Realization set in.
“You’re trying to identify the nanobots?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “The nanobots are way too small for the OCT to visualize.”
“I know,” Sophie said, as if there was no contradiction between her two statements. She continued her work on the tablet.
“I don’t get it.”
She looked up with a sad smile. Her skin was still oily, but she’d regained some of her color. “Lt. Smith had far higher concentrations of nanobots than I did.”
“I remember,” Emanuel said. He placed the RVAMP on a table and moved next to Sophie to look at her tablet. Her fingers tapped across the screen as she manipulated lines of code used to analyze the images obtained through the OCT. It started to become clearer to him. “You’re not expecting to directly visualize individual nanobots, are you?”
“Not exactly.” Sophie shook her head and set the tablet down in her lap. “I pulled up the data you transferred to the Sunspot and to our data stores here. It looks like the nanobots started to clump within Lt. Smith. My guess is, they were programmed to do that to create, for lack of a better word, antennae within Smith. That way, the bots could communicate with the Organics and vice versa.”
“That makes sense. You never had the same numbers of nanobots, so the Organics couldn’t get complete control over your body.”
Sophie nodded. “I never had the same numbers of nanobots as Smith, but if they’re propagating, I might now.” She glared at him with a gaze that made him feel like she could read his thoughts.
“The OCT will be able to detect if there are clustered nanobots in my blood like there were in Smith’s. If it detects them, it will mean it’s too late for me. I’ll be compromised and the Organics will use me against you all.”
“Sophie…”
“I can’t let that happen.” Sophie gestured to the RVAMP. “If I’m unable to do it, then I need you to hit me with the RVAMP.”
Painful memories surfaced in his mind. He’d watched Sophie activate the RVAMP that had saved their lives and defeated the Organics as they boarded the Sunspot. Her eyes had gone blank, crossing in different directions like a chameleon, and she’d collapsed to the ground.
“No, not again, Sophie. There’s got to be a better way. Maybe we can stop the signal or restrain you or—”
“This is the only way.” Her voice was sharp and firm. Emanuel knew then that she had made her decision. He wracked his brain for another way.
But he had nothing concrete.
“When we reach the colony, they’ll be able to do something,” Emanuel said. “Between Hoffman and all the medical facilities, we’ll heal you.”
“You can’t save me,” she said quietly.
Silence hung in the air between them as she continued to work. It was only interrupted by the occasional chatter coming from Holly and the kids, until a voice crackled over the comms.
Emanuel’s heart fluttered, but he didn’t know what to do. He was afraid to push Sophie for fear of putting her over the edge.
“You all got to see this,” Bouma suddenly said.
An image fizzled to life on the Rhino’s display. It took a moment for Emanuel to understand what he was looking at. Sophie seemed to recognize it right away, and traced her fingers across the image.
“It’s like the one from my vision,” Sophie said. “An Organic ship.”
Emanuel marveled at the picture. This ship looked sleeker and smaller than the others he had seen. Maybe it was only an interplanetary transport ship or something, rather than the massive warships they’d seen on Earth and orbiting Mars. But there was something else about it that puzzled him. He couldn’t quite place his finger on it.
“I want to see it,” Sophie said.
Emanuel pointed at the image, confused.
“No, I mean, I need to see it in person.” Sophie walked away from the display and started putting on an armored EVA suit. She almost stumbled as she pulled on the EVA suit’s legs.
Again, Emanuel was afraid to press her. She seemed so determined, but she was also not herself.
“Sophie, I really think you should stay here,” he argued, putting a hand on her arm.
“I have to see it. I know that I have to.”
Whatever was driving her now was something he couldn’t understand. He relented, and donned a suit of his own. If she was going, so was he.
“Holly, will you be okay here?” Emanuel asked.
“Sonya and I will hold down the fort,” she replied.
“We’ll help!” Jamie chimed in.
Emanuel smiled before he locked his helmet into place. He stepped into the airlock with Sophie and initiated the pressure adjustment process. Air rushed around them, tugging on their suits. Sophie’s hand found his. Their fingers intertwined. For once, he felt a strange peace. His thoughts were drowned out by the noise of the air blasting around his suit and the sudden drop of pressure.
The little band of people surrounding them now might be the last of the evolved primates. Billions of years had churned on their development from single-celled critters to creatures capable of flying to another planet.
He took his first step out onto Martian soil, with Sophie by his side.
He felt so small, so insignificant.
Yes, billions of years had led them this far, and here it might all end. Everything life on Earth had fought for, the eternal battle DNA fought to propagate and spread itself into the eons, might all have been futile.
Emanuel carried the weight of Earth on his shoulders as he strode toward the Secundo Casu with Sophie. They soon found themselves in a biosphere ship nearly identical to the Sunspot, and made their way through the corridors to the vehicle hold, following Bouma’s directions.
It was there that they found the three soldiers circling the strange ship.
“No sign of them anywhere,” Bouma said when he saw Sophie and Emanuel approach. “Can’t figure out why they’d forget a perfectly good ship inside a human one.”
Sophie blanched. She started to look sick, and Emanuel squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.
