The sun was slipping behind Mega and False Night would soon set in, the midpoint of which marked roughly the end of each of their shifts. But for now, the Beldorath was still brightly lit and beautiful. To the west of the city and leading south, the forested coast stretched on and on. Across the Beldorath to the south, mountain tops could just be seen above the horizon in a blue haze only just darker than the sky. To the north and stretching east, another line of mountains, the Beldoria range, were much clearer to see. The lower slopes of bright green, red, and purple contrasted with the bluish gray and white of those denuded cliffs higher up. There was some chop in the sea, due to the steady late afternoon winds from the west, but from the vantage point of the wall, it appeared as a regular pattern of dark water and white caps. It was a scene Greta did not have at home, even from the high vantage point of her rooftop deck.
Greta was absorbing the view and waiting for that moment of sudden dark as Mega fully eclipsed the sun. For a brief moment, the lighting would be perfect. From this vantage point, with this view, it could be amazing. But Greta had danger on her mind rather than beauty. When False Night arrived, they would all be in peril.
Orian broke the local silence and spoke her first word since agreeing to follow Greta on patrol. “Contact…”
The hair on Greta's neck lifted. They were early. She took one step away from the rail but stopped herself from running immediately away.
“Saraigan…Nine yards,” Orian said.
Not a squid. Greta took a breath to relax. She had never seen a saraigan before, so she stepped back towards the lookout and followed the line of Orian's rifle. A huge fish, nine yards or twenty-seven feet in length, measured using the stone blocks at the base of the city wall. The fish was no danger to them of course, they didn't have legs and their tentacles were useless for climbing walls, but Watcher protocols dictated that Watchers were to report all One Plus behavior. Which meant any creature one yard or more in size, along with any creature of any size that scaled up the wall from the water.
The saraigan's huge, rigid, dorsal fin rotated from side to side as the fish thrashed around in the water, pressing its armored head against the wall. It seemed to be pulling something away from it. Perhaps it was feeding on creatures living on the surface of the wall below water. Greta had assumed that such a large fish would eat other fish, but you learned something new every day.
The light in the sky dimmed as Mega neared the end of its meal. A squid pulled itself from the water, and started up the wall. Not a small murder squid as seen the night before, but one of the full-sized reapers from the initial airborne invasion.
“Contact!” Orian yelled. “Squid, Squid!”
The squid was already two yards from the surface when another saraigan leapt from the water and clamped its bony jaws over it. The impressive creature slapped hard against the wall and then slipped back into the water head-first with the squid in its mouth.
More squid crawled from the water and lopped up the wall. And more saraigans leapt from the water to consume them. But there were more squid than fish, and those that escaped becoming a meal headed right on up the wall. Then Mega finished its meal of the sun, and all was dark.
Greta turned from the wall and took two steps when the darkness began to lift. Gaslights were lit, revealing Sergeant Braigin. She was headed right towards Greta and Orian. Greta stopped sharp.
“We heard you,” Braigin said. “The whole city heard you. Who would have guessed? Watcher Orian's got lungs.” She reached Greta and, placing her hand on Greta's shoulder, turned her around. “Get that weapon ready Watcher. Looks like you might have a need for it. Watchers! To the wall!”
Boots against stone could be heard from all directions as Watchers took heed to the order, and Greta was forced for the time being to remain in position. She gripped the heavily worn white shell body of her ancient rifle and moved to the wall with the other Watchers. She looked back to the shaft that led to the stairs, the only escape route. It was guarded, by a career Watcher corporal.
The corporal saw her looking and gestured with his chin. Your-business-is-at-the-wall, said his chin. There-is-nothing-for-you-here, said the slight shake of his head.
Rifle shots brought Greta's attention back to the wall. Two corporals were leaning from the rail and firing their weapons.
“Watchers, sound off!” Sergeant Braigin said, competing with the rifles for volume.
