Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  “What was that?” I whispered as I could not believe my eyes. Some purplish-blue string or something had grabbed that body. “Maybe it was an optical illusion?” I wondered at the time.

  Brighter bluish-purple light grew in intensity under the water.

  Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam!

  The battery kept firing, but the barrels could not lower enough to effectively shoot down into the water where the glow was located. Someone leaped up and out of the cabin, stumbled as the boat rocked, but then began firing an energy weapon straight down into the water. The sailor was fairly nimble as the boat was at a canted angle, being that one of its foils had been ripped off.

  Zing! Zing!

  A yellow lance of energy burned into the water, steam rolling up around it.

  The purplish glow shut off like a light switch being pressed. Then a whine of an engine on the boat started. Apparently, the motor had cut out when it was damaged. The remaining hydrofoils retracted and the boat settled into the water and the hull sank down a bit. The sailor with the energy weapon kept firing down into the water, but I could not see what the target was. The engine coughed and sputtered, and then engaged. The boat began to move, but much slower than before.

  Something came up from the opposite side of the boat. A long, purplish-blue slithering thing.

  “Look out!” I screamed. Several of my friends also called out warnings, but our voices were not amplified, and we did not yell the same words.

  The sailor looked in our direction, which was a fatal mistake. I wish I have never yelled. Oh, how I wish I had not yelled out. Maybe my calling made no difference, but to this day, I think it did.

  That purplish-blue thing wrapped around that sailor, and suddenly, the body was squeezed. It popped apart like a crushed banana. The legs stood for a moment on the deck of that boat, while the shoulders, chest and head dropped into the waters. Bright red splattered all over, and I clutched my stomach as bile regurgitated up into my mouth.

  The engine noise increased, and the boat jetted right toward the shoreline. Another canister was hurled up from its stern, and exploded almost upon contact with the water.

  Kabloosh!

  That explosion lifted the back of the boat and caused a surge of water to fling the boat right toward the shore. That boat flew out of the water, and tumbled directly onto the beach. That was when I saw that while I had run to one side of the dead whales, several of my friend had gone to the other side. That was where the boat crashed into the shore, and as it hit the rocky coast, the boat exploded.

  Boom! The weapon battery detonated and showered the beach with shrapnel.

  Voomp! The stern part of the boat exploded in another detonation, this one was bigger than the first. Sharp shards of fractured steel and chunks of permalloy blasted out across the beach. And yet the cabin of the boat remained relatively intact, but rolled end over end across the beach.

  I was thrown onto my back, the wind knocked out of me. I tried to get up, but was groggy, dizzy, and my ears were ringing. I tried to yell, but could barely hear my own voice.

  Someone’s leg was poking at me as I turned over. “Hey? Are you hurt?” I asked. There was no one connected to that leg. I threw up. Over and over and over I retched out everything I had ever eaten in my entire life. Then I stumbled to me feet, my ears still resounding. I looked around. I wondered if I had been knocked unconscious, my ears were ringing, things were dark, and I was disoriented. I pulled out a small flashlight from my belt and turned it on. I strapped it next to my wristwatch. Its beam showed me things I cannot never forget.

  “Tudeng?” I yelled as I saw her pulling herself up from the hole where the orca bodies had been placed. The wrecked yellow automacube was on its side next to her.

  I rushed up and helped her to her feet. My ears and head were ringing. Tudeng was bleeding from a cut on her forehead, and her clothing was torn in various places. “Back there.” She gestured behind her.

  “Oh no!” I screamed as I saw what else was in the hole. “No, no, no!”

  By the illumination of my small flashlight, I jumped down into the hole, and rushed over, hoping it was not as horrific as it looked. Pilliroog was lying across Bartlet, but neither was moving. Singe marks were all over his back, and a huge piece of metal was embedded in his shoulder. His arm was ripped, twisted, and broken.

  I squatted down next to him, trying to assess what had happened. He was still breathing, a little bit. Through the ringing in my ears I heard his muffled words. “I tried to block… tell me… she is ok?”

  I looked at Bartlet’s face where she lay underneath Pilliroog. The gray color of her face told me all I needed to know, but still my mind cataloged her condition. Bartlet’s right eye was gone, and over half of her blond hair, scape included was ripped from her skull. The bloody remains of what had been the back of her head were not even bleeding, but just clotted over with a grisly mixture of blood, brain tissue, and dirt.

  “Bartlet… help her… Kal,” Pilliroog pleaded. “I cannot see her.”

  Pilliroog was turned away from Bartlet, and I then understood his back was broken. How he was still talking was a wonder to me. Kneeling down close to him, I lied. “You saved her! She will be fine.” I kissed the side of his face. His curly hair smelled of smoke and burnt flesh. “You are a hero.”

  His eyes blinked. Some tears ran down his dirty cheeks. “I… love her.”

  “She knows that. You rest now. You are my inspiration,” I told him. The words he spoke, and what I said were jumbled in the ringing of my head.

