Captain Yaranis
The excitement that followed Jayleen being 'published' buoyed the trio and propelled them onto the new venture of retrieving aid packs. Inside were the expected bundles of nutrient mash for the digesters, more newspapers, ammunition for weapons they didn't have as well as clothing and other items that someone up there thought might be useful. A rifle could be seen sticking from a pod down the block. Quin thought that maybe, if he had a rifle, he might just risk making his way out there to get the rifle. But he didn't, and they would just have to do without. In addition to the necessities in each pod, there was another item of particular note to the bored young survivors. A board game. There were two in total, one from each pod. Cailin ripped the boxes open to inspect the pieces, but it was eventually left to Quin to read the instructions. Both games were a welcome change of pace. Moku & Koku was played exclusively after the Crab-Market incident. They had reached peak cabin fever while playing the game 'Crab-Market'. When Quin captured both Jayleen and Cailin's crab-markets in one move, the resulting uproar left the game in many more pieces than it had started.
Afterwards they adopted quiet time as their go-to conflict resolution strategy. It worked well for both Quin and Jayleen, but since it was impossible for Cailin to stay quiet for long periods of time, the older two were forced to weather his good-natured but at times infuriating chatter.
During daylight hours, Quin read the newspaper to pass the time. The eleventh day in the house, one day shy of a full month, was in that way no different. Quin was rereading the paper. By now he knew it well and had just finished rereading the main story. The announcement that New York was now winning their battle against the squid. The coastal cities of the northern coast had won almost without effort. Though of course it would be impolite to say so to the friends and family of those lost in the initial assault.
The loud clonk of an object impacting with the house echoed down the stairs from the top floor observation room. Quin, who was sitting in the living room, went up the stairs to look around the corner.
“It's a pod,” Jayleen said to him down the stairs. She was still sitting in the observation seat. “I haven't seen any squids out there. But it landed all the way around at the side of the house…”
It was close enough to tempt him. “The digester's getting low,” he said. The tentacle meat had run out long ago, and the body of the squid had been cannibalized the next night. “Any clouds?”
“None, it's a beautiful day.”
“I should be safe enough…”
She only nodded.
Sunny day. No squid to be seen. It was almost certain that his worries were for nothing. He put on his helmet, stepped to the door and almost did something stupid. He almost went outside without taking his own precautions. Precautions that he had developed and insisted on until now. At the last moment he stopped, imagining not his death or injury, but being mocked and numbered with those too foolish to live.
“Wait,” Jayleen shouted from the observation room, she scrambled down the steps to stop him. “The dome! There's a squid on the dome.”
Quin’s cheeks turned bright red in embarrassment, and sweat began to form on his temples and forehead.
“It's just sitting there like a hat,” she said. “In the full sun.”
Quin followed her up the stairs and she showed him in the mirror, fastened to a stick that they made precisely for this purpose. The squid wasn't moving, but it didn't look dead either.
“What's that?” Cailin said. He had come, Quin was certain, to make sure he wasn't left out of any action. He pointed out past the mirror onto the sloping plain that lead to the city.
In the far distance the plain was darkened in large swaths. Quin stepped up to the binos and braced himself. Cailin leapt onto his back and the two of them peered through to the shapes on the plain.
“Holy sticky crab stones!” Cailin said. “We're saved.”
“Language Cailin—” Jayleen said, both shock and amusement in her voice. “—saved?”
“It's the army!” he said.
Five large formations moved slowly up the broad, gentle slope. It was impossible to see the soldiers’ faces, covered from foot to hair with widely varied armors as they were. Each was bulkily loaded with gear, further altering their shape. It was the army. Mixed within their ranks, mostly in the rear, were war wagons, hauled by massive ox-crabs. The wagons had small enclosures with firing ports on each end. In the center they were filled with baggage and supplies. The ox-crabs were larger and more rugged looking than he was used to seeing and they had more spiky edges on their carapaces, longer and larger than was typical. Quin wondered briefly if the army had their own special breed of working crabs. They looked like they would be a tough meal for a squid. An impossible meal more likely, though he was reluctant to underestimate the squid's murderous adaptability.
Quin continued to watch the soldiers approaching. But Cailin and Jayleen were hugging and dancing like joyous idiots. He forced himself to smile when they grabbed and dragged him from the binos, encircling him into a hug ring. He knew he should be happy. But his guts were churning now more than ever. Now that he could see a way in which they might get out of this alive, it felt like they had something to lose. They were already slipping up, forgetting to check for a dangerous squid only feet away, above their heads.
The hug ring settled down from a dancing hug to a hug hug. Quin started to feel awkward, and was plotting a way to politely break free when Cailin saved him.
“What is that?” Cailin said. He broke from the hug and pointed at the sky. Something was falling from the sky towards the sloping plains outside the city and the army formations there. Quin had to crouch low to see through the window at the high angle Cailin was pointing.
A bright object was burning its way through the sky. Then another object joined it and then another and another and another. Five bright points burned planetward through the sky. The hair lifted on the back of Quin's neck, and he forgot all about the sunbathing squid on the roof.
