The Orbs Omnibus

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “You better hope it works,” Overton added.

  Emanuel nodded. “It will,” he said quietly. In a different world, he would have tested countless prototypes; the research trials alone would have taken months. But his hand had been forced by circumstances outside his control. He was a lab jockey, not a marine, and being out in the field with half a plan and a device that might not even work was beginning to feel like a very poor decision.

  “Look, guys,” said Emanuel. “I just want you to know that—”

  “Shut up and don’t move,” Overton said, raising his rifle.

  Emanuel froze. In the reflective surface of Overton’s visor, he saw two Spiders approaching from behind him.

  “Get ready to flip that switch,” the marine growled.

  * * *

  Jeff followed the crowd of prisoners across the cracked dirt. Every time he looked around for a friendly face, the gaunt witch of a woman would push him forward. “Keep going,” she would say. “Don’t stop.”

  So Jeff pushed on, beads of sweat creeping down his forehead. His muscles ached and his legs were tired, but the woman was right. He couldn’t stop. His little brother was back at the Biosphere, probably scared, and he had to find a way back to him. After losing their dad on invasion day, Jeff had sworn to protect David. He was old enough to know that real men didn’t break promises. Real men did what they had to do to provide for their family, and David was the only family he had left.

  The squeal of a Spider broke through the calm of night. The sound sent several of the people in front of him stumbling, cupping their hands over their ears to block out the terrifying noise. Jeff didn’t even pause; he was used to their screeching by now. After spending weeks crawling through the dark tunnels below the White Sands military installation, he’d learned to evade the aliens by sound alone.

  He remembered all the times his stepmother had brought David and him to visit White Sands. At first, it had seemed like a magical place. Not only had it been one of the largest military facilities in the world, but it had also housed some of the coolest-looking spaceships he had ever seen. But after a while, he had grown tired of the visits. His father hadn’t been one of the pilots or engineers, like his friends’ dads were, and he had felt embarrassed.

  In the end, though, his dad had saved them. In those last moments, he wasn’t just a guard. He was a hero.

  Jeff pushed the memories away and scanned the horizon. They were getting closer to the poles, and if he didn’t escape soon, he’d be hanging from one of them before long.

  As he stumbled forward, Jeff studied the other prisoners. They were fixated on the rods like holy icons. Their glazed-over eyes and mechanical movements reminded him of zombies; it was almost as if something was controlling them.

  Another screech pulled Jeff’s gaze to the bluffs overlooking the lakebed. Hundreds of thirsty Spiders scampered across the dirt, a thick cloud of dust following them as they moved across the dry earth.

  There were other aliens, too. A trio of Sentinels followed the Spiders, their spiked tales slithering behind their massive torsos. He caught one of them looking down at him and quickly turned away. His dad had once said there were no such things as monsters. He was wrong.

  When he filed back into the group, someone knocked him to the ground. Jeff crashed into the dirt. Spitting, he swept the crowd of faces and saw a man in military fatigues glaring at him. His eyes were different from the others. They were clear. Focused.

  “Get up,” the man said grimly, reaching down and grabbing Jeff under his armpit.

  “Hey!” Jeff protested, trying to squirm away.

  “Do you want to live, kid?”

  Jeff eyed the man suspiciously. He didn’t look much like a soldier. For one thing, he was short, just over a foot taller than Jeff. He had a funny-looking bulb-shaped nose and a pair of dark brown eyes. A thin layer of short-cropped hair covered his dirty scalp, but after staring, Jeff wasn’t so sure it was hair. It kind of looked like dirt. His thick jawbone, on the other hand, was definitely covered in dirt, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved or showered in weeks. The man was filthy. His uniform was torn, and he carried no weapon. Jeff noticed a frayed name tag stitched into his uniform pocket. It was torn and only his last name remained.

  Kiel.

