Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  So, while I slept at camp, and did the mandatory drills, exercises, and practices, on my free time, I traipsed about Queen. It was not Kansas, but it was a decent enough habitat. There were six lakes, all about the same size, each was about one-half kilometer wide, and nine kilometers long. Spaced about ten kilometers apart, and oriented sideways across the habitat each had a river connecting into the lake which flowed down from the bow direction. So, from stern to bow, there was a lake with its river, then another lake with its own river, and so forth. Different than Kansas, especially with the rolling hills between the lakes, but nice enough. The lakes were clear and pure, unlike Dale’s pond back home. I found myself thinking of Kansas often and comparing the subtle differences and similarities between my home, and the biome of Queen. Some different grasses, but much the same. A few different birds, but some of the exact same animals. The sky tube was very similar, but nights were different. The full moon night cycle just was off, as the Queen sky tube varied on moon-nights, with some of those nights having the silver illumination being from the middle, while others it was from either end. Unlike, Kansas where on full moon-night, the silver ribbon of the sky tube was stretched across the entire length of the sky, from stern to bow. I hiked all over Queen and made sure to stay on the roads and marked paths. Dairy farms were nearly everywhere, with their white and black cattle. The only wilderness areas were a small band around the perimeter edge of the habitat. The two major towns were in opposite corners, of the biome. Both towns, Nuwa and Sheba, were nice and had their own distinct flavor. As I hiked, I was always armed, but most often only with my gimp, and I kept it concealed.

  The people who lived in Queen were friendly and nice, except for the occasional member of the Red Guard which I encountered. Those Red Guard soldiers often just mocked me. A common taunt was some kind of comment like, “When are you going to be done playing army, my foreigner guest?” Or annoying pseudo-offers of assistance like, “Did you lose your way? I know Queen has more landmass than a fish-finder person like you could understand. Do you need a guide?”

  I ignored all those jibes, even though from what I estimated, Kansas and Queen had about the same ratio of land to water, but of course, the Red Guard had no idea I was from Kansas. They assumed every refugee was from Foreigner, even though nearly all were from Styx. Those few Foreigner soldiers, the Hellcats, had set up a small camp at the end of the lake closest to the stern. They were a nice bunch, and I even spoke to the woman who had assisted my when I escaped. She was Corporal Claudia, and she did not even remember me. I guess I was just part of that horrible evacuation she helped with. I thought she would remember Kulm, or Carol, but she claimed she saw too much suffering to recall anyone specific. That sort-of depressed me, but now I understand why she was like that.

  For those few months, I kept coming back in my mind to the inkling that the Jellies had been driven off in what the LT had called that fiasco of Operation Barnacle. I envisioned a better outcome had really happened. I conjectured that all the dead pilots, the destroyed shuttles, and the broken automacubes must have been effective, and that the Jellies had been defeated. After all, I rationalized, the captain and leadership seemed to think that. We had had only a few skirmishes with them since, and mine was the only one killed. Did that mean those were the last of the Jellies, and that the others had been killed in space, or in battle with the MDF troopers, soldiers, and automacubes? Had the Jellie retreated away from us? I hoped, I prayed, I wished, that that was the case.

  I was wrong.

  It was a dog who taught me how wrong I was.

  Late one evening, I was running along the main roadway, taking an easy pace, so that I could enjoy the night air and the crispness of the twilight time. It was a partial moon-night and the sky tube far overhead was dimming to the evening’s illumination. I heard barking, and it was not the occasional woof I had heard before, this was aggressive barking, and the hairs on my neck stood up. Changing directions, I took off down a dirty road toward a dairy farm. I could see the fences which encircled the fields where the cattle grazed. The barn was in the distance, and it was a long building. The roof was steeply slopped. It was like the dozens of others I had seen all across Queen.

  The dog was barking ferociously, and as I sprinted up toward the barn, I pulled out my gimp. I heard a cacophony of cattle noises. I did not have a transceiver, or a wristwatch communications system, or anything else with me. I had grown complacent. I do regret that, now, yes, I do.

  Bang! Bang!

  I heard gunfire coming from inside the barn. My first thought was that someone was having to euthanize some bovine for whatever reason, but as I got closer to the barn, I saw that same, never-to-be-forgotten, strange purplish-blue glow coming from around the large sliding door at the end of the barn. I knew then that whatever was happening was due to a Jellie.

  I ran as fast as I could, but the pitiful dirges will haunt me forever. Those poor dairy cows with their anguished bellows stirred me to my heart. Knowing that the purple glow was a threat, I yelled out warnings. I am not sure if anyone heard me over the bellowing, snorting, and grunting coming from the barn. Someone was inside the barn with the cows and the enemy.

  Bang! Bang!

  Gunshots came from inside. Just as I got to the barn door, I heard a wretched yelping from the dog. It sickened my stomach, but I charged ahead, and pulled open the door. The purple light blazed against my eyes, and I covered them with one hand, and aimed my gimp with the other.

  Shadows were in the purple light, moving about.

