The Orbs Omnibus

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Still nothing.

  He pushed on, his head bobbling with every step. By the time he reached the top of the hill he was breathless. Years of smoking had finally caught up to him. Taking one knee, he craned his neck and glanced under the belly of the semitrailer. What he saw took his breath away for the second time, prompting him to scoot backward.

  He caught his labored breath and slipped his helmet off, resting it quietly on the ground beside him. This was something he had to see with his own eyes, not from behind the protection of his glass visor.

  Dropping to his stomach, he crawled back to the edge of the truck and squinted. About a half a klick away, a cluster of what had to be thousands of orbs floated over a parking lot. And swallowing them was a luminous worm-like creature that stretched the length of the semitrailer he was hiding behind.

  A burst of static over the com startled Overton, but not enough to pull his gaze from the scene below. He watched the creature inch across the concrete, leaving a trail of blue goo in its wake. It had no eyes and no face, but as it opened its mouth to swallow another orb, he saw it did have teeth. Hundreds of them, protruding out of its circular jaws like Bouma’s crooked overbite. With one swift motion, the worm slugged forward, consuming another glowing globe in one bite.

  The round lump passed through the length of the creature’s translucent blue body before stopping in its tail, where it seemed to dissolve. What came next was enough to make Overton’s veteran stomach lurch—a belch, and then a violent vibration through the creature’s body as it shot a ray of mist into the sky before finally coughing up the remains of the orb’s former occupant. From his vantage point Overton could hardly make out the contents, especially in the dark, but the faint blue glow from the creature’s body was just enough to illuminate a sack of human skin.

  “What the hell is that?” a voice asked over the com.

  Overton finally pulled away from the view and turned to see his own reflection in Finley’s mirrored visor. For the first time in days, he saw how aged his face had become. Deep wrinkles stretched across his forehead, snaking beneath his receding hairline. His eyes appeared dull and lackluster.

  “Sir, what is that . . . thing?” Finley repeated.

  Overton pulled himself away from his reflection and turned back to the grotesque alien below. He ignored Finley’s question, and failed to discipline him for breaking radio silence, which was now a moot point.

  Below, the creature was digesting another one of the orbs, slithering its way across the parking lot.

  “Dr. Winston, get up here,” he growled over the com. “You ever seen anything like that?” he asked, pointing with the charcoal barrel of his pulse rifle.

  Sophie gasped, blinking several times to ensure her brain was, in fact, comprehending what her eyes were seeing. “It appears to have the same surface composition as the drones.” She crawled farther under the belly of the truck, straining her neck to get a better view. “Looks like it’s feeding.”

  Another short burst of static broke over the com. “All clear at the rear, request permission to advance,” Bouma said.

  Overton slipped his helmet back over his shaved head. “Negative, stay put. We may need to leave in a hurry.”

  “Do you think that’s them, Dr. Winston?” Finley asked.

  Sophie continued to stare, her lips agape, before finally managing a nod.

  “I’m not risking a trip on the highway past that thing,” Overton whispered. “We need to find an alternate route. Something more discreet.”

  “For all we know, those things could be everywhere,” Finley replied.

  Overton crouched and pulled out a tiny black tablet from his side pack. “All the more reason to avoid them by finding a different route,” he said staring at the blue screen. The GPS device fed into his HUD through a wireless link, but whatever had caused the massive communication failure had also effectively killed the wireless connection.

  He cursed and put the device away, pulling out a small map of the area from his pouch with the coordinates highlighted in red ink. “Looks like we have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

  “But—” Finley began to protest.

  Overton craned his head in the Marine’s direction. “I don’t want to hear any excuses. This isn’t a democracy—”

  “Guys. Check this out!” Sophie interrupted.

  “Keep it down,” Overton fired back before crawling over next to her.

  “There. At one o’clock,” Sophie said pointing into the darkness. “I see a heat signature that’s smaller than the others.”

  Overton swiped a button on the side of his scope, and a small targeting system popped up on his HUD. He clenched the rifle between his shoulder and chin and aimed it in the direction Sophie had pointed. Sure enough, a small heat signature emerged on his display. He zoomed in, and staring back at him was the face of a little girl, slightly older than Owen. She was hiding behind a Dumpster at the edge of the parking lot. And heading right for her was the massive worm.

  “Fuck,” he said, dropping his head toward the concrete. It was just what he had been afraid of—a kid in the middle of this muck. Somehow children always found a way to position themselves directly in harm’s way; it was another reason he didn’t care much for them. They ended up being a liability. But he would be damned if this oversized snake would eat her as a midnight snack.

  “What do you see?” Sophie asked.

  “A kid.”

  “What do we do?” she asked, struggling to get a better look.

  “The exact opposite of what your buddy Timothy would do.”

  Sophie smiled and watched Overton flip the safety on his rifle off.

  “Let’s see if I’m as fast as I used to be,” he said. “Finley, watch the doctor. Bouma, if I’m not back in thirty minutes, proceed to these coordinates,” he said, handing the corporal the map and a compass from his pouch.