“They left it here for a reason,” she said simply.
Emanuel looked up and down the ship, searching for some explanation as to why the Organics would’ve left the ship here. It didn’t look damaged, and there were no signs of a struggle.
“I wonder—” Emanuel began to say.
A transmission from the Rhino cut him off, Holly’s panicked voice coming through. “Sonya’s detected enemy ships. Get out of there!”
— 15 —
Every cell in Jeff’s body screamed for oxygen. He gulped down air, but it didn’t satisfy his aching lungs. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the thin Martian atmosphere, and his suit had no more to offer. His fingers started to go numb, and he looked at David. His younger brother gazed back, a worried expression on his face.
“We’ve got to find you oxygen,” David said.
Lack of oxygen wasn’t the only thing that might kill them. The sounds of spiders approaching carried up to them.
Jeff started to stumble out of the armory and back into the corridors. The rifles on his back clanked together. He had no real plan, but his mind told him he had to move. A nearly unquenchable urge to take off his helmet screamed at him. His fingers even coiled around the lip where the helmet met the suit.
“Don’t, Jeff!” David tugged on his arm.
Jeff’s vision started to blur. His toes and fingers grew cold. The iciness swept up through his limbs. David was leading him now, rushing through the corridor.
Blackness encroached on everything Jeff saw. Little needles poked the space behind his eyes, and he gasped like a fish stranded on a dock. He managed to keep his feet moving, following David. More and more, he fell forward. His younger brother caught him and half-dragged him down the corridor.
Jeff wanted to ask David where they were going, but no words came out. He simply kept going. The shrieks and scratching
of the spiders within the Sunspot seemed to fade away. Jeff couldn’t tell if they were escaping the aliens or if he was simply losing his grip on reality.
Pricks of light began to sparkle in Jeff’s blackening sight. Reality was definitely escaping him. The words and numbers on his HUD blurred, and he began to hyperventilate.
A small voice told him to calm down. That they would be somewhere safe soon.
Wait, was that a voice in his mind? Or was it David’s?
Everything began to feel light. Jeff’s world began to spin. His thoughts coalesced into great balls of goo.
He just wanted to sleep. His feet were moving. Something was tugging him, pulling on him.
No, he thought. Let me rest here. Just a little while.
Then he lay down and let sleep take him.
All the world was black. No more needles jabbing into his eyes or brain. No more cold sweeping through his body. No shrieking spiders or scratching claws.
No more David tugging him down charred corridors on a destroyed spaceship.
Just his soul, floating in the ether.
I could get used to this, Jeff thought. A brief thought of afterlife and heaven shone like a brilliant light. That light spread into a starburst, beckoning him.
Jeff, a voice called. It was familiar. Jeff.
Suddenly, a buoyant giddiness bobbed through Jeff. The voice called again. He knew that voice!
Dad, Jeff called back. He really was headed toward heaven. After months without him, his father would be there, waiting for Jeff again. Waiting to go camping and hiking, ready for a pickup game of hockey in the street with their neighbors.
Oh, how he’d missed all that!
Jeff.
Dad, Jeff called back. I’m coming.
The light spread over Jeff, nearly blinding him. He opened his mouth and sucked in sweet air. His muscles felt alive. Everything prickled, like when his leg fell asleep and he tried walking on it. Only this covered his whole body.
Still he pushed through. He was ready to see his father again. To be reunited. His dad’s face started to coalesce before him. Worry filled it.
Dad? Jeff wondered. Aren’t you happy to see me? Didn’t I make you proud?
Then he saw why the worry was there. If Jeff was up here, if Jeff had left Mars and succumbed to oxygen deprivation, then David was alone. David was back there, and Jeff had promised his father he’d never let that happen.
A deep pit formed under Jeff and swallowed him. He tumbled through space and time. The light grew farther away, then it suddenly exploded.
“Jeff!” David cried.
David was shaking Jeff. He shone his helmet-mounted lights in Jeff’s face. A second passed before Jeff realized the helmet wasn’t on David’s head, though. David had it under his arm.
“Wha…what—” Jeff coughed. His throat was scratchy, and his head pounded like a Sentinel was stomping on it. “What’s going on?”
“You’re alive!” David said. Tears streamed from the corners of the boy’s eyes. He pulled Jeff into a tight hug, crying and laughing at the same time. “You’re alive!”
The laughter and tears were contagious, and Jeff returned his brother’s embrace with equal vigor. He was alive. He wouldn’t fail his dad now. Not after he’d been given a second chance.
Then reality hit him with a force that nearly knocked him backward.
“We’ve got to be quiet!” Jeff said, stifling his laughter and tears at once.
David grinned and pulled away from Jeff. “It’s okay.”
“What do you mean it’s okay?” Jeff said.
“They can’t hear us in here!” David said proudly.
“Here?” Jeff tried to stand, but found his knees were too wobbly. He used the glimmer of David’s helmet lights to locate a gleaming silver table, and pulled himself up. “What is this place?”
“It’s the lab next to Biome 1!” David said excitedly. “Well, not really the whole lab.”