It was no trick of the light, the objects burned for several minutes. When eventually they stopped burning, they could still be tracked easily by the lines of smoke that trailed them through the sky. As the first one approached the ground, jets of fire erupted down from the craft. Quin knew then that it must be a craft, and not merely part of a dense meteor shower, just as he knew that the squid invasion really did arrive from … up there. In space.
The craft landed in a cloud of dust, between the city and the army. Only seconds later, its partners joined it. The distant sound of its firing rockets reached his ears.
“Something is coming out of it…” Jayleen said. She was looking through the binoculars.
Quin had been so stunned that he had completely forgotten about the binoculars. He tapped her on the shoulder. She moved over enough to just one eye piece so that he too could see. And he did see. There was as she'd said, something or somethings ejected from the blocky but tear-shaped landing craft. Dust still clouded the area of the craft, but the somethings stepped forward through the dust cloud layer. The dust and a shimmer of heat kept him from seeing clearly, but he had the distinct impression that they were upright and bipedal. They looked thin, but he couldn't be sure that wasn't just an effect of the heat shimmer. Another something, a bigger something, moved in the cloud. Then it too burst forth. A huge creature. No, a machine. A robot, easily twice the height and many, many times the size of the humanoid aliens. It too was bipedal, and it looked tough. Heavily armored and armed.
Behind the invaders, on the plain, the army formations expanded, spreading out wide. Quin felt ill at their nakedness on the plain with no cover or concealment. By coming here, putting their lives on the line for their neighbors, they were showing their best selves. And now they were going to die for it.
The deafening sound of more rockets firing drew Quin's attention from the plains in the distance. The trio rushed to look out the windows on the other side of the tower, lifting the
shutters wide enough to see the landing of more craft. This time they were landing on the trio's own clifftops. More jets fired, these even closer. A streamlined gray craft landed not much more than a hundred yards away in the backyard of another old house. Immediately upon landing, a dozen objects were ejected from all sides. They tumbled away from the pod and unfolded into a bipedal shape, each with a short rifle in hand. They were nearly the size of humans, but shorter and quite thin; there would be no room for a human inside one of those armored suits. A large door blew from its hinges and a huge robot burst from the craft. Striding forcefully forward from the craft as though nothing in this world could challenge its dominance.
It seemed to Quin that this confidence was well-deserved.
The armored aliens surged towards it, falling into formation, six per side, rifles at the ready.
The squid on the roof suddenly drew Quin's attention. It slid past the view ports and scrambled down to and along the ground towards its masters’ formation.
Chapter 9
The squid clambered quickly along the ground towards the large robot's formation. Others too seemed to climb from every crack and crevice along the street and moved to take up position with the line of aliens. But the new aliens seemed less inclined to make friends. The six smaller humanoids on the right-hand side turned towards the leading squid and fired a volley from their rifles. Beams of light flickered from the weapons scoring hits on the shroud of the beast. But the hits had little effect and the squid continued to move forward. The large robot turned its attention to the squid and fired. A much larger beam flickered across the squid, cooking its way through the creature.
“Wooooo! Alright!” Cailin was jumping up and down, and thrusting his fists into the air.
Jayleen's mouth hung open in disbelief.
But more squid were coming. The big bot took out another two before the monsters closed the distance. The alien soldiers fired ineffectively into the mob of squids slowing a few. The rest of the squids carried on to the line. The first to arrive leapt bodily upon one of the soldiers, swallowing it whole in one go.
“What? Nooo…” Cailin said, ebbing.
There was another volley of fire from the robot and soldiers, removing another pair of squids from the streets. Then two more soldiers were swallowed whole. Then another. Then another. Soon all but two were consumed. Soon after that, all the soldiers were gone.
A squid, full from its meal, flapped away from the battle and closer to Quin's house. A spike grew from its flat domed head. The squid jerked and spasmed. The spike slid down along a tentacle at the edge of the shroud. Quin saw, as the armored fist thrust through from the inside of the squid, that the spike in its hand was actually a blade, half as long again as a large kitchen knife. It continued to slice downwards, jaggedly enlarging the hole in the side of the now thrashing squid. The squid's death throes were a short violent affair but when that was through, the creature flopped to the ground like a sack of bac-mat.
Cailin, in flow again, was dancing and cheering more than ever.
A series of similar struggles followed, within the shrouds of those other squid unlucky enough to choose the armored soldiers as meals. One by one the quick meals cut their way free, killing or maiming the squids in the process.
Quin watched, taking it all in. He wanted the newcomers to be the good guys Cailin assumed them to be. But he couldn't be sure they weren't just fighting to claim the planet for themselves.
The battle didn't last long. Squid, it seemed, were poor learners. Or at least they didn't seem to learn from the mistakes of others. The squid that came out to fight were quickly dispatched leaving the new invaders uncontested for the time being. One of the small alien formations was close to the house. For a moment they seemed at a loss for something to do, with the humanoid soldiers looking around for something to fight. In the lull, Quin got his first good look at the alien robot. It was at least twelve feet tall. It had thick legs and wide feet. Its arms were little more than articulated energy cannons of some sort. All of it was brought together by a broad chunky torso, topped with a transparent canopy. Sunlight though, glinting from said canopy kept Quin from seeing any detail, even with the help of their bino's magnification.
