by Ian Whates
If you can see it, you’re too close.
Castle had probably been more scared than this at some point in her life, but she could not think of an example. She could not think of the equation for centripetal force. Others ran with her, staff, residents, those who were mobile, those who were not so ambulatory.
When she reached the helipad she looked back.
Framed against the clouds and smoke was a giant, frightening as a Goya. It towered above Wotan House’s roof, about two hundred metres by Castle’s estimate. Its skin was glistening black, but that was from the carbonized steel plates that made up its integument. It was cyclopean, with one eye glowing green off-centre in its skull. The absence of a second eye, the presence of space in the face, somehow made it more horrific. Its every movement screeched, metal on metal plate, unoiled mechanisms, unmaintained cybernetics. It did not have human proportions, with a longer lower torso, adding to the unsettling appearance, its wrongness to the eye. Castle was unsure if there were any organics in there, or if it was a big robot controlled by Una’s mind. In its right hand Una lay limp, dripping what Castle hoped wasn’t blood. She had thought the Familiar was decommissioned. Apparently not.
The Familiar seemed to be scanning Una’s body, the green orb flashing rapidly, before glowing steady again. Then it turned, and fixed on Castle and the other people on the helipad.
If you can see it, you’re too close.
She knew there was no point running. It could kill her from a mile away in many different ways. Castle allowed the Familiar to subject her to whatever radiation it used and prayed involuntarily. The process took forever, but eventually Castle heard screeching again.
The giant stepped off the island and disappeared into the water.
“From what we’ve been able to decode in the remnants of the alien’s genetic material, this was meant to be a surgical strike. Bates’ was the most effective weapon against the aliens. They obviously wanted to kill her and study the electrode in her head,” said the Superintendent. “We found the real Arnold East dead and decaying in his apartment. Been there for months, from the look of it. The Ministry of Defence is already putting together a response force. The war didn’t end, Castle. It was in hibernation.”
Brontes seemed to be more alive, activated by the prospect of war. Castle was the opposite. She could not think of enough numbers or equations to distract her from the anxiety and self-loathing.
“How do we plan to get Una back? We don’t have guns bigger than the Familiar,” said Castle.
The Superintendent delayed responding a little too long. “That is not your concern. I want you to work on the restoration of Wotan House.”
“Sir, do we have something bigger than a Familiar?” asked Castle.
The Superintendent smiled. “Dismissed, Castle.”
“I’m not a soldier.”
“Then get the fuck out of my office, and get your hand seen to.”
Castle left. She shivered when she remembered Arnold’s quivering digestive system, but she was more unsettled by the danger she did not know, from whatever existed that was bigger and badder than that black cyclops, than Una’s Familiar.
She decided she didn’t want to think about it. She would go out, get drunk and add this to the days she wanted to forget.
She would raise one glass to Una Bates, wherever she was, and then she would drink until she passed out or died.
Another Day in Paradise
Amy DuBoff
“Incoming!” Sergeant Jackson dove behind a sandy embankment, taking cover in what passed for vegetation on the barren planet.
The alien mortar round wailed as it arched overhead on a blind path. It plunged into the ground barely out of lethal range, detonating with a sharp crack followed by a sonic boom. Sand and gravel pelted the squad hunkered just out of enemy sight.
Jackson spat out a mouthful of grit and blew his nose free of dust. So much for taking the enemy by surprise. He wiped the narrow band of brow exposed beneath the lip of his helmet with the back of his gloved hand. “Everyone okay?”
“All clear,” Corporal Shira, one of his fire team leaders, replied through the comm. She was braced against a boulder down the hill, reloading the energy cartridge in her pulse rifle.
“Fuckers don’t give up, do they?” Jackson quipped.
Really, it was the humans that didn’t give up. The colony was a shithole even before the Selarks showed up, and now there was hardly anything left to defend. But it was a human settlement, so they would defend the desert world as if it were the lost paradise of Earth.
