The frog-like alien was standing in its orb on the platform, looking back at Noble with sad black eyes. It let out one last croak before a blast turned the orb and Ribbit to pulp.
“NO!” Noble screamed. He jumped out of his orb and dashed toward the force field surrounding the conveyor belt. To his shock, there was no jolt. Then he realized there was some sort of atmosphere in this building, which must have made using a force field unnecessary. He leapt off the conveyor belt and onto the floor, his naked feet slapping the cold stone as he marched forward.
The spiders all watched him, mandibles clicking, apparently unsure what to do. The cackling he had heard earlier was closer now. Roots was pulling itself along behind him, using its wormy legs.
He waited for the creature to catch up. The octopus-like face tilted in his direction, and a mouth full of pointy teeth opened to release another cackle.
“Nice to meet you too,” Noble said. He turned back to the multi-dimensional creatures, but the skin suits had all vanished. The spiders were moving in, swiping the air with their claws.
“Come on!” Noble shouted. “Finish it!”
He raised his fists and pounded his chest, chanting the same mantra. “Let’s go, you assholes!”
The voice from before returned.
There is no need for this, Captain Rick Noble. You have proven yourself.
He stopped on the platform and looked up just as the entity reemerged above his head, hovering right above him and Roots. The entity flickered again, hiding its true form.
You and your friend will now join our ranks.
“What the hell?” Noble asked.
A drone roared into the open doorway and descended over the line of orbs. It veered toward the platform and stopped just above the entity. The multi-dimensional alien suddenly transformed into a more corporeal form.
What the hell…
The alien had simian features but with feathered wings, a cross between a bird and an ape. It vanished a beat later, and a blue light pulled Noble and Roots into the belly of the drone.
***
Jeff crouched beside David in the corridor of the Sunspot. He cradled a rifle, with a spare slung across his back. Patting his suit’s zippered pocket, he checked the hard drive they’d stowed the full copy of Sonya on was still there. The screeches of the frustrated spiders sounded far behind them. The aliens must have already scoured the armory and seen the spider Jeff had killed back there. Now they would be spreading out once again to locate Jeff and his brother.
Only, this time, Jeff heard a new sound. The ship tremored. Charcoal dust drifted through the air and clung to Jeff’s visor. The heavy thump of footsteps sounded from somewhere near the biomes, where Jeff and David had been only moments before.
A reptilian roar shook through the space, carried by the thin atmosphere and metal bulkheads into Jeff’s suit’s speakers.
“It’s a Sentinel,” David said.
“Just a Sentinel,” Jeff said, trying to calm his brother. His HUD now said 98% Oxygen. Recharging it within the laboratory had done the trick. At least, for now. They still had to get past the aliens patrolling the broken Sunspot. “We’ve killed them before.”
“Yeah,” David said, nodding. A weak smile crossed his face. “And we’ll kill them again.”
“That’s right,” Jeff said. “But most importantly, we’ve got to get on one of those ships.”
David gulped.
“We got this, bud. Remember everything Bouma taught us. One step at a time. This isn’t our first rodeo with the Organics. We can take them.”
Jeff hoped his confidence was infectious. The truth was, he didn’t feel very confident. At his core, he was frightened by all the Organics they had to make it past. The prospect of trying to hide in an Organic ship full of them scared him even more. Staying aboard the Sunspot wasn’t an option, though. There was no food for them here, and no water. They’d eventually run out of oxygen.
Somewhere out there, Emanuel and Sophie and the others were doing their best to escape the Organics. Now the aliens were after them too. Jeff figured getting aboard one of those ships searching for Sophie would be their best chance of reuniting with the rest of the crew.
When the Organics tried to attack the crew, then Jeff and David could strike. He didn’t know what they were going to do yet, but he’d figure it out. Just like he’d figured out how to stay alive and kill the Organics all the way back in White Sands.
They could do this.
The Sentinel’s heavy footsteps shook the deck. David nearly fell over, but Jeff caught him.
“Careful,” Jeff said.