  “Watch out!” I screamed, hoping whoever was firing the gun would hear me.

  A battered black and tan dog’s body crashed into the dirt and slid across the floor to stop only a few centimeters away from me. The ripped open flesh reminded me of the orcas. The dog lifted its head a bit, pawed at the ground with one of its front legs, and growled back toward the light, but then the head dropped with a clunk into the dirt. I noted one of the dog’s rear legs was missing, and there were deep, ugly slashes along its flank where its fur and skin had been peeled away from the muscles beneath.

  “I hate it so much when they kill dogs!” I said.

  I leaped over the dying animal and rushed to the side of the barn. The main milking parlor was about twenty meters ahead of me, and pens were on either side. I glanced over a half door and saw that beyond was a small wooden pen where more than a dozen wide-eyed and confused calves stood. I guessed them to be about four or five months of age. The door to the outside, from their pen, was open. However, they were just standing there looking at me, bathed in the reflections of that wretched purple light.

  “Get out you dumb cows!” I yelled, despite knowing the cows thought of the barn as their safe place. “Run away. Get out!”

  A woman and child rushed toward the big sliding door, away from the purple light. I saw a glowing tentacle lash out from the light and strike at the child. The mother turned and threw herself in between the child and the purple light, but the tentacle bated her away like she was nothing. She hit the other side wall of the barn and slid down to the dirt floor. The tentacles snapped back onto the child as he was trying to crawl toward the woman. “Momma!” He cried.

  I rushed out, but was too slow to help the stricken child. The purple tentacle smacked down on him again and again. Blood gushed from his crushed body.

  I grabbed the fire alarm on the wall nearby and pulled it down. Water poured from overhead sprinklers in a steady shower. Sirens began to wail, their noises howling up and down the scale in an ear-hurting scream. Recessed lights flashed rapidly and brightly from the ceiling of the large barn.

  As the white flashes of light pierced into the barn, the shadows in the purple light jolted and rocked. The source of the purple light moved away. It was then I could make out the rough outline of a Jellie standing there in its pumpkin-shaped carapace. The four stumpy legs were moving it toward the opposite end of the barn. At least two long tentacles were waving madly about over its body.
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  Bang! Bang!

  Someone was firing down at the Jellie from a straw-filled loft. Even with the bright flashing overhead lights and the purple glow, the yellow muzzle flashes stood out.

  A white ball emerged from the Jellie and rushed upward toward that person. The cold icy detonation happened and the side of the loft was torn off. Splinters flew in all directions; wood, metal, icy gunk, and human flesh. A figure fell from there, but I could not see where the body landed. I only knew he was alive as he fell. His scream competed with the sirens blaring.

  I fired my gimp as fast as I could, doubting it would do any good at all. I emptied the whole cylinder of rounds, and dropped in the only reloads I had with me. The clip for the speed loader was now empty, but the gimp was full.

  Right then, as if of one mind, the herd of the surviving dairy cows, probably sixty of more, bolted out of their milking parlor stalls. They rushed away from the flashing lights in the ceiling, and toward the same exit where the Jellie was heading. It looked to me like that was their typical entry and exit. The door I came in was smaller and the central aisle, was narrower where I stood, than at that opposite end. The combined mass of cows bowled into the Jellie and knocked the Jellie off its legs. Its carapace, roughly oblong or roundish, was shoved out the door with them. I saw it tumbled end-over-end, and its legs retracted or disappeared or something, as it was rolled along propelled by the stampeding dairy cows.

  I checked the boy on the ground, and, as I feared, he was dead. The woman who had been thrown into the wall was also dead. Her head and neck were twisted in an obviously fatal compound fracture. The bright overhead lights continued to strobe down as I rushed over to where I had seen someone fall from the loft. There I found a man lying on the dirt. His legs were crushed, but he was still holding a shotgun. He was trying to reload the tube with additional shells.

  “That thing killed my cows! Did my… wife and son… get away?” the man huffed as he shoved in another shell.

  I looked at him, and just said, “Is there only one of those Jellies?”

  “Just one creature… if… that is what… you mean. I hit it full in the side… with the ten bore, but… nothing happened.” The man’s arms were shaking as he pointed the shotgun down the long, and now empty, passageway between the milking stalls. “The flashers worked… I trained the cows… to leave…the barn… when flashers came on… in case of fire… My wife? Son?”

  “Help is on the way,” I offered. I hoped the fire alarm was connected to some automatic summoning system. “I must follow that Jellie!”

  “Kill it! Kill it for me!” the man said. He tried to hand me the shotgun, but I waved it off.

  “You keep the shotgun. Your wife and son appreciate you fighting it off.”

  He nodded and gave me a hint of a smile as he licked his lips. He coughed up some blood which ran down his chin. “You are… one of those… foreigners… thank you. You…go… kill that thing…”

  I just nodded, and glanced another time at his twisted and shattered legs. I had no first-aid kit, nor anyway to realign the bones which had torn through his pants from the inside. By the hemorrhaging, and lack of medical equipment, I figured he would join his wife and son, before anything could be done anyway.

