Kraken Orbital

by James Stubbs

  Make that four. Lucy, once her laser weapons had cooled, blasts another out of the sky. I trust her to cover me and keep herself safe at the same time. So I drop my axe and fall to the floor. I brush shards of glass out of the way as I search frantically for the engine bay beneath the carriages. There has to be something in there. Something combustible. I cut my hands really badly but don’t care. I’m pumped with adrenaline and just need to get the job done. I’ll worry about it later.

  I finally brush enough of the glass away to find the blood soaked carpet. I use the tip of the axe to make a long incision in the thin material and start ripping at the edges of it. I pull the carpet right up and fold in aside. There’s a hatch right beneath me but it’s bolted securely down. I try the axe but there’s not enough of a gap to prize it open.

  ‘Lucy!’ I yell instinctively. She catches on fast and I turn away just a little. I trust her perfect aim. She fires a single shot into the corner of the square shaped hatch and that succeeded in frying the bolt in that area. That would be enough to get it open. She turns back around and continues her barrage of fire at the encircling monsters without even saying a word to me. It’s really easy to be impressed by her.

  I take the axe one more time and make a quick count. Lucy has shot down at least another two. That will leave at least two more unless more have gotten in. The axe makes contact with the underside of the hatch and I pull with every tiny bit of strength that I have left. It finally dislodges with a heavy scrape and I use my free hand to pull it open completely.

  ‘Good luck!’ Lucy shouts but still doesn’t turn around. She must have highly attuned senses and must have figured out what I was trying to do. I’m not sure where the thought is coming from or why it’s so persistent, I just know somewhere deep down that those blast doors just weren’t going to open!

  The engine bay is small and cramped with no space to work. I know the thing is likely electrical but that would have been powered by the first generation hyper drive, or at least a second generator attached to it somehow. But it’s still working right now, despite the fact the hyper drive had died hundreds of years ago. I saw the shell of it myself. I know the ship is robust and hearty but this is really taking the biscuit quite frankly. The flooded hall happened because an old system had only just now finally died. Something is keeping this train moving and my money is on a secondary diesel engine.

  And there it is. Chugging away at the front of the engine bay. I can hear it’s deep and tantalizing rumble and smell the fumes coming from it. There it is again. The old world, the dependable old world, meeting head on with the new. And this ship is a model to it as always.

  I’m crouched down as low as I can get just to fit in the tiny crawlspace. Beneath me is another hatch but this one is bigger and screws open easily. That would lead down into the tunnel so no need to open it. I turn around on the spot to be met head on with a selection of two barrels. Big old looking oil drums. I guess that must be the heavy oil that is keeping this ancient engine pumping. And I know that it burns.

  ‘How’s it going up there?’ I yell to Lucy and pop my head back out of the hatch. The smell hits me right away. It was the burning and charred metal from the housing she had blasted away.

  ‘I count two more.’ She must have had a brief break in their offensive because she tuned to face me for the first time in a while. That must mean she knows it’s safe to do so.

  ‘Help me with these?’ I ask her and she comes running. I heave the first barrel with all my strength, restricted as it is in the tight and narrow, fume filled space. She holsters her weapons and lays flat on her chest against the floor. She helps me all she can and we finally lever the first rounded barrel out of the narrow hatch. But she has taken too long. Her scream fills me with dread and instant pain.

  ‘Lucy!’ I shout as she is slowly dragged away by another of the flying dinosaurs that had found it’s way into the carriage. I can only just see that it has her by the leg. Her boot is protecting her but it had still broken the skin. She’s bleeding and is tearing up in front of me. I fight the reaction to grab for her flailing hands and try to pull her back to me. I know that won’t work.

  There’s no chance I can out arm wrestle a dinosaur of that size and strength. I leap from the hatch, grab for my axe and push my way past the beast’s huge wings and to it’s beak. I stretch up tall, and slam down into it with all the force of my body weight. It splinters into two and cracks right down the centre. It frees Lucy and she darts away like a scared child. That’s not like her one bit. She tucks her legs into her arms and weeps uncontrollably.

