by SD Tanner
“Land next to the loading bay.”
Following his orders, the ten Scorpions parked one next to the other. Dropping from a hatch at the base of the ship, he ducked his head until he cleared the undercarriage. They were all dressed in battle armor, carrying Needle handguns and Bomhammer assault rifles. Spare ammunition was slung across their backs. The Needle handguns were small railguns using an electromagnetic charge to fire a soft metal slug. They were nicknamed Needles due to the shape of the slug, sharp as a needle at one end and fatter at the base. The slugs were designed to penetrate and expand on impact. The Bomhammers were a combination particle beam pulse rifle and grenade launcher.
He could wait for the BattleRigs to arrive, but he sensed Tiana wanted to go inside. On the surface, it didn’t look like there was a problem, but they hadn’t raised anyone on the communications grid so something wasn’t right.
Samson was standing next to him, appraising the flat highly reflective surface. “How do you want to handle this?”
He shrugged. “Hard to say. We don’t know what the problem is or even if there is one.”
“There is a problem,” Tiana said forcefully. “They are not answering us.”
“Let’s go in through the secondary hatch.”
Reaching the open door, he stared through the wall, seeing nothing other than the loading bay behind it. With the fleet in space, the usually busy thousand acres was silent and motionless. Aside from fifty Scorpions still under construction, the bay looked empty. The nanobytes would be silently working inside of the ships, but he couldn’t see anyone. They’d left two hundred older Navigators on Tracha and they had to be somewhere.
Opening a channel to the lead BattleRig, he spoke into his headset. “We’re going to recon the city. Stay on the grid.”
The ships personnel would watch them through the cameras on their battle gear, but still being half a day from the planet there was little they could do to help them.
Turning to Samson, he said, “When we get into the city you take the north area.”
Forming into two teams of fifteen, he walked to one of the shaft elevators expecting it to open. When it didn’t, he turned to look at Tiana. She was already tapping a panel on the wall next to it. “Power is down.”
With its silver surface, the one thing Tracha never ran out of was power. The shiny skin absorbed heat from the three suns surrounding the planet, providing a never-ending source of energy. “Why would that happen?”
She turned to look at him, frowning with worry. “I do not know. The siphons are perpetual and they can only be closed manually.” Shaking her head, she added, “I do not think that has ever been done.”
For this reconnaissance mission, he’d only brought his most experienced Bombardiers. If Tracha had no power then the city would have no light, heat or oxygen. It was possible for a Bombardier to survive under those conditions, but the Navigators were still human. Not all Trachan’s were the same, so some could survive for a while at least.
“You need to stay topside. I’ll leave two Bombardiers with you.” Turning to two of his troopers, he nodded at them. “If there’s even a hint of trouble get her in a Scorpion and head back to the nearest BattleRig.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tiana didn’t look happy, but she couldn’t go underground with them. Only a Bombardier could see in the dark and survive freezing temperatures with limited oxygen.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
Dinner Bell
(Ark Three)
The main city of Tracha was two miles underground, so just reaching it was a trek. Without power, the shaft elevators were out of order, which meant they were sliding down narrow tubes. Spiraling for the two miles with his feet jammed on either side of the tunnel was making him feel seasick. It was a good thing he hadn’t brought any of the Navigators with him. Maintaining speed while not falling down the screwdriver shaped tunnels was tiring even him. Through his headsets, he could hear the Bombardiers complaining.
“I’m gonna chuck.”
Hoping to distract himself from his own growing nausea, he swallowed bile back into his throat. “Got nothing to throw up.”
It was true that he hadn’t eaten for at least a day. Their organs had shrunk to only the size needed to maintain their brains. They often joked that some of them were so stupid they didn’t need any organs at all. Of course, that wasn’t true. Bombardiers were the best of the Navigators, so all of them were intelligent. After seeming to spin endlessly, the platform supporting the underground city appeared. The Trachan’s had named their hidden home something no one could pronounce, so it was simply known as the City.
