Asunder (War Between Worlds Book 1)

by John Mierau

  Marcus flashed Grace a warning glare, while Burns did a magnificent job of blushing as he busied himself with his rifle.

  The path forward became clear to Marcus, and the group reached its destination in minutes more. On its finest setting, the Invader weapon Burns held burnt a neat hole through the floor of Dr. Grace’s laboratory and sleeping quarters. Burns insisted on being first through, and after a moment inside the dark room above, he returned to give the all clear.

  “How do we get in touch with the Colonel,” Hobe asked, as he and Doctor Grace lifted Marcus into the room.

  “You mean Lieutenant-Colonel Merrie, now,” Dr. Grace corrected him, his voice gone flat. Marcus looked over to see him kneeling next to a tangle of limbs.

  “Poor bastard,” Hobe said, as he gazed down at the two halves of Colonel Barton.

  Marcus saw the Colonel hadn’t released his sabre, even in death: it was still buried in the pirate’s neck. He gathered a folded white sheet from the Doctor’s examination table, and he and Burns covered the bodies.

  Marcus saw the lieutenant cross himself, and offer a few muttered words. He matched the words with a silent prayer of his own.

  Then he stood and repeated the question. “What’s the rally point, then, Lieutenant?”

  Burns shook his head. “I’m not stationed here. I’ve no idea.”

  A burst of static from across the room made Marcus’s heart jump halfway out his throat. Burns levelled his rifle before he saw the Doctor holding a silver-and-blue ether-handset.

  The static shut off, and the Doctor tossed the communications device on his cluttered table. He heaved a shrug and a sigh. “We can’t. The frequency’ still being blocked.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder to where a pool of light hovered in the center of the room, displaying rows of Invader text. “They all are.” Marcus was okay deciphering most of the pictograms the Invader’s machines used, but the light pool Dr. Grace had conjured up displayed the scratchy text of the aliens’ language, which only a few of the scientists could read.

  “Have you any weapons?” Burns asked from across the room.

  “Me, sir? Good god, no!” Dr. Grace said, affecting scandalized shock. He waved casually to the wide black cylinder at the far end of the room. “They had weapons aplenty, and look how it turned out for them!”

  Burns looked from the Doctor to the cylinder. His adam’s apple bobbed. “Is that… Is that, uh….”

  “Have you never laid your eyes upon one of our would-be conquerors, Lieutenant?”

  “N-no,” Burns stammered. “I was at sea, sailing homeward from Africa for the duration of the occupation. I saw a few specks in the sky is all. I’ve seen drawings, but…” his voice trailed off.

  Dr. Grace walked to the cylinder. “Why then, let me introduce you two!” He slapped his hand down on a raised metal shelf next to the cylinder, and eerie green light flooded the mostly empty tube.

  Floating in the chamber was a corpse. Marcus knew the corpse well. He’d captured it himself the fateful day the first walking machine visited Folkestone.

  Lieutenant Burns stepped woodenly forward. Halfway across the room he looked back to Marcus, who nodded.

  “It’s real. Get your eyeful, then we have to move!”

  Marcus busied himself collecting samples and books which the Doctor hastily pointed out, while behind him Owen Burns stood and stared.

  They were just men, some said, and held onto that lie. It stiffened ones’ sinews to think that, Marcus supposed, when targeting a giant silver walking machine with a human fashioned rifle.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Burns whispered. All others in the room were respectfully silent, for once.

  Marcus hadn’t made his peace with God since the Invasion, but he was still trying. Hobe had given up even trying, and Marcus didn’t think Doctor Grace had ever kept any faith at all. But for Burns, they made allowances for his words and his moment.

  “We have to hurry Doctor,” Marcus told his friend quietly. “Focus your mind on the smallest of items, things we can run with, please!”

  The Doctor nodded and circled the tables of the room, sweeping trays and journals into his bag with one elbow.

  “Those stringy things on the wrists, like flowers,” Burns asked. “What are they?”

  “Tentacles,” Doctor Grace called out. “Like an octopus has.”

  Burns shuddered. “It’s true. Nothing like that was ever borne under Earthly skies. Hellish. Monstrous!”

  “I like to call them ‘extraterrestrials’!” The Doctor said, distractedly, and snapped his bag shut. “But pick whatever name you want.”

