by Weston Ochse
I grabbed a headset from a technician. “Connect me to her.”
She looked at Mr. Pink for confirmation. He nodded.
“Ohirra... Ohirra! Relax and listen to me. They can’t pierce your armor. They can’t get through. Can you hear me?”
“Mason?”
“Just relax. You’re going to make it.”
“Where are the others?”
I glanced at the blank feeds of Aquinas, Thompson and Olivares and lied. “They’re okay. But don’t worry about them. Worry about yourself. Look at your power.”
It was down to seven percent. It had to be the strobe.
She fought desperately, but precisely, her martial arts training kicking in.
I covered the mike with one hand and leaned over. “Will that strobe keep working if she takes off her suit?”
“As long as there’s no EMP,” the tech said.
I moved my hand away from the mike. “Listen closely. I want you to run to our lines as fast as you can. Watch your numbers. When your suit reaches two percent, remove it and come the rest of the way without it.”
“But I can’t... they’ll kill me.”
“No they won’t. You’re faster than them. These have no wings. Come on, Ohirra. You have to run. Now!”
She looked back towards our lines, then turned to engage the Cray again.
“Ohirra! I said move! Now!”
She flung her blade into the chest of the nearest Cray, then turned and ran. She was soon at full speed. Her power level was dropping one percent every five seconds.
“When you get out of your suit, run for us. I’ll meet you there.”
I tossed the headset back at the technician and bolted from the room. I peeled around one corner, almost knocking over several soldiers. I didn’t have the time to get a suit on. I’d have to go out as I was.
When I made it to the trench, she was out of her suit and running. I just prayed that she’d put enough distance between herself and the Cray. I didn’t know how fast the ones without wings could run; I knew they couldn’t keep up with a suit, but they could very well be faster than a human.
I snatched an HK from one of the sentries and leaped out of the trench.
I ran twenty feet, then went down on one knee, resting my elbow on the other knee as I took aim. I sighted through the EOTECH and put the red dot on the figures directly behind Ohirra. Poor Ohirra wasn’t running all-out. She’d let fear get to her. She kept turning her head to look behind her, and each time she did, she’d slow, and sometimes stumble. She hadn’t gone down yet, but it seemed only a matter of time.
I squeezed off a round and missed. I tried another and caught the nearest Cray in the head.
Red dot dead.
Ohirra dodged like she thought I was shooting at her. Her movement opened up my sight picture and I was able to fire faster, taking four more out and giving her more time.
I stood and yelled. “Come on, girl—get your ass in gear!”
I was suddenly joined by a squad of infantry. They must have come from A-2-1. They fired surgically, removing her pursuers within moments. I stood to run, but felt a hand on my shoulder.
I turned and saw a sergeant major I didn’t recognize. The name Marshall was printed on his chest. He pointed off to the right.
An EXO was cruising towards Ohirra. It covered the ground at amazing speed. I’d never seen it from the ground like this before. I felt like a human watching a god. As I watched, it ran at Ohirra, picked her up and sprinted towards our lines without breaking stride. As it got closer, I recognized it as belonging to Olivares.
I searched behind him. Where were the others? What had he done with Thompson and Michelle?
When he reached our lines, he placed Ohirra on the ground. She struggled to regain her balance. I helped her for a moment, then turned to Olivares, slapping the back of his suit to get his attention.
He turned and stared through his faceplate. His eyes were glassy, and he couldn’t meet my gaze.
“Where are the others?”
He shook his head.
I grabbed him, but he shrugged me off and walked towards the trench. I ran after him, anger blossoming inside me, but he was in and gone by the time I was there. I descended and handed the rifle over.
I ran back to the Tactical Operations Center.
“Where are they?” I shouted. “Where are the others?” I grabbed a monitor and threw it across the room, then grabbed another as I screamed, “Where are the others?”
I felt a hand on my shoulder and spun around to face the battle captain. I punched him before he could open his mouth, and when he was down, I fell on top of him and began to hammer at him over and over until they pulled me off.
In that moment of silence, I heard through the static a repetitive sound. It was a pattern, something I almost recognized. Just as I was about to get it, a hand came and slammed into my face.
Then I had it. Drumming.
Our little drummer boy.
Could it be? Was he alive?
Then the hand came again and it all went black.
Thank the gods of capitalistic excess for all of our electronics. Our televisions, movie disc players, computers, cars, airplanes, movie theaters, hospitals, schools, vibrators, microwave ovens, and Sunday Night Football. They are what makes life worth living, and they’re also our ultimate downfall. We don’t even read real books anymore. Instead we read using electronic devices. But there’s a single threat lurking out there, one which could kill us as easily as a global pandemic. It’s called EMP: electro magnetic pulse. A perfectly placed EMP could shut everything down. We’ve seen this on television and on movies. But let me ask you, what would you do if everything in your life suddenly ceased to function? Could you live? Could you find a way to continue? Answer the questions if you dare.
Conspiracy Theory Talk Radio,
Night Stalker Monologue #702
Why did Harry feel like he’d wasted a good portion of his life?
