She thought back to the night they first arrived. They couldn't have fallen from the distant mountains. And if not from the mountains, then from where?
The line of Watchers pulled the rope around the second and then the third spindle, which brought the pulley-leveraged lift to roof level. Once it was locked in place, they tied off their end, and moved off to the next menial task.
Later, back on patrol, they had their first contact. There was a huge crab on the wall. A true monster, bigger even than wagon train ox-crabs, though flatter. In short, the sort of creature that motivated the construction of a wall encircling the city in the first place. It seemed to Greta that the monster was too large to cling to the vertical wall. It moved with the usual ten or more long legs but stayed in place between steps, with the flattened bottom of its huge almost teardrop shaped carapace, pressed tight to the wall as though there were a suction cup to hold it there. Greta's patrol had not been the first to see it emerge from the Beldorath, but as with the saraigan, she wanted to have a look at the natural wonder and big brother to the ubiquitous crabs of the world.
They'd rolled in one of the big guns, and locked it in place on the wall, but as yet they hadn't fired. The crab was one of the classic foes of the watch, so they knew when it was time to fire and when it wasn't. Greta wondered if there might be more to it this time. Some new fondness for the monsters of the Beldorath after the assistance they'd received from saraigans the day before. Greta watched the crab's actions closely, caught in the crossfire of the pair of spotlights. It was eating something. But if the something was squid, then it was a newer, even smaller squid than they had yet seen. More likely it was eating the photosynthetic black slime that grew on the lower wall, scooping it up with two strange shovel shaped claws.
“Alright, you've all had a good look. Back to task.” The voice of command was eager, but unpracticed, and so though the Watchers followed the order, they did not suppress their indignation at it.
There was more than the usual grumbling as the work detail returned to sweeping and cleaning the rooftop of the wall. It was clearly a make work project, to keep the newly swelled ranks of the Watch busy, and not the vital work for which they had been pressed into service.
The clamor of voices grew as disgruntled new Watchers vented their anger. The recently promoted corporal made things worse. He shouted back, insisting that the rabble follow his orders and get sweeping. The situation quickly escalated to a shoving match.
Of all this, Greta was only dimly aware. Her attention was held firmly over the wall. She was watching the great big crab pick its way along the lower wall. Then something caught her attention, a column of extended darkness along the wall.
“Seventy-four, Seventy-four!” she called out loudly. When there was no immediate response, she turned to find the light operators only then returning their attention to the wall.
Finally, one of the lights turned to seventy-four. There was nothing there. But one column further, she could just make out movement. “Squid! Squid!” she said.
It was too late. A troop of reapers leapt over the wall, looking somehow thicker, beefier than on the night of their initial invasion. One of them engulfed the first Watcher it encountered, one of Greta's patrol.
More reapers breached the wall and two more of the armed patrol were gone before they could react. Greta fell back from the wall and leveled her rifle as another squid, yards away, moved to take her. She pulled the trigger and sent a round into the squid, hitting the center of a tentacle. She pumped the levers quickly, first the charge, then the round. As soon as the bullet slid home, she pulled the trigger, firing it into the squid. The monster recoiled and hesitated, before again shuffling towards her on still nimble tentacles. She cycled the rifle and fired again, to similar effect. The squid kept coming. Greta stumbled backwards as she cycled the rifle one last time. This time she pumped the charge lever twice before seating the bullet in the chamber. She lifted the barrel. The squid closed the last few feet. She pulled the stock hard into her shoulder and squeezed the trigger. Her right shoulder rocked back hard, and she almost dropped the weapon.
The round hit the small bulge at the top of the squid where the tentacles merged together. The round’s entry point was like that of the previous rounds, with no discernible effect. But a spray of gore erupted from the back of the squid's head. The monster splatted to the ground so suddenly, it was later hard to believe it had ever been a solid creature. It ceased to be in any way firm, becoming like a mass of gelatin in a sausage casing.
For a moment she looked in shock at the mass of flesh before her. Then a feeling of strength filled her, and an expression of grim hatred came over her face.
The other squids had not retreated over the wall, but instead plowed into the work party. The workers tried to scatter, but already the squids were stuffing their shrouds with the unarmed Watchers. Greta cycled the rifle, again with a double charge, and aimed at the closest squid. It was distracted by the easy meals before it. She aimed for the roof of its flattened dome body and pulled the trigger. The squid lurched upwards as she fired, and the round struck just below the dome. All the same, a great gout of gore flew from its opposite side and the squid flopped to the floor. The body of a Watcher slid from the shroud. The woman coughed and wheezed, and tried to drag herself from the fallen beast.
Greta moved on. She chose the closest of the remaining two squids as her new target. She loaded another double charge and fired into the beast’s dome at close range. It collapsed the same as the others. A pair of watchers were ejected from the monster’s tight packed shroud.
The remaining squid seemed finally to notice Greta. It rushed at her. Greta, pumped to capacity with adrenaline, leapt aside. The squid carried on towards the wall. Before Greta had cycled her weapon, the beast passed over the wall and disappeared from view. She finished cycling and moved into position over the wall. The monster plummeted towards the Beldorath. With no time to spare she took quick aim and snapped off a shot. The squid hit the water as her round arrived. There was no indication at all of where her shot hit, the range was long, the sea was dark and choppy.