Now housing his thirty thousand Navigators and Bombardiers, two thousand Trachans lived with them. In reality, it was only a huge hole some two miles across. The dense rocks and soil surrounding it were held back by thick metal walls. Nanobytes monitored these walls, shoring them up so they never collapsed. Standing on what was the emergency platform at the bottom of the tube, he scanned the city. Had he still been human all he would have seen was pitch black. Instead, with his Bombardier vision, he could see through the walls of the tunnel to the outline of buildings and roads. The artificial river was still. Mechanical sea life and animals were lying idle. There was no sign of movement anywhere.
“Did they leave?” Samson asked.
He shook his head. “They couldn’t have, otherwise the Scorpions in the loading bay would be gone.”
“Why would they shut down the power?”
“I don’t know, but it means none of the doors will work.”
The city was kept alive thanks to the industrious nanobytes and an over-supply of power. Without it, the nanobytes would shut down, leaving the walls at risk of collapsing. If they didn’t get the power working soon then the city could fall in on itself, burying anyone left alive.
In front of him was a double door that should have opened automatically, but the Bombardiers were already clawing at the gap between the doors. Once they had their gloved fingers in the gap, they pulled them apart. Beyond the doors were several small transports they mostly used for moving goods. The city wasn’t large and most people travelled by foot. Before his grandfather, Ark, had arrived with the first of the Bombardiers and Navigators, all that had been left of Tracha was this city. Now there were several satellite cities directly under the silver surface, but they had only been added to build ships and weapons.
Walking out of the emergency shaft, he was struck by the smell. Usually air was circulated from the surface, but it had grown stale. His visor was telling him there was enough oxygen to survive, so people could still be alive despite the power outage. A main road cut across the city with the artificial river on one side and buildings on the other. They were low with no more than four levels. In the center where they were standing were the official buildings. To the north of these seven squat structures were small houses.
“Where are you headed?” Samson asked.
With such a small population, Tracha didn’t have much of a government. An ornate two-story building with engraved white walls acted as their meeting area for any official business. If the Trachans had decided to congregate anywhere then that was where they would be.
He pointed beyond the buildings at the surrounding houses. “Head north and start checking out the houses. We’ll go to the central building.”
“Roger that.” Waving his hand to his team, Samson said, “Move out.”
For reasons he couldn’t explain, he felt the need to be quiet. Maybe it was the silence of the city or perhaps he was feeling edgy, he couldn’t really say. “Squad on silent running.”
His team fell into a line behind him as they walked along the street. Each was holding their weapons ready, but he wasn’t sure there was anything to shoot. The darkness was frustrating him. Without light, he could see the outlines of everything, but none of the detail. For all he knew the ground beneath his feet could be red with blood. Finally reaching the entrance to the central building, he walked up
the short flight of stairs to the double doors. Like everything else, they relied on power to work.
Four Bombardiers stepped up to the doors, shouldering their weapons as they did. Just as they had opened the doors in the emergency bay, they pried these ones apart. Once they were spread open by four feet, he was about to walk inside when the wall of darkness in front of him moved. Writhing sensually, it was uncoiling from multiple areas across the wall, but his vision didn’t give him enough detail to know what it was.
Raising his Bomhammer, he aimed for the thing moving closest to him. “Pull back!”
Stepping backwards, he intended to follow his squad, only something shot out from the wall. Faster than he could pull away, the long and thick limb had whipped around his waist. As a Bombardier, he was seven foot tall and almost two foot wider than the average human male. Even before he put on his fifty-pound battle armor, he already weighed three hundred pounds. At that moment, he weighed three hundred and fifty pounds, and yet he was pulled from his feet so that the tops of his boots skidded across the floor. Careering head first towards the wall he fired his gun, completely unsure what he was shooting at.
Through his headset, he could hear his squad shouting. “Hold your fire. Hold your fire.”
