“Of course they are,” Sophie said. “Like Hoffman said, those zoo ships contain all the technology they’ve taken from other races. These ships drive the Organics’ success. We take one of those, we take the keys to the Organics’ kingdom.”
“Then I’m glad we’re about to steal one of them,” Emanuel said.
He reached for the open hatch. Bouma provided covering fire as he stood in the entrance. The fires in Sophie’s brain and muscles burned hotter than before. She felt ready to collapse. If not for Emanuel, she would already be lying on the ground, writhing and waiting for one of the plasma blasts to hit her and end her misery.
She wanted to feel joy knowing they would soon escape. Soon they would be off this planet and away from this miserable excuse for a colony. But all she could feel was seething anger and agony. The nanobots weren’t letting go.
“Just one more step, Sophie,” Emanuel said, helping her up.
Her boot hit the first step, and Emanuel started to hoist her the rest of the way. As soon as she pushed herself up toward the hatchway, something huge slammed into her chest and tossed her backward. Emanuel rolled beside her. He dropped the RVAMP and his rifle.
Red soil covered Sophie’s visor, and she struggled to catch her breath. Each intake of air caused a sharp pain to stab through her chest. Emanuel scrambled for his rifle, but something kicked it away.
Sophie looked up.
Hoffman.
“Stop being so stubborn,” he said. He grabbed Emanuel’s rifle. When Bouma tried to fire on him from the entrance to the ship, Hoffman let loose a flurry of rounds, forcing Bouma back.
Hoffman slung his rifle onto his back, then grabbed Emanuel and Sophie by their suit collars. He dragged them away so Bouma couldn’t fire on them. Another plasma blast exploded nearby. Rock and dirt showered them. Hoffman didn’t flinch.
Emanuel tried to twist out of Hoffman’s grip, but Hoffman kicked him in the chest, sending him flying backwards.
“We can use you here,” Hoffman said. “If you leave, the Organics will hunt you down.” He paused and fired back at the zoo ship’s entrance again, holding any would-be saviors back. “And even if you do get off this planet, they will continue to exert their influence on you.”
Emanuel tried to pick himself up and charge Hoffman. Another swipe of Hoffman’s claws sent the man tumbling away again with a cry of pain.
“Emanuel!” Sophie cried, trying to crawl over to him. The pain was unbearable. She felt as if a Slinger was sitting atop her. “Stop this, Hoffman. You want to save humanity, come with us. Don’t fall for the Organics’ trap.”
“You don’t understand,” Hoffman said.
Emanuel pushed himself up to his knees. Hoffman kicked him in the abdomen, and the man sprawled out on his stomach, gasping for breath behind his foggy visor. Sophie tried to reach up toward Hoffman, tried to grab his arm and stop him, but the nanobots urged her not to. Every movement she wanted to make felt like she was swimming through a pool of lead.
“They can control you from here, Sophie,” Hoffman continued. He pressed a foot on her shoulder to prevent her from crawling any farther. “This colony will always control you. You and any other human infected by the bots. They own you.”
The bots pressed on her mind. Her vision swam, and she blinked, desperate not to succumb to the encroaching darkness.
“You’re already more like me, more like the Organics, than you realize.” Hoffman once more extended his clawed fingers. “Stop all of this and come back with me. We can make this right.”
The fiery tornado of the bots swirled in her mind, and agony swelled until she was short of breath.
You will not win. You will not win.
She repeated the mantra. Over and over, she let those words flow through her mind until they were all she could think. Like a whirlwind, they blew back the fires of the bots.
“I am still human,” she said. “I am not like you. I never will be.”
With all the remaining strength she could muster, she dove for the rifle Hoffman had kicked aside. Every joint in her body protested the movement, and she cried out in nearly unbearable agony. But she wouldn’t let the bots win. She wouldn’t let Hoffman win.
Sophie grabbed the rifle, twisted, and fired on Hoffman. The shots blazed into his shoulder and chest, punching through armor and tearing into his flesh. His feet slipped, knocking him off balance.
