The Orbs Omnibus

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  * * *

  Holding his arm, Captain Noble returned to the CIC from the medical bay. The swelling had gone down, but it was still sore to the touch. The scene in front of him instilled a different type of pain, a mental anguish that was far worse than any torn muscle or ligament.

  The smoke had cleared and most of the systems were already back online, but the damage was severe. Noble reflected on words his father had said the night he had died.

  Every commander will regret an order over the course of their career. The test of a true leader is how they recover from that decision and what they learn from their mistake.

  Depends on how big the mistake is, Noble mused, scanning the CIC. How many had died because of his decision? How many more would die now that the GOA was damaged? The ripple effect was extensive.

  Leaders were rarely allowed the luxury of a second chance during a time of war. He’d had more than his share of them. Like those stories he’d grown up listening to about soldiers surviving countless bullet wounds. But he wasn’t sure he deserved the same luxury.

  The crackle of white noise over the PA system snapped him from his thoughts.

  “Captain, we have casualty reports coming in from the med bay,” Irene said.

  “Go ahead,” Noble said with reservation.

  “Twelve dead, and thirty-four wounded, sir.”

  His gaze dropped to the floor, numbness prickling down his body. The reports were worse than he thought. Over half of his crew dead or wounded.

  “Damage was severe. Engines 1 and 2 are still offline, but I’ve been able to reroute power to Engines 3 and 4. They are both fully operational,” Irene said. “Compartments 4 and 5 were purged of water and sealed. I also cleared Compartment 6. All systems are back online.”

  “What about the cargo bay?” Noble asked. “Were crews able to salvage anything besides the Sea Serpent?”

  “Aye, sir. Engineering believes they will be able to restore some of the vehicles and one of the gunships.”

  “How about the drones?”

  “Only one left.”

  Goddammit, Noble thought. “Tell Ort I want to see him when he has a moment.”

  The wheels from a stretcher clanked over the metal grid tiles on the top floor of the bridge. A pair of medics pushed the last body across the platform. Noble watched them struggle to get the wide cart through the glass doors.

  “Move your end to the right,” one of the men said. With a grunt he shoved the bed. The edge clipped the door and the deceased’s hand flopped over the side.

  Noble saw a thick gold ring sparkle under the bank of LED lights. His stomach sank; below the white sheets lay the body of his XO. He bowed his head, forcing himself to look away.

  Behind him Athena cleared her throat and put her hand on his shoulder. “Sir, are you okay?” Her touch was comforting, and for a moment he let himself enjoy the unfamiliar sensation.

  Her hand slid away. “Sir, I’d like you to look at something.”

  She continued to talk as they walked across the bridge to her station. “When Irene rerouted power, I noticed something.”

  Noble raised a brow as they arrived at Athena’s terminal. The left monitor displayed the map of the Biospheres Dr. Hoffman had constructed across the globe. His stomach churned for a second time in as many minutes when he saw all the lights had gone dark. Cheyenne Mountain was offline.

  “This can’t be right,” he mumbled, sitting down in her chair for a better look.

  “That’s what I thought, but I already checked with Trish. She can’t get a signal from them.”

  Noble stood and looked for his communications officer. Near the front of the room, from which the rows of monitors were separated by a middle passage, he saw the profiles of three crew members huddled around the main display. They spoke in a hushed whisper with a maintenance worker in a red pair of coveralls.

  “Trish,” he shouted, waving her toward him.

  Trish’s freckled face emerged from the group a few seconds later. “Sir,” she said.

  “What do you make of this?” he asked, gesturing toward the Biosphere map.

  The young officer leaned over and punched a code into the terminal. The screen flickered and a diagnostic report emerged.

  CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN . . .

  UTM COORDINATES . . .

  LAST CONTACT . . .

  0745 HOURS . . .

  “The last signal picked up from the Biosphere was thirty minutes ago,” Trish replied. “Usually the signal is continuous.”

  Noble resisted the urge to scratch his chin. He looked up, toward the front of the room. Travis and Reggie were glaring at him. When they noticed he was staring, they turned back to the maintenance worker.

  “Could this be from interference?” Athena asked.

  “Unlikely,” Trish replied. “We haven’t had any since the invasion. When those lights go out”—she pointed at the map and then ran a finger across her neck— “it means something catastrophic has occurred at the Biosphere.”

  Noble had heard enough. “Irene!” he shouted.

  One of the remaining speakers in the corner of the room crackled. “Yes, Captain.”

  He paused to consider his next command, giving himself an order first. Maintain your focus. You are no good to your crew without your level head. He remembered his father’s words:

  Will you run from the horsemen, or will you fight?

  But the horsemen weren’t human. There wasn’t a manual that he could consult to determine their next move. After losing the X-9, the only allies he had left in the world were Dr. Sophie Winston and her team at Cheyenne Mountain.

  In the world.

  Noble thought about that, sweeping two fingers across his jawline, from one side to the other and back again. The answer was clear to him. He had to know what happened at Cheyenne Mountain. “Irene,” he said firmly. “You’re my new XO.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” she replied.

