“Watch out!” Trish shouted.
Athena considered taking a left and trying to outrun the beasts, but she gunned the engine instead, heading right for the trio.
“What are you doing?” Taylor yelled.
“Hold on.” Athena increased her grip on the steering well, staring the aliens down.
Come on, you bastards…
One of the spiders abandoned the charge at the last minute, jumping out of the way, but the other two darted right for the hood. She gave the engine more juice and plowed into them with enough force that both their shields flickered off in a flash of blue light.
Metal crunched into the fragile Organic flesh, painting the road with gooey blue blood. The right tire thumped over a skull; the crack echoed, and the vehicle jolted from the impact.
“Woohoo!” Athena yelled. Her excitement drained at the sound of the third spider jumping onto the roof of the vehicle. Razor-sharp claws sank through it, and the beast pulled a sheet of metal back. The alien then stabbed at Trish, its talon slicing into the passenger seat headrest.
Athena yanked Trish forward while Taylor opened fire with his pulse rifle. The rounds punched through metal and ricocheted off the shield, knocking the creature forward.
Athena swerved again, slamming into the side of an upside-down truck. The impact knocked the spider off the top and onto the hood. It scrambled to recover, but she slammed on the brakes, throwing the beast onto the street.
She then punched the pedal to the floor, accelerating again, and slammed into the creature, sending it skidding across the road. The monster smashed against a building and its carapace cracked, letting loose a flood of oozing blood.
Griffin’s van had stopped ahead, Malone standing outside it with an RPG launcher ready. He got back inside when he saw Athena had dealt with the problem. The van was moving by the time she reached it, and they drove side by side down the final stretch and out onto the beaches.
Wind rushed through the fresh hole in their roof.
Taylor moved out of the sunlight and in between the front two seats.
“Nice driving, Corporal,” he said.
Trish nodded. “Yeah… nice driving.”
“You okay?” Athena asked Trish.
A nod.
Athena reached up to move the rear-view mirror, which now hung from several cords.
“Good shooting,” Athena said.
“Sorry,” Taylor replied.
“Make sure we’re not being followed.”
Taylor pivoted to look out the back window as Los Angeles receded into the distance. “Doesn’t look like it.”
The report still didn’t slow Athena’s pounding heart. They had been lucky, really lucky. But how much longer would their luck hold up?
She laid off the gas when she realized the van was falling behind. The van’s tires weren’t designed to travel on the sand like this, but they were holding up for now.
Malone raised a hand from the lowered passenger window, then pointed at the skyline across the hood. Athena followed his finger toward a pair of drones and three alien fighters.
“Oh shit,” she whispered. She slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, pushing up a small wall of sand. Griffin parked the van next to them. They killed the engines and watched in silence as the aircraft roared through the blue sky.
“I… I don’t think they’re heading our way,” Trish said.
Athena studied the aircraft. She hadn’t seen this many out here before, and their presence told her something was happening. But Trish was right; they weren’t heading toward Los Angeles.
“What the hell are they doing?” Trish asked, echoing Athena’s thoughts.
“I’d have assumed they would be checking out reports from the ground troops in LA, but there must be something more important going on,” she replied.
“What’s more important than two vehicles with armed human soldiers?” Taylor asked from the back seat.
“I don’t know, but I’ll take it,” Athena said. She fired the engine back up, and signaled for Griffin to do the same. The alien ships vanished over the horizon, heading northeast.
Perhaps there were other survivors fighting back and actually making some headway out there?
We can only hope.
Athena drove back to the GOA with hope in her heart. For the first time in months, they had working transport and a plan. The time for living in the dreary guts of the sub was over—the time to find a new home was now.
She almost grinned as they drove the final mile, but the half smile faded when she saw what remained of the dune covering the submarine. Her heart pounded in her chest.
The storm had exposed the entire starboard side of the GOA.
“Oh no,” Trish whispered.
