Battle- Earth

by Mark Harrison

  Tuck walked into Mission Control and saluted Felix.

  “Put your hand down,” said Felix.

  “Hah,” said Tuck. “I was just testing you. I wanted to see if the title ‘commander’ had gotten to your head yet?”

  “I was the founder and CEO of one of the wealthiest companies in the world and you think being called a commander of a hundred or so desperate people out in the Colorado rockies will get to my head?”

  “I was just checking!”

  “What’s the status of the clean up?” asked Felix.

  “It’s all done. We’ve got all the parts of the reassembled AOJ stocked and stored in military trucks. We’ve also got all the supplies we need to last several weeks out on the road.”

  “Have all the bodies been checked for ammo and weapons?”

  “Yes,” said Tuck. “Every dead attacker has been checked. We’ve organized their weapons in storage crates at the entrance of the base. We’re ready to go when you give us the order.”

  “Excellent,” said Felix. “All we have to do now is wait for John to come back with the energy cubes.”

  “He’s here.”

  “What?”

  “John’s back with the cubes,” said Tuck. “He’s down at the hangar with Oleksii.”

  Tuck asked Felix if he could borrow one of the medical doctors from the upper decks for Sandra and Bobby. Felix was mad that Tuck thought he had to ask. He told Tuck that he should consider himself one of Felix’s chief lieutenants.

  Hearing that John was back with the energy cubes was exactly the break they needed. Felix was worried that if they had to wait around Starpeak any longer, they’d be attacked again. They were vulnerable.

  Since the defense of the bunker, Felix spent most of his time giving direction and orders to the military personnel in the bunker and the camp members who’d helped save the day. Even though he was a private citizen in their eyes, the military personnel followed his word. Years of following the inconsistent and emotional Ethan really wore away any allegiance they had to the standard rule of command. What probably helped, was Felix’s assurance that his position as their commander was temporary. He didn’t come to Starpeak to lead. He came here to help. He’d sort out a new commander for the military personnel when they got to his factory in Seattle.

  He did check on the status of the next wave of alien ships and was relieved to see that they were still in the Kuiper Belt. They hadn’t moved. The longer they took to get here, the more time they had to harness the energy cubes.

  Felix followed Tuck out of Mission Control and made his way to Oleksii. He wanted to finally meet Sharon’s ex-husband, the mysterious MIT scientist who believes he can harness the alien tech. Now that they had the cubes, they could leave for Seattle. For the first time in years, Felix was beginning to hope.

  Epilogue

  Months later…

  Rick walked down the broken chipped up asphalt that was once the main freeway into Seattle. He looked at the map in his hands. It wasn’t far. Only a few more miles. The rest of the journey would be through the woods.

  For the first time in months, the weather was starting to turn around. He took off his jacket. The winter was over and it was getting hot. It felt good to feel the humid air on his skin. He stuffed his jacket into his backpack and made his way through the dense forest off the freeway. He’d be there by nightfall. If the message at Starpeak was legit, he’d finally be back.

  Getting to Seattle wasn’t easy. Rick spent two days lying in the crater in the Smoky Mountains. When the harvesters were done tearing down Quinton’s fort, they left. All that remained were piles of energy cubes, dead bodies, and the dismantled remnants of what were once buildings. The days spent lying in that crater, gave Rick enough time to heal and get some of his strength back. His leg was still punctured and the a piece of debris must’ve hit him in the face. He couldn’t see out of one eye. But he enough strength to get up from the crater. Once up, he grabbed a few weapons and supplies that he found lying around, and grabbed some energy cubes. He didn’t know that John, Bobby and Sandra had made it back to Starpeak. He didn’t know that they had enough energy cubes to re-engineer them. He’d learn that soon.

  That first month, Rick didn’t travel very far. He had to be careful. There were still plenty of Quinton’s followers out in the woods. Even if they had lost faith in their leader, they were still dangerous. They were gullible enough to believe that the aliens were sent here to save humanity, not destroy it. He had to stay away from them. He also wasn’t sure if he’d run into any more harvesters. He had to be careful.

  Making matters worse, he was now officially blind in one eye. He crafted a small patch to cover his useless eye from some supplies he’d found. He also couldn’t walk very fast. The impaled shard of metal in his leg hadn’t been fun to take out. The only thing that made it tolerable was the bottle of whiskey he found in a shack miles from Quinton’s camp. He poured the whiskey over his leg to disinfect the wound and ripped the shard out of his leg. He cauterized the wound with a blade he’d heated up over a small fire he made. He didn’t scream out in pain when he pulled the shard out or cauterized the wound. He couldn’t risk being heard. He just bit down on a wooden stick. The pain was so intense he passed out.

  After that, he made his way to Starpeak. He had to stop a few times to look for food or ammo, but that was it. He kept a low profile and avoided the cities altogether. The motherships were still over most cities, but they were acting unnatural. They were starting to move. He hadn’t seen that in years.

  When Rick made it to Starpeak, he found it empty. The busted up tank outside, the blasted open entrance, and the bullet holes and burn marks along the inner corridor walls made it clear that the place had been through hell. He didn’t find any bodies of anyone he knew. He figured that the SpaceForce personnel and camp members must’ve left the bunker for somewhere else. He found his answer when he searched for his belongings in the basement of the bunker. There was a message from Tuck:

  ‘Rick, I hope this letter finds you. I haven’t told anyone that I am leaving it. If I did, they’d think I was crazy. Everyone thinks your dead. I don’t believe it. Rick Frost? Dead? No way. Something in my belly tells me you’re alive. Dirk says it’s his moonshine, but this ain’t the moonshine. This is a deep, genuine feeling. I’m leaving this letter because I want you to know we’re leaving Starpeak. We’re headed to a underground factory just outside of Seattle. John, Bobby and Sandra made it back. They’re safe. The whole camp is safe. Come find us. I’ll be waiting for you. We have your dog, Tuck.’