TF OMBRA Study Question from
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
by Ernest Hemingway
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
A BLACK SILHOUETTE rose into the sky. We hunkered down, convinced we’d been spotted. We’d been so careful, even going so far as to turn off our telemetry to reduce our radio profile, yet still it came. It descended towards us, and as it did so, we were able to discern its shape. No, not a Cray: a vulture. Its wingspan must have been more than seven feet. I’d spent most of my life ignoring them or trying to keep away from them on battlefields. I didn’t find them as beautiful or as graceful as some.
But that was before the Earth was taken from us.
Seeing it circle overhead, the wind ruffling its broad wings, sun glistening off its feathers, I learned a new appreciation for the Jackdaw of the Air. Then it struck me. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen an animal or bird of any type. Was it all the way back in Wyoming when I’d seen the prairie dogs in the grass next to the underground complex? I was reminded that we weren’t only trying to save Earth for ourselves, but for everything else that lived upon it... vultures included.
I watched it soar for a time, thinking back to Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro. You had to know that when a story began with vultures circling, it couldn’t end well. His main character spent the entire narrative reminiscing about what he’d done or not done, rethinking things. I didn’t have that leisure. With Aquinas and Thompson missing, I had to remain focused. We hadn’t found them on the battlefield, so it was believed that they’d been taken by the Cray. I knew it was a long shot, but that idea was at least more palatable than the probable truth they’d been scattered across the plain in such small pieces that we couldn’t find them.
Harry. That was the character’s name. Such an old man’s name, even though he’d never lived to become old. I remember one of the questions we’d had in Phase I about what we’d want to remember most when we became old. Harry had been so lonely towards the very end of his life. I remem
bered reading that shortly before I’d tried to kill myself for the last time, thinking to myself about how terrible an existence would be when you had no one to be there with you.
I’d always been a loner. I’d lived inside my own head most of the time. But that story made me understand. It made me want to reach out. It had given me the courage to let my feelings be known to Michelle.
I laughed softly to myself at the irony. Here I was, sitting on top of a mountain I’d read about ten thousand miles ago, before the Earth was invaded. Such an improbable string of coincidences. Then again, knowing Mr. Pink, it probably wasn’t coincidence. His team of psychologists probably knew and understood my psyche and psychosis better than I ever would, and had planned on this moment since the beginning.
I rolled over and stared across the plain. Not for the first time, I relished looking down on the mound rather than up at it. In the distance I saw drones coming and going, while sentries soared in lazy circles above the hive, much like the vulture above us.
I closed my eyes and prayed to the universe to protect Thompson and Aquinas. The bowels of the mound were probably the most alien place on the planet and they would almost certainly feel alone.
I pushed myself up and turned to my hated comrade.
“Come on, Olivares. Let’s go.”
“Chill out. We still have an hour.”
He lay next to me in his EXO. Like mine, it had been painted black. CBT OMBRA base techs had used tar sealant to cover the metal, which also gave it a texture to which dirt and dust could adhere. The last thing we wanted while climbing up the side of a six-thousand-meter-high mountain was for the Cray to see a reflection and investigate.
Still, I was eager to get moving. Waiting meant thinking, and I didn’t want to live inside my head right now. I had a lot of bad thoughts, especially against Olivares. Leaving the others to die was an unforgivable sin, outstripping anything I’d ever done. For all the terrible decisions I’d made and all of the soldiers who’d died under my command, I never once left them on the battlefield.
But this was a two-man mission.
“Ease up on your anger, Mason,” he said. “Your breathing... when you’re angry it increases. You’re already through seventy-eight percent of your oxygen mix, while I’m only sixty-six percent down.”
“You have a smaller heart,” I said. “It doesn’t need as much.”
“Jesus, Mason. Give it the fuck up. You always have to have a reason for someone dying and it always has to be someone’s fault. Sometimes there isn’t a reason. Sometimes it’s no one’s fault. It’s a war, man. Shit happens. People die. Life goes on.”
His words meant nothing. These were excuses.
“Do you have a comment for that too?” he asked.
I ignored him and concentrated on slowing my breathing.
He said nothing more for a time, which was exactly the way I wanted it.
We were getting used to the altitude. The trip up the side of Kilimanjaro would normally take six to seven days. It was steep, and climbers needed to acclimatize themselves. Without the time or oxygen mix, high altitude pulmonary or cerebral edema was a dangerous and very real possibility. In fact, it was believed that more people died climbing Kilimanjaro than Everest for this very reason.
But our EXOs had been equipped to be self-sealing. We were no longer breathing the outside air. Instead, we were breathing an oxygen-rich mix that mimicked the atmosphere at the base of the African mountain. It allowed us to make the trip in a single day. We didn’t have seven days, or enough battery power for the trip. A little way after entering the mouth of the volcano, we’d be forced to ditch the suits, opting for multicams and body armor until we’d descended far enough inside the volcanic tunnels to return to normal atmosphere.
We each carried rigid battle packs, holding water, rations, med kits, rope, an MP5 and a 9mm pistol each with armor-piercing ammunition, multicams to change to once we were inside the volcano, batteries, lights, a tablet, Semtex, thermite grenades, and spare odds and ends.