Jackson checked the charge on his blaster; it was at eighty percent, more than enough to finish the fight. “Let’s show those bug-heads how it’s done,” he said, rising to a crouch.
He pressed the inside of his left wrist to activate his digicamo suit. With a glistening silver wave, he was enveloped by a reflective bubble that mirrored the surrounding landscape. The air shimmered as he moved, but he disappeared completely when perfectly still. In the heat of the desert world, visual warfare was everything, since the reflective sand wreaked havoc with thermal sensors. It was the best advantage the humans had.
The dozen soldiers in his squad activated their own suits and began creeping up the low hill through the scraggly brush.
“Keep your distance,” Jackson warned as they crested the hill. “Don’t want to end up like Bravo Company.”
“We’re not stupid enough to get captured.” Shira crawled past to his left. She peeked over the hill through her scope. “Plus, we can take these guys.”
Jackson dropped to his stomach and looked through his own scope. A shallow valley on the other side of the crest was occupied by the Selark contingent. Thirty of the seven-foot-tall mantis-like drones and two twenty-foot armoured octopod mechs were fortified behind a row of hovercraft, their taupe plating gleaming under the descending sun. Both of the mechs had their mortars primed to fire another barrage at the first sign of movement.
Though his squad was outnumbered, Jackson’s lips curled into a smile. A little strategy would take out the Selarks in no time. “Shira, Neeley. Get those mechs in your sights. Everyone else, concentrate your fire on the middle hovercraft. Let’s funnel them straight toward us.”
“Roger that,” gunner Neeley acknowledged as he and Shira slithered into position at the hillcrest.
Jackson motioned for his other soldiers to hold just shy of the crest until the opening shots were fired. He checked that Shira and Neeley were both ready, then edged forward to oversee the assault. “Fire on my mark... Now!”
Shira and Neeley pelted the mechs with a burst of electromagnetic blasts. The mechs shuddered under the impact of the shots and erupted in a shower of yellow sparks, stumbling over their own legs before collapsing on the ground with a poof of dust.
“Fire at will!” Jackson commanded. He tossed a strobe light down the hill, projecting dazzling flashes along the sandy terrain, and opened fire on the centre hovercraft.
The first wave of energy bullets appeared to bounce off the alien plating, but Jackson and his soldiers knew better. They concentrated their fire, and slowly the plating gave way. With the initial layer breached, the next wave of blaster fire sliced through the hovercraft, riddling it with singed holes.
As Jackson and his squad fired, the Selark drones sprayed shots along the ridge, but their aim was poor. With their thermal vision fooled by the sandy ground’s radiant heat and the digicamo masking the human soldiers, the Selarks concentrated fire on the random strobe flashes, mistaking it for muzzle flare.
Jackson kept a close eye on his progress cutting through the hovercraft’s armour, waiting for the side panel to give way. He’d been through enough firefights to know just what to look for. As the plating began to slough to the ground, he seized the opportunity – sending a shot directly into the energy core at the centre of the craft.
The hovercraft exploded in a flash of white light, releasing a shockwave that nearly knocked the air from Jac
kson’s lungs. He took a gasping breath as he surveyed the valley below.
Selark limbs were strewn about the battlefield, oozing viscous white blood, amid wreckage from the hovercraft. Shrapnel embedded in the ground stood like tombstones for the fallen. Only ten of the drones remain on their clawed feet, and they clustered together behind a hovercraft on the right end of the ruined defensive line.
“Finish them off!” Jackson jumped up to advance down the hill.
The remaining Selark drones, dazed from the explosion, fell under the fire of Jackson’s advancing squad before they had a chance to fight back. Their shells shattered under the relentless fire, popping with a sickening crunch as each drone collapsed in a twisted pile of its serrated limbs. Shrill shrieks and clicks sounded with the dying breaths – once chilling cries that had become background noise to a regular day’s work.