  “Your first order . . .”

  The room went silent. Even the red-suited maintenance worker paused in anticipation.

  “I want to send our remaining drone to Cheyenne Mountain to try and reestablish contact,” he said.

  “What?” Trish replied. “You’re kidding, sir.” She suddenly looked away, as though ashamed of losing her self-control.

  Noble folded his arms and raised his voice. Loud enough to remind Trish he was still in charge.

  “Doctor Rodriguez provided us with the weapon that could end this war. I made a promise when I was at Cheyenne Mountain. I told them I wouldn’t abandon them.”

  Trish crinkled her nose. “Sir, with all due respect, sending out our last drone is senseless. A waste of precious resources.”

  Another voice chimed in. “I’m with the captain,” Athena blurted. “There has to be some explanation,” she said, her voice almost pleading for an answer. “What if the Biosphere team needs our help? They may be our last connection to the outside world.”

  Trish sighed deeply. “There is an explanation,” she said. “Everyone there is dead.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THE sun rose over the desolate Martian landscape. Rays of intense light carpeted the cracked ground, spreading slowly over the valley below. Sophie walked along the edge of the great Valles Marineris, watching the sun chase away the shadows of the night far below her. The rocky bottom quickly filled with light, as if a dam had burst.

  She took a step closer to the ridge. The view took her breath away. And knowing parts of the rift were four miles deep left her in awe. There simply wasn’t anything on Earth that compared to the vastness of Valles Marineris. It made the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the ground.

  Wind lashed at her armored suit. She braced herself by planting her right foot firmly in the sand. The view no longer looked as magnificent as it had a few moments earlier. />
  After retreating a safe distance, Sophie paused to wonder exactly how she had gotten there. She looked down at her gloved hands and then touched the glass visor on her helmet.

  Was she dreaming again? The last thing she remembered was the medical bay and Emanuel telling her everything would be okay.

  But everything wasn’t okay. She was back on Mars. And she knew it wasn’t real.

  She cursed as another gust of wind peppered her with sand, throwing her off balance. She dropped to her knees, sliding several feet back to the ledge. The rocky bottom of the valley was a blur of shapes.

  She closed her eyes and pleaded with her mind. “Please wake up, please.” Anger prickled inside her. She was tired—tired of being stuck in a perpetual state of dreaming, not being able to differentiate what was real from what wasn’t.

  When her eyes snapped open the sky had changed. A storm was brewing in the distance; reds and oranges blending together to form a fiery, vicious-looking cloud. Palming the ground, she pushed herself to her feet as her survival instincts kicked in. Battling the wind, she looked for a place to hide. Her first scan of the bleak landscape revealed nothing.

  She took a deep breath. The filtered oxygen filled her lungs. She released it, her hot breath fogging the inside of her visor.

  The dreams always seemed so real.

  And so did the storm howling in the distance.

  I want to wake up, she thought again. Sophie had never once in her life felt sorry for herself. She didn’t believe anyone could get anywhere with self-pity. Yet she found herself wondering, Why me?

  She quickly shook the thought away. More wind hissed by. Flinching, she dashed to her right, bracing herself against the bombardment of rock and sand. A pebble chipped her visor. The tiny crack, hardly visible to the naked eye, reminded her of how dangerous the surface of Mars actually was. A single mistake could get her killed.

  She looked past the chip and searched the horizon for any sign of refuge. A few hundred yards to the north, the valley disappeared behind a steep hill. She worked her way through the wind, dropping to her hands and knees when she reached the embankment. Then she carefully moved up the path as loose rocks cascaded behind her, the sound masked by the wailing storm.

  Reaching the top, she received her reward. A perfect vantage point of the entire valley. For the second time she held her breath in awe. This time not at the beauty of her surroundings but at the sight of the red cloud growing on the horizon. Forcing herself to look away, she scanned the landscape below. There, about five hundred yards out at twelve o’clock, she noticed an outcropping. But there was something odd about the white boulders. They looked alien against the desolate landscape.

  She pushed on, sliding down the backside of the incline. With her every labored step the wind grew in ferocity. Sophie struggled through the relentless wind, her focus on one of the white rocks. As she got closer she saw that it was no rock at all. It was a structure that looked like a massive satellite. She knew right away the building wasn’t made to communicate; it was designed to terraform the surface.

  To the east were smaller structures tucked neatly inside white walls a story high, which wrapped around the circumference of the circular-shaped facility.

  “The NTC colony,” Sophie gasped.

  She halted, bringing her hand to her visor to shield her eyes from the sun. It was smaller than she’d imagined it would be, only a fraction of the size she’d pictured. There was simply no way it was built to house tens of thousands of people.

  The eastern side of the colony consisted of two dozen buildings, all connected by an aboveground tunnel. Solar farm panels covered the western edge. An oddly shaped glass silo towered above the center of the base. She watched as a white wall rose out of the ground to protect the building from the storm, wrapping around the structure like skin.