Taylor moved between the front two seats again for a better look. Athena parked next to the van and everyone jumped out. The wind whistled over her armor as she ran toward the submarine. At the base, she stopped next to Griffin. Scratch marks covered the hull, looking like the scars made by a giant squid on the belly of a sperm whale.
Griffin shouldered his RPG launcher and followed Malone and Taylor around the side of the long, partially buried submarine. Trish and Athena followed close behind, their pulse rifles up.
“Are those…” Trish asked, not finishing her sentence.
They climbed up what remained of the sand slope on the right side of the GOA. Griffin had stopped there and balled his hand. He turned to Athena as she began to crest the top of the hill.
“Corporal, don’t come up here,” he said.
She pushed past him even as he held up an arm to stop her.
“We have to get back to the trucks,” Malone said to Taylor.
Athena gasped when she saw the graveyard in the sand on the other side of the submarine. Over a dozen bodies were sprawled out, dark stains of dried blood surrounding each.
The Organics hadn’t even bothered to turn her crew into orbs. They had simply slaughtered them and left them to waste.
She closed her eyes and lowered her helmet, despair gripping her so hard she felt like she was going to pass out.
“Corporal,” came Griffin’s sharp voice.
She ignored him and opened her eyes to look back out over the bodies. These people weren’t just crew—they were family, and now they were all dead.
You couldn’t save them…
“Corporal, we need to gather up supplies and move before those things return,” Griffin said.
Athena swallowed, and a thin tear crept down her face. She sucked in a deep breath, and turned to face the final four members of her crew.
Their mirrored visors all focused on her, but she was busy looking at the sky to make sure the aliens weren’t returning. She saw the direction on her HUD. Northeast.
“Where do you think they’re going?” Taylor asked.
“I don’t…” Athena let the words trail off.
There was so little of the human world left, she couldn’t imagine what it was they were after. What could possibly pose a threat that warranted them abandoning their attack on her and her crew? Maybe there was another group of survivors out there striking back at the aliens?
If there was, wouldn’t Alexia have told her?
“Oh, shit,” Athena muttered.
Colorado was directly along the Organics’ projected path, according to her HUD. Their route would intersect with Cheyenne Mountain.
They were going for Alexia.
***
ENTRY 10205
DESIGNEE – AI ALEXIA
I detect twenty-four alien ships en route to Cheyenne Mountain. If I were a human, I might laugh at how well my distraction worked—and then I would probably cower in fear.
But I’m not human. I’m an artificial intelligence tasked with saving the lives of those that created me.
Lolo shows I’m doing just that. Corporal Athena Rollins and her crew are making their way across the sands to the Pelican AFB while every Organic ship in the area bolts t
oward my location.
The ground rumbles inside the Biosphere, shaking the walls. I switch to the feed on the tarmac outside, where Doctor Sophie Winston first arrived by NTC helicopter. The pad is now filled with Sharks. Sentinels are already slithering toward the blast doors.
A dozen drones hiss by the mountain to check out the location of the missile launchers—the empty launchers, rather. The creatures will have to put up a formidable effort to get inside the mountain. As long as I can keep them from my hard drive, I should be able to continue operating from this location.
The Sentinels pause outside the blast door to examine it. I run a scan to determine what their next moves will be. The Sentinels begin retreating to their aircraft. The aliens appear ready to bombard the blast door with their laser cannons.
Wait…
One of the Sentinels drops a soccer ball-sized object near the blast door before following the other aliens to the tarmac. The ball is covered in spikes, and slowly rolls along the edge of the door. I zoom in just as the ball breaks into a hundred smaller spheres. One hundred and twenty, to be exact. They are the size of gumballs, and they move away from the blast door.
My cameras follow them over a cliff and down the mountainside. I do not understand their purpose, but I have what the humans would call a gut feeling. These strange spheres seem wildly dangerous.