Quin heard a low 'click clunk' sound and the robots canopy shifted. A moment later it split down the middle, front to back and the two sides swung wide. There was movement up from inside the narrow opening of the canopy.
“Gods, Quin,” Cailin said, as loud as ever, “it's a man from the movies.”
Jayleen shook her head in disbelief. Her mouth hung wide.
Cailin's voice caught the man's attention and he turned his head towards them. His skin was dark, dark brown. Black they would say on Earth. And if he wasn't from Earth, then Quin had to wonder just where on Grailliyn he was from. The man was too far away for a proper conversation, but he lifted his arm to wave a greeting. Along with his wave he gave a friendly smile. Something brought his attention back to his robot. “This is Commander Carrack,” he said. “Charlie take the stair. Alpha and Bravo to follow.” He dropped back into his robot, the canopy closed tight again, and stepped off in the direction of the street stair. Quin wondered what would be left of the ancient stairway after that behemoth had clomped its way down.
Part Two
Into the black
Chapter 10
Snow made her way down the corridor, tapping a drum solo on the walls and rails as she passed, utilizing the forearm she held in her right hand to emphasize her high power cymbal smash, though there was no impact and the sound of the cymbal's crash came from her lips alone. She stopped drumming just before passing through the hatch into the medical bay, a newly recovered section of the ship. The ice had been melted and pumped out. The hull leaks were repaired, and air had been pumped in. Then damaged systems had to be replaced. It was a lot of work for one person.
Thankfully, Snow had help. At first there were Freenan and Bob. Then Ravaea finally emerged from Icarus, bringing her wealth of knowledge and skills, and greatly increasing productivity. Even Doozer helped out, lifting and carrying and chitter-purring encouragement. But things only really started to roll once they began waking colonists.
Though the medical bay was narrow, it was long enough to hold a dozen or so pods. Currently it held only eight. Privacy screens were available, but only the last pod was so covered. Snow made her way to a pod in the middle of the room.
“You've arrived just in time. It'll finish cycling any moment now,” said Gustov, the third earthling colonist to be discovered and awoken from his pod. After a quick spin through the toaster, he'd been hard at work along with the rest of them.
A popping sound informed them both that the pods seal had broken. The lid lifted up slightly from the closed position. Snow lifted it the rest of the way.
The man in the pod was covered from neck to toe in a white plastic suit. He filled the length of the pod nearly to its limit. The suit, like the one she still wore under her clothing, was so thin and fit so closely that it left almost nothing to the imagination. Snow's eyes lingered below his waistline for longer than was polite. She smirked and grabbed a cloth, laying it over the area to limit further distraction. He had two legs, two arms, ten fingers and ten toes, though one arm and all five of its fingers were distinctly different than the others. Just below his right elbow was the plastic and metal composite arm of an android.
She poked him in the belly with the skeletal forearm she was holding. He opened his eyes and blinked away from the dim light in the room.
“Wake up sleepy head. Time enough for sleep in the grave,” she said in a deep scary voice.
He slowly turned his head to look at her. He smiled, still squinting, and took a moment to just breathe. Then, with both hands on the sides of the pod he pulled himself up to a sitting position. He quickly noticed the new right hand and its attached forearm. He tapped the arm against the inside of the pod, then stopped abruptly to look at the fingers, flexing each one in turn. He ran t
hem along the edge of the pod, as though he was able to feel the sensation through the soft plastic tips of the stark white hand and arm, lined with green racing stripes. “Wow,” he said with a croak.
She poked him with the skeletal arm again, this time in the chest. “C’mon. jump up and run outside into the snow. Then I can drag you back to safety and save your life. I mean I guess I already did, but you know…”
He looked from his new plastic arm to the skeletal one in Snow’s hand. “Are you— Are you poking me with my own arm?” Max asked.
“It's mine now sucka. You shouldn't have left it lying around if you wanted it so bad. It's my lucky charm.”
He blinked a few more times and raised his android arm up to cover his eyes. “What's so lucky about a severed arm?”
“Are you kidding? This is the bit of you that managed to stay on the ship. Lucky.”
“You…macerated it?”
“It was that, or chuck it in the digester”
Max only shook his head.
“I was going to mummify it … but I thought that might be weird.”
“You were not wrong. That would have been weird.” He lifted out his legs, one at a time, and sat sideways in the pod before stepping down to stand beside it, sending the piece of cloth floating to the floor. “So, what did happen to my arm—”
“My arm.”
“How did you end up with it? How did I end up without—” he stopped short, as though his mind had suddenly woken and caught up. “What do you mean my arm stayed on the ship?”
She was more somber as she walked him through recent events. The short jump of the DWJ1 which took most of Max with it, leaving his arm in the jump room. The arrival of the alien starship and its spewing out of the tentacled, squid-like, black blobs. And her remembrance of Earth and The Message. For many days they had no information on what was happening back on Grailliyn. Then they launched a small satellite which arrived in low Grailliyn orbit and began to return images of the planet. The images it returned were not encouraging.
Starship Invasion (Lost Colony Uprising Book 2) Page 7