She caught his gaze. His eyes were wide with surprise and, Sophie thought, fear. Now that was the most human emotion she’d seen on him since he introduced her to the Biosphere under Cheyenne Mountain. There was still a hint of the former man and scientist there, no matter how deeply the Organics had perverted his mind.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sophie said to him. “You can come with us. Drop your rifle.”
She pushed herself up to her knees, then stood shakily. Now she offered her hand to him. For a moment, she thought he might actually take it. His injuries might’ve finally broken through the fog on his mind, the delusion that the only way to survive was to give up that which made him human: free will, and the desire to pursue an unfettered life.
Slingers still lobbed volley after volley. The spiders were crawling over other ships now. The roar of ship’s engines rolled across the shipyard, and several other ships started to initiate, ready to intercept the stolen one if it dared take off.
“Please, Dr. Hoffman,” Sophie said. “We can save humanity together.”
The fear in Hoffman’s eyes disappeared, to be replaced by red-hot anger. He pushed himself up and started toward Sophie, marching forward in a blind rage. Emanuel dove and grabbed Hoffman’s leg. Hoffman twisted and sent his claws through Emanuel’s back. Emanuel yelled in agony, and Sophie let loose a salvo into Hoffman’s chest. More gunfire blasted from the zoo ship’s hatch.
Hoffman went down in a tangle of busted armor and bleeding flesh. His limbs went still, and his rifle fell from his grip.
Sophie collapsed and began crawling toward Emanuel. Blood started to bubble through the punctures in his suit.
“No, no, no,” she wept.
Bouma limped out of the zoo ship, his rifle over his back. Another plasma round hit near enough that a wave of heat and tossed up Martian soil washed over them. Bouma grabbed Emanuel. Sophie fought against the pain coursing through her and stood, wrapping Emanuel’s other arm around her shoulder.
The nanobots fought to control her mind. The sounds around her ebbed and flowed. She could sense her vision growing hazy. But she carried on.
For Holly and the children.
For Diego and Bouma.
For Emanuel.
For humanity.
She felt another person hold her upright, and let her weight fall on them.
“You’re going to be okay,” Holly said. “We’ve got you, Sophie. We’re getting out of here.”
Sophie knew she would be okay. She’d figure out a way, somehow, on this damn ship, to conquer the nanobots within her. But it wasn’t herself she was worried about.
Emanuel was in Bouma’s arms. Unconscious. She reached out and stroked his arm. Then she repeated the promise he’d made to her so long ago.
“We’re getting out of here, Emanuel. I’m not leaving without you.”
— 24 —
Athena aimed her pulse rifle at the building-sized beetle chiseling at the ground with horns the size of a school bus. It had flown here to kill them, and it was her fault. The Organics must have detected her team moving across the desert after all.
Her gut told her there wasn’t much they could do to stop this monster, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try. She lined up the sights on the curved shell covering the two sets of wings, wondering if the rounds would do anything besides piss the creature off. Even their RPGs probably wouldn’t dent the armor, assuming they could take down the force field protecting the chitinous shell.
Griffin, Taylor, and Malone were looking in her direction with their mirrored visors. Santiago, Staff Sergean
t Corey, and five kid soldiers were all crouched behind her team at the edge of the tarmac, next to the hangars. Everyone else was underground.
“How the hell are we going to stop that thing?” Santiago asked.
“We’ll split up. Maybe our combined fire will bring it down,” Athena said. “Therin, you have the only grenade launcher. Load the last of the EMP grenades, and fire them once you get close enough. We’ll cover you from the rooftops. Once the beetle’s shields are down, we will open fire.”
The Staff Sergeant nodded his helmet.
“Santiago, take your team to that rooftop,” Athena said, pointing. “Taylor and Malone, you got that one. I’ll take the third with Griffin.”