  Burns stepped closer. “So that’s what they look like under the suits and helmets.”

  “Way under,” Marcus muttered.

  Burns cocked his head, the question clear on his face, but Doctor Grace answered before Marcus could. “Their garments and headwear weren’t merely armor. They looked to offer some protection from our atmosphere. We had to peel them out.”

  “That’s what’s under the skin, he means,” Marcus said, before the Doctor could begin a lecture in anatomy, a subject he was quite fond of, human or otherwise. “Doctor, we have to go!”

  “Yes, yes!” Grace said. He stood, arms full, before a bookkcase and reached awkwardly for leather-bound journal. Just as he seized it a box of slides fell to the floor and shattered. He shrieked in frustration. “Very well! If I must leave all my treasures, let’s be off before I change my mind and offer to work for the pirates!”

  “You wouldn’t like that,” called a voice from doorway. Marcus heard Burns’s rifle hum to life, and himself began to duck behind a table full of severed Invader body parts and anatomy sketches.

  There in the doorway stood Lieutenant Jonas, the ruddy-faced officer who Lieutenant-Colonel Merrie had charged with defending Midway. His eyes were stuck fast on the tank as he spoke. “Pirates stuff Mandrakes’ heads onto pikes in every town they plunder. They sew their mouths shut, full of their own-“

  “Hold your tongue, sir!” Lieutenant Burns hissed over Jonas’s numbed words only then turning away from the tank.

  “Of course,” Jonas said. “Forgive my rudeness. The defenses have fallen. I’ve been sent to bring the Doctor aboard.”

  “Hobe, let’s go!” Marcus turned to find his friend stuffing rags into the tops of Erlenmeyer flasks, and grinning madly.

  “Just mixing some drinks!”

  “Will someone please answer my question! Get aboard what!” shouted an unnerved Owen Burns. “We’re under the bloody English channel!”

  #

  Marcus and Burns agreed speed was more important now that safety, and led the group back out onto the boardwalk, instead of back down into Midway’s underbelly. Burns led the way, his alien rifle humming and ready to fire. “I really would like to know where we’re escaping to,” he said.

  Marcus took a look back. Hobe, then the good Doctor, then Jonas in the rear, his own energy rifle at the ready. “It’s not far,” he murmured. “I rather think you should see it for yourself—“

  “Oh Marcus I ought to warn you, there’ve been some new faces haunting the halls.”

  “We know,” Hobe groused. “Scientists what took our jobs!”

  The Doctor drew a breath through his large red nose. “Yes, well, we’ve had some other late arrivals.”

  Marcus quirked an eyebrow at the man, who snorted.

  “Politicians.”

  Jonas made a rude sound. “Still got a use for those, do we?”

  “It’s not just Brits, though. I hear there’s an American?” The Doctor’s voice rose, as if the words were a question.

  “I’ve been in Nova Scotia a long time, Doc. Unless it’s President Cleveland himself I wouldn’t know-“

  Burns halted Marcus’s mouth and his feet with a straight-arm across the chest. Marcus crouched, instantly on alert, and caught a flare of light arcing over the wooden roof of the building to the right of the boardwalk. Stealthy footfalls echoed over t
he roof.

  Burns waved the group into retreat. Marcus racked his mind for the next quickest path through the maze to the hole cavern wall…

  More boots pounded up the hall from behind them. “The Doctor’s machines are blinkin'’!” Called a gruff voice. “He’s close!”

  Trapped.

  Marcus swallowed hard, and dug in his pockets for one of the special wooden matches the Doctor had whipped up. Something to aid the lamplighters caring for the officer’s quarters, few of which had Invader light panels installed. ‘Strike-everywhere’ Dr. Grace called them, and they were. He ran the match along the rough boarding of the building beside him and it caught. He raised the Erlenmeyer flask in his other hand and lit the soaked rag hanging from the end.

  It caught easily. Marcus licked his lips and waved Hobe towards Lieutenant Jonas. Two rifles and a handful of cocktails to defend against what sounded like superior forces, fore and aft.

  Burns nudged his side. He looked down to see the Lieutenant holding his pistol out, grip-first. Marcus took the weapon with a shaking hand. He nodded his thanks, and cocked the pistol.