She scanned the water for any sign of the squid, then almost as an afterthought, scanned the wall for any sign of its friends. But the spotlights were static. Again.
“Light!” she yelled, and waited, straining her eyes to see through the pitch black to either side of the pair of bright columns of light. Then the lights were moving again, covering new ground. Greta watched intently, fearing the worst. When the lights finished their passage though, there were no squid to be seen. More eyes had by then joined her over the wall and she stepped back from it. She dropped her rifle and slid to the ground, back against the wall as the adrenaline abandoned her. She was surrounded by Watchers. Some were pulling the last victim from a squid shroud, others pounded on chests or lent their own breath, administering first aid. Most of the rest were looking at her. They approached her. Pulled her to her feet. Next, they hoisted her onto their shoulders. The chanting began slowly, building in volume as they learned her name.
“Gre-ta. Gre-ta!”
The chanting when on and on until it was interrupted by other shouting.
“Squid! Squid!”
Greta was dropped quickly to her feet. The few armed Watchers spread out over the wall while the rest retreated quickly to arm themselves. The enthusiasm to do battle shown by the other Watchers was well beyond her experience. On faces all around were looks of grim determination, or outright smiles of enthusiasm. They were all fired up. Greta allowed herself to be swept towards the stair along with those others who were intent on rearming themselves. But when she reached the bottom of the first stair, she found the guard missing. So, she left the line for rifles and took the stair down. No guard was positioned there, so she took the next flight. And the next after that, continuing on until finally she found herself at street level. There were no guards at street level either. She kept going. Away from the wall and the squid. She had do
ne more than her share of the fighting. Let someone else be that last rifle in line.
After a quick stop at home to change and gather supplies, she left her block, never to return.
Chapter 8
Quin was sure the big squid still hadn't moved, but it was hard to get a good view of it from the behind the door. Using boards and furniture and anything else that was available they'd paneled over the few windows on the ground floor that were missing their ancient shutters. Quin squinted again, peering through a gap between a board and an old side table, to inspect the crumpled squid not ten feet from the front door.
It had been shot by a sharpshooter, perched up in a patrolling airship, one of the airships that had been dropping supplies and occasionally shooting at squids, all in a bid to assist the besieged inhabitants of Na Char. Quin had seen them pulling survivors from rooftops on a long rope ladder. Some of those survivors had been leapt upon and reaped away by squid, eventually leading to the airships to cease such rescue attempts.
The squid on the ground had lain unmoving, in the direct rays of the sun, since being shot nearly two hours ago. Quin and the others had been in the house for five days and the digester had been scraped clean of its nutritional remnants just over sixty-four hours ago. Quin had a mind to cut off some of that squid and see what the digester could do with it. But despite its long sojourn in the sun, he still worried that the beast was only feigning death.
His stomach growled.
Get-out-there-and-get-that-food-now, it said.
He went to the kitchen to get the cleaver.
“Are we going out there?” Cailin asked.
“I'm going out. It's dead.”
“You're gonna need help.”
“You're right. I will need help. You need to operate the door. Make sure it's open when I try to get in. Make sure it's closed if a squid tries to get in.”
Cailin sighed.
“I'm not joking Cay. I need you on that door. I can't do it without someone on the door.”
“Jayleen can operate the door; I'll help you with the squid.”
“I need Jayleen to cover me with the lance.”
It wasn't a real lance of course. It was an old resin/fiberglass composite curtain rod. With a knife lashed into one split-end. But it was the best weapon they had on hand, and to be fair, the knife was wickedly sharp. With luck it might distract a squid and give him a few moments to escape. With the return of the big reapers, the days of kickball armor squid-resistance were now over.
Reaper was the name used by the SoChar Craesher newspaper to refer to the big squids. The cover of Top News, one of NaChar's own newspapers and a copy of the Craesher were the only things they'd managed to grab from any of the supply drops. One had thundered to the surface a few blocks up the road. Its parachute was tangled, and the supply pod shattered on impact spreading its contents around the impact site. They could see with the binoculars that the pod was filled mostly with food for the digesters with a few rolled up newspapers and other supplies thrown into the mix. One of the papers, propelled by the wind and assisted by gravity, eventually made its way towards their little refuge on the cliff edge. That was the last time Quin had gone outside.
“Did I hear you volunteering me for service again?” Jayleen looked down around a bend in the stairs at him. She was wearing a stern look.
“Yes, please,” he said.
“Alright,” she said, coming down the stairs. She had the makeshift lance and pointed it down the stairs as she descended.
Quin got out of the way. He knew from his experience over the last few days that Jayleen was not to be trifled with when she was hungry. And right now, they were all hungry.
“Don't blame me if I hit you instead of the squid though, I don't do this as my day job.”
“Maaaybe I should hold the lance, Quin,” Cailin said.
Jayleen smiled at him. “No, no, super Cay. It's alright, I won't skewer Quin.” She looked back at Quin. “I might miss though…”
“It might be better to be lanced through the heart than consumed alive by a squid,” Quin said. “Okay, let’s do it.”