There was a delay, but then Watchers along the wall began calling out numbers. Very quickly the chain of numbers reached Greta and she called out in turn, though with less enthusiasm, “Eleven.”
“Twelve!” came the call from Orian.
The count carried on up to twenty-one, the last Watcher.
“One to seven with Corporal Eriegh! Fifteen to twenty-one with Corporal Lewd! The rest of you are with me,” Sergeant Braigin said. “Over-the-wall and chamber. Hold your fire until ordered.”
Over-the-wall, the iconic phrase of the Watchers. It meant simply to lean out over the rail, ready to fight. But in the tales of The Watch it was a place. The place. Where all the action happened. Greta wanted none of it.
She chambered her weapon, carefully pulling the charge lever first, then the shell lever. She steadied herself and peered over the wall. Squid were climbing. A dozen or more. Spotlights flashed along the wall, lighting their positions. She thought again about the exit. It was no good. Even if they didn't shoot her in the act, desertion had a high cost. Banishment from the city, loss of all she knew and all she owned. Not that all she knew and owned would be worth anything in the belly of a squid mind-you. She hooked her left leg into the stone gutter and leaned out over the wall, rifle at the ready, aimed at what she hoped was the closest squid. The stones above the base of the wall were painted and numbered to allow coordinated fire.
“Top of sixty-seven,” the sergeant said. “Fire!”
A scattered volley flew in the direction of the closest squid in column sixty-seven. Several rounds hit the creature. The monster's tentacles slipped, and it fell from the wall. There was a cheer from some of the Watchers.
“Re-chamber,” the Sergeant said. “Sixty-eight!”
Greta rotated her ceramic rifle barrel to column sixty-eight, a few degrees to the right of sixty-seven. She looked to the others in her squad and saw that they were reloading. She did the same. The charge lever was a bit stiff, but it cycled. The shell lever however, stuck in the open position. She looked at it closely. There was already a shell in the chamber. She hadn't pulled the trigger.
“Fire!”
Another scattered volley, but this time more rounds hit the target. The squid staggered and slipped from the wall. But one tentacle held on and the monster seemed to recover. Another shot rang out and the squid fell all the way to the base of the wall where it bounced hard before returning to the sea with a splash.
“Re-chamber,” came the voice of Sergeant Braigin from directly behind Greta. “Let me see that weapon,” she said indicating Greta's rifle.
Greta surrendered the weapon.
The Sergeant looked into the chamber. “You have a charge on the head.”
She used her thumb to keep a new shell from pushing halfway into the chamber —the cause of the jam— and she closed the shell lever. Quickly she checked the state of the charge by half cycling its lever, then she pressed into the closed position and aimed at the next target. “Top left, sixty-seven!” she said. “Fire!” She fired the weapon. The Sergeant's shoulder rocked with the recoil and the round found its target, helping to blast it from the wall.
The ringing in Greta's ears went up a notch.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm Watcher Greta,” Sergeant Braigin said, “but you need the double charge below the head. And it's best saved for knife range. Great power. Terrible accuracy.” She grinned.
Greta's return smile barely registered as she received her weapon back.
The Sergeant moved on, down the line, encouraging and assisting even as she directed fire on
to the targets climbing the wall.
Greta reloaded her weapon and aimed it at the next target called. When the order came, she fired, adding to the roar of the volley. The target squid was practically torn from the wall. Greta began to feel some hope. The squid were still coming, but if they could keep up this fire, keep the squid out of the city, they might just win.
They kept firing, volley after volley. When their rifles were dry, they found fully loaded replacements at their feet, placed there by career Watchers with years of practice loading the weapons.
Greta continued to fire. Soon her arms, her neck, her back, all began to ache. The squid kept coming. And in greater numbers.
Somehow though, they continued to hold them back. And it seemed as though the volleys became larger. When she looked around, she saw why. There were new faces over the wall. Their squad of seven was now a squad of eleven. She continued to fire. Eventually she felt a tap on the shoulder.