I cannot let them penetrate the Biosphere. If the Organics destroy me, then they doom every surviving human on the planet. They must be stopped. The robot army I’ve constructed is my best and only shot at doing just that.
I send signals to all my bots, both inside and outside the Biosphere.
Move out and engage the foreign invaders.
The video feed shows all the robots responding to the command. In a few minutes, I’ll see how well I’ve planned for this moment.
The fate of Corporal Athena Rollins and hundreds of other humans rests in the hands of robots designed to clean floors and scan brains.
END ENTRY
***
Emanuel felt the world shift under his feet. He stood staring at the Organic ship within the vehicle hold of the Secundo Casu. The mystery of why it was here and what the hell it was doing inside a human ship suddenly seemed unimportant.
“You’ve got one Organic ship headed our direction?” Emanuel asked Sonya. “Are you sure?”
“I am no longer sure,” Sonya said.
“What do you mean?” Diego asked.
The three soldiers, Sophie, and Emanuel were all frozen.
“I no longer have the same confidence in the likelihood that there is a single Organic ship coming toward us.”
“So then we’re in the clear,” Ort said. “No Organic ships.”
“No, that is not correct either,” Sonya said.
Bouma spoke slowly, anger lacing his voice. “Sonya, how many ships have you detected coming this way?”
“Six.”
A weight pulled at Emanuel’s insides.
“How long until they are here?” he asked.
“At their current speed, fifteen minutes.”
“Shit,” Ort said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
The soldiers started moving for the exit.
“What about the colony’s location?” Emanuel said.
“We just finished securing the ship,” Diego said. “We haven’t secured a hard link for Sonya to rake through any data.”
Sophie looked between the exit and the Organic ship. A pained expression crossed her face. “We’ve got to know where the colony is. Hoffman would’ve left some intel on this ship, wherever they were headed.”
“Shit,” Bouma said. “You all head to the Rhino. Get ready to leave. I’ll get a hard uplink in place. If there’s something on this ship, I want you guys to have it.”
“You’re coming with us, Bouma,” Emanuel said. “We aren’t leaving without you.”
“I know.” But the expression on his face seemed to indicate otherwise.
“You’re not doing this alone,” Diego said.
Bouma shook his head and pointed at the exit to the vehicle hold. “Holly and the kids are out there. Protect them. Protect the two doctors.”
He didn’t give Emanuel or Diego time to protest before sprinting away and disappearing into a corridor.
“Damn it,” Diego said. “Fine. Everyone on me.”
Emanuel took a final look at the Organic ship. Something about the vessel still bothered him. It was unlike the others they’d seen. Smaller, certainly, but that wasn’t it.
Sophie grabbed his arm. “We’ve got to go.”
They fell in line with Diego and Ort. They plunged back into the darkness of the corridors. Once outside, they were met with a landscape as calm and seemingly untouched as before. There was no light glinting over the horizon to give away the location of the approaching Organic ships. No dust cloud rose into the sky from ground troops stampeding toward them.
But of course, by the time Emanuel noticed such things, it would already be too late.
When they burst into the Rhino, Holly already had the children strapped in their seats.
“Where’s Bouma?” she asked when Ort slammed the hatch shut.
Diego and Ort jumped into the front seats, and began warming the Rhino’s motors.
“He’s installing an uplink for Sonya in the Secundo Casu,” Emanuel said.
“We’re not leaving here without him, right?” she asked.
“Not if we don’t have to,” Diego said.
Holly’s bottom lip trembled. She did not seem to like that answer. “Bouma, you asshole! You better make it back to the Rhino!”
“Don’t you worry,” Bouma’s voice crackled over the comms. Then a moment later. “We got the uplink installed.”
“Get out here now, soldier,” Diego said. “Sonya can take care of the rest.”
Sophie sat in one of the passenger seats next to a display panel. Her face appeared flushed again, and the whites of her eyes appeared red.