The kids all dipped their heads, and her team followed suit. She took a second to scrutinize everyone around her. Goggles and breathing devices covered their faces, masking their features, but she knew they were all terrified. She knew she was. Her own heart was beating out of control.
The abomination drilling into the sand suddenly lifted its head away from the hole, opening its mandibles. The hissing that followed brought Athena to her knees. The kids all clamped their hands over their helmets. She couldn’t hear them screaming, but apparently the beast could. It tilted its beady black eyes their direction, homing in on their hiding spot.
“Go, go, go!” Athena said. She took off for the ladder and jumped onto a rung when she got there. The hissing stopped, replaced by a ringing in her ears that sounded like a gong going off rapid fire.
At the top of the ladder, she crawled onto the rooftop, pushed herself up, and moved over to the railing, staying low. Griffin was right behind her. He got down on his stomach and prepared his RPG while she charged her pulse rifle.
Athena checked the other rooftops. Malone and Taylor were in position, and Santiago was still climbing with the kids. On the ground, Therin snuck toward the beast, which had gone back to digging, apparently more interested in what was beneath the surface.
Athena licked her cracked lips and allowed herself a sip of water from her helmet. “Please work,” she whispered.
She patted Griffin on the back, and he raised his RPG. The other soldiers all aimed their weapons at the beetle. A vortex of sand and grit rose out of the hole as it dug deeper.
Therin continued jogging toward the beast. When he was a few hundred feet away, he shouldered his grenade launcher and fired all three of the EMP grenades. They streaked through the air, ricocheted off the shield, and bounced back to the sand, where they exploded in an invisible blast.
The hissing sound that followed nearly brought Athena to her knees again. But this time she fought the pain and, using a hand gesture, ordered everyone to open fire.
A torrent of pulse rounds and several RPGs slammed into the shields, all of them impacting in blue blasts that were absorbed in pulsating waves across the surface.
“No,” she whispered. The soldiers continued firing from the other rooftops, but the rounds were harmless, nothing but toothpicks pecking the outside of a turtle shell.
Griffin flung a side glance at Athena.
“We have to get out of here!” she yelled.
The hissing beetle made it impossible to hear anything, including her own words. It scuttled away from the hole and angled its horns at the building where Malone and Taylor were still firing their pulse rifles.
A flash of white made Athena turn her helmet. She crouched and raised a hand to shield her visor. When the blinding light cleared, there wasn’t anything left of the rooftop where Malone and Taylor had stood a moment earlier. The structure folded, the walls crashing together in a cloud of embers and smoldering metal.
“RUN!” she yelled.
The creature directed its smoking horns at Santiago’s building next. The children were already climbing down the ladder, but the old man continued shooting.
The beetle slammed its mandibles together as the horns glowed and recharged. The kids jumped to the ground and Therin rounded them up at the bottom of the ladder. He pointed for them to run.
Griffin pulled on Athena’s arm. “Let’s go!” he shouted.
She could hear that. She turned to move just as another blast of light flashed in the distance. When she looked over her shoulder, Santiago was gone. The rooftop glowed red from the heat that had vaporized his body.
But the school bus driver’s sacrifice had bought the kids enough time to get away. They were bolting between the buildings below.
Athena followed Griffin down the ladder and jumped to the sand. Moving around the side of the structure, she waved at the kids. They caught up with her a moment later, and she directed them back to the sewer entrance.
She wasn’t sure what the hell they were going to do now, but they had no other choice than to retreat.
The ground rumbled beneath her feet as she ran after Griffin. He stopped to load another RPG, and she risked a glance over her shoulder. Therin had halted to fire too, but the beast was scuttling right for him.
It swiped the air with a spiked limb, impaling the Staff Sergeant on one of the tree-length barbs. He squirmed and fired his pulse rifle into the sky before going limp.
The creature continued toward Athena, but she couldn’t move—her body was paralyzed with fear, and shell shock.
