Orbs IV_Exodus_Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction Survival Thriller

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “Bouma,” Emanuel started, “if you were going to defend the Sunspot against the Organics coming from the Dawn, where would you hole up?”

  Bouma seemed to sense immediately what Emanuel was getting at. Another two plasma blasts crashed into the landscape before he answered. “The direct route from the Dawn was concealed by all those rocky columns and canyons.” He indicated the hills and crags around them. “So this place really wouldn’t do. But you could go over there.”

  He pointed toward a path that lead through the rocky hills. “You’d have the higher ground, some shelter, and good sightlines to the path from the Dawn.”

  The Rhino banked hard in the dirt, its suspension whining from the abrupt turn. Diego aimed toward the vantage Bouma had pointed at.

  Come on, Jeff, David, you better be up here, Emanuel thought.

  A few more blasts kicked up dust and shrapnel clouds. The wind began to howl more fiercely as the storm approached, and grit ground against the Rhino’s outer shell. They wheeled around the bottom of a cliff, all eyes searching the precipices for any sign of the two boys.

  “Look!” Ort said.

  Emanuel’s heart beat rapidly in excitement. “The boys?”

  Ort shook his head, still staring out the window.

  In the center of the pathway was a pile of dead spiders. Their blood, still giving off a wet sheen, soaked the soil. Tendrils of steam rose from their corpses. Jeff and David had definitely been here.

  Another plasma blast chewed at the side of the Sunspot.

  “Catastrophic reactor failure,” Sonya reported over their comms.

  Plasma vented from the wound in the Sunspot’s side, tearing through the sky toward space.

  “What’s that mean for us?” Emanuel asked the AI.

  “Uncontrolled plasma expansion is imminent,” Sonya replied. “If you are caught in this expansion, the vehicle will be incinerated. Total loss of life is likely.”

  Panic strangled Emanuel. The boys were nowhere to be seen despite the evidence they’d been here. And now they were really out of time. Not only was there a horde of beasts barreling toward their location, but a reactor failure threatened to vaporize them.

  Emanuel’s stomach sank at a surfacing question. What if Jeff and David had returned to the Sunspot? If they didn’t have any comm equipment, surely that’s where they’d be headed if they were no longer here. They could’ve just missed them!

  An earsplitting roar like sustained thunder rumbled over the Rhino. Plasma blasts punctuated the din.

  “It’s going to blow!” Diego said. He looked just as pained as the rest of them when he turned back. “We have to get out of here.”

  Emanuel didn’t want to. He couldn’t give the order. Couldn’t tell them to abandon the search. Couldn’t leave the boys to die like this.

  Another plasma blast slammed into a nearby cliff. A wall of force bashed the vehicle, and rocks poured over them. An alarm somewhere in the Rhino sang, but Emanuel’s ears were already ringing. Even the near-deafening roar of the failing reactors seemed to be fading away. When the next blast hit, all he heard was ringing as the Rhino threatened to topple sideways. Jamie and Owen screamed.

  Diego was looking back at him, still waiting for the command. There was no more time to delay. They could try desperately to use these last seconds in the ill-fated hope that they’d run across Jeff and David, but that promise was so tenuous and unsubstantial. He couldn’t let Jamie, Owen, Sophie, and all the others die here.

  Emanuel felt sick when he nodded at Diego, yelling “Go!” as loud as he could amid the chaos.

  The Rhino shot away from the Sunspot and the rocky outcroppings where Jeff and David had killed the spiders. A wake of dust kicked up behind them, quickly swallowed by the strengthening winds. Brief flashes of blue plasma impacting the land around the Sunspot burst in the distance.

  As the Rhino climbed a dune and crested the top, a piercing white light bloomed from the Sunspot. The ship disappeared, and, with it, the horizon.

  — 8 —

  Athena had run on and on until she couldn’t go any farther. For the past hour, she had evaded the Organics hunting her by keeping ahead of the pulsating blue glow. But she couldn’t keep going. Her body was spent, and dehydration had brought her to the ground.