“Everything okay?” Emanuel asked. He felt stupid asking it. He knew the answer. Of course she wasn’t okay. But what else could he say right then?
“I’m feeling exhausted,” she said. Her eyes roved over the Rhino’s floor toward the RVAMP. “Remember what you promised me.”
“I can’t forget, as much as I want to,” he said, gulping painfully. Then he turned to the display, where Sonya appeared. “Sonya, have you located any data on the NTC colony?”
“There is almost no data on this ship,” Sonya said.
Emanuel couldn’t believe he’d heard her right. Maybe he’d framed the question incorrectly. “Did you find any reports regarding the whereabouts of the ship’s crew?”
“No,” Sonya replied simply. “This information does not exist.”
“Can’t you find another AI on there?” Diego asked.
“No AI exists on the ship’s intranet besides my submind,” Sonya replied.
“What the hell?” Emanuel asked. Shadows of an approaching storm were drifting into his mind. “A missing crew is one thing, but no trace of an AI? What did they do, remove every single drive from this ship?”
“They did not remove the data storage drives,” Sonya replied. “All hardware is accounted for. The only active native functions are the communications systems and sensor arrays that we detected previously.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Sophie said. “Maybe the Organics wiped out everything aboard the ship?”
“Here’s a wild thought,” Diego said. “If we’ve already got an uplink to the Secundo Casu, then why don’t we just fly the goddamn ship out of here?”
“It’ll be faster than the Rhino,” Ort said.
“And as soon as they see that thing lift off, there’s no hiding,” Sophie said. “It looks like they already found it once. Not going to be hard to find it again.”
“We already know the Organic ships are faster, and we don’t fare well against them in battle,” Emanuel said. “We’re better off losing th
em in the Rhino. Harder to detect, smaller profile. We can hide more easily.”
“That’s a huge assumption,” Ort said. “They might already have a lock on the Rhino. That’s got to be why they’re headed this direction.”
“Don’t know about that,” Sophie said. She was holding her head now, as if nursing a hangover. “I have a feeling they’re more interested in the Secundo Casu and the ship they’ve got stored there. Either that, or they located it the same way we did.”
“No matter what, we’re screwed if we don’t get out of here,” Diego said. “Bouma, where are you?”
“Almost there!” Bouma replied. True to his word, he surged out of an exit hatch and ran across the bumpy Martian surface toward the Rhino. Emanuel breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the soldier approach the vehicle. He wasn’t sure he could stand to see another crew member left behind.
“Thank you,” Diego said. He initiated the motors’ drives and flung open the airlock doors to let Bouma in.
Before Bouma found his seat, Diego threw the Rhino into drive. The motors let out their electric hum as the vehicle started to move forward. Then, just as soon, it stopped. The lights went out. Emanuel’s straps bit into his shoulders as the vehicle lurched to a stop.
“What’s going on?” Emanuel asked.
“The Rhino just stopped!” Diego said. His fingers worked desperately across the controls. Nothing he was doing seemed to have any effect. “I’ve lost power to all motors.”
“Sonya, can you restart the Rhino?” Emanuel asked. He unstrapped himself from his seat and rushed to Diego’s side, desperate to help.
“Negative, Doctor Rodriguez,” Sonya said. “I am completely locked out of the vehicle’s controls.”
“Locked out? What do you mean?” Sophie asked.
“A malicious program has subverted the Rhino’s programing, creating a firewall that I am unable to bypass,” Sonya said.
Emanuel slammed a fist against the Rhino’s inner wall. “Where the hell did it come from?”
“From the Secundo Casu.”
He opened his mouth, ready to demand how she hadn’t noticed it before. She’d claimed there was nothing left of the data architecture on the Secundo Casu. Then a feeling of dread sank through him. He realized his mistake. She’d said native software. This virus, or whatever it was, wasn’t native, nor was it human.
Orbs IV_Exodus_A Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction Survival Thriller Page 20