  CHAPTER 11

  SOPHIE looked out from the portal of Biome 1, staring into the endless black abyss of space. The smell of fresh oranges drifted through the filtered air. The smell reminded Sophie of her grandmother’s backyard in North Beach, Florida, before she had been forced to relocate due to the rising tides.

  She continued to stare out into deep space, the view dusted with stars like tiny specs of sand. Somewhere out there, Mars awaited her.

  “Doctor Winston,” said the man standing next to her. “May I speak with you a moment?”

  Sophie knew that voice. She turned to find Dr. Hoffman smiling at her. His teeth were stained from years of drinking coffee, and when he noticed her staring at them, his smile faltered.

  “We need to talk,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back and watching her with dark, calculating eyes. “We intercepted a transmission.”

  Sophie cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  “I’d play it, but it would mean nothing to you. It’s a series of noises on a frequency that has left even our senior communications officer confused.” He paused and gazed out of the porthole. “Beautiful view, isn’t it?”

  She nodded and stepped aside so he could get a better look.

  “You should enjoy it while you can. I don’t imagine you have much more time,” Hoffman said, casually.

  Sophie was getting impatient. Something was amiss. Her instincts told her that this was all wrong, that it wasn’t real.

  That it was a dream.

  “We know that the Organics on the ground are not the intelligent ones,” he continued. “They aren’t the ones leading the invasion or the ones controlling the drones.”

  Eve, Sophie remembered. The thought made her angry. The alien drone Eve was found submerged in a lake in the remote wilderness of Alaska in 2055. Scientists had known long before the invasion that the aliens were coming.

  She looked at Dr. Hoffman, wondering what he had done with Eve. The craft could have held the key to defeating the Organics and saved billions of lives. She fought to control her rage. There were simply too many things she didn’t understand.

  Sophie was about to fire off all of her questions when she noticed that the orange tree behind Dr. Hoffman had shriveled and died. She looked to his right and noticed an entire path of dead crops lining the path he had walked earlier.

  “Is something wrong, Doctor Winston?”

  Sophie shook her head.

  “As I was saying, we know the Organics you have seen on the surface aren’t at the top of their hierarchy. Their leaders have not yet revealed themselves. And I suspect they won’t until the human threat is gone.” He chuckled and added, “Not that they are much of a threat.”

  Dr. Hoffman’s reasoning seemed logical, but one of his words caught Sophie by surprise.

  They.

  She stole a glance over his shoulder again; more plants had died in the few minutes he’d been speaking. An entire row of them. Brown vines curled around the back of his head.

  When she turned back to Dr. Hoffman, his features had transformed. His eyes were darker, like space itself. His lips curled back, and he began to speak, but Sophie couldn’t make out the words. She tried to move, to back away from the man, but she was frozen. Behind him, the entire Biome was dying.

  * * *

  The sound of footfalls and a distant voice pulled Sophie from sleep. She reached for her sheets and noticed they were drenched in sweat.

  “You were dreaming again,” Holly said, sitting down on the edge of Sophie’s bed.

  The memory of Dr. Hoffman chill
ed her to the core, and Sophie shook her head frantically in an attempt to rid her mind of the terrifying dream. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she focused on Holly’s face through the dim light. “What time is it?”

  “Four in the morning. You should try and go back to sleep. You need your energy.” Holly reached for Sophie’s hand, but Sophie quickly pulled away.

  Tossing the sheets aside, Sophie swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood, taking a deep breath before forcing herself across the cold floor of the bedroom to a small mirror. She hesitated before flipping the light switch, knowing she wouldn’t like what she saw in her reflection.

  She was right.

  When the white light washed over her, she saw a different woman staring back. Her face was flushed, and her cheeks were sunken around her jawbone. She shuddered at the view; it reminded her of the woman they had discovered in the orb back at the White Sands installation.

  Splashing cool water on her face, she hunched farther over the sink, her head bowed in defeat. In a low voice, she said, “Alexia, have you heard anything from Emanuel yet?”