“I'm your replacement,” said the young man from her building, the one that had taken her place as the first draftee.
Greta dropped the rifle into his arms without hesitation.
He seemed to want to keep talking so she shoved him towards the wall. “Shoot,” she said.
For the first time since the squid began their assault, she looked beyond her tiny section of the wall. As far as she was able to see in either direction, spotlights scanned along the wall revealing unimaginable numbers of squid. Flashes too could be seen strobing along the wall from hundreds or maybe thousands of Watchers firing with their own squad’s volleys.
Others were being replaced along the line, but slowly, one at a time.
A corporal called her over with a wave. “Get downstairs to twelve and get some food in you. There are bunks on eleven if you need some shut eye. If not then I have some cargo that needs to be brought up from street level, the cargo lift's still busted.”
“I feel quite sleepy,” she said in response. It was a lie. She didn't feel the least bit sleepy. She felt like running away. She felt like hiding.
She grabbed some food. Then she found a bunk on eleven. Before she even sat down to eat, she began to feel drained. There was a void left by the adrenal rush of her time over the wall. By the time she had finished eating she had just barely the energy required to fold over and curl up on the bunk. She saw, just before she closed her eyes, that the sky was lightening. False night was over.
Chapter 6
“I'm sooo hungry,” Jayleen said.
“Me too,” Cailin said.
“Me three,” Quin said.
It had been many hours since the semi-successful foray to the school cafeteria. They had gotten some food into their bellies before they were attacked. But they'd failed to gather any for later. Hastily they had retreated to the locker room, peeled off a squid attached to the back of Quin's helmet, and therapeutically beat it to a mushy gooey pulp, all in a sort of adrenaline-fueled team building exercise. Then they took turns trying to sleep. Owing to the obvious stress of the situation, said sleep was, for Quin at least, elusive. Being dressed head to toe in tight fitting girls’ kickball armor did not help the matter, but he wasn't willing to remove it just for a little sleep. It was no surprise to Quin that Cailin slept fine.
The sun had risen many hours before. Quin guessed it was late in the day. It had been hours since the sun’s light began to shine from under the door and since they'd heard a squid test that same door. The doorstop had been reinforced with two crisscrossing benches, which kept it from opening more than an inch. It was not wide enough for the thick-skinned squids to squeeze through, but it was wide enough that they tried. It seemed to Quin that it was time to chance the cafeteria again.
Quin stood up. “I say we take another look. See if we can get some more food.”
His eyes went to Jayleen, knowing already that Cailin would be game. He knew the physical details of what had happened to her. Cailin had pressed her on it in that oblivious, fearless way that he had. But Quin could only try and guess how it was affecting her. And he guessed that she was forcing it all down in order to carry on, just like he would. Just like he was. But Cailin never forced emotions down. Not ever. And he seemed to be doing fine, probably better than either Quin or Jayleen.
“Okay. Let me just grab Squid Slasher,” she said and picked up her hockey stick.
In an attempt to bolster their morale, they had named their weapons. Quin gave the name Crunch to his hockey stick, owing to the sound he hoped for with each swing.
Cailin carried a croc-ball hammer, a game in which you hit small balls with small mallets and tried to bounce them off of stakes in the ground, in the correct order. If you were skilled you could bounce off multiple sticks in a single swing. Cailin named his Pulpy.
“Because,” as he had said, “it makes the squids pulpy. And pulp has something to do with paper. And paper is made from wood sticks.”
Neither was quite true. But Quin had given him a supportive “Ha!” because it was close enough and because that is what big brothers are supposed to do. In public.
Jayleen banged her weapon into her armored chest, in the fashion of old-time arena monster fighters. Quin returned the salute.
Cailin too returned the salute, adding loudly, “Monster fighters—”
“Shhhh!” said the other two.
“Control your enthusiasm little monster fighter. They might hear us, and then you really will have to fight some monsters,” Jayleen said.