They snuck through the shadows and recesses of fallen support beams and bent bulkheads. Meter by meter, they crept through the ship’s ruins until they made it to a gaping hole in the side of the ship. The hull was nearly seven decks tall. Jeff toed the edge of it, looking down over the Martian landscape.
Spiders and Sentinels roamed around. Many of them were streaming back into a couple of the transport ships they’d arrived in. The way they hurried into them worried Jeff.
“Looks like they’re loading back up,” Jeff said. “They must be in a rush.”
“Maybe they know where Bouma and Holly are,” David offered. “We have to hurry, too, don’t we?”
“That’s right, bro.”
They scurried down the ladders, past the charred decks. Mangled compartments showed where the crew quarters had once been. Jeff only recognized them based off the cubicle-like walls that had been shredded. There were no beds or blankets left, none of the comforts Jeff and David had enjoyed on their months traveling through space. It had become another home for them, a place where they didn’t have to worry about aliens invading a biome. They could sleep and eat and train and play in relative peace.
But all that had been shattered when they’d arrived on Mars. For a brief second, Jeff found himself wishing that they’d just kept on drifting through space. They could have survived off the food grown in the biomes forever.
In his mind’s eye, he saw his dad’s face again. He’d be disappointed to know Jeff was thinking like that. There were bigger things in the universe than just living on a spaceship like that, no matter how cool it seemed. All the surviving humans on Earth were probably relying on Sophie and the crew to find the colony and convince Hoffman to send back a rescue mission.
And maybe there were even bigger and better biomes at the colony. Maybe there were more kids. If they found the hidden colony and fended off the Organics, they might have a new world for humans.
Mars could be their new home.
Whatever was going to happen, they weren’t going to be a part of it if they just sat here.
They reached the lowest level of the ship undetected. Around them were the remains of the vehicle hold. The Rhinos in here were nothing but scrap metal and ash, just like Sonya had said. Transport ships and helicopters were bent and smashed together, crumpled like they were made of nothing but aluminum foil.
Jeff shuddered at the thought of the blast that had done that. Then he shuddered again. But it wasn’t because of fear.
A deafening roar blasted from behind them. The claws of a massive Sentinel cut through the air.
“Run!” Jeff yelled.
The Sentinel’s claw slammed into the deck where Jeff had stood seconds before. The resulting tremor heaved Jeff off his feet. He sprawled across the deck, then twisted in time to avoid another claw slamming into the deck. Saliva sprayed from the Sentinel’s mouth as its spiked tail twitched.
With a screech, the Sentinel whipped its tail at Jeff. He rolled out of the way. The resulting shockwave threw him sideways. He started to crab-crawl away from the raking claws of the beast.
Again the massive claws came flying toward him. He tried to scramble away.
This time he wouldn’t be fast enough. The claws stabbed at him, and he winced, bracing for the intense agony they would bring.
Flashes of orange exploded from behind him. Pulse rounds crashed into the Sen
tinel’s face and leg. The alien’s focus was thrown for a brief second. Jeff used that moment to pick himself up and sprint away.
Now the Sentinel rushed toward David.
“Jeff!” David cried. “Help me out!”
David ran behind one of the charred Rhinos. Jeff leveled a blast of fire at the Sentinel. The beast looked between the two boys as if deciding which would make easier prey.
Jeff was determined neither of them would. He tossed an EMP grenade under the alien. The grenade went off with a blast that dissipated the Sentinel’s shield. The alien stumbled, crumpling forward on its front legs.
“Take it out now!” Jeff yelled.
They concentrated their fire on the creature’s face. Rounds blasted into its eyes and mouth, tearing away at its flesh and armor. The monstrous alien still charged forward, bleeding and snarling.
“Run!” Jeff said. He led David away through the mangled wreckage of a helicopter. The Sentinel slammed into the ruined aircraft and knocked it away. The chopper smashed against a bulkhead, leaving a crater before falling to the deck.