  Sophie continued on, panting inside her helmet. Deep breaths. The storm was barreling down behind her. She pushed harder, her legs burning with every step. A powerful wind threw her off balance. Her right foot slid on a loose rock and she stumbled toward the edge of the valley. Numbness warmed her body and the feeling of weightlessness gripped her. After a few seconds the sensation passed and she moved on.

  The thought of waking up no longer seemed important. She only cared about making it to the colony, to see the NTC technology and the survivors.

  Through her visor she could see an open gate at the back end of the base. The storm was nearly above her now, and she closed her eyes and ran.

  Almost.

  Deep breath.

  There.

  The storm shook the ground, but she held strong, focusing on her breathing. Risking a glance over her shoulder. A fiery cloud of dust a mile wide swallowed the landscape. And it was moving fast. In seconds, she, too, would be swallowed up.

  When she turned back to the gate her heart sank. The doors were beginning to close.

  Sophie reached out toward it, yelling “Wait!”

  Her voice faded in the storm. She stumbled forward, her fingers just inches away from the metal doors as they slammed shut.

  She collapsed to her knees. In a fit of rage she pounded the metal with her fists. “Let me in!”

  Her voice sounded distant, lost in the deafening roar of the storm. Tremors shook the ground beneath her. A tidal wave of dust smashed into her armor, sending her topsy-turvy through the air, right over the edge of Valles Marineris. For a moment the world was in slow motion. She sailed over the valley with her arms spread out like wings and then she fell down, down into the black abyss.

  Thrashing through the air, Sophie tried to focus on the bottom as she tumbled head over feet, but the light didn’t penetrate the darkness. Her body went numb from the icy tingle rushing through it. In that moment she wondered how long it would take to fall four miles.

  Minutes? Seconds? She could probably do the calculation if she could get her brain to cooperate.

  She attempted to reposition her center of mass, falling facedown and spreading her arms and legs out. Her heart rate increased as she fell. The air howled through the speakers in her helmet, the air whistling past her armor.

  Sophie’s stomach turned.

  After seconds of free fall, she could finally begin to make out the bottom. Some light had managed to trickle in after all. The ground raced toward her.

  Would she feel anything at all when she hit?

  She knew the impact wouldn’t kill her, if anything, she’d snap out of her dream. She focused on the jagged rocks protruding from the canyon floor like hundreds of sharp teeth. And then she noticed something else—a color that didn’t seem to belong; a color she knew.

  The cool blue glow of the Organics filled the valley below her. Sunlight hadn’t penetrated the darkness at all. This light came from a different source. An alien source. She was entering their lair.

  “No!” she yelled as the Martian floor came into view.

  There were hundreds of them. Spiders mostly, moving amongst the rocky outcroppings, in and out of holes. She plummeted toward the creatures, her hands stretched out, shielding her from the imminent impact.

  Before she had a chance to consider what any of it meant, she crashed into the rocks and everything went dark.

  Her eyes snapped open in the medical ward. She was awake now. At least she thought she was. To her right a figure stood facing the dual monitors at the main terminal. But even in the darkness she could tell this was someone else’s profile—someone frail and gaunt.

  The light from the display shifted and illuminated Smith’s sunken face. She wore a sinister grin.

  What the hell was she doing?

  Sophie struggled to move, to read the screen.

  The marine stepped away from the monitor and glanced over at her. Their eyes locked for a fraction of a second. And then, like a ghost, she was gone.

  Sophie wanted to
shout for help, but the words wouldn’t come out. For the first time since her terrifying dreams had started she wished she were still asleep.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Smith navigated the biosphere’s passages with ease. She paused only for a moment when she saw two men sleeping on the floor of one of the small rooms. Somewhere in the back of her mind they seemed vaguely familiar, but the feeling quickly passed as she made her way through the passage from the personnel quarters to the dark mess hall. There were no bright emergency LEDs to guide her, only the dim neon signs that marked each biome. She stumbled around a table and made her way to the wall, following it with her fingers to the red 2.

  With the power off, she forced the biome’s doors open. They cracked apart with relative ease and she slipped through the gap, moving silently into the next corridor. She passed the pond and then crossed into Biome 1.

  The faint smell of oranges, a smell she’d always loved, didn’t slow her down.

  She moved with purpose, trampling the fresh fruits and vegetables as she made her way to the final set of doors. Prying them open, she darted out of the biosphere and into the darkness of a tunnel, one step closer to rejoining the architects.

  * * *

  Jeff woke up gripping his rifle. He lifted his face, a trail of drool cobwebbing off the sorry excuse for a pillow. Times like these really made him miss the old world. Video games, pizza, his friends and, of course, his dad.

  He rolled to his side. He no longer felt tired, and decided to focus on the sounds of the biosphere. Sometimes they helped him fall asleep at night—the hum of the filtration system or the chirp of a distant sensor from Alexia’s system. They made him feel safe.

  Only tonight he couldn’t hear anything; the room was silent aside from Bouma’s snoring.

  He sat up. The hallway looked unusually dark. There were no flashes from the emergency LEDs or even the customary red blink from one of Alexia’s cameras.

  Something was wrong. He grabbed the rifle and crept to his brother’s neighboring bed.