Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2)

by Darcy Troy Paulin

  Step 4: Stir.

  Step 5: Place nutrient mass into the receptacle.

  Step 6: Wait.

  Step 7: When the bacterial mat reaches a thickness greater than one inch, it is ready to be eaten. Slice off a strip and enjoy!

  She followed the steps, one by one. When it came time to add the nutrients, she lifted the package from the floor and dropped it on the countertop. She could see a marbled mess of animal and vegetable matter through the clear plastic and braced herself for the horror to come. Then, before she could change her mind, she cut the plastic packaging wide open on one side. A familiar stench rose from the nutrient mass. Her nose crinkled in response. She sliced off a chunk of the mass and, stabbing it with her knife, lifted it into the receptacle. She continued piece by piece until the mass was all in the digester. She cleaned the packaging thoroughly in the sink, disposed of it in the reuse bin, and scrubbed the counter. Once the counter was clean, along with the edges of the digester, she placed the digester’s lid on tight and opened the windows to clear the air.

  With little else to do, she sat down to read the rest of the newspaper. She discovered, to her surprise, that New York was not the only place that had been attacked. Major cities all over Grailliyn had been inundated with squid from the sky on the night before. No news had yet arrived regarding a second wave. The paper went on to say that, though the squids from the first wave arrived from the sky, they escaped to the Beldorath, the inland sea. The second wave came from the Beldorath, though unlike the first wave, this time they did not stop killing until they themselves were killed, or were driven back to the sea by the Watchers on the wall.

  When she finished with the newspaper, she got up and made her way up to the rooftop balcony where she continued to watch The Watch. Both on the wall and those returning to her building. She tracked their comings and goings, and quickly determined that they were on two-hour shifts. She guessed then that their building would be supplying fifteen rather than thirty Watchers.

  When she awoke from first sleep, the digester had produced enough for her to eat. She looked off the balcony and saw what would be the eleventh of her drafted neighbors returning. She went quickly to the kitchen to get some food and was surprised to find that the smell of the digester was almost unnoticeable with the lid closed tightly. She concluded that it was a case of her fellow Yorkies, family included, being the filthy creatures she had always suspected they were, that was the cause of the odor in their homes.

  She ate quickly and returned to her post in time to see what was likely the new draftee rounding the corner, but not in time to see who it was. It was unfortunate, but unimportant. She could find out later, along with those selected while she slept, and so complete her list.

  The Watchers on the wall continued to watch and to train. But without events of note taking place. Soon enough number twelve returned with a small group of other new Watchers from their block. Greta peered through the binoculars scanning the faces and trying to determine which of them was from her building. She recognized a few faces from other buildings. Her binos passed over another face she recognized. Her stomach dropped. She panned back and adjusted the focus to make sure. It was him. Harnold. Not just any Harnold. Harnold from the floor below. Directly below. She was in trouble.

  She racked her brain for a plan. She could leave the building. She took another look over the railing. He was too close for that now. She could simply refuse to answer the door. But she knew Harnold. They'd had many disagreements and conflicts. He would know she was there. He would just slide the paper under the door and say he had handed it to her in person. He was such a miserable neighbor. She could just kill him. She really could. She could recover the plastic nutrient pack bag from the reuse bin. wrap it around his filthy head, and just squeeze until all the life left his body. And under the circumstances, a little murder squid would get the blame.

  She tightened her shoelaces, put on her rain jacket and prepared herself for his arrival.

  She could hear his footsteps getting closer as he ascended the stairs. When he knocked on the door, she was ready.

  He called out in a sing-song voice “Greta… I have something for you.”

  She flung the door open wide, taking him by surprise. She snatched the paper from his hand.

  “It's not just me Harnold. Nobody likes you.”

  She closed the door behind her, pushed past him and walked as calmly as possible down the stairs. At the first bend, she turned back around.

  “Nobody,” she said.

  Then she carried on down the stairs and out the building to fulfill the duty she had failed to avoid.