It was both good and bad advice. He wanted whatever it was that had grabbed him to let go, but at the same time, he didn’t want to be shot by his own troops. Something whipped past his head.
“I’m down! I’m down!”
Whatever this was, it had snatched another of his squad. “Stay icy. We’re armored.”
Wearing heavy battle armor should have helped, only he found himself being pulled inside of whatever was clinging to the wall. His armor could withstand the impact of a grenade exploding ten feet away, so he wasn’t worried about anything getting through it. There was movement around him, only it was like an undulating palpitation. Whatever this was, it appeared to be breathing. Feeling something bulging against his back and legs, he tried to move. Instead of standing on his feet, he was being held up by whatever was pulsing and oozing around him. When he stretched out his hand, the substance eased away and then filled the gaps between his fingers. To allow for maximum movement, the space between each finger on his glove had the least armor. It was there that he first felt the heat. Drawing his hand into a fist, he squeezed the substance away from the gaps.
The voices of his squad sounded inside of his helmet.
“What’s going on?”
“I can’t move.”
“Are we dinner?”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Stretching out his hand, the substance oozed between his gloves, making the gaps between his fingers burn again. The substance was corrosive, and the only thing keeping them from being absorbed was the battle gear, but even that had its limits. Eventually the hardened material would break down.
“Samson, can you hear me?”
“We’re on our way to you now.”
“Don’t come in here.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s trying to...” Hunting for a sane way to describe what was happening, he finished his sentence with words that sounded ridiculous. “Eat us.”
Another Bombardier’s voice sounded in his helmet. “Say what? We’re being eaten?”
His question was followed by a chorus of disgusted groans. “Cut it out! We need to get out of this.”
Lifting his leg, he had to fight against the weight pressing in on him. Every movement intensified the pressure on his gear. “Everybody stop moving.”
His order was followed by a howl of pain. “Shit! Shit!”
Fighting his own feelings of claustrophobia, he said sternly, “Calm down. What’s the problem?”
“My arm…I’ve lost my arm.”
“What happened?”
“I…I fired my gun, but the bullet didn’t go anywhere. Blew my hand off and now the stuff is inside my gear.”
“Is it burning?”
“Like a bitch.”
“Is it corrosive?”
A Bombardier’s exoskeleton had few nerve endings to feel anything much, but their internal organs worked much the same way as they always had. If the substance had penetrated not only his battle gear, but also his exoskeleton, then he didn’t give him much hope of surviving.
“Alright, people, get your fingers off the trigger. We can’t shoot our way out of this. Two-One-Seven, I’m going to move towards you. We’ll get you out.” When the injured Bombardier didn’t reply, he asked, “Two-One-Seven, do you copy?”
There was no reply, so he slowly moved his arm, reaching out his fingers for anything in front of him.
Samson’s voice cut across the seemingly stunned silence. “Ark, what do you want me to do?”
He honestly didn’t know. The wall had simply moved, giving him no hint as to what it was. “Can you see a head or eyes or anything on this thing?”
“No, I can only detect it’s there when it moves. I’d need to get closer.”
“Don’t do that. It’s grabby.”
“What if we try burning it?”
Blasting it with flame might not hurt it, but could aggravate it enough to alleviate the growing pressure on his suit. “Get the gear.”
“Roger that.”
While he’d been speaking to Samson, he’d slowly brought his hand to his belt. Easing his hand around the hilt on his knife, he pulled it out. He wasn’t sure, but the substance seemed to ooze away under the sharpness of the blade. Feeling less pressure against his hand, he pushed the blade forward again. The substance undulated away as if it didn’t like being cut.
“Use your blades.”
“How?”
“It doesn’t seem to like it.”
Wishing he had two knives, he continued pushing the blade in front of him, driving his body forward as the substance oozed away. His injured Bombardier was somewhere near him, but even with his superior vision he couldn’t see anyone.