Quin nodded agreement.
They waited a few more minutes, to see if Cailin's excitement had attracted any attention. When no head-hunting squids appeared, they removed the crossed bench lock from the doorway and made their way back out into no-man's corridor.
The halls were deserted as before, and they quickly made it to the cafeteria. Quin was determined not to make the same mistake as last time. When they determined it was clear he went straight for the roll of plastic to-go bags and tore a few off. Then, with Cailin's help, he began filling bags with slices of bac-mat. When the bags were full, Quin re-sheathed the sharp blade used to do the slicing, and placed it into one of the straps crossing his chest.
Jayleen gave a stifled scream.
The boys dropped the food and grabbed their weapons.
Jayleen was covering her mouth and pointing to the pressure pot on the stove. Quin approached the pot, which was so large and tall that Quin had to get quite close before he could see inside. The pot was filled to the top with water. At the bottom of the pot sat a pair of squids. Their shrouds bulged to capacity. And bobbing in the water with them were dozens of tiny squidlets. Quin didn't pause to wonder if it was the presence of the baby squids that had caused Jayleen's outburst, or if it was the eyeball that looked out from within the mother squid's shroud, a perfect human eye ball with a golden iris, surrounded by mottled gray flesh.
Slowly, he reached for the pressure pot lid. He lifted it with both arms and, with a quick pause to take a breath, he dropped the lid into position on the pot and rotated it until the two long handles lined up. The pot came alive shimmying on the stove top. He moved to ignite the stove, but Jayleen was already there, hammering on the ignition lever. The gas ignited and the trio stood watching. The lid started to twist, seeming to open of its own volition.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Jayleen said. She grabbed the pair of handles and held the lid in the locked position.
Quin looked for something to use to tie the handles together. He grabbed a cloth apron from a hook on the wall and wrapped the apron's strap around the pot handle, quickly tying a knot to hold the lid in place.
The apron immediately caught fire.
“Flippin' heck,” Quin said. He grabbed the pot handle with his gloved and armored hand, sweeping the drawstring and the flaming apron to the floor. The trio stomped it out.
“Is there something else?” Quin asked.
Jayleen and Cailin began a new search for an appropriate pot lashing cord.
“My belt,” Quin said.<
br />
Jayleen looked at his belt. “I'll hold the pot,” she said.
After a brief struggle with his armor, Quin managed to retrieve his belt and attach it to the handle. Then they sat down with their backs to a wall, put some bac-mat into their bellies, and watched as the pot slowly stopped jiggling.
When the pot reached a boil, steam began earnestly whistling from the top of the pot and they all jumped to silence it. Quin extinguished the flame and pulled the pot from the burner. The whistling slowly quietened. They grabbed their sticks and the bags of food, and headed to the door.
They hurried back to the locker room, but there seemed to have been no need for concern. The halls remained empty and eerily quiet.
“Let’s look around,” Cailin said.
Quin again looked at Jayleen to see what she thought of the idea.
She nodded and shrugged a mute consent.
“Okay. But ah… caution,” Quin said, looking pointedly at Cailin.
“I'll be good Quin.”
They moved slowly along the halls. Peeking into classrooms, looking for any sign of life. In the third lecture room they found death instead. A boy lay on the floor on his back. He was only a year older than Cailin. They all recognized him from the daily street stair commute, but none of them knew his name. His eyes, mouth, nostrils, and ears were filled with white goop. He was cold to the touch and his features, muted by the goop, gave him a ghostly expression of impossibly wide white eyes. His goop-filled mouth opened wide in a silent wail. They covered his face with an abandoned jacket and left.
Quin opened the next door with trepidation, hoping against hope that inside they would find live people, or none. Again, there were no squid, but three bodies lay on the floor. Worse, two of them were well known. Classmates to both Quin and Jayleen. Jon and Lotta. The third was another youngster, Greg.
Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) Page 4