  Steady now, he told himself. Steady!

  Halifax. Samantha. Robert.

  Lumbering shadows flickered into view on the planks.

  Too many.

  He tightened the grip on the pistol, and took aim. Heavy boots came closer.

  Deep breath, Marcus thought, running through the routine his father had taught him with a rifle and tin cans.

  The pirates were almost at the corner now. Their shadows loomed huge. The air full of noise and the promise of killing.

  Let the breath halfway out. He could almost feel his Pa’s hand on his shoulder.

  He waited ’til he saw the whites of their eyes before he squeezed the trigger.

  #

  Marcus fired, cocked, fired again, and the first two pirates dropped. A red stain spreading on the first pirate’s forehead and the throat of the second.

  The other pirates shouted and twisted back behind the wall.

  Marcus threw the Erlenmeyer flask at the corner of the wall. It shattered, and fire splashed up the wall and onto flesh, inspiring fresh screams.

  Behind him, the other Lieutenant, Jonas, shrieked and roared. Marcus spared him a glance, and saw him firing his energy rifle into the air and running madly for the bend in the hall behind them.

  Hobe, on his knees and lighting his second Erlenmeyer flask, had a gleam in his eye. He charged after Jonas with a roar of his own.

  Don’t get killed, you stupid Canadian!

  Then Marcus was out bullets. On instinct, he skidded to his knees before the first pirate he’d shot, dragging the rifle from under the body.

  He fired wild around the corner, then rolled away when the pirates fired back.

  “Balls!” The Doctor shrieked, and fell to his knees in the middle of the hall with his hands covering his head.

  In front of the Doctor, Burns fired again and again. The rifle’s wouldn’t last for long at this rate of fire, he knew, before entering a recharge mode, but Marcus thought they had the right idea. Scare ‘em, keep them off balance.

  An explosion rocked the wall Marcus was leaning on, back the way Hobe and Jonas had ran.

  Marcus smothered his fear and kept shooting.

  A moment later, a beam of energy lanced a gas lamp on the wall. The glass shattered and a small explosion sent Burns across the boardwalk to hit the far wall. He collapsed to the ground.

  Marcus threw himself down in front of Burns, shielding him and firing Burns’ rifle as fast as the jury-rigged trigger on the bottom of the alien weapon would allow.

  Then the gun stopped humming. it would be useless for the better part of an hour. Marcus tossed it aside. Quickly he snaked a hand out for Burns’s ankle, dragging him back, out of the line of fire.

  But there was no more fire from around the corner.

  There was laughter.

  “Your bees are sleepy!” guffawed a lone pirate voice. A tall man - a black man like himself, with dirty tangled dreadlocks - stepped out from behind the corner. He tapped his ear. “Got me a good ear to hear the bees in them guns. And yours are nappin’!” With a gold-toothed grin, and dropped his rifle to the ground. “Mine are tuckered too, but this lady…” The pirate drew a cutlass from its scabbard. “She never gets tired.” He turned his head and called out back the way he’d come. “Here, hearties!”

  Marcus knew he’d be done if the pirate got the cutlass over his head for a slice. He leaped towards the man.

  Or tried.

  His foot slipped on broken glass. His ankle turned and he fell hard to the ground, the air knocked from his lungs.

  The pirate laughed even harder, as he walked closer to Marcus, broken glass crunching under his heels.

  Behind Marcus, Doctor Grace sniffled. He looked at the the man: his trembling hands over his head, his face ashen. The Doctor’s lip quivered, and he spoke. “You’re too ugly to be the man who kills me, you afterbirth!”

  The pirate, momentarily taken aback, began to laugh. Then he tossed the cutlass from hand to hand, walking towards the Doctor. “Let’s find out!”

  Marcus scrambled over the Doctor, shielding him with his body.

  “That’s fine, fine,” the pirate drawled. “This lady will do you both.”

  Marcus shut his eyes tight.

  Robert, Samantha, I’m so sorry.

  The next sound Marcus heard was not the soft whistle of the cutlass’s falling blade, but the smashing of glass, and a hungry gulp of flame.

  The pirate began to scream.

  Something wet landed on Marcus’s leg. Searing pain followed, and he rolled out of his jacket, smothering the flames that had leaped off the pirate— who was now little more than a wordlessly screaming lump of flesh, writhing on the planks.