  “Good luck,” Sophie said, as she watched Overton crawl under the semi and disappear into the darkness.

  CHAPTER 16

  THE last ray of sun disappeared over the mountains, and Overton’s night vision flickered to life, his HUD transitioning to a ghostly green.

  Damn.

  Night vision wasn’t much benefit to a middle-aged Marine with deteriorating vision, and tonight it was definitely more of a detriment than a help. He scanned the shoulder of the highway and jumped behind a rock formation. He blinked until the green glow faded and he could make out the objects on the path before him. It wasn’t perfect, but he had enough training with the helmet’s technology to be able to fight almost completely blind. All he really needed was to see the shapes of objects and the heat signatures of anything alive. Everything else was just a distraction.

  Overton checked the safety again and shouldered his firearm to survey the blacktop ahead. A small box in the corner of his HUD showed about a quarter klick between him and the parking lot where the alien worm was slugging toward Little Miss Ankle Biter. He was still trying to come up with a name for the girl, but that would suffice for now.

  The worm was getting closer, belching out another sack of skin. His stomach lurched. Could it have been one of his squad members?

  Don’t go there, Overton.

  He paused and studied the remains with his scope before a career of training took over and he took off running down the shoulder of the road. There was no time to hesitate, no time to ask questions, no time to do anything but trust his training. Stealth—and hesitation—was no longer an option if he was going to save this girl. He was going to need to up the ante and the pace, all without attracting the attention of this thing.

  Overton zipped in and out among several empty cars and ran past a cluster of orbs, ignoring them. A few feet ahead, the highway turned off and connected with a frontage road. There was a shopping mall shortly behind that, and several adjoining parking lots, all
filled with the blue orbs.

  He skidded to a halt when he saw it. A second threat. The luminous glow of yet another worm. This one was coiled up like a snake resting after a big meal. And as Overton got a better look, he saw hundreds of skin sacks in the worm’s gooey wake. His stomach lurched again, but he forced the remains of his dinner back down his throat.

  Trust your training. You’ve seen worse.

  It wasn’t a lie—but then again, it wasn’t exactly the truth, either. He’d never seen anything quite like what he was seeing now. Even a lifetime of training couldn’t prepare him to fight an enemy he had never studied or seen before.

  A scratching sound broke out through the silence, and he ducked behind the cover of a black sedan. His armor blended with the car perfectly. Taking to his stomach, he inched out from behind the bumper and scanned the parking lot for contacts.

  Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape.

  The sound reminded him of the noise his drill sergeant had made some two decades ago when he refused to use a dry erase board. Instead he would use old-fashioned chalk, and when he had really wanted to piss off the noobs, he’d run his fingernails down the length of the board.

  Overton shuddered as the sound broke through the silence again. Now it sounded like a dozen drill sergeants running their nails down a board. And it was coming from all directions.

  “What the fuck,” he said under his breath.

  He attempted to still his racing heartbeat, taking in a deep breath to calm his nerves. Another deep breath—a glance around the bumper—a glance behind him—another deep breath.

  Nothing.

  His heart raced. The sound came closer. He spun around and removed his .45 from his holster, laying it down silently on the concrete. Then he grabbed the rifle slung across his back and placed it on the ground, too. Slowly, he dropped to his stomach and crawled under the belly of a pickup truck, pulling his weapons under with him.

  Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape. The sound was almost on top of him now, coming from all directions. But all he could see was the blacktop in front of the vehicle’s tires. He waited, weapons in both hands, trying to slow his breathing.

  A pair of spiderlike legs scampered past the front of the pickup, and then another. Seconds later, four more sets of legs had raced by. They appeared to be connected to the same body.

  Overton froze. This was no worm—this was something else. He considered crawling out for a better look and hesitated. Images of human-sized spiders popped into his mind, but he shook them away, instead recalling what his drill sergeant had told him.

  “In recon you never give away your position when you don’t know what you’re dealing with. You sit, lie, kneel, or hang upside down for as long as it takes to identify the enemy and devise a plan to neutralize it.”

  The man had been annoying, and brutally violent with his class in Basic, but Overton had never forgotten what he’d learned from him.

  Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape.

  The sound brought his mind back to the blacktop, his eyes darting back and forth. Another set of legs flashed by the truck, and then another. He held his breath as several more zipped past the truck, until finally one stopped. With a blink Overton switched off his night vision and saw them with his own eyes for the first time.

  They were a luminous blue, with translucent skin that revealed tiny blue veins crawling up the spiderlike legs. They were oddly jointed, the bend much higher than on any spider he’d seen. Small spikes protruded where a knee should have been. Fuzz lined the bone-thin exterior. There was no foot or paw. Instead there was a black claw the length of his combat knife—the same claw that was making the scratching sounds.

  He watched in shock, realizing the high joints on their legs were what allowed them to move so fast. Emotions raced through his mind as he watched them. There was awe and curiosity, but there was also the unfamiliar feeling of fear. There was no way to describe what he was witnessing. Three days ago he would have laughed at anyone who told him they had seen something like this.