  ‘Hey! Snap out of it!’ That’s cruel but I swear it needs to be. Not that it worked. She didn’t even look back up. I’m worried about her a lot but I need to take the reins. Maybe I can save her after all. I swing the axe one last time and strike the monster at it’s eyes. More shrieks, howls and blood fills the air. The copious red blood spews from it’s wounds as a mist first then a river later. I dart back to the barrel full of volatile diesel and tip it over. I didn’t mean to spill it but it doesn’t matter. I can see, through all of the chaos and death, that blast door is getting closer and showing no sign at all of moving even a little.

  I heave at the barrel and roll it to the stumbling dinosaur in front of me. It’s heavy and I can only hope it will be heavy enough to dislodge it’s talons from the window frame.

  ‘Lucy!’ I scream at her even louder than before. ‘Gun! Now!’ She just about wakes from her panic and tosses one of them to me. Time for one hell of a stunt. I fire at the barrel as it rolls closer and closer to the beast ahead. The flames start rippling and licking at the barrel at first but it blows right at the correct time. It rips through the monster, tears it apart and rocks the chamber of the train from side to side. But it starts burning back towards us, alighting the pieces I had carelessly spilled on the way!

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lucy finally stands and jogs over to me. I point at the ever encroaching door ahead of us in the tunnel. I don’t need to add anything else. I dart, instead, back to the hatch in the floor and start pulling at the next barrel. There’s at least one more of those beasts out there and the same trick was never going to work again.

  ‘Help me!’ I scream at her, throwing my axe back on the floor as the final flying beast slams against the carriage and perches as the others had in the window. Lucy doesn’t hesitate this time. She starts pulling at the barrel and we manage to ease it out of the gap. She looks at me like I’m mad when I start unscrewing the cap on the head of the barrel.

  ‘Are you insane? You’ll blow us all to hell!’ She screams right in my ear over the noise of the stumbling dinosaur that scratches ever closer to us.

  ‘No! We’re jumping!’ I point down to the hatch in the floor of the engine bay below. She almost protested but didn’t. It’s nice that she trusts me too. Nice, so I thought, but also a burden if I have to be honest. She, without having to be told, starts unscrewing the bolts and finally releases the hatch from the open housing. She must have dropped it down because I hear a clash a few moments later. I’m too busy smothering the carriage in diesel. It catches fire quickly alongside the flames I had already caused and I finally lose my new found nerve. Time to get out. Right now!

  Lucy waited for me in the engine bay. I remember my axe. I take it from the floor and toss it through the open shaft and down into the tunnel below. That might come in handy any number of times and in any number of different ways. I duck down into the hatch and lower myself down the newly opened access point and out into the cold of the tunnel. It isn’t that far to the ground. At least so it looked from where I was. I grip the side of the hatch as tightly as possible and look up to Lucy’s desperate face.

  ‘Climb down me!’ I keep flexing my fingers to keep the blood pumping as she starts lowering herself over me. Lucy drops down and grips the other side of the hatch before turning and taking hold of my shoulders. I had her full weight resting on me with her legs wrapped around mine. She starts snaki
ng her way down, gripping onto whatever loose bit of my armor she can get a hold of. Finally she is hanging right off my feet. I dare to glance ahead. We only have moments before the crash!

  ‘Jump!’ I yell and she lets go. I wait only a moment to let her get clear and let go too.

  The impact shivers through my spine the second my legs touch the floor. I instinctively roll but accidentally hurl myself into Lucy. She looks okay but I throw my arms over her and pull her into a small groove at the bottom of the tunnel. It’s hollowed out in the base of the tunnel and will protect us if the train falls from it’s tracks. I tuck her head under my shoulders and make sure my entire body covers hers.