  She lay on the sand, staring toward the south, at what should have been salvation. The buried submarine she’d called home for so long wasn’t far away. In fact, it was close enough her crew would probably be able to hear her if she shouted at the top of her lungs.

  The star-filled sky illuminated the bulging hill covering their hideout. She flipped on her night vision goggles to ensure the gusting wind hadn’t exposed the metal exterior.

  It looked secure, and she planned on keeping it that way. Although she was within running distance, she couldn’t risk being spotted entering the hatch. Giving away the location of the GOA would end in her death, and that of her crew.

  All she could do was lie here, partially buried by grit, and hope the aliens passed her by or that she made it until morning without being spotted.

  The crest of the slope she lay on provided a decent view of the area from all directions. She squirmed slightly for a better view of the seabed behind her, and scanned the green hue for hostiles.

  She still hadn’t seen whatever was out there, besides the glowing and pulsating blue light back in the ravines, but the whistling told her this was a different type of alien. She’d never heard a noise like it before.

  The sound persisted, rising and falling with the wind.

  She pulled the final magazine from her rifle and checked the load.

  Only half left, she thought.

  The remaining EMP grenade was half buried in front of her. She had used the other one escaping the city. It wasn’t much, but it was better than being unarmed.

  Using the utmost care, she shoveled sand over her body. She dug her boots and legs into it, covering most of her lower half.

  The scratchy whistling grew louder, the aliens closing in from what sounded like all directions. A panting noise followed, and she glimpsed the first sign of the beasts tracking her in the carpet of blinking light that roved over the humps of sand to the north. She shut off her night vision goggles to watch the blue light glimmer over the side of a sand dune.

  Gray armor covered the upper half of the nearest beast’s human-sized body. Two limbs, ending in scissor-like claws, stabbed at the sand to pull the bulbous upper body forward, while a long snake-like tail slithered behind. A crustacean face searched the sand with black beady eyes. Slits for nostrils sniffed at the air. It was this action that produced the abrasive whistling noise.

  Athena held the magazine just under the rifle, not daring to click it back into the slot. She remained prone while three more mounted the hills. Other than the whistling, they moved silently despite their undoubtedly heavy armored shells.

  Terror gripped her as she lay there, watching the glowing creatures snake back and forth, sniffing the air for a scent. They were heading south, away from her position, thankfully, but right towards the buried GOA. If those elongated claws penetrated the shallow sand above the sub, they would clank against the metal. She wasn’t sure how intelligent these beasts were, but had a feeling they would investigate.

  Please no. Please…

  She watched silently, begging in her mind for the aliens to change course. But the pack continued heading right for her sleeping crew. The time for lying idly by was over.

  Athena carefully pushed the magazine back into the rifle, and pulled back the slide to charge it. The click rang out into the night.

  Three of the aliens continued their hunt, but the fourth stopped in the sand and turned in her direction, its unblinking eyes scanning the darkness. Rearing its armored head back like a wolf howling, it sniffed at the dry air. The gray plates covering its back pulsated blue as it took in each breath.

  A ghostly screech followed. The glow from the other aliens was not two hundred feet f
rom the GOA. They froze.

  Athena grabbed the EMP grenade as soon as the pack darted toward her. She pushed herself to her feet using her rifle as a crutch, the sand sluicing off her body. Dizziness rushed through her, blinding her momentarily with stars across her vision. It cleared to the sight of the four aliens slithering in her direction.

  “Come on, you bastards,” she whispered, clicking the EMP grenade. She studied their movements, trying to time her throw.

  If she could bring down their shields, maybe she could kill all four with her remaining pulse rounds. Her main goal was to draw them away from the GOA, but if she died, then the coordinates Alexia had given her, of both the vehicles and the Pelican Air Force Base, would die with her.

  She couldn’t fall before she delivered the message.

  The beasts closed the gap over the desiccated seabed quickly, using their claw-tipped limbs and tails to propel them across the sand at an impressive speed. The lead creature was a good one hundred feet in front of the others, making the toss of her grenade difficult to time.