  Chapter 4

  Quin grabbed a chair with his free right hand. Strengthened by fear for his brother, he raised the heavy wooden chair over his head with ease. The squid leapt to the desktop in front of him. Quin swung the chair into the squid, hearing and feeling a satisfying crunch on impact. He raised the chair again as the squid flipped, spun, and tried to get away. Fueled with rage and oxidized by terror, Quin smashed it again. And then again. Over and over he smashed the small squid, until the chair fell apart. He dropped the wreck of a chair to the floor and examined at the remains of the squid. It was mashed and pulped into the desktop, and though it was more or less still in one blobby piece, it no longer moved. With the immediate danger gone, Quin rushed to Cailin's side.

  “Help! We need help in here!” he yelled towards the hall.

  Cailin lay on his back with another one of the little squids covering the whole of his head. He wasn't struggling. Don't be dead Cailin. You can't be dead.

  He straddled the body of his little brother and began working his right palm up between Cailin's face and the shroud. His left arm was really burning now, but he ignored it to concentrate on getting the squid off of his little brother.

  The squid fought him, just as it had before. The shroud's powerful muscles resisted his fingers’ advancement. He brought up his useless left arm and pressed it against the squid at the top of Cailin's head for leverage. It helped and he managed to force his hand fully over Cailin's face. With all of his strength, he pried his hand away from Cailin's face. The squid resisted. Slowly though, it gave ground. Then as suddenly as it had with the girl, it released and moved to encase a new target. Quin's other hand. Quin pressed his already squid covered hand against Cailin's squid and pulled his right hand free. Cailin's squid latched onto the left hand, over-top of the squid already there.

  The squid on his left hand sensed it was in danger and inverted itself from Quin’s left arm, fighting back against its fellow monster. The pair fell to the floor where they rolled thrashing at each other, struggling to gain the upper tentacle.

  Other students arrived, along with a teacher to help. Quin kicked the fighting pair away from Cailin and found another chair. They spent two chairs in total mashing the squids, before Quin remembered Cailin was still in danger and returned to him. Cailin was still not breathing and had a clotted white goop in his mouth and nostrils and ears. Quin pried the goo from Cailin's mouth and pulled out a long white blob that seemed to go all the way down his throat. Quin then remembered his first aid lessons, that Cailin might not be dead. He'd learned in those lessons that it would take four minutes for brain damage to begin. Now he would find out.

  He tilted Cailin's head back to give him a breath. But before they'd even touched lips, Cailin began coughing and spitting.

  Quin sighed and his whole body slumped in relief.

  Around him three other students lay, their heads still covered with squid.

  Quin helped direct the teacher, Mr. Leepanin, on how to help the other victims. But at his first opportunity, Quin ushered his little brother from the room and into the corridor. The hall was nearly empty now, but sounds of chaos came from further up the hall. If they were going to survive in the school, they needed a better place to hide. Preferably one without any open, out of reach windows to let the monsters in.

  “Quin,” Cailin said, “monster snot ma
de my face itchy.”

  “Lucky you Cay. Do you know what girls think of monster snot?” Quin said.

  “Girls do not like monster snot.”

  “They do not.”

  “You see the upside to everything, Quin.” He scratched his chin, but stopped immediately. “Scratching doesn't make it feel better. Hurts.”

  “Ya, it’s a bit red. But not as bad as my arm.” Quin showed Cailin his blotchy, red, terribly itchy arm. “You'll be safe from girl kisses for now. But not for long I'm afraid.”

  Cailin stuck his tongue out to show what he thought about his future trouble with girl kisses.

  “We have to be quiet now. Squids might hear us.”

  Cailin nodded understanding and put his finger to his lips.

  Cautiously, the pair made their way along the corridor. They passed classroom after classroom. Some filled with voices and others eerily silent. Quin didn't consider hiding in any of them, knowing each would have that one window up high that he would be unable to secure. Instead he was headed to the gymnasium locker rooms which, for obvious reasons, had no windows at all.