Jackson walked through the remains, covering his nose and mouth with his uniform’s collar to dull the acidic stench of burnt Selark flesh. One of the fallen drones twitched as he approached, feebly reaching for a nearby blaster. Jackson finished it off with a shot through one of its bulbous compound eyes, leaving a milky cavern in the alien’s skull.
“Looks like we got all of them,” he said. He pulled out his GPS locator and flagged the location for the Salvage crew. “Head out.”
The sun was touching the horizon by the time Jackson’s squad completed the slog back to base. The fortified compound sat at the edge of a rock bluff, with a sheer cliff dropping below on two sides and wide open sandy plains on the approach. The lookouts in the watchtower above the colossal main gate stirred as the squad neared.
Jackson activated the automated broadcast of daily verification codes.
“Welcome back, Sergeant,” the guard acknowledged through Jackson’s comm. “Colonel wants to see you.”
Jackson groaned under his breath. Those ambush conversations rarely brought good news.
The entry gate parted to let the squad inside, with Jackson leading the way. As he passed through the metal gate, he was surprised to see the Colonel waiting in full body armour at the head of three squadrons and a row of waiting transport trucks.
“There you are,” Colonel Rimov greeted. “Did the scouting party give you any trouble?”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle, sir,” Jackson replied.
“Good. We needed a clear path to the Selark encampment,” Rimov continued.
Jackson eyed his commanding officer. “Sir?”
“We got orders from the Talos base. The Selarks have retreated from the borderlands. We have them surrounded and need to hit them hard while we have the chance to make a real dent. The General wants every available soldier at the Echo rendezvous for a coordinated strike.”
Jackson looked over at his tired squad. Their posture had straightened after hearing the plan and a thirst was in their eyes. They’d been waiting for a chance to take the Selarks head on.
“When do we leave, sir?” Jackson asked.
Rimov shook his head. “You’ll be staying right here to hold down the fort while I’m away.”
Jackson glanced up and saw guards coming down from the tower. He sighed inwardly. It was just his luck to be left at home while everyone else got the glory. “Neeley, Davis, take first watch.”
“Yes, sir.” Neeley and Davis dashed up the guard tower.
“It should be a quiet night here,” the Colonel said to Jackson. “We’ll be back around sunrise.”
Jackson nodded. “We’ll be waiting for you, sir. Good hunting.”
Colonel Rimov motioned the soldiers into the waiting trucks. The entry gate slid open and they drove out, leaving a trail of dust in their wake across the open desert.
“Seal the gate,” Jackson ordered. He loosened his helmet’s chinstrap.
Two of his soldiers ran over to the controls to close the thirty-foot armoured gate.
Jackson took in the open patch of compact sand in the main yard. It seemed so desolate without the other soldiers and equipment. With even the normally lively barracks and mess cabin completely vacated, the base was one step from a ghost town. Sand-battered metal and pitted concrete: home sweet home.
“If we have the place to ourselves, does that mean we get to party tonight?” Shira asked through a playful grin.
A smile tugged at Jackson’s lips. “We’ll party when the last of the Selarks are out of this sand Hell. Now come on, we have a long night ahead of us.”
Jackson and half his squad grabbed a meal and took a short nap while the others kept first watch. At midnight, he and Shira went to retrieve Neeley and Davis from the guard tower.
The night was dark and still beyond the base walls. Jackson gazed at the sliver of moon hanging above distant hills that appeared as inky mounds in the dim light. The features of the open plain were flattened in shadow outside the reach of light along the base perimeter.
“Do you ever miss the trees?” Shira asked.
Jackson leaned against the railing. “All the time.”
“I can’t even remember what a forest smells like anymore. This grit,” she brushed a dusting of sand off the banister, “is all I’ve seen for years.”
“We’ll be home soon.”
“You really think so?”
Jackson nodded. “Somewhere out there, the Selarks are getting their bony asses handed to them.”