  “I’m afraid not, Doctor Winston. I will inform you of any developments when they become available,” Alexia replied in her calm, unwavering voice.

  “I need to get to the CIC and see if I can get a fix on their location.”

  “No. No, you don’t, Sophie. You need to rest,” Holly said firmly. “Why don’t you tell me about your dream?”

  Sophie reluctantly retreated to the bed and sat next to Holly.

  “It’s okay,” Holly said, placing a hand on her friend’s. “Talking about your dreams is the only way you will understand them.”

  “I don’t know if I want to understand this one. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Try me.”

  With a deep breath Sophie explained. “I was in Biome 1 of Secundo Casu with Doctor Hoffman. He said they had intercepted a transmission from the Organics, and he knew the source of their intelligence. But then everything got weird.”

  “What do you mean weird?”

  “I mean weird. The plants started dying and I couldn’t hear what he was saying. It was like he was killing them.”

  Holly frowned. “You have a lot of resentment toward Doctor Hoffman for leaving us here, for lying to you.”

  Sophie nodded and pulled a strand of blond hair behind her ear. “That’s an understatement.”

  “Our dreams reflect what we experience in everyday life. Your hopes, your disappointments—they are all displayed in this dream.”

  “Yeah. I suppose you’re right,” Sophie said, taking another long breath.

  “You should try and go back to sleep now.”

  Sophie managed a smile and patted Holly on the shoulder. “Yes, thank you. I’ll be fine.” She lay her head back down on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling, listening to the door shut behind Holly.

  Long after Holly had left the room, Sophie was still staring at the ceiling, whispering to herself, over and over again, “I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine.”

  I’ll be fine.

  * * *

  “No! It will render the device inoperable!” Emanuel yelled, smacking the electromagnetic pulse grenade from Overton’s hand before he had a chance to activate it.

  “Get down!” Bouma yelled.

  Overton tackled Emanuel and Bouma opened fire with his pulse rifle. The rounds ricocheted off the shields of the two approaching Spiders.

  “Go! Get out of here!” Bouma screamed over the sound of his rifle. “Get him to higher ground!”

  Overton ducked, the electric blue traces from Bouma’s bullets tearing into the Spiders’ defenses behind him. They screeched, their shields rippling where the rounds connected.

  “Move!” Overton yelled, scrambling to get away from the advancing aliens.

  Emanuel dove for the RVM, grabbing the straps and throwing them over his shoulders before taking off running after Overton. Bouma provided another round of covering fire and glanced over his shoulder just in time to see his teammates disappear around the street corner.

  “Come on!” he taunted, and then fired another round of bullets at the Spiders. One of them let out a deafening screech. The sound echoed in Bouma’s helmet. He tried to ignore the ringing pain, but it was so disorienting that he dropped to his knees.

  The two aliens crept forward, their claws dragging across the pavement.

  Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape.

  Bouma knew the sound better than anyone. It was the sound of death.

  But he wasn’t going to end up like Saafi or Timothy or Finley. He wasn’t going to die, not without a fight. A brief memory of Holly touching his shoulder flared in his mind, and the adrenaline intensified. He still owed the lady a date, and he’d be damned if he missed it.

  “Come on!” he yelled again, squeezing his rifle’s trigger. The weapon responded with the metallic click of an empty magazine.

  He tossed the rifle on the ground and reached for his sidearm just as one of the Spiders jumped onto the roof of the car in front of him. The creature’s claws tore into the soft metal with ease. He fired a few rounds to scare it away, but the bullets didn’t faze the creature. It seemed to know the rounds couldn’t penetrate its defenses. The Organics were learning.

  The observation shocked Bouma almost as much as the metal car he ran into as he turned to run. He fell on his back and watched the upside-down shape of the two blue monsters gallop toward him.

  Scratch, scrape, scratch, scrape.