“Out of the way!” Griffin shouted. He pushed her aside and raised his weapon. The RPG rocketed into a building to the left of the beetle. The miss wasn’t a miss at all, she realized. The RPG slammed into the barrels of jet fuel stored inside and outside the hangar.
A massive explosion consumed the monster in a rising mushroom cloud. The heat wave slammed into Athena and Griffin just as they moved around the side of the final hangar.
“Don’t stop!” Griffin shouted.
They bolted for the storm drain entrance across the base. The kids were just ahead, nearly at the manhole cover.
Earsplitting hissing stopped Athena halfway, and she turned to see the flaming beetle burst through the building they had just left behind. The creature aimed its glowing horns at them.
She brought up her rifle, but saw something on the horizon over the smoldering beast. A flicker of blue emerged. Not the same color as the sky, but a darker blue, like a deep pool of water. Then several more. A small squadron of the fighters Alexia had dubbed Sharks were en route.
They were done for now.
This was the end of the line.
After months of fighting, she would die here, in the sand, with what was left of her crew and the survivors of a doomed field trip.
Instead of closing her eyes and holding her breath, she stiffened and focused on the beetle barreling toward her. A cloud of dust and smoke followed the monster as it skittered across the sand.
What chance did the human race ever stand against such monsters, she wondered. She lowered her weapon and prepared to meet her maker. When laser fire raced away from the incoming Sharks, she flinched.
Her eyelids slammed shut and she shielded her body with her hands out of instinct. Several of the bolts blasted into the sand around her, kicking up grit.
None had hit her. She was still alive.
But the beetle wasn’t so fortunate. It had crashed to the ground, several limbs blown off its bulbous body. Blue blood gushed from the purple shell as the fighters continued to unleash their laser fire.
Griffin pulled Athena away from the blasts, and they retreated to the sand dune the kids had gathered behind. Safely sheltered, Athena listened to the beast let out its final hisses and screeches.
When the bombardment ceased, there were just the sounds of ringing in her ears, rushing wind, and a sobbing child.
Athena motioned for Griffin. Together, they climbed the sand dune with their weapons. The Sharks were all landing on the other side, and a human jumped out of one of the cockpits wearing an NTC uniform, a baseball cap, and a dust mask.
“What the hell?” Griffin said.
Athena was too cautious to take the stroke of good luck lightly. “Stop right there!” She pointe
d her rifle at the man, who slowly raised his hands. He pulled down his face mask, revealing a thick red beard.
“That’s not a great way to welcome me home,” the man said.
Athena slowly lowered her weapon. “It can’t be…” she whispered.
There was no way this could really be Captain Rick Noble.
But that red beard, the confident grin, and that rolling voice all told her it was.
Athena ran down the slope to meet Noble, stopping when she was just a foot away.
“Is that really you, Corporal?” he asked.
Athena wasn’t sure what to say when she saw it really was Captain Noble. Instead, she reached forward and grabbed Noble, pulling him close in an embrace.
“I thought you were dead,” she whispered. “I never thought I would see you again.”
“I’m very much alive, and I’m here to take us all away from this place.” He pointed at the Sharks. “I’ve got Alexia aboard. She’s hacked these other fighters. We’re using them to get to Mars.”
Athena pulled away from Noble and looked out over the squadron. She couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Captain Noble?” came a voice.
Trish had climbed out of the manhole cover behind them. Several of the kids and the two teachers were already standing in the sand, watching.
“Hurry up everyone,” Noble said. “We don’t have much time. Athena, you come with me. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Athena followed him back to one of the ships. Through the translucent cockpit, she saw a creature unlike any she’d ever seen before.
“Meet Roots,” Noble said. “He saved my life, and now he’s going to help us get to Mars.”
***
The CIC of the massive Organic zoo ship hummed around Diego. He gasped to recover his breath as he placed his clawed hand against a display. Blue light rippled through the screen from his touch. A wave of alien hieroglyphic characters appeared in holographic projections.
Orbs IV_Exodus_Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction Survival Thriller Page 31