  At the bottom of the letter was the address to the underground factory. Rick stuffed it into his backpack and made his way to Seattle. He figured he’d make there in a month. It took him longer.

  The motherships continued to act strangely. The motherships hovering above Salt Lake City had gone away. Instead of avoiding the city, he went through it. It felt eerie to be walking through the city streets of a city that had been monitored by the motherships for the last five years. Like Knoxville, there were still a lot of buildings standing. He hoped that some of those buildings would be jam packed with supplies.

  Everything went smoothly until he got to the downtown core. He was ambushed by a group of hostiles hiding up in an office building. They made a big mistake not taking Rick out with their first few shots. When he managed to collect himself and spot where they were hiding, he held nothing back. He pulled out an AR-99 with an organic matter tracing scope and fired back. He then made his way to the building they were firing from and climbed the stairs up to the floor they were nested in. He made quick work of them. He didn’t waste any ammo. He looted their bodies for more supplies and continued on his way, hoping he wouldn’t have anymore close calls like that.

  And while he didn’t have any close calls with anymore hostiles humans, he did run into a few groups of harvesters in Idaho. Like the motherships, they were acting strange. They looked like they were headed to a specific location, as if
their mission directive had changed or something. Rick didn’t want to think about it. He just wanted to get as far away from them as possible. When he was at the north-western border of the state a harvester spotted him. He was washing some of his supplies in a small creek out in the woods when a plasma blast exploded right beside him. The explosion sent him flying. He fell flat on the ground and just barely managed to get out of the way of the next explosion. Along with his eye patch, he now had a big scar that ran down his face.

  His run in with the harvester happened several weeks ago now. It’d been quiet ever since. He pushed through the bushes off the side of the freeway and made his way to the underground factory. The walk was long and slow. The sun set and the stars appeared over head. Giant weeds and brush made it difficult to navigate but he was close. He couldn’t stop. The address Tuck gave him said it was the intersection of two county roads. He made his way to the intersection and found nothing. It was just a road surrounded by trees and tall grass. He pulled out his flashlight and looked at the map again. He must’ve made a mistake. He couldn’t find the mistake. Out of anger, he threw his backpack on the ground. Out of it popped a picture of his father. That was the belonging he kept in Starpeak. That’s what Tuck had stuffed his letter into. He knew if Rick was alive, he’d look for that picture of Blake Frost. Seeing the photo now made Rick smile. He picked up the picture of his dad and brushed it off. The glass was cracked.

  “Sorry, dad,” he said. “They should’ve listened to you all those years ago. We might’ve been able to better prepare for this mess. But we as a species have a tendency of ignoring the obvious shit, don’t we?” He put the picture back in his knapsack. It was time to re-assess. “Alright, what’s the obvious thing I am missing?”

  He closed his backpack and looked around. Suddenly, a light appeared and the ground started to shake. Rick tried to keep his balance. Something was wrong. Another harvester? He pulled out his gun. He had no where to hide. He’d have to take it on.

  A section of the road lifted up. Rick fell to ground and aimed his weapon at the opening in the road. It looked like a door.

  Out of the door walked Tuck. “I knew it,” he said. “I fucking knew it!”

  Rick stood up, lowered his weapon. “Thanks for the letter,” he said.

  The two men shook hands.

  “Took you long enough,” said Tuck. “We’ve been waiting for ya. A lot has changed.”

  “Oh yeah,” said Rick. “That dickhead still in charge?”

  “No,” said Tuck. “Ethan is long gone. Didn’t even come with us to the factory. He left with his tail between his legs months ago. We’re being led by Felix Sarsgaard now. The tech trillionaire.”

  “Felix Sarsgaard? Jesus.”

  “Yeah,” said Tuck. “But that’s not the craziest thing. We’re developing weapons, ships, and are amassing an army.”

  “What?”

  “The energy cubes John found,” said Tuck. “We know how to make them. We’re developing our own. We are using the energy from them cubes to power this factory. With that power we are modifying jets, weapons, anything we think that will give us an advantage against the aliens. John said we will soon have the ability to travel at warp speed. We’ve built seven hudred jets already. They have canons that can fire plasma bursts. It’s insane.”

  “Holy hell,” said Rick.

  “I know,” said Tuck. “We’re launching our first attack next week. We’re going to try to take down one them motherfuckers. We’re going after a mothership. It’s fitting that you show up now. The camp will be glad to see you.”

  Rick smiled. “How’s everyone doing?”

  “Good,” said Tuck. “For the first time in years, we’re all thinking we’ve got a chance. But…” Tuck’s voice trailed off.

  “But what…”

  “There’s more ships headed our way,” said Tuck. “By John’s estimate, those ships will be here in the next month. Felix is calling them the next wave.”

  “The next wave?”

  “Yes,” said Tuck. “That’s why it’s important we launch our attacks now. We need to take back Earth before those things get here.”

  “Then let’s get to it.”

  The two men walked down into the section of road that had lifted up. It closed behind them. All that remained was the quiet of the Washington state woods. The real war with the aliens was about to begin. Humanity had survived the first-wave. Now they had to prepare for the second.