  The explosion tears through the blast door. The sound is like nothing I have ever heard before. The metal tears like paper and the door screeches open as the train, as predicted, falls down into the tunnel. The gap we had crawled into shields us from the blow but not from the heat of the fire. Then silence. Nothing but the ringing in my ears. We made it. No sense sticking around though. I didn’t want to barely survive the dinosaurs, the explosion too, only to die in the resulting fire.

  Chapter 19

  Rest

  I let Lucy crawl out first. I pretend that it’s because I’m a gentleman. But it’s not. It’s because my back is nearly snapped in half. The pain is burning all around me. Bouncing from the tip of my toes and all the way up to the front of my skull and back again. I suck it up yet again and crawl out after her. By the time I make it from out underneath the train, she is already out of the crawlspace and holding out her hands to help me up. I take them with my breath held. She pulls so hard my back cracks really loudly. Even she hears it.

  ‘Are you okay?’ She asks and holds me once I’m up and out of the gap. She speaks softly in the new found silence. Just like before. It melts my heart right away and I slump over her shoulder.

  ‘Your back again?’ She starts to rub her hands around the base of my spine. I tell her it’s helping but I lied.

  I really don’t want to but I pull away. I have to walk it off. She doesn’t look offended so I don’t say anything. I just run my hand down her arm and all the way until we touch finger tips as I walk away. The agony burns through my legs with every step but I swear I’m not going down. How many times am I going to fall like this? It’s just plain unlucky. Or so I tell myself.

  The tunnel is still reasonably well lit. The lights behind us are still intact but the exploding train wiped out all of the ones nearer to the door. At least the door was wiped out too though so we have a way out of the tunnel without having to backtrack. I can’t see any cracks in the hull of the ship though. And I can’t see any more of the flying dinosaurs either. I think we might be safe. And I have an idea on how to lift our spirits and generally make the two of us feel a little better.

  I can see the tip of my axe glistening in the flames ahead. I suck up the pain yet again and bend down to retrieve it. It’s warm to the touch but the wooden handle hasn’t been burned or scarred either.

  ‘Come on, I’ve got an idea.’ I turn to see Lucy weeping into her hands again. She tries to hide it behind a yawn and a stretch but it’s as transparent as glass. She steadies herself and wanders over, kicking some of the rubble aside as she does. She takes me by the hand and nestles her head into my shoulder. She closes her eyes for just a second too.

  ‘What are you thinking? Climb through the torn door and see what we can find?’ I stroke her copper hair a second and drag her around me to face me.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ She just looks dazed and confused by my stupid question. She doesn’t answer but she has to be. I know I am. Very. I haven’t eaten since Kolt captured that snake out in the desert. But that must have been days ago. There really was no way of telling time here. We were inside, then outside, then back in again and constantly dealing with problems and blood curdling issues that it just didn’t matter what time it was.

  But I would like to know. It would be nice to figure out how long we had been here. I pull her with me and make my way slowly back to the fallen train. The fire, though intense, had burned fast and had died out into embers just as quickly.

  The train carriage had rolled onto it’s side but it wasn’t too far off centre to be uncomfortable. I enter through the smashed window and quickly check that the way is clear. It had been lit in a clean surgical light when we first stepped into it. Now it’s choked with smoke and flame scarred. The carpets are on fire still and the last of the birds is laid dead in one corner. I nudge it’s carcass first with my boot and then again with my axe a few times. No sound or movements means that it must be dead. Good. My plan might just work out after all.

  There’s enough of the diesel left to feed the fire a while and the various parts of the train that were flammable would feed it a while longer still. That’s pretty much just the carpets really. But I can tear up the cushion and felt pads that line the benches too. That will keep us warm for even longer still. Lucy finally joins me and takes a seat. It’s a bit skew whiff to one side but she manages to get comfortable by laying down across it. I take to the task of dismantling the place and feed it to the fire in the centre of the carriage. Lucy must think I have lost it.