The very idea of climbing down the inside of a volcano was amazing. Reading Journey to the Center of the Earth in Phase I, I’d never thought we’d be repeating the same sort of trek. I doubted there’d be an entire new world below, complete with fauna and fowl, although we were obviously expecting to encounter Cray.
What type of Cray was the question. Would it be the sort with wings? Or those without, like the ones that had attacked Ohirra? Or a new kind all together? What about the Sirens?
Mr. Pink had alluded to the possibility that the Cray were not the real threat, but an alien invasion force sent to weaken us. Were they ‘uplifted,’ like in the David Brin books; aliens genetically manipulated to achieve a sentience they wouldn’t have normally had? Or were they merely a marauding species, similar to David Gerrold’s?
I remembered reading the Gerrold books. Hadn’t the aliens tried to warm the planet and establish their own fauna? I tried to imagine new plants and a change of seasons. Something like that would truly change the nature of Earth. In fact, it would become our planet in name only.
Whatever their nature, I didn’t have the curiosity of a xenobiologist. Once I encountered them, I wasn’t going to be too concerned about what they ate or what language they spoke. I wasn’t worried about communicating with them; I wasn’t even planning on learning much about them. I was here to kill them, and that’s what I planned on doing. Olivares had already established that I was a killer. It was time to live up to the title.
Hero of the Mound.
I was thinking I might try on a new title. Maybe the Butcher of Kilimanjaro. That had a nice ring to it. I imagined a marquee playing across my mind and began to breathe a little easier as I mentally rehearsed all the ways I was going to kill the aliens once I got inside the tunnels.
I seriously couldn’t wait.
Why is it important that the characters didn’t have any idea about the nature of the creatures that they’d find inside of the earth?
TF OMBRA Study Question from
Journey to the Center of the Earth
by Jules Verne
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
MR. PINK’S PLAN was as inelegant as it was necessary. We were getting nowhere attacking from the surface; the iridium-reinforced shell of the mound had defeated us entirely. Although we had combat superiority over the Cray drones, we knew neither how many remained nor whether they were capable of reinforcing in mass quantities. For all we knew, they had a giant Cray queen squeezing out larvae that matured into combat drones in a matter of hours. If that were the case, we’d run out of humanity before they ran out of drones.
They needed someone on the inside. Our mission was two-fold. First, we were to make our way inside, killing where we had to kill and bypassing where we could, and get in as far as possible. CBT OMBRA needed recon. We desperately needed to know what we were up against. Did they have more Sirens in the mound, or were they a pre-invasion species only? Were there other species we hadn’t seen before? What about the Cray’s EMP projectors? Were they self-generating, or did they require charging? These and a hundred other questions needed to be answered.
Original plans had called for a two-person reconnaissance team to infiltrate using EXOs, but the geologists and volcanologists had argued against it, pointing out that the EXOS were far too bulky to make it through the questionable labyrinth mapped by the sonar and radar results we’d given lives to provide. Hence the Kevlar body armor. Still, in order to provide enough data for the attack to be successful, we required some way to record the necessary data. CBT techs created a mesh to enclose the helmets when removed from the suit, a portable EMP shield. Powered by batteries, the helmets would be able to provide full-spectrum recording, complete with intermittent radar, sonar, and power generation detection, enabling planners to look at the inside of the mound.
Assuming we survived.
Assuming we were able to either transmit the data, or ensure that the data chip was transported to friendly lines
. If we had to chip it, we were lucky to have the height of technology available for our use—a flare gun with a parachute flare, which was probably the pinnacle of advancement during World War II.
The second part was a little trickier. CBT OMBRA had a three-pronged attack planned, which would occur with or without our input.
Part one encompassed the use of M712 Copperhead laser-guided projectiles, originally designed for the 155mm self-propelled Howitzer. CBT OMBRA Techs had been working to design a way to retrofit the eight-inch Howitzers with tube sleeves that would enable the projectiles to fire. Romeo Two’s EXOs were retrofitted for speed and camouflage and assigned as Forward Observers, equipped to paint the mound with laser designators to direct the Copperheads into the launch tubes, where they’d then deliver their packages. This marked an evolutionary leap in the gun bunny’s ability to provide cover support, and used lessons learned from previous battlefield interaction with the Cray.
The projectiles themselves were a mixture of high explosive and endothermic payloads. While more than half of the Copperheads had been fitted with high explosive, the rest—and the first to be fired—had a payload of binary gas mixture; impact would create an endothermic reaction resulting in sub-freezing temperatures for anything within the effective range of the explosion.
While the Copperheads stirred the hornet’s nest like it had never been stirred before, part two encompassed an assault on the mound by EXOs. All remaining recon elements would attack along prescribed lines, culminating in climbing into the lower Cray launch ramps. Armed with additional endothermic grenades, they’d add to the sub-zero temperature, hopefully creating an environment which would dull the aliens’ senses. Once inside the mound, the EXOs would fire strobes in an attempt to further immobilize the Cray.