  The world slowed as he rolled to his stomach and steadied his pistol. He watched the Spiders’ claws swipe at him through the air—he saw their mandibles open and release deafening shrieks. He fired the last of his magazine, watching their shields ripple as they absorbed the impact of the bullets.

  He closed his eyes in defeat, waiting for the claws to tear through his armor. But their claws never reached his flesh. His blood did not spill across the pavement. Instead, the Spiders erupted with shrieks of pain.

  His eyes snapped open to see the two creatures convulsing on the ground, their legs flailing in the air, their eyes bulging from their tiny heads.

  And then a brief burst of static sounded over the com. “Bouma, do you read? Over.”

  Bouma tried to speak, but couldn’t catch his breath. He continued to watch the two Spiders struggle. Their legs twitched helplessly.

  “Roger,” Bouma finally said, gasping for air.

  “It freaking works!” Emanuel shouted over the com.

  Bouma glanced one more time at the aliens as they stopped flailing and their black eyes shriveled inside their skulls. Emanuel was right. Without their shields, they were just fragile hunks of flesh.

  “My God,” Bouma said. “It works better than we could’ve ever hoped.”

  “Hell yeah, it does. Meet us at the lakebed, Bouma. We have some prisoners to rescue,” Overton replied.

  Bouma smiled. The tide had suddenly shifted. As he walked past the dead Spiders, he considered spitting on them, but that would be a waste of water.

  CHAPTER 12

  A CHORUS of shrieks ripped through the night. Jeff paused at the familiar sound, but he kept his head low and continued following the marine.

  The awful noises were coming from every direction. Even with his gaze fixed on the ground, he could see the bioluminescent blue glow. The color swam before his eyes like it was alive.

  Another screech sounded. This one was different.

  The alien sounded enraged.

  Can they even feel rage?, Jeff wondered. He guessed that they could. They were just like any other animal. He stole a glance at a pack of Spiders patrolling the bluff over the lakebed. The group seemed aggravated by something. Suddenly, they were running. Their bodies illuminated the dead trees’ branches like oversized Christmas lights as they moved across
the ledge. They scampered across the dirt, their talons kicking up dust clouds behind them.

  In the distance, there was another sound. It took Jeff a moment to realize what it was.

  Gunfire.

  The sporadic pops from what sounded like pulse rifles echoed through the night. Kiel heard them too, his head turning with every shot.

  The prisoners slowed to a halt, some of them snapping from their trance and scanning the lakebed. The man nearest Jeff shouted, “Can you hear that? The army has come to rescue us!”

  Kiel elbowed him. “Keep your trap shut.”

  “Hey!” the man protested, gripping his injured ribs.

  “Keep moving,” Kiel said, cocking his head slightly to make sure Jeff was still following him.

  The sound of gunfire was music to Jeff’s ears. It meant there were people out there, people like him. And they were fighting. But the noise ended almost as soon as it began.

  Worse, the refugees were almost to the poles. Jeff could see the people in front of him heading uphill.

  Jeff jogged up next to Kiel and nudged him. “Why did the gunfire stop?”

  “I don’t know, but look, when you see me run, you run, too. Got it?”

  Jeff nodded. Overhead, the poles extended into the dark sky, lighting up the beach with an eerie blue glow, like a lighthouse warning boats away. With every step he could feel his heart beating faster in his chest. They were running out of time. If Kiel was going to do something, Jeff knew he needed to do it soon.

  As soon as Jeff reached the embankment the shrieks got louder. The noise was overwhelming. It sounded like every single alien was screaming. The noises reminded Jeff of a suffering wild animal, like a deer being torn to shreds by a pack of hungry wolves.

  Jeff clapped his hands over his ears. Around him, the other refugees were doing the same. Panic tore through the group, and several prisoners took off running.

  An elderly woman dropped to the ground in front of Jeff, whimpering in pain. “Make it stop, make it stop,” she repeated.