  His eyes glazed over, but there was a wisp of a smile across his lips. He was not breathing anymore. As I tried to stand up, I slipped in the wet mess. I wish it had been water, but I fell to my knees. Dark red muck covered my legs, but I pushed away from my dead friends. Then I crawled a short way, and clambered up and out of the grave.

  Tudeng was kneeling near Carol. I saw that it was Carol’s leg that had struck me. Her other one was missing as well, but Tudeng was tying off tourniquets on the stumps. “Old-fashioned first-aid,” I said to myself, but could not think of anything right then that would be better. Tudeng glanced at me, and then looked over toward the shoreline.

  Brett was clutching his abdomen and writhing in agony. Matkaja was trying to hold him down and get some bandages on him. Jane was face first on top of one of the orca’s bodies. A short way off, Timofei was beneath the remains of the MOP-1 boat. Its cabin had crushed him into the beach as it landed. I recognized his face as his mangled body was trapped beneath it all. The striking contrast between his black hair and his pale complexion were even more vivid, by the light of the beam on my flashlight.

  I rushed over to Brett. He was crying in anguish, but Matkaja had gotten a rough pressure dressing on his belly. It was already soaking through with his blood. I pulled out my own first-aid kit and gave it to her.

  “Check Jane,” Matkaja said. Her clothes were covered with blood, and I was not sure whose it was.

  Nodding, I stepped over and saw that Jane, while on the large chunk of dead orca, was still alive. One of her arms was obviously broken, but she was breathing, despite being face down on that whale’s corpse. I lifted Jane up, and carried her over to where Tudeng was working on Carol’s legs.

  “Jane is alive,” I said. “Unconscious, but alive.” I set her carefully down, and tried to awaken her. There was no response. I shined my light into her eyes, but one pupil was huge and dilated, while the other was a pinpoint in size. I knew that was bad, but hoped the medical automacubes would arrive soon. “Did my moving you cause more trauma?” My mind flashed me the idea that I probably should have waited to move her. The medical automacubes would come and render emergency medical care. They had done that for Radha, so they would soon come and help us. They would move her safely and take her to hospital. Then, I recalled where we were, and pushed a button on my wristwatch to summon emergency medical help. There was a flashing red light. I looked at it more closely, and the red light was flashing
a message. “No connection available.”

  “Help us!” I screamed as I looked straight up. There was ringing in my head, but I screamed even over that, “Somebody help us!”

  Sometime later, Kulm and Radha appeared, as well as some of the local people. The rest of that night is a blur of confusion. Some of the local fishermen took Carol to their home. I heard someone saying something about knowing how to do cautery. My mind was foggy. I felt my head, but then everything got fuzzy. People were all around, with piercing lights, and a jumble of voices.

  When the sky tube lit up the next morning, Jane was dead. She never did wake up. Brett lasted a bit longer, but he suffered the whole of that next day. The analgesics we used did nothing to alleviate his pain. His belly leaked blood the whole time, and everything we did to slow it down, failed. I think he had shrapnel inside him, but there was no way to check. Neither did any of the locals know of a way to help him with such a horrible injury, even though I screamed, and yelled, and pleaded, and begged them. I think I did that. I know I tried over and over to call Mister Fisher or someone to come and help. My wristwatch never did make a connection to call for medical help. All I got were error messages.

  I think it was the third day after that horrible incident on the beach, when I was outside of Rolf’s house, that I noticed that the orca bodies were all buried together in that grave the automacube had made. The ground was all covered over, but the big grave was visible from where the dirt was repacked. I walked up to Tudeng and asked her about that.

  “When did they cover them over?” I babbled.

  “Kalju, you helped do that. Remember?” she asked me. Her own injury on her face was dried out. “Our friends are in there too, the ones who died.”

  “What? When?” I asked. “Who?”

  She lifted a gentle hand to my forehead. “You poor thing. We did that yesterday. That concussion you took scrambled your memories. We all did that together, you, me, Kulm, Matkaja, and Radha. The locals helped with shovels. None of the automacubes are working. You really do not remember?”

  “Buried them, our friends, with the orcas?” My ears were still ringing, and that reminded me of the katydids from back in Kansas. Well, when I thought about it, after Tudeng asked me, it was like katydids, but only to my ears it sounded like an entire church choir of katydids, crickets, and some cicadas. The buzz was an annoying rolling constant. It was hard to think.

  “Yes, Kal, that was the only way,” Tudeng said carefully and compassionately. “It had to be done.”

  “We buried them all, together? Kulm and I buried dogs?” I asked and lifted my hand to my head. I then felt the bandage on my forehead. “What is this?” I started to pull at what was stuck to me.

  Tudeng grabbed my hand and stopped me. “You got a nasty gash in, well, sort-of down across your eyebrow. Good thing it did not blind that eye. We had to put in stitches, you know, medical care like it was a hundred years ago, but we sterilized the thread and needle. Gave you meds to reduce the swelling and protect you from infections. That is about all we have for medications. You really do not remember that, either?”