  The halls were now empty of students. The brothers reached a major hallway intersection and the doors to the locker rooms were in the hall to the right. Quin peeked around the corner to the right and saw that it was clear. He peeked to the left. It was not clear. Three little blobs were in that hall, two had their tentacles under a classroom door. The third seemed to notice Quin. It didn't turn, but it stopped moving. Quin reached back and grabbed Cailin's hand. Then he ran for it as fast as his legs carried him. Cailin struggled to keep up and when he stumbled, Quin paused just long enough to scoop him up and then he was running again. A few more strides were all it took, and they were crashing through the door to the first locker room. He dropped Cailin and kicked the door shut. They were between two sets of doors. Neither door had a latch. He found a rubber doorstop on the floor and jammed it into the gap between the floor and the door. A small tentacle slipped under the door and grabbed at his hand. Quin jerked back, but it was clear that the doorstop was not going to stay in place without someone holding it there.

  Cailin stomped on the tentacle twice and it retreated from the gap for the time being.

  “Cay, I need you to stay here for a minute. Hold that door shut,” Quin said.

  “Aye, aye, Captain Quin! Nothing will get through that door on my watch.”

  Quin opened the door a crack and peered inside. Immediately something stuck him as wrong. The room was backwards. The lockers, the benches, the shower stalls. Everything. For a moment, Quin's inner prude took over as he realized the reason. He turned around to leave the girls locker room, but quickly remembered what was on the other side of the airlock style doors.

  He turned back around and called out, “Ah…Is anybody in here?”

  There was no response. He continued his investigation. There were four shoulder height rows of lockers, arranged like shelves in a bookstore, but with wide enough aisles to allow for benches. Quin walked along the edge row, peering down each lane until he determined they contained no obvious monsters. He moved down the lane adjacent to the wall on the right. It was lined with plastic padded kickball gear and other sports equipment. He grabbed a hockey stick on his way by and lifted it above his head, ready for bludgeoning. Beyond the rows of lockers were more benches. Quin glanced away automatically when he saw the girls’ locker room showers that lined the left-hand wall and rounded the corner filling most of the far wall. He called out again, just to make sure he wasn't about to cause a scene. When he received no response, he overrode his instincts and examined the wide wall of shower for alien invaders. They were devoid of any sort of aliens or other macroscopic life forms, but he was shocked to find that they were, with the exception of being mirrored images, exactly the same as the boys’ showers. He composed himself and continued past the showers. On the right-hand wall was a short corridor that lead to the gymnasium.

  Quin made his way cautiously towards the gymnasium doors, still holding the hockey stick above his head, still ready for bludgeoning. The hall turned to the right, just before the door. He looked around the corner, found it was clear, and that the door was closed. He got on his knees to look through the gap between the door and the floor, but it was too low and too narrow to see any distance. The door opened inwardly but there was no convenient doorstop laying nearby. And like the doors leading to the hallway, this one had no latch. He could picture the doorstop in the gymnasium, just on the other side of the door. He had tripped over them on more than one occasion, attempting to dodge, or catch, a medium-sized red ball.

  He reached forward and grabbed the handle. He pulled it open only so much as needed to peek out into the broad, deep gymnasium. A girl lay on her back on the floor, unmoving. He recognized her from his year. Jayleen Corahsdaughter. White goop was in her mouth and her nose and eyes. Quin saw no sign of her attacker. Then there was a blur of motion and a squid bounced off the door near Quin's face. He slammed the door and retreated from it. Too late he realized his mistake as the door opened towards him. The hockey stick was on the floor by the door. He wouldn't make it ahead of the squid. He ran back into the locker room and along the wall of sports gear. He slipped on a puddle of water and crashed into the rack of kickball gear before rolling onto the floor. A helmet fell from its position on a shelf and hit him in the chest. The squid pulled its way towards him faster than he imagined those stumpy tentacles could manage. He grabbed the helmet before it could roll away and stood up.