Shira looked down. “More always come.”
“There are more of us, too. We’re not in this alone.”
Shira sighed and stared out across the dark terrain. She tensed. “Are those lights?”
Jackson came to attention. “Where?” He grabbed a pair of binoculars from a ledge beneath the railing and directed them along Shira’s outstretched arm. Sure enough, an object was speeding across the landscape.
“I thought they weren’t due back until sunrise?” Shira ventured.
“Maybe something didn’t go as planned.” Jackson examined the object through the binoculars again. “No, wait, that’s not one of ours!”
Shira grabbed a second pair of binoculars. “Fuck! That looks like a Selark hoverer.”
Jackson sounded the internal alarm. “Bogey approaching!” He shouted into the intercom. “Get to the fence!”
Shira ran across the guard tower and primed the pulse cannon. “Why would they send just one?”
Jackson’s stomach turned over. “They wouldn’t.” He scanned the horizon with the binoculars. “Oh shit.”
A line of ten lighted craft sped behind the lead vessel – far too many to take out with one cannon.
“Grab the pulse rifles. We’ve got company,” Jackson said into the intercom, trying to steady the pounding of his heart that suddenly filled his ears.
The first hovercraft was almost in range. Shira had it in the pulse cannon’s sights, awaiting the order to fire.
An electronic chirp broke the silence. Jackson jumped with surprise, eyeing the unexpected authorization illuminating the communications console.
Shira glanced up from the cannon’s scope, her finger still poised on the trigger.
Jackson checked the console. “I’m receiving clearance codes, but they’re three days old.”
“Since when are the bug-heads that crafty?”
Jackson frowned. “They’re not.”
Footsteps sounded as other soldiers began clambering up the tower.
“What are your orders, Sergeant?” Shira asked, returning her attention to the cannon’s scope.
The codes illuminated on the communications console a second time. Unsure what to make of it, Jackson examined the hovercraft through his binoculars again. It was riding low to the ground and jerking erratically. That didn’t seem like any Selark piloting he’d ever seen.
“Shit, they’re almost on top of us!” Neeley exclaimed as he propped his pulse rifle on the railing.
“Your orders, sir?” Shira repeated.
Jackson hesitated. Eight Selark drones could be in the hoverer, ready to open fire on his squad the
moment the gate was open. Or, human soldiers could be inside, in desperate need of help. The only way to know would be for the craft to stop for inspection, but it wasn’t slowing down. If it continued at its current speed, it would hit the gate hard enough to compromise integrity. The base would be vulnerable, and one squad wouldn’t be enough to defend against the army coming up behind the lead craft. But if it was his own people in there...
“Fuck. The codes are friendly. I –” Jackson took in the wave of other hovercraft behind the first. The unequivocal enemy. He couldn’t leave the door open for them even a crack. He swallowed, his gut wrenching as he made the only decision available. “Take it out.”
“Yes, sir!” Shira fired the charge.
The lead covercraft flipped into the air, engulfed in a flash of white light. It crashed to the ground, charred and mangled.
Shira recharged her cannon and pointed it toward the oncoming wave.
“Defend the fence,” Jackson instructed, lining up a hovercraft in his sights. He opened fire.
The harsh squeals of weapons blasts echoed across the plain. Flashes shattered the darkness, illuminating the action in bursts of movement.
Selark drones poured out of the hovercraft, swarming the base of the wall. Jackson and his soldiers tossed down flash grenades as the Selarks tried to pile up the riveted face. The aliens let out piercing screams with every blast as they clutched their injuries with their claws. But they were relentless – each drone continuing its assault until it could move no more.
Jackson reloaded the charge in his pulse rifle when the first was exhausted, concentrating on keeping the Selarks away from the entry gate. Wave after wave poured forward from the hovercraft, and Jackson’s squad held back each. The entire world was what he could see through his scope, the energy blasts the soundtrack of the destruction before him.