  “No. Did it happen when that boat exploded? Wait, who all is dead? Carol?”

  “No, not Carol. She is fighting bravely, but she lost both her legs. Do you remember that?”

  “Yes, I think so. Things are cloudy in my mind.”

  “You did conk your head badly,” Tudeng affirmed. “If we could get you to a hospital, we would. Carol needs a hospital too, but we cannot get through to anywhere, not even with that transceiver.”

  “You mean the wristwatches? I tried that, was it this morning? It always says no connection or something like that.”

  Tudeng looked at me again, and the compassion radiated out from her. “The transceiver was salvaged from the cabin of that military boat, the MOP-1. You remember that, right?”

  “I remember the boat and the explosions, with…” I could not talk more about the carnage. I began to cry.

  She gave me a hug and patted my back. “Yes, all the deaths. But Kulm was able to recover a transceiver from that cabin. You actually helped him haul it from the wreck. Anyway, it does make one connection, with an AI called Lenore, but she says nothing is available to pick us up.”

  “Lenore?” I asked. “I do not remember that system, but I also do not remember helping Kulm on that boat. I guess I did get some kind of concussion.”

  “Well, Kal, that system is new. Something called the Isolated Artificial Mind, an IAM, but it calls itself Lenore,” Tudeng said. “You did help Kulm. You worked like some draft horse would, back in Kansas. You even thought of how we needed to recover all the gimps and their ammunition, even that on our friends’… bodies. You were great, but I can see you got hurt worse than we thought. Kal, Kalju, listen to me. We all went through this horrible thing, and we are cut off, but we need you.”

  I saw her trembling smile, and nodded. “I am glad I helped, I just wish I remembered it. I just do not feel like myself right now. I keep hearing my pulse in my ears, with a constant buzzing.”

  And that was how I felt for days after that slaughter on the beach. I slept a lot, but sometimes I would lay on the floor in Rolf’s house and just stare at the ceiling, unable to drift off to sleep. It did not help anything that the five of us were rotating a duty of walking patrols every night. So, every second or third night two of us would walk a patrol around the island. I remember doing those, but it is not really clear who I walked with, or what exactly we did. I think we rotated shifts, but that is fuzzy and even after all these years, I cannot clearly recall those nights.

  Something like three months went by, maybe more, and then the katydid chorus just faded out one day. The ringing in my head was gone, my mind cleared, and I was back to what I thought was my normal self. However, my memories of that time were still, and have been forever, fragmented. That same afternoon, as I was walking along, I saw Kulm sitting at a small workstation place which had been constructed near the shoreline. With him were Earle and Sylvia.

  “Kulm, what are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Kalju, you look better, and sound better. I am honestly relieved. This is the place these two are using for monitoring the sea.” He looked at me funny and then motioned to the oceanographers. “You do remember Earle and Sylvia, right?”

  I almost got angry, but realized he was not mocking me, or teasing. I must have been really hard to converse with over those months, and it struck me then how really messed up I had been. “Yes, I remember getting them out of the station beneath the sea, and I remember they wanted to abandon Toughie and Socks.”

  Kulm looked down, and I regretted saying the names of the dogs. When he looked back up he went on, “Well, they built this workplace, and are using those monitors, hydrophones, and equipment. They are reviewing what is happening in the sea.”

  I looked out and saw several buoys floating on the water, as well as a mesh fence which was just on the land-side of those floats. The fence was sticking up just a short way from the surface of the water. Smaller floats held up cables that connected the buoys to the table where they were sitting. On that table was the transceiver I had heard about, and had apparently helped to move. The frame it was housed in had rough edges where a vibration saw had been used to cleave it out of the cabin. Wires, cables, and a linkage to lufi-amalgam batteries came out of the transceiver and the conservation slate which sat atop it. Those were also coupled to a macroactinide capacitor enhancer as well. The whole apparatus was bizarre looking, but my mind did a scan of the components and I had a general understanding of their purpose.

  Earle turned to me. “We are listening to the death of everything in the sea.”

  “The submarine?” I asked.

  Kulm shook his head sadly. “Oh, Kal, we thought it was a submarine, in that battle. But, oh wow, you really do not remember, do you?”

  Again, I just nodded dumbly.

  “Earle and Sylvia here, well, not them exactly, it was really the orca
s who did it, well, they…”

  Earle interrupted Kulm. “The dolphins tried as well, but they are gone now too. Evil hateful things!”

  “Dolphins?” I asked. “Evil dolphins?”

  “Stupid child, no!” Earle snapped at me.

  Kulm got right into his face. “You will never call Kalju that again, do you understand me? He had a severe closed-head injury and still did more work to save your skin than anyone else. You apologize to him now.”

  I had never, ever seen Kulm so angry.

  “Yes, I apologize. I am overwrought with sorrow,” Earle stated quickly and turned away.