  The diminutive squid leapt towards him. He swung the helmet, swatting the squid to the floor. It recovered quickly, grasping Quin's pant leg, and flinging itself upwards toward his face. Quin slammed the helmet onto his own head and the squid was on him. It slipped and squeezed around his head closing the helmets face guard. Quin thrashed around frantically, trying to loosen the squid from his head. The little light that made it into the helmet reflected off the squid's glistening innards which intensified his experience of the smell crawling up his nose. He couldn't see, but he felt the locker and head butted it with all of his strength. Then he did it twice more before spinning around and feeling for the sports gear rack. He found what felt like another hockey stick and grabbed it with both hands. He slammed it into his face over and over to little effect. He switched tactics. Turning he used the stick to find his path to the end of the row. He dropped the stick and felt with his hands for the corner of the locker. He positioned himself above the sharpest point of the corner and hammered his face into it. Once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth headbutt the squid fell from his face to the floor and his face guard was put to the test as he automatically smashed his head into the locker corner again, unprotected by a squid body. Fortunately, the face plate held. He grabbed the hockey stick from the floor and swung it at the immobile squid, bashing and slashing at it. When he was well satisfied that he had finished it off he paused to take a breath.

  Cailin was calling out to him. He grabbed another helmet and ran to the door. Cailin stood with his foot on the doorstop, holding it is place. “What happened Quin? Was it squids? Or angry girls, mad that you were in their locker room?”

  Quin shook his head.

  “Quin likes girls butts! Ahhahaha!”

  “It wasn't girls, Cay, it was a squid. Here,” Quin said, and handed Cailin the helmet, “put this on and wait, I'll be back.”

  “Ya! Captain Quin is a slayer of the squids.”

  “Shhh, Cay. They might hear us. I'll be right back.”

  He passed back through the locker room and carefully into the gymnasium, which was thankfully clear of the little monsters. Jayleen was still lying on the floor. He pulled the white goop from her mouth and nose, and swiped it from her swollen eyes. He found a pulse on her neck, but it was faint. He tilted her neck back and plugged her nose. He took a moment to bury those feelings that told him that this sort of thing ought to involve permission. He put his mouth over her mouth and forced a breath into her lungs. She
reacted quicker than he expected, and so he received a mouthful of puke before he could retreat. She threw up once more and he joined her, heaving his guts onto the floor. When they finished, Quin picked her up and carried her back to the relative safety of the locker room to rest and reoxygenate.

  Chapter 5

  Greta made her first mistake early on. Along with other new members of The Watch, she was tasked with the simple chore of carrying equipment to the roof from street level. Miserably, she climbed the stairs with a heavy load of ammunition, sweating and huffing her way to the top, never realizing that she'd outpaced the majority of her fellow equipment hauling Watchers. Thanks to her twice or more daily climb to the top of her own building, she was in better shape for such things. The shift sergeant, Sergeant Braigin did not fail to notice. Consequently, she, along with other stair climbing veterans, spent the first third of her first two-hour shift transporting equipment to the roof from street level.

  Next, they learned standard Watcher protocols. The proper syntax to use when sounding verbal alerts, and the proper hand signals to use over longer distances or when speech would not suffice. After that they were given a quick run through on weapons training. Far too quick by Greta's reckoning. Ammunition for the rifles was handed out and just like that, they were patrolling the wall. According to Sergeant Braigin, the best way to learn how to patrol, was to patrol. Most of the last three quarters of an hour slipped by quickly for Greta, patrolling with her rifle and new partner Orian.

  Greta, herself never one to waste words, felt comparatively extroverted next to Orian who preferred scowling to speech. As the prime communicator of the pair, Greta lead them through their tasks. Patrolling their one-hundred-yard segment of the wall was mostly a case of walking between lookout positions, looking out past the railing for monsters of any type, and then walking to the next lookout and doing the same there. They could lean over and take a peek at any point of course, but the lookout points hung out from the edge of the wall, making it simple to look down to each side, without actually leaning over the rail. The long drop to the sea was clearly unnerving for Orian, but she grabbed the rail, set her jaw tightly, and did the watching as was required.