  Another few seconds passed, and then she lobbed it over the creature’s clunky head. It slowed and twisted to watch the grenade sail through the air and land in the sand. But instead of continuing toward her, it turned and slithered toward the device. Using its tail, it slapped the grenade away, sending it spinning over the top of a hill.

  The detonation thumped on the other side. A wave rippled through the sand and hit the monster, bringing its shield down in a flicker of blue.

  Athena aimed her pulse rifle. A trigger pull sent a burst of blue rounds that tore gaping holes into the alien’s armored midsection. The beast slumped to the ground, teal blood gushing out into the sand.

  The other three aliens let out guttural shrieks. She lined up her next shot at the closest one and pulled the trigger again. This time the rounds ricocheted off its shield.

  Athena’s heart sank.

  The aliens barreled past their dead comrade, undeterred by the harmless rounds. She took a few steps back up the slope, stopping at the crest.

  Heart pounding, she finished the rest of her magazine in three bursts. They hit with enough force that two of the creatures stumbled. The third and largest of the beasts recovered quickly, its shield pulsating and solidifying over its armored body. It slithered up the hill, both black eyes focused on Athena.

  She resisted the urge to scream into the armored face that opened into a black hole so wide she could see down the monster’s throat brimming with barbed teeth. Two long fangs hung from the maw, saliva dripping off their razor-sharp tips.

  Now Athena knew what had sucked the water from Marlin’s body.

  And she was next.

  She held her gun like a bat, preparing to swing. A red tongue shot between the two fangs and then retreated back into its gaping mouth.

  Athena let out a whimper when the alien slithered forward. She swung the rifle, but the beast parried the attack with a smack that sent the rifle cartwheeling away. It wasted no time barreling into her and wrapping its long tail around her chest. Pinned to the sand, she struggled, squirming and swatting with her right hand. The crab face lowered toward her visor. The shrill whistle from its slotted nostrils sounded her fate.

  “No, please don’t,” she pleaded.

  Athena knew her words and her fighting were useless. When had the aliens ever shown any mercy?

  The fangs slammed against her visor. Fractures spread in a spider web across the glass. Another impact shattered the glass. She could almost feel her brain slamming against the inside of her skull. Her world started to turn black, and a heavy weight tugged her eyelids closed.

  The whistling grew louder and the alien’s rancid breath rushed over her face. Her lungs filled with the scalding air. She forced her right eyelid open to the sight of the half-moon hovering over the horrendous features of the monster.

  She lay, paralyzed by fear, as the beast prepared to drain the water from her body. The leathery tongue flicked out, caressing her cheek, as the monstrosity lowered its fangs toward her exposed face. Boiling saliva lathered her skin. Unable to speak, unable to scream, she simply held in her final breath.

  Another whistle sounded in the distance, followed by a low rumble, and the ground vibrated under her legs and boots. It took a second to realize this wasn’t from the other beasts sniffing the air. Three figures ran toward her position. A black crater smoked at the bottom of the slope, where an explosion had impacted between the other two monsters. Seconds passed before her mind registered what had happened. Her friends had come to her rescue, using rocket-propelled grenades to bring down the shields. One of the beasts dragged the upper half of its body with its pincer arms, its tail connected to its torso by only a few sinewy strands of flesh. The other creature was a pile of smoldering shell.

  Pulse rounds tore into the dying alien’s armored back. A long hiss escaped the grotesque creature as its body collapsed into the sand.

  The eyes of the monster holding Athena followed the approaching GOA soldiers. Each black orb clicked inside its socket as it moved, placid and emotionless.

  They fired pulse rifles at the slope and screamed.

  “Watch your fire!” one of the men yelled. “There she is!”

  A round sizzled past Athena’s helmet, and three more slammed into the creature’s shield. Everything around her seemed to melt together in a kaleidoscopic fury. The alien let out a screech and retreated down the other side of the hill, leaving her gasping for air.