Shrieks called out from other corridors, and Jeff heard the scritch scratch of spiders descending on their position. They might be able to handle the Sentinel, but trying to take him out while battling a dozen spiders didn’t seem possible, no matter how good a job Bouma had done training them.
“We got to stop it!” David said as the Sentinel plowed through a broken Rhino.
The alien pounded the vehicle into scrap metal.
Blue blood oozed over the Sentinel’s face. It couldn’t be long for this life. Not with wounds like that.
Jeff just needed another opportunity to fire on it, but they were too busy running and hiding to get a good shot.
The Sentinel let out another ear-splitting scream.
“David, you keep running!” Jeff said. “I’ll kill him!”
“But—”
“There’s no time!” Jeff said. “Just do it.”
David scrambled between more burned husks of Rhinos and choppers. Jeff climbed to the top of a Rhino that lay on its side and aimed at the Sentinel. He expected the beast to charge at him now that he was in the open. Instead, the Sentinel went straight for David.
“No you don’t, you ugly bastard!” Jeff unleashed a flurry of rounds into the side of the Sentinel’s face.
Pops of blood and flesh flew with each impact. The Sentinel suddenly switched direction. Its momentum carried it forward as its claws scratched the metal deck, fighting for purchase.
Jeff’s rifle clicked.
Empty.
The Sentinel roared, then barreled toward him, its mouth wide open. Jeff’s fingers trembled. He reached for a fresh magazine. All the while, more spider voices carried in from the corridors. Jeff almost lost his grip on the magazine. The Sentinel drew ever closer.
With a satisfying clink of metal against metal, the magazine found home. The Sentinel roared as Jeff sent a fusillade of fire into its terrifying maw. He didn’t stop firing until the magazine was empty.
To his relief, the fire left the Sentinel’s eyes. The beast crashed onto its side, jaw frozen open. Inertia carried it forward, bouncing and slamming against the vehicles in its path.
Even in death, it was still a threat. Jeff braced for impact. The Sentinel skidded across the deck, limbs and tail spread wide. Its claws screeched against the metal.
Then, just a few feet from Jeff, it slowed to a stop. A long death rattle escaped the alien.
Jeff hopped down from his perch, using the alien’s body for a cushion, then slid the rest of the way down to the deck.
“That was crazy,” David said.
Jeff couldn’t tell if his brother was scolding him or praising him. He didn’t have time to ask. The first few spiders poured into the opposite side of the vehicle hold. They didn’t seem to have seen Jeff or David yet, and Jeff wasn’t about to let them.
“Time to go outside,” he said.
They scrambled through the corridor to a gash in the Sunspot’s side. Outside, the lines of aliens climbing into the transport ships were getting shorter. There wasn’t much time before they were loaded up and off chasing Sophie and the others.
“Come on, bro!” Jeff said, helping David down onto the soil.
They sprinted between rocks and craters, using them for cover. All the while, Jeff stole glances behind to ensure no Organics had trailed them from the ship. The last of a line of spiders loaded up onto one of the transports. The aliens disappeared in the depths of the huge ship, then, a minute later, the rear hatch closed and the ship took off.
That left just one more for them to hitch a ride on.
Jeff knew he should be more careful, but he sprinted now, holding David by the wrist. They flew over the landscape, bounding with the low gravity. Jeff stumbled a couple of times, but rolled and picked up the pace once more. They had to make that ship.
To miss it would be disastrous. They would be stuck here trying to survive on whatever scraps remained in the Sunspot until the Organics found them, or they ran out of oxygen again. That wasn’t an option.
And that wasn’t what a real soldier would do.
The last spider climbed aboard the transport ship. There was no time to waste now. Jeff lunged from their cover and raced toward the hatch. It began to spiral closed. He and David jumped, narrowly clearing the closing door. It snapped shut behind them.
