Battle On The Marathon

by John Thornton

  A bright glow suddenly appeared in front of me as the roadway erupted upward. A sewer grille cover flew off and clattered away as another Jellie rose out of yet another tunnel. I swerved the truck, but with the roadway bucking upward, the truck tipped up onto the driver’s side wheels. I barely got it under control as it flopped back down. Blood from the dead girl spilled all over the front seats of the truck. Her body was just flopping in the restraints.

  The streets were now more cluttered with falling buildings, walls, and other structures. A few dogs ran across the road in a panic, and yet I saw no people. I hoped the Red Guard had taken them to some secure place. I checked again on the street plans for the town, and while it was not a huge city, like I had read about back on the Old Earth, the streets were winding and somewhat erratic. I spied where I thought the tube transport hub was located, and headed the truck for that spot. Then, I saw a small city park. There were beautiful white birch trees in clumps of three or four trunks. Flowers were arranged underneath and around the bases of those clumps of trees. I looked to the dead little girl, and I had to stop. I just had to. I tenderly lifted her body from the seat and carried her over to the middle of the park. It felt more like a garden than it did a wildlife area. There was even a small fountain at the center. I knelt down next to the prettiest flowers and spread out the girl’s body.

  “Oh, dear little one, may you find peace, comfort, and joy in the life to come.” Lifting up the faceplate, I bent down and kissed the top of her small head. “These battles for you are over, and the Jellies cannot hurt you ever again. Rest in peace and comfort.”

  As I stood up, I saw that across the street from where the truck was parked, a Jellie had just emerged from yet another opening in the ground. That opening was between the foundation of a house and the street. Its purple light hurt my eyes until I dropped the faceplate again. My anger was worse than I have ever experienced, up to that point, and I rushed back to the truck.

  A white ball of icy junk exploded off to the side of where I was running. The Jellie had fired at me. I leaped into the truck and snapped the restraints around my armored body. Then I slammed the controls in forward and accelerated as fast as possible right at the Jellie. The tentacles tried to swipe at the truck, but it was not fast enough. The front grille of the truck struck the Jellie hard. It toppled over, reminding me of what the dairy cow stamped had done. The truck kept pushing at the Jellie as its tentacles flailed about. I slightly turned the wheels so as to not shove the Jellie back into the hole, but instead to crush it between the truck and the still intact section of the house. As the Jellie impacted that permalloy, the truck’s wheels kept spinning as I did not release the controls. The legs of the Jellie disappeared, and there was a sudden loud burping sound as the carapace of the Jellie cracked under the stress the truck was putting on it. The tentacles darted forward, and actually ripped into the metal of the hood of the truck and tried to tear it apart. Brown liquids were oozing out of the cracks in the carapace.

  Finally, the truck’s engine failed, and so I locked all the wheels and jumped out. The Jellie was trapped between the truck and the wall. It was trying to shove out a leg against the ground, or up against the truck, but the carapace was leaking badly. I rushed over and stuck the gimp into the biggest crack I could find and fired.

  Bang! Bang!

  I reloaded and fired again into another crack.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  The legs quit jutting out, and the tentacles quickly retracted and quit flailing about. I tried to put the gimp’s muzzle into where there had been a crack, but it had sealed over from the inside. The carapace was visibly smaller, but still glowing. It was contracting and I saw that when it got a bit smaller, it might be able to slip out from where it was pinned by the truck.

  With a glance over my shoulder toward the park where I had left that dead girl, I sprinted away. I kept toggling the transceiver channels trying to contact anyone. None of the links were working. I could contact the library, and acquire basic deck plans and schematics, and some automated replies, but no connections to anyone else. I kept the light on my helmet flashing, checked my energy levels—they were adequate—and pressed on toward that tube transport terminal.

  Smoke from burning buildings was settling over the whole town. It masked the sky tube’s light, and gave a hazy, weird look to everything. Added to that was the filters on the faceplate to keep that blasted purple glow from making my eyes hurt. To me, the town of Sheba looked surreal and ghostly.

  As I got close to the transport hub, I finally saw one of the Red Guard. The person in armor was ambling along, and carrying a rifle. I quickly approached.

  “Where can I get weapons?” I asked, both over the transceiver, and through the speakers on the outside of my armored spacesuit.

  The Red Guard did not respond. So, I punched at the Red Guard’s helmet, tapping at the faceplate.

  “A foreigner!” she screamed at me. “You are the ones who brought these abominations to our home. How dare you sully us with your genetic mutations run amuck?”

  “What are you talking about? We need to fight the Jellies. I need weapons. Where is everyone else?”

  “Weapons? Phooey! I emptied by rifle’s magazine into one of your foreigner creations, and it did nothing. You stop them! Your kind created these monstrosities,” she hurled words at me like they were rocks trying to down some kind of small game. “We should have banned all you scum from coming here. How dare you bring those things to my homeland!” She threw the rifle at me and walked away.