  More hands slapped at his legs. Lieutenant Jonas’s hands. Soon enough the flames were doused, and Jonas hauled him off the Doctor. “Come on,” the soldier said, his voice hoarse with anger, as he hauled Marcus to his feet.

  Hobe barrelled around the corner next. His terrified face relaxed a bit when he saw Marcus up and around. “We’re working here, and you guys are playing hotfoot?”

  Marcus raised a fist in promise, but felt himself smile in relief.

  “There’s not much time,” Jonas said curtly, helping a moaning Burns to his feet. “Are you still leading us somewhere?”

  “Right,” Marcus said, shaking his head to clear it. He turned a full circle in place, thinking. “Can we go back that way a couple of buildings?”

  “We can,” Jonas said, and led him back they way they’d come to a smaller side-boardwalk. His eyes darted constantly behind and ahead, his small ponytail bobbing.

  Hobe offered Burns a hand, but the lieutenant declined, thanking him all the same very much. Hobe rolled his eyes, but smiled. Marcus pushed the Doctor forward, and when Grace was moving he offered Lieutenant Jonas his hand. “Thank you.”

  Jonas gave his hand a quick pump. “More use to me on your feet,” he muttered.

  Marcus smiled. “I like to think so.”

  “And you?” Jonas asked the Doctor. “You’re all right?”

  In answer, Dr. Grace retched, narrowly missing the Lieutenant’s pant leg.

  There were fresh shouts headed their way. Marcus and Jonas shared a look and lifted the Doctor back to his feet by the collar of his ruined smoking jacket.

  They ran for their lives.

  The adrenaline of the battle faded, and the party moved more or less silently. More orange light and smoke filled the air, along with sounds of crackling fire.

  “I’ll ask again, Marcus,” Burns said, eyes alert, weapon raised. “What kind of ship does one ‘get aboard’ eighty fathoms below the waves?”

  Marcus led them down a hall to the right, where the telltale halo of white light over the rooftops proved he'd guided them true. “You’re about to find out.”

  The hum of alien weapons pricked his ears, and he slowe
d, raising his rifle’s barrel into the air, and raising his other hand for good measure.

  Owen’s eyebrows creased, but he exercised caution and raised his own hands as he turned…and froze in place.

  Suspended in the air above them, like a spider, swung a blue and green walker. Five colored beams cycled across Owen’s forehead, and chest, then moved past to paint a target on each member of their party.

  Marcus felt his skin itch when the beams danced across his skin. He knew all too well that, once those lights had touched him, the small walking machine - even hanging precariously in the air from the roofs of the surrounding buildings - could tear every one of their bodies apart at the first sign of hostile intent.

  The machine squawked harsh, electronic sounds. A warning alarm.

  “Gentlemen,” Marcus whispered harshly. “I suggest someone introduce us.”

  “Lieutenant Jonas here!” The soldier identified himself. “Attached to Lieutenant-Colonel Merrie! Call-sign is ‘Whitehall”, I say again, ‘Whitehall!’ We have Dr. Grace!”

  “And the American too,” called a voice from above. “Lovely.”

  Marcus looked up. Soldiers carrying glowing alien rifles appeared on the roofs to either side of boardwalk. At the far end, the Lieutenant-Colonel stood, and glared down at Marcus.

  “You have Captain Riggs to thank for Dr. Grace’s life, and mine,” Owen said in a hard voice, his opinion of Merrie’s rudeness clear in his tone. “He saved us from a surprise attack outside the Doctor’s quarters.”

  “It would appear you’re of some use after all.” Merrie allowed, with a frown, and signalled his men to stand down. Someone blew a whistle, which signalled the walking machine to drop from the roof and scuttle forward on the boardwalk.

  “Come on then,” Jonas roared from behind. “Get moving!”

  Soldiers rounded the corridor. Marcus and the others pushed themselves to the edges of the boardwalk as they ran past and took up position guarding their rear. Then the soldiers pushed the group forward. Explosions and orange flares of light reflected the cavern ceiling, accompanied by explosions and screams, as they neared their destination.

  The tunnel sloped down above their heads, and with one final turn, the hallway opened up onto a smaller version of the loading docks on either end of Midway.