  “Corporal!” someone shouted.

  The soldiers surrounded her, but she couldn’t move. Paralyzed, she lay there, staring up through her shattered visor, the stars gleaming like orbs in the sky.

  “Corporal, are you okay?”

  The voice belonged to Kyle Griffin, the former Marine turned NTC contractor. Now that Walker was dead, he was the most experienced fighter they had.

  He knelt by her. “Can you move?”

  “I… I don’t know,” she replied. She managed to wiggle a toe, and then her foot. Griffin cradled her under her back and legs.

  “I’m going to carry you back to the GOA,” he said. “Taylor, Malone, you two hold security. Make sure we’re not followed.”

  “We have…” Athena muttered. Her mind swam. She gasped for air, the heat searing her lungs. “We have to get to the vehicles.”

  “Just hang on, Corporal,” Griffin said. “You’re going to be okay now.”

  “The vehicles… the military base… the other survivors… we have to get to them…” she mumbled the words, but darkness was closing in. The star-filled sky mesmerized her as Griffin carried her back home to the GOA.

  ***

  ENTRY 10199

  DESIGNEE – AI ALEXIA

  Lolo passed over the Ghost of Atlantis location during the night. I hacked into the satellite’s operating system and then proceeded to watch what was happening on the surface. What I saw would have given a human anxiety.

  Corporal Athena Rollins was saved with not even a second to spare by a fire-team of soldiers that killed all but one of the aliens. The satellite is coming in for another pass, and I await the results of the next images.

  The corporal seemed to be in rough shape, as the humans would say. I’m not sure of the extent of her injuries, and won’t know until they contact me again. I can only hope they aren’t life threatening. She has led this group effectively since the loss of Captain Rick Noble. I do not believe the others would survive without her.

  But the GOA crew’s numbers continue to dwindle. Corporal Marlin and Private Walker were both difficult losses for a team with very few skilled fighters.

  I switch back to the feed of the Japanese team I am following. They have also lost significant forces in the past few weeks. Originally, the team of fifty soldiers and civilians had taken refuge in a bunker built during World War II. They are led by Commander Suzuki, the great great grandson of a samurai warrior, and great grandson of a World War II veteran. I’ve only seen a grainy f
eed of his face, but he is a hard man with a mustache, shaved head, and piercing brown eyes.

  The video feed captured from Lolo now shows a team of ten soldiers, led by Suzuki, heading toward an airfield with three aircraft, that twenty spiders and several Sentinels patrol. Their objective is to secure the aircraft and then contact me. I plan to hack into the aircrafts’ operations systems. If I can do that, I should have a high chance of learning the flight controls and either hijacking them or explaining how they work to the Japanese soldiers.

  The mission unfolds quickly around the airfield, which is on the edge of a long-dead forest. The soldiers move in combat intervals as they take position. Skeletal branches shift in the wind. I imagine them creaking and cracking, disguising the approach of the stealthy soldiers.

  The right flank and left flank attack simultaneously with electromagnetic weapons that bring down the shields of every Organic on the airfield.

  Suzuki draws two swords and slices his way through the first of the spiders, cutting off all its limbs in two slices and then impaling it with a blade through the head. His men fire pulse rifles, cutting down the other spiders and Sentinels before they can attack.

  In moments, it’s over. The team now moves freely toward the three aircraft. Suzuki orders one of his men to transmit a message. Lolo is almost out of range, and the feed flickers in and out from the weak signal.

  Then there is an incoming transmission.

  “We have secured the airfield,” the Japanese words come through. It is Lieutenant Hiro, who serves as second in command. He explains that they have secured the airfield and are working on getting me the codes I’ve requested. A moment later, I hear chatter. Something about the ground rumbling.

  Commander Suzuki comes online and explains they are experiencing an earthquake. I check the data coming in from that location, but there is no sign of tectonic activity. Although I do see a slight vibration coming from the direct vicinity of the airfield.

  “Commander, this is no natural phenomenon,” I say. “Whatever is happening must be Organic.”