Jeff gasped for air, his lungs heaving. He dragged David immediately toward a tangle of hoses in the vast corridor. Blue light bathed them, making him feel like he was at the bottom of an ocean. An electric hum filled the air. There seemed to be a constant pulse resonating through the ship, as if the thing was alive with a beating heart hidden somewhere within its depths. The high ceiling and hatches lining the corridor dwarfed anything Jeff had seen on the Sunspot. At least there were plenty of places to hide in the nooks and crannies of the oversized transport.
David looked up at him, nearly as breathless as him. “What do we do now?”
— 17 —
Sophie’s blood boiled through her vessels, and an electricity surged through her muscles unlike anything she’d felt before. She glanced at the RVAMP strapped across Emanuel’s chest. A voice at the back of her mind told her she had to be prepared to use it, that the time was near.
The Organic transport ship refused to give them an escape. No matter how Sonya and Diego and Bouma tried to circumvent the biological input keys, the ship would not start its engines.
They were stranded inside a perfectly good biosphere ship with a perfectly good Rhino and a perfectly good Organic ship. But the Organics had been smarter all along.
“We’ve been victims of a honeypot,” Emanuel said. He let out a long sigh. The bags under his eyes seemed to deepen as he slumped in his seat. “There’s nothing else we can damn well do. We going to run or hide?”
“Best bet is to hide,” Bouma said. He kicked open the door to the Organic transport ship. “Maybe we can find a place in this ship to lay low.”
“That’s optimistic,” Diego said. “You know how well hiding worked on Earth. They’ll spot any high concentrations of water.”
“Which means we may as well be standing out in the open,” Holly said. Jamie and Owen cowered at her sides. “The only ones that could hide are these two.”
“And what’s going to happen if we leave two kids on this ship by themselves?” Ort said. “The best option is to run and hope they don’t spot us.”
The pain flared in Sophie’s head. Her vision blurred as a wet sheen formed over her eyes. She crumpled to her knees and pressed her palm to her forehead.
“Sophie!” Emanuel knelt by her. He put an arm over her shoulder and tried to pull her up. “We’ve got to try running. Maybe we can make it to the colony. Maybe it isn’t that much farther.”
“Optimism has never worked out for us before,” Diego said. “Why should it work now? We’ve got to be smart.” He tightened his grip around his rifle. “And if we have to, we’
ve got to fight.”
Sophie blinked until her vision recovered. She shrugged Emanuel off and stood on her own. Her muscles quivered. She wouldn’t let the nanobots win.
While her crew debated the merits of fighting or fleeing from their enemies, Sophie fought her own internal war. Fingers of dark thoughts encircled her mind, threatening to squeeze and send her unconscious once again. They were trying to strangle her consciousness.
No, you will not take me, she thought. The words crashed in her head like thunder as she repeated the internal mantra. At least momentarily, through sheer willpower, she fought off the tendrils of whatever it was that was trying to control her.
Right now, she didn’t need some hallucinogenic visions of what Mars used to be or where those multi-dimensional aliens were with their zoo of aliens. She was done with those type of deliriums. That wouldn’t save her; it wouldn’t save her crew.
“Sonya, where are the Organics?” Emanuel asked.
Before Sonya answered, an electric current flowed through Sophie. The leaden weight of dread scraped through to her core.
“They’re already here,” Sophie said.
“I can confirm, six ships have arrived,” Sonya said.
A boom shook through the Secundo Casu. The tremor knocked Sophie off balance, and she leaned against Emanuel for support. The children screamed. Now it really did feel like lava was flowing through Sophie’s brain.
This time she knew it wasn’t just pain flooding her from the nanobots’ attempts to remodel and rewire her nervous system. Instead, the bots were relaying some kind of message to her. Just like they had with all the visions. But with her refusal to accept the visions that would render her unconscious, the bots were less effective. All they relayed was a faraway sensation of anger and frustration.
Maybe she was tuned in to the strange emotions of some random spider or a Sentinel, or one of the multi-dimensional aliens that seemed to enjoy toying with her. Whatever it was, the sensation of anger fueled her, bolstering her own resolve.
“We’ve got to fight them off,” Sophie said through gritted teeth. “It’s our only chance.”
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