  Sprinting down the long aisle, I saw a number of cows which had been slashed to death while they stood in their stalls. Blood was soaking all across the dirt floor making a ruddy and muddy mess. Maybe twenty cows in all had been slaughtered, on either side of the aisle. I saw no other signs of the icy detonations. The flashing light’s rapid blinking made the whole place look surreal, but I was glad the purple light was gone. As I left the end of the building, I heard other sirens in the night from outside. They were coming from a different direction than I had come. Some low moos and groans floated in the air, from cows in distress somewhere.

  I could not see where the herd had gone. The Jellie was missing as well. I looked at the ground, and in the dim light of the sky tube, it was a partial moon-night, I could see a cattle trail which led off. I could hear the sirens approaching, help was on the way. That made me glad I had told the dairyman that. “Perhaps he does have a chance?” The sirens sounded closer. I could not see what was making it, just hear its siren and see the flashing light approaching. That light was flashing much more slowly than did the strobing ceiling lights in the parlor barn.

  Between the sirens in the barn, and those approaching on the roadway, it was hard to hear the dairy cows, but their agonized cries were discernable. Following the animal path, I reached where it came to the bank of a lake. There, it was clear the cows regularly used the area to drink, but none were visible now. I looked at the water, and squatted down. A slight purple glow came from the waters, and then I saw something in the lake. Some of the cows where swimming in the lake. Their heads bobbing about as they were frantically moving away. Then a purple tendril came up and dragged a cow down. Then another was pulled under the water. The others were moaning and trying to turn away, but before I could do anything, all the cows which had been swimming were gone. No bodies, no floating debris, they were just gone.

  I turned around and walked back to the barn, and as I approached, a lone cow, wide-eyed with terror, was wandering around lowing and calling out for her calf. I wished I could help her find it, but I had no idea how. So, I hurried back to the barn.

  On the outside of the barn was a pen, which I had run past in my hurry to try to catch up to the Jellie. I had not seen what was in that on my pursuit, but now I looked into that adjacent pen. The strobe lights flashing from the barn’s inside cast silvery images over that pen. Inside, was a very gruesome sight. A large, and quite dead bull lay crumpled on the ground. One of its large horns was broken off, giving its head a lopsided appearance. Its body was covered by slashes and gashes. The wounds were so intense that I could not tell the color it was originally. It was disgusting.

  I walked inside the barn and saw about a half dozen Red Guard soldiers in their full body armor. Someone had shut down the sprinkler system, and the flashing lights turned off. I holstered my gimp before any of them could see.

  “You there. Be off with you now! No need for foreigner scum to come to a crime scene,” the closest of the Red Guard barked a command. “Be gone!”

  “But I just…” I started to say.

  “You just want to see the victims, eh?” the Red Guard snarled at me. “Morbid curiosity has no place here. He comes to see how a man kills his family so he can go and talk to the other exiles. Gossips the lot of them.” He threw his hand in a dismissive gesture. “Depart now. You just scurry back to your little camp like a good like rat. Be gone!”

  “It was a battle with the aliens, the Jellies!” I yelled.

  The Red Guard huffed, and said, “Get away with your fairytales. I know a crime when I see it. Ignorant foreigner! Be gone with you!”

  I walked back out the barn and cut through the field. As I headed back, I finally spotted some of the missing cows which had survived. This group must have run the opposite way from those who went to the lake. They were in a huddle in the corner of the field. In the light, I could see some of their sides were gashed open, but they were all still standing. They all turned and looked at me.

  “You and I know what happened,” I said to the cows. “I wish you could tell those Red Guard soldiers, but even if you could speak, I doubt they would believe you.”

  I climbed the fence and set myself to a steady jog to get to the camp as quickly and effectively as possible. It would take me some time, and I was kicking myself again for not bringing some kind of communication device.

  As I ran along, I considered what had happened to the cows, and that reminded me of the orcas. Those animals had greater sense than the Red Guard, and I hated to see the animals suffer. Another dog was killed, and I was powerless to do anything about it.

  No matter how I tried to concentrate on the cows, or the orcas, or even that pathetic killing of the dog, I could not keep my mind from the other h
orrors. I tried to push the new, and additional images of dying humans out of my mind. They were the latest addition of the death rollcall in my memory. I hoped, the farmers and their son would at least get someone to mourn them, and give them a memorial service. Thinking that, took my mind back to my militia friends, and that whole squad who had died. Then, I reimagined the scene of Operation Barnacle. Questions raced and I quietly verbalized some of them. “How many shuttles had carried how many more men and women? How many soldiers were in spacesuits without armor? What became of their bodies? How many people are now just shattered corpses left to rot in a toxic corridor somewhere? Or are floating alone in the cold blackness of space?”

  The run back felt like it took years.

  As I got close to camp I yelled out, “Urgent news! Urgent news!”

  People came out of the tents.

  “The Jellies are here in Queen! I have seen one! The battle is here!” I called out.