  “Where is everyone else?” I called after her. She had only responded through my external audio pickups, and not through the transceiver.

  “Dead, mostly. Killed by your creations. The blood is on foreigner’s hands. This is how you repay our generosity and hospitality. A plague on all you foreigners.”

  I picked up the rifle and noted it was a variant of my own bullpup, with just a slightly different configuration of the shoulder stock, and minus the grenade launcher. It also was empty. “Where can I get more ammunition?”

  “Curses on your whole family. Curses!”

  “Try using strobe lights if you can. It bothers the Jellies, especially in tight quarters,” I called after her, but there was no further response.

  I made my way toward the tube transport, figuring that maybe people had escaped through there. The haze was getting thicker and thicker and I was glad to be in a spacesuit where I had a steady supply of fresh air. The darker brown, sloped roofs, covering many of the structures, showed signs of collapsing from within. The gaily decorated decks, terraces, or gaming areas were silent, ruined, and wrecked. Everywhere I looked was devastation. The tallest structure was the chatelet and when that came into sight, I was appalled. It had four stories, but at each level there was a wall missing and floors exposed. At the top was that once pretty bell tower with twin widows, but now it looked more like a broken tooth sticking up from a skeleton.

  The tube transport terminal was a slaughterhouse. There was a huge Jellie hole in the roadway just outside the chatelet, and that hole showed a tunnel which came up from some sewer lines and then proceeded into the basement. I do not think the Jellies intended that hole to open up, but the roadway had collapsed over their tunnel. It looked like they knew they were going into the basement where the tube transport terminal was located. I rushed inside the chatelet, and down the steps. The Jellies must have surprised a large group of people. Bodies were everywhere, and none were intact. I am thankful I had the spacesuit on, for blood was congealing on the walls, ceiling, and floor. I can only imagine what the smell was like. The hatches along the wall were all sealed and red warning lights were flashing over the top of all of them.

  There were dead people of all ages, and from various lines of work. A few were dressed in what looked like police uniforms, and I thought of my associates in Eight-Squad who previously had been police officers. I tried my transceiver again.

  “Can anyone pick up this transmissi
on?” I asked on all links and channels. All I got back was static.

  So, I stepped over the bodies, and approached the controls near the portal hatches. I pressed several, but few things worked. I finally found a working display and manually pressed the buttons to access the artificial intelligence system which should be overseeing the tube transport system.

  “AI Philippides? Report status of tube transport system,” I commanded.

  “If you want music, get a canary,” the mechanical voice replied from the display.

  Again, I commanded the system, “Emergency! Connect me to any Marathon Defense Force units.”

  “Yackety yackety talk talk gab gab gab,” the voice stated.

  I keyed my transceiver again, withdrew a small cable from the forearm of my armored spacesuit and made a physical connection into an access port near the display. “MC001, can you hear me? Emergency!”

  The static was thick, but a small beeping sound pierced that. Then the beeping altered into a steady tone which grew louder and louder.

  “Message from MC001,” that AI stated. “Audio link established. No visual or telemetry. Link will survive less than ninety seconds. Intense battle. Resistance is disorganized. Alien attack devastating. Rally point at town of Nuwa. Nonphysicality damaged severely. Counterattack planned.”

  “Where can I find weapons and ammunition?” I asked.

  “Bigger guns nearby. Red Guard munition depot in chatelet, third floor. Present condition unknown...” Static broke through the mechanical voice making it difficult to understand. “Rumors…exh… for… ive casualties… some units reporting… based on th… obstrep… with optical strobe lighting. How many in your unit?”

  “I am alone. Where are the Blue Tigers or Red Guard?”

  “Red Guard units have….” The static became loud and did not waver.

  “MC001? MC001?” I pounded my fist against the wall.

  “My grandfather was an eagle,” that previous mechanical voice said from the display.

  “Shut up!” I barked as I yanked the cable out of the access port. It retracted into my armor. I noted I had received a five percent increase in my power reserves. I shut down the strobe light, as there did not seem to be any Jellies in the immediate area. So, I reconnected the cable and turned around. I leaned against that wall, so I could see what was around me, and just stood there thinking while my armored spacesuit replenished its energy.

  I needed a better weapon than my gimp, which only had two shots left in it, and no more reloads. I did have the rifle from that Red Guard, however, its sole magazine was completely empty. I had no grenade launcher, and no grenades, either for launch or to be manually thrown. My suit had one ration of food still in place, and about a half liter of water which had been recycled from my own body fluids.

  Keying in specific links on the transceiver I attempted numerous calls to the Blue Tigers, Eight-Squad, the Hellcats, MC001, and even directly to the LT. There was nothing but static in response.

  “Well, if it is going to be, it is up to me. First, weapons and supplies. Then see if I can find anyone else, and head off for Nuwa.”

  Then a thought occurred to me. I spun around and tapped some commands into the display.

  That corrupted AI responded. “Silly bird, ha ha ha you are a funny bird!”