  He narrowed his eyebrows and squinted to check for the body of whatever was attached to the six legs, but it was still out of sight. There was no way in hell he was going to crawl out to see what it looked like. Instead he waited, trying to hold back a cough from his scratchy throat.

  A scream shocked the creature into motion, and with a flash the legs were gone. Overton took a deep breath. He had almost forgotten about the girl, but as her screams grew louder, he knew the Organics were onto her.

  With a grunt he suppressed his fear and pulled himself from underneath the vehicle. In less than a second he was running toward the creatures.

  He almost halted when he got his first good look at them. There were at least a dozen. And they looked, just as he feared, like spiders. The creatures had stocky torsos and small heads sporting a bone-like mandible rimmed with black, jagged teeth. He couldn’t see any eyes, but he imagined they were focusing on their next snack—Little Miss Ankle Biter.

  I fucking hate spiders.

  On the top ten list of the things he disliked the most, spiders ranked pretty damned high. Fortunately for the little girl, arachnids were at number two and kids were only at number seven or so. As he ran past the sleeping worm, he realized he was going to have to consider bumping number ten and adding giant alien worms to the list.

  He neared the end of the parking lot without attracting attention. The spiders were now far ahead, and closing in on the girl’s location. Overton dug deeper and pushed his legs. The muscles strained and pulled but held strong as he maneuvered between the empty vehicles, trying to hug their frames for cover.

  Another scream ripped through the night. His HUD glowed to life with dozens of contacts. He switched off the infrared and skidded to a halt, ducking behind another truck. The worm was two car lengths from the Dumpster the girl was hiding behind. It was working on digesting the last orb between them.

  Overton switched his attention to the spiders that were slowly closing in on the girl, their legs clawing through the air as they approached. He counted a total of nine. Not as many as he thought, but still terrible odds.

  He had only moments to create a plan. He scanned his gear and saw three electromagnetic concussion grenades hanging off his belt. Without further thought he unclipped one of the grenades and tossed it into the air. The device landed on the concrete with a metallic crack and rolled to a rest a few feet from the worm. He shut off his HUD and tinted his visor to prepare for the vicious blast.

  Seconds later it exploded, and a burst of electromagnetic energy tore into the creature’s side. The blue shield vibrated and quickly faded as the wave of energy continued on toward the spiders. Their defenses pulsated and vanished as soon as the blast hit them.

  Holy shit.

  Overton didn’t hesitate when he realized what was happening. He jumped forward, squeezed the hard trigger of his pulse rifle, and watched the hot plasma shred the worm. The creature shrieked in pain and rose into the air, thousands of miniature arms clawing helplessly.

  He fired another volley of shots and the belly of the creature exploded, sending blue goo and watery blood in all directions. It wiggled back and forth violently, sending out a wave of gore that covered Overton.

  Click.

  The terrifying sound of an empty magazine echoed in his helmet. He turned to see the spiders racing toward him just as the worm fell to the ground in a lump of blue guts and slime. There was no time to reload; they would be on him in seconds.

  He dropped the rifle to the ground and retrieved his pistol. With only nine .45 shells, he couldn’t afford to miss.

  The first shot sent one of the spiders tumbling into the darkness.

  Crack, crack, crack.

  Overton fired off a volley of shots instinctively, sending another three of the creatures to their graves. The deafening mix of what sounded like high-frequency gro
wls and gunshots made it difficult for him to concentrate. The spiders circled around him, closing in, their legs clawing at him from a distance.

  His heart pounded in his chest, a steady flow of adrenaline pumping through his arteries. He remembered his training and fired at the closest creature. Its head exploded in a spray of blue mist, and the legs collapsed beneath it.

  At least these things are easy to kill, he thought, scanning for his next target.

  Four left.

  One lunged for his armor, shredding his right shoulder with its enormous claw. He winced in pain before bringing the butt of his pistol down onto the creature’s head and stomping it into a puddle of gore.

  He gritted his teeth and another two shots rang out, ending the life of two more aliens.

  One left.

  Overton took one knee and fired, but the pain from his shoulder threw off his aim, and the bullet ricocheted off the concrete beneath the spider’s legs.

  Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape.

  The sound filled his helmet, sending a chill down his back. “Go to hell, you fucking bastard,” he yelled as the creature’s mandibles opened and its teeth reached for his face.

  He closed his left eye, lined the metal sight up with the spider’s head, and fired. The bullet tore into its open mouth, blowing bits of mangled eyeball into the night as its limp body collided with his. They fell to the ground in a tangled mess of blue goo, guts, and blood.

  Overton grunted. Pain from his shoulder raced down his arm as he pushed the dead alien off of him. He didn’t need to see the wound to know it was deep. He was in trouble.

  He forced himself off the ground and jammed another magazine into his pulse rifle. With a deep breath, he gritted his teeth and sprinted toward the Dumpster where the girl was still cowering in the darkness.

  As his lips moved to form words, he realized it was pointless. He didn’t have time for formalities, or to convince the girl to come with him. With a swift motion he threw the strap of his rifle over his back and reached down to pick her up with his good arm.