  But she actually asks me if that’s true when I take my axe and start brutally hacking at the torso of the meaty and muscular frame of the overgrown bird. I succeed in hacking off two massive cuts of tender and bloodied meat. They, even uncooked, look like two of the nicest steaks you could ask for. I slop them on the dirty floor. I don’t care if they kill me. I’m eating them either way. I take my axe to the leathery wing. The skin splits with relative ease and I fashion two wraps, one for each of the two steaks.

  I place the axe down and wrap the tender looking meat around the thick skin. Perfect to cook them in. Lucy has propped herself up and has begun to smile a little. She must have caught on. Her expression is a curious mix between admiration, love and utter bewilderment. It just spurs me on frankly. My axe is double sided. I place one steak on one side of the blade and the other next to it on the other side of the tip. I then prop the axe into the fire using whatever shard of metal would hold it best in place. I wedge it in good and immediately hear the skin start to crackle and burn. They won’t take too long but best to cook them through. Lucy’s smile has evolved from a gentle, thin and admiring smile and into an easy chuckle. One filled with pride in me.

  ‘You complete caveman.’ She laughs as I sit down beside her. I nudge her playfully.

  ‘I guarantee that will be the best tasting meal you have ever had.’ I laugh with her and point to the now sizzling steaks. I’m really looking forward to mine. It must have been literally years since I had anything even like it. Maybe even back on the farm with my Dad come to think of it. It even conjures a tear for me to think about it. Not that I show it. Sadly our laughter and light mood dies off after a few minutes. It was nice to lift our spirits just for a moment but the reality of our situation eventually invaded what would have otherwise been a really nice moment for a fledgling couple to enjoy.

  I don’t know why I thought that. A couple. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself and ahead of her too. But that was how it felt and it made me feel better to just think it so I just went with it. Not that I would ever tell her. I’m not that brave. And I can’t persuade the new me to be that brave either.

  No matter. We just sit in silence and try to enjoy the flames and the warmth they create. It’s peaceful but the atmosphere of the place would not give it away. It remains tense. With more than one undercurrent flowing around the room. There is something I need to ask her and I can tell it’s distracting me. But I’m going to be the jerk who spoils our meal. I’ll just ask her after a while.

  The steaks are cooking really well now. The room is filling slowly with curious mixes of black and white clouds of smoke and the gentle rasping of the sizzling meat. It smells exceptional. It’s making my mouth water. I wait as long as I can as Lucy naps contently by my side.

  I need to know why she freaked
and lost it when one of those flying monsters started dragging at her legs. That really was out of character for her and it was making me sick thinking about it. I know everyone has a fear. An off switch. Something irrational that makes them terrified beyond reason. Maybe that was hers. But it just didn’t add up. And no way was she going to open up to it. Even when I did start prying for it, I doubt she will tell me. I nudge her awake.

  ‘I think these are good to eat. You want to join me.’ She rubs her eyes but smiles contently. She looks shaken again and I wonder what she might have been dreaming of. I thought back but only briefly to what she had said about her latest nightmare and it unsettles me.

  ‘You okay?’ I clarify but she only nods her head. I take the handle of the axe and bring the nicely cooked sizzling dino-steaks out of the slowly dying fire. Shame we have nothing to eat them off of or even with. I guess we will just have to wait for them to cool and go at them like animals. I’m fine with that but I think Lucy might just be humoring me. She doesn’t look like she has any appetite. Something is really troubling her. I need to know what so I can try to fix it.

  ‘Listen…’ I start as I unwrapped the meat from the skin blankets I had hastily but rather resourcefully crafted. ‘Even if you don’t feel like eating, I think you should. No idea where the next one will come from…’ I smile to her and rub the top of her shoulder with a gentle caressing palm.

  ‘They look amazing.’ She smiles, forces herself to perk up with a deep breath, and takes one of the steaks off the axe without worrying about the mess or the heat at all. I must have given my surprise at that away in my face.

  ‘What?’ She protests and takes a hearty mouthful. Trying to stop smiling at the same time.