  “Let me into the shell!” I barked as I entered the command again.

  “I can talk. Can you fly?” the corrupted AI responded.

  I pounded my armored fist on the wall. “So, I cannot leave this biome at this location, not even to get into the shell around Queen. Overland I must go.”

  Checking the transceiver’s display, I noted I was in the basement of the chatelet, the same building where MC001 had said there was a munitions depot. So, I walked out of that abattoir of horrors and tried not to look at the faces of any of the dead bodies. The stairs up were intact, although seeing them from that new view showed that some of the Jellies’ icy detonation weapons had exploded in the inside of the doors. I ascended as quickly as I could, but there was some rubble on the second-floor level.

  “Is anyone here?” I yelled through my speakers.

  There was no response.

  The third floor had “POLICE PRECINCT” labeled across its entry doors. Tragically, those doors were hanging askew and looked like they had been wrenched apart with great force. Traces of bullet impacts were everywhere I looked. Gouges in the softer metals, panels, and veneer.

  “Someone put up a battle here.”

  The police station had three dead bodies which were strewn about, all of which were in uniforms. One exterior wall was missing, and I could see out across the town of Sheba through the rubble. Fires were burning in countless places, which surprised me a bit as most structures were permalloy or at least permalloy framed. I wondered if the Jellies had some way to ignite the metals in permalloy. They obviously had messed up communications, water systems, and somehow attacked the nonphysicality again. Not to mention the physical attacks and murders of so many people in such a short time. I peered out through the space where a solid wall should have been.

  At four or five locations, I could see the purple glow of Jellies, but none of the aliens themselves. Well, none of their carapace suits anyway. The glow rose up from the street level, and was emitted from somewhere behind buildings as I looked toward them. Maybe the Jellies were inside some of the ruined buildings and the glow I saw was coming out from windows, or collapsed roofs, or ceilings. I did not see any people, but the haze from the fires, and the now dimming sky tube light made visualizing the town a bit difficult. It was hard for me to believe night was settling in. There was so much to do.

  The police station did have the munitions depot at the back side of it, but someone had already been there. The weapon storage lockers were all empty. I scrounged through the supply cabinets and in the last one found a drawer that was jammed shut. I could not get the drawer open, so pulled on it, kicked it, and yanked on it as hard as I could. It would not budge.

  Heading back out to the front of the police station, I saw that in the hallway, toward where two holding cells were located, was a door marked ESRC. I went to that and opened it up. Inside were some containers of preserved food, a tool kit, and the fire suppression hose. The first-aid kit and medical supplies were missing, and the clean spots in the dust showed they had been there not long before. I packed up all the food supplies into compartments on my armor, and connected my water hose to the wall. Before I turned on that water, I unconnected my supply hose and then turned the water on to see what it looked like. It was clear and clean. I filled up my armored spacesuit’s water supply.

  With that tool kit in hand I returned back to the munitions depot and the jammed drawer. The kit had a vibration saw in it and using that I carefully cut the surface of the front section of the drawer. I set the blade for less than half of the depth I thought would be needed, because I was afraid there was ammunition or something else dangerous in that drawer. Cutting right through and into it could have been catastrophic, and that was the last thing I needed. I was in a hurry, but did not want to be reckless.

  With the front of the drawer weakened, I then used another tool to spread that slot I made. With a grinding snap, the drawer popped open and slid forward. Inside were five fragmentation grenades, five magazines for the plain bullpup rifle, and three boxes of ammunition. Each box held one hundred rounds, so I was able to load each magazine, as well as the empty one I already had. Loaded up with all that ammunition, I was about to set the vibration saw aside. Then I said, “If a Jellie gets hold of me, I will cut my way free.” I put the vibration saw in a compartment on my armored spacesuit where I could get to it quickly. “Better than a sword from the Nautilus.”

  Heading out, I glanced at one of the bodies, and that police officer had been using a gimp. It was clutched in her cold, stiff fingers. I flipped her body over, trying not to see her face, and searched her belt and pockets. I found ten rounds for my gimp. I reloaded my own weapon,
and left.

  My flight out of Sheba was just sheer confusion, as the sky tube was dimming rapidly, and the smoke from so many fires obscured the air. I avoided any of the purple glowing areas, and kept my own helmet lights off. I saw no other living people, but did see a lot of dead bodies, and signs of battle. I saw nothing to indicate any Jellies had been killed, or wounded in the battle for Sheba. I hoped that the Jellie I had hit with the truck was dead, or at least badly wounded.

  I made it into the wooded area along the wall of the biome. I knew there were hiking trails there, but had not used them. We had been too busy searching Lake Three. When I got there, I opened my faceplate, and turned down my interior atmospheric controls. I wanted to save them for as long as possible. I was not sure when I would be able to replenish my supplies. The woods smelled of smoke, but also, I smelled the damp dirt which was combined with old fallen leaves. That was a smell our parents used to call earthy. Do you remember that?