“Two-One-Seven, can you hear me?”
He had no context for where he was inside of the thing on the wall. For all he knew, he was moving deeper inside of it and not back the way he’d entered. Deciding the only way was forward, he slowly swept his blade ahead of him, each time feeling the substance easing away. The knife was only reducing the pressure above his waist, so his body was now lying flat with his legs behind him. He was using the substance to slide on his belly, hopefully towards a way out.
One of his squad complained, “I don’t know which way I’m going,”
“Just keep moving. Eventually you’ve got to reach an end.”
“You hope. For all we know this thing is a mile wide.”
Samson answered the complaining Bombardier. “That’s not even possible. We were north of the city and saw nothing and no one.”
“Tell me you found a flamethrower.”
“Nope, but we’ve found lighters and flammable material.”
“Light it up.”
Samson could be heard ordering his squad to roll the fabric into balls. If they set the building on fire, normally the sprinkler systems would have kicked in. Without power, he suspected the fire would burn uncontrollably until the site ran out of oxygen. They were wearing battle gear so they could survive without air for a while at least, but if there were any survivors left then they would die.
“Samson, belay that order.”
“Why?”
“We can’t put out a fire without power and there might be survivors.”
As he spoke, his gloved hand hit something hard in front of him. It felt like the wall the creature was hanging on. Slowly easing his gun into firing position, he pushed the barrel against it.
“Fire in the hole!”
Firing multiple pulses, the blasts from his Bomhammer punched through the wall, creating a four foot-wide hole. Something grabbed at his hand, pulling at him sharply. Feeling as if he was being born again, his body slithered out from the substance, landing with a heavy
thump onto the floor. Looking up, there were several hundred people inside of the room. Unable to talk to them without removing his helmet, he simply nodded.
“We have survivors behind the wall. I need a status.” His squad slowly reported in, letting him know they were moving through the substance. “Has anyone got a fix on Two-One-Seven?”
No one had and he suspected he was dead. Finally finding his feet, he stood and flicked up his faceplate. “What’s your status?”
“There are three of these things. One was topside in the satellite city, but we don’t know what happened to it. There are two down here.”
“Where’s the other one?”
“It was last seen in the rec area.”
“How many survivors are there?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t know, but we lost a lot when they first attacked. They came down the shaft in their thousands and then reformed into what you see now.”
“What were they?”
“Critters.”
He’d been so busy worrying about his fight with Dunk Two that he’d completely forgotten about their common enemy. When they’d left Tracha, it hadn’t even occurred to him they might be vulnerable to a critter attack.
“Does anything hurt it?”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t appear to have a head or a body. It’s just a mass.”
“Then we’ll just have to shoot the shit out of it. Alpha One, I need a status.”
His squad reported in again. All of them, except Two-One-Seven, had cut their way out, but they were on Samson’s side of the wall. Turning to the group of two hundred people crammed into the room, he waved his hand at the far wall. “Get back.” While they crushed themselves together, he ordered, “Open fire.”
Using his own gun, he turned, firing at the mass in front of him. His beams thudded into the substance, losing momentum. Switching to the underslung grenade launcher, he fired one into the space he’d been pulled through. It too was absorbed into the mass, but when the grenade exploded, pieces of the substance flew from the hole. As the fragments shot across the room, a long thick trunk fired out from the heaving mass. It zipped past his boot, reaching for the people behind him. Slamming his heavy boot down, it flattened the tendril, making the escaping end curl back towards him. Unsure how to break it he grabbed the free end, pulling it towards him. The limb was spongy to hold, collapsing under his gloved fist. Clutching another piece, he tried tearing it apart, but it stretched without breaking. Frustrated, he took his boot from the body of the trunk, hurling the free end back into the main mass. The substance absorbed it, merging until it was no longer visible. Disgusted, he launched another grenade, grunting with satisfaction when chunks of the substance flew from the mass.