He shone his light about the place. The beam reflected off big silver lab tables and all kinds of microscopes and instruments Jeff didn’t recognize. The space reminded Jeff of the types of labs he saw in zombie movies, where some hero scientist was trying to find a cure.
“We’re in the isolated lab,” David said.
“Isolated?” Understanding washed over Jeff. “Oh, the isolation lab.” From their time in the Biosphere on Cheyenne Mountain, he remembered exploring the facilities and asking all kinds of questions of Holly, Sophie, Bouma, and Emanuel. This particular lab was where they stored all their sensitive laboratory supplies, like cells and chemicals. Stuff the scientists said had to be carefully monitored.
“Yeah, the isolation lab,” David said. “On Cheyenne, Emanuel told us the isolation lab had its own air supply to protect the experiments. He also said it had special walls to protect against radiation and stuff. I figured if it had its own air supply and it could protect against radiation and things, that maybe it would still be working.”
“And it is?” Jeff asked.
“Kind of,” David said. “Our suits have already recharged their oxygen supplies, but this place doesn’t look real great.”
He pointed to a darkened display panel on the bulkhead. The display hung off by a few wires, and a message emblazoned in red blinked across it.
Emergency Power Activated, the sign said.
“I wonder how long we can stay here,” Jeff said.
David shrugged.
Jeff wandered toward the display and pressed his hand against it. The display lit up and he jumped back, startled that it actually worked.
A vaguely human shape appeared. The apparition flickered in and out of existence.
“Jeffrey, David,” Sonya’s voice came out in a garble. “I believe the others will be glad to hear that you have survived.”
Jeff’s heart raced at a million beats a minute at the sound of that. “They’re alive? Where are they?”
David joined him, practically jumping next to him. “Sophie and Emanuel! Bouma and Holly!”
“I cannot…confirm that they are still alive,” Sonya said. Her voice faded with her image. “But they left the ship to search for you two. I uploaded a copy of myself to their systems. Their goal was to find you first, then the colony.”
At once, Jeff’s shoulders sagged. He felt all the hope leave him, like air flowing from a popped balloon. “So you don’t know if they’re alive?”
“I do not, currently,” Sonya said. “Probabilities are low, but according to the radio signatures I can still detect, the Organics are mobilizing again. Based on their formations, I believe they are searching for something. Pattern analysis of today’s events leads me to postulate that they are searching for the others.”
“Then maybe they really are still alive,” Jeff said.
“We’ve got to find them first,” David said. “We’ve got to go!”
“I am afraid that will not be possible,” Sonya said. “Few vehicles escaped the damage caused by our skirmish above Mars, and those that did were destroyed when the plasma reactor failed. The only working transport units in the vicinity are those of the Organics.”
“What are we going to do, Jeff?” David asked.
Jeff had been given a second chance. David had saved his life. Sophie and the others had saved both of them time and time again. It was time for Jeff to return the favor. If the Organics were going after them, he would have to either warn them or help them, somehow. He knew they couldn’t live forever in this cramped lab in the middle of the desolate ship. They had to get out of here.
“Jeff?” David asked again.
Jeff clapped his brother on the back and puffed out his chest. What he was about to suggest was crazy, but what other choice did they have? “Bud, we’re going to hitch a ride with the aliens.” Then he looked at the monitor where Sonya was. “You want to come with?”
***
Athena drove down another street covered in debris. The green SUV’s oversized off-road tires handled well
despite the same scene of destruction. Broken windows, vehicles tossed haphazardly like toys, and litter covered the roads.
If there were spiders or other aliens out there, she didn’t see any of them. She kept her foot on the pedal and squinted to see through the cracked windshield. Another pass from the wipers streaked over the glass, removing a layer of dust and opening up a view of the road.
“You see anything?” she asked Trish.
The officer shook her head from the passenger seat. She gripped her pulse rifle tightly against her chest. In the back seat was Taylor, his helmet turned toward the rear window.
Ahead, the black van Griffin drove turned right down another street. Malone was riding shotgun. Fitting the entire GOA crew in these two vehicles would be a tight squeeze, but that was only if everyone decided to come. Her gut told her Posey was staying.
Athena checked the gauges of their truck a third time. The fuel cell was almost fully charged, despite sitting in that garage for months. That should be more than sufficient to get them to Pelican AFB if they weren’t driven out of their way by Organics.
They were almost out of the city when she saw the first evidence of the monsters. Athena knew the fresh markings on the sides of the buildings all too well. Only the spiders could climb vertically.
“Eyes up,” she said quietly.
Trish craned her helmet for a better look.
Griffin drove toward the turn off at the end of the street. A wall of sand blocked part of their escape route, but the beaches were only a block away.
“Come on,” Athena whispered, gripping the steering wheel.
“I think I see something,” Taylor said.
Athena looked in the rear-view mirror to check their six when sand exploded from the mound at the end of the street. Trish let out a scream as spiders burst out from the dune.
Griffin swerved to the right to avoid them, but the beasts were fast. Two took to the exterior of a building, skittering across to flank the van, while the other three scampered toward Athena’s truck.
Orbs IV_Exodus_A Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction Survival Thriller Page 19