drive away from this disaster so easily. Escape into the rocky terrain of Mars.

  Instead, up the ladders they climbed, heading toward the CIC. They reached the wide chamber with all its consoles and empty seats. There was only one terminal on: the communications array. This had been the siren call that had brought them here, promising some clue as to what had happened to humanity on Mars.

  It seemed like they had found out.

  “Where’s that manual override switch?” Bouma asked. He searched the room for some big red lever or button. It had to be glaringly obvious, right?

  “It’s near the captain’s console,” Sonya droned back. “There is a touchpad there.”

  Bouma swiveled on his heels and lunged for the captain’s console. The demonic chorus of spiders echoed into the space.

  “Reinforce that hatch!” Diego ordered Ort.

  The huge soldier started shoving loose consoles and broken equipment in front of the hatch. For all the effort he was putting into it, the barricade would not hold long. The maneuver might buy them an extra ten seconds. Mostly, they were relying on luck.

  Bouma hoped there was no way the Sentinel would fit through that hatch. That certainly didn’t mean the thing wouldn’t try, though.

  “We’ve got one more trick to keep them out,” Diego said. He punched a command th
at put the CIC on emergency lockdown. Red lights flashed above them, and heavy, reinforced partitions slid over the hatches. The command segregated parts of the ship with strong barricades to contain depressurization and vacuum exposure. While the ship’s atmosphere had already been compromised from the Organics’ assault, reengaging the emergency lockdown initiated the repressurization of the CIC. Fresh air left over from the Dawn’s supplies hissed into the space, and Diego’s HUD reported increasing oxygen concentrations and pressure levels.

  “Could’ve just done that,” Ort said. “Saved me the work.”

  “Every bit helps,” Bouma said. “Slow down those alien assholes as long as we can.”

  Those alien assholes continued battering the CIC’s entrance. That entrance was also their exit. Bouma wasn’t sure how the hell they would get out. He brushed the thought from his mind. They would figure that one out when they got there—if they got there.

  “How do I reset that override?” Bouma shouted.

  Sonya responded in as calm a voice as ever, “Place your fingers on the touchpad.”

  This wasn’t quite the big, red button Bouma was expecting, but he did as requested.

  The screen remained black.

  Something heavy threw itself against the hatch.

  “It’s not working, Sonya!” Bouma pressed his hand against it harder, hoping the gesture would be recognized.

  “It should require a simple touch to wake the systems up,” Sonya said.

  “I don’t care what it should do,” Bouma said, “it’s not doing it!”

  More creatures screamed outside the hatch. The jarring sound of claws scraping against metal tore through the CIC.

  “Oh, of course!” Sonya said, almost excited. “All the systems’ emergency power has been rerouted to the communications array. I must reengage the emergency power systems to the CIC.”