They removed all the braces and lifted the side table as carefully as possible. Clunks and scrapes, any clatter at all, could alert other squid to the area. If the squid was dead, that told Quin that there were no others nearby since squid were quick to cannibalize any of their fallen brethren.
With the door clear, Quin put his left hand on the L-shaped door handle and braced himself, squeezing the cleaver tightly in his right hand. Then he opened the door and hurried outside. He stayed in a low crouch, as though he might hide in the shadows despite the brightness of the sun above and the lack of any shade. A few steps were all it took, and he was there.
Lifeless and deflated, the monster took the shape of the terrain it rested on, draped over the steps and the gently sloped rock surface nearby. It smelled vaguely familiar, but thankfully not yet of rot. He wasted little time, choosing a fat tentacle as his cut of choice. He combined the tasks of butchering and checking for life signs into one swing. But the cleaver only bounced from the tentacle. Quin jumped back from the squid. But it hadn't moved. He moved in to inspect his cut. There was a mark, but the cut was not deep. He pawed at the tentacle gingerly, and tried slicing it instead. The tentacle was rough to the touch. And though it looked stubby compared to the squid's body, it was still more than two feet long. As he struggled to make a cut, his squeamishness lessened, and soon he was handling it without concern. Eventually he bent the thick tentacle and cut it the way he would a rubber hose, and the meat came away easily.
He carried the severed tentacle to the door and handed it to Cailin. Quin returned to the carcass to recover more of the meat. It didn't smell like native fauna at all. The meat smelled almost like food. He was sure that was only his hunger talking, but the smell had his mouth literally watering.
He risked two more trips to the squid before deciding he had pushed his luck enough and retreated to the safety of the house. He'd considered dragging the whole squid inside, but it was far too heavy to lift more than one segment at a time.
Inside, once the door was secured, Quin and Jayleen filled the digester. They sliced and chopped the meat so it would be digested more quickly and so they could end their starvation more quickly. They used the smaller of the house's two digesters for the test, which was nearly filled with one tentacle alone.
When they emerged from the kitchen, they found Cailin on the floor, propped against the padded sofa in the living room, and covered with blood.
“Cay!” Jayleen rushed towards him, but stopped short.
“I couldn't wait,” he said. “I was soooo hungry. And it smells so good.”
Jayleen's face twisted from a look of deep concern and loss, to one of extreme disgust. Her whole body recoiled, and she stepped back from him. Quin too was disgusted. “You can't eat that, Cay, it'll make you sick.”
Jayleen was now safely a few feet from Cailin and his messy blood covered face. “Does it taste good?” Her disgust softened.
Quin rounded on her. “Oh no you don't.” He stepped between her and Cailin, and confiscated the tentacle.
“What? I was only asking…” she said, but her tone told him she was already considering tentacle tartare for dinner.
“Cay, you need to spit that out. Like barf it up or something.” Quin said as he took the tentacle into the kitchen and put it on the counter with the other one.
“But I don't feel sick. I feel gooood.” Cailin got up and ran around the living-room as though under the spell of a candy rush. When he stopped running it was only to start dancing.
Quin tried to convince Jayleen that to wait and see what happened with Cailin, but when it became clear that he wasn't about to physically block her from the kitchen, she joined Cailin's side and ate a portion of the tentacle. She seemed to enjoy it as much as Cailin had.
The digester on the other hand had little interest in the alien flesh. The bac-mat did grow, but it took
to it slowly, and it smelled wrong, as if only a small portion of the culture was growing at all.
The pitch black of True Night had arrived, and they'd locked themselves in the cellar, surrounded by rock, when Quin caved to the demands of his stomach. The other two seemed to be out of danger of getting sick, and needing his assistance, so he gave the meat a try. It was firmer and chewier than bac-mat, and tasty. But he was so hungry by then he thought he could have eaten almost anything and liked it.
If the situation on the cliff tops was dicey, the situation in the city below was dire. Every day the trio observed in their binoculars the results of the houses below being infiltrated. The windows of those buildings without shutters —which included most buildings in the city— were easily broken. In some other cases, doors were pulled from their hinges with slow steady pressure during the night and found discarded in the streets in the morning. They saw fewer and fewer signs of life in the streets, the clearest of which was aid packets lying unclaimed in the streets.
Jayleen sent a signal to an airship as it passed nearby in the dark of True Night, using a lamp on the roof. “Eat the squids,” the message read, “Raw.”
The next day a burst of aid packages floated down around the house, two of which landed within a few yards of the front door. The rest of the city received a new type of drop altogether. Leaflets floated down like snow from the airships across the length and breadth of the city. They read:
To the sturdy people of Na Char,
We have learned, from some of our citizens in the clifftops, that the flesh of the squid invaders may be eaten. We have tested this and found it to be true. If you find yourselves without food, then consider squid as an option.
(And they taste rather good.)
Know that you have not been forgotten. All the cities of our world have been rocked by this infestation. But many are now overcoming the worst of it. Help and hope is on the way. Stay strong, stay safe, do not give up.
Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) Page 6