Oblivion: The Complete Series (Books 1-9)

by Joshua James

  As he drew closer, the anti-aircraft fire from the Atlas intensified, but it was curiously ineffective. He started to see why as he got a closer look at the damage. It was spreading rapidly. And where the hell gel was burning the Shapeless ship, it was proving true to its name. The Shapeless Atlas was losing all the properties of a ship. The exterior walls of the ship were sloughing away and falling to the ground below, as if the entire ship was made of ice cream that was melting.

  There were no cannons targeting him, because there were no cannons left where they’d been concentrating their fire. Blue One had been right to order all fire concentrated on this single location. It wasn’t just the best way; it was the only way. Each missile full of hell gel was penetrating deeper into the ship.

  If it was a living thing, they were driving a stake deeper and deeper into its heart. Ben was happy to add to the pain they were causing the giant beast.

  “I’m beginning my run— Holy shit!” Ben jerked back on his fighter and just managed to dodge a Shapeless UEF fighter roaring up at him from directly below, going faster than anything he’d seen out here so far.

  Too fast. “That wasn’t a UEF fighter,” he said. “Did anybody see that? Blue Two, did you see that?”

  Two was his wingman on the run. “I think I did,” he said. “But I don’t understand what I saw.”

  “What was it? Another make or model?”

  “In a way, I guess so.”

  “Say again?” Ben asked.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but I think it was a… well, an Aero.”

  “A what?”

  “A speed hopper,” Two said, bewildered. “A red vanity speed hopper.”

  Ben shook his head. What the hell was going on? “Where the hell did it go?” he asked. He was searching the sky in vain, in part because he was sure that his wingman must be nuts.

  “This is going to sound even crazier,” Blue Two said. “But… I think it just flew right up inside the Atlas.”

  Twenty-Seven

  The impostor Saito stood, arms behind his back, looking out at the battle raging outside the Shapeless flagship. Emotions were still new to him, but he thought he felt happy—or at least, what happy felt like for human beings.

  “Why do they fight it so hard?” asked Beverly. She stood behind Saito, next to her still-unconscious husband.

  “They fear change. These humans, they’re simple, stubborn creatures. They were always going to fight till the last, which is no bother. The more they fight, the more we learn about them.”

  Everything was going as planned. Vassar-1, the AIC home planet, was all but conquered. The real Lee Saito was almost completely under their control. And with a little more work, he was sure he’d break through the mental defenses of his new catch, Agent Moreno, and find out where the second planet-killing weapon was.

  First things first, though, he needed to get that information from Clarissa’s mind, and she was putting up a fight. He walked away from the window on the faux Atlas, which morphed back to normal soon as he turned away. He stood over Clarissa, who was pinned to the floor by the living ship itself. He knelt down next to her, stroked her short hair.

  Beverly watched Saito. “And her? I sense she’s fighting you. How’s that possible?”

  “It’s not, or at least it shouldn’t be, but I’ll find a way inside. Let us in child. Let us in so that we can help you, help you all.”

  Clarissa was on her hoverbike, riding through the forests of Washington near Mt. Rainier. She was on her way to the Colbur fusion plant. Her husband had forgotten his lunch, and his daughters’ lunches.

  It was “take your daughter to work” day, and with the day off, Clarissa figured she’d be able to spend it in an empty home, get some reports for Engano done, and relax. She also figured that it’d been two years since she and her husband had been assigned to the plant, and there were no signs of Oblivion activity. There was no doubt in her mind that it was a wild goose chase, and had had no reservations when Blake suggested taking the twins, Sara and Mara, with him that day.

  Maybe it was some kind of sixth sense, or just a mom’s feeling of responsibility, but those three paper lunch bags that sat on their kitchen counter refused to be ignored. So off she went on that rainy Friday afternoon, to deliver food to her family.

  “Is this when it happened?” Clarissa heard Saito’s voice behind her on the back of the hoverbike. She felt arms around her waist. “When you lost them? Your family?”

  “I think you know,” Clarissa said softly, feeling a dull pain in her chest.

  “Of course. We’re in your head. If you give us what you want, maybe I’ll spare you living through this again.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” Clarissa said. She took a sharp turn on the hoverbike. She hoped she might’ve shaken Saito off, but no such luck.

  “Time is something I have plenty of. I can’t say the same for your friends on Vassar-1.”

  Clarissa ignored Saito’s obvious attempt to rile her. “If you want to see it so badly, be my guest.” She passed a sign for the fusion plant, saying that it was only five miles away.

  “Shouldn’t you be pulling over soon?” asked Saito. He was right. Clarissa had originally stopped during her journey at a scenic overlook. It wasn’t to take in the sights, but to answer a call through her HUD.

  Sure enough, a video call came in through Clarissa’s HUD. It was from her husband, so she found the first place she could to pull over, which was indeed a scenic overlook. Not only did it provide a view of the thick woods around Mt. Rainier but it also provided a view of the plant itself, which was down in a valley, five miles away.

  “You really want to do this to yourself?” asked Saito.

  Clarissa turned her hoverbike off. “Answer call.”

  “Hey, there she is! It’s your mom, Sara. And Mara, uh, Mara! Stay away from that. Come on over here. Say hello to mommy.” Blake’s smiling face appeared in the small video window through Clarissa’s HUD.

  Mara poked her head into the video window. “Hello, Mommy!”

  Clarissa couldn’t help but smile. She had originally, when this memory had occurred in real life, but this was also the first time she’d seen her daughter since she’d died, and it was so real. She wanted to cry out of joy and grief for what she knew was coming, but she couldn’t. This was a memory, and you couldn’t change a memory, no matter how much she wanted to.

  “Hi baby.” Clarissa wanted to savor the moment, but Mara quickly jumped out of view.

  “Oh man, this is…not sure I knew what I signed up for,” Blake joked.

  “Thank you. Really. For taking them with you. I needed the day to, well, you know.”

  “My pleasure, baby, really. These little monsters are making this day so much easier. Is that the highway behind you? Shit, you’re not on your way, are you?”

  “I am. Got your lunches in tow,” answered Clarissa.

  “Damn. I was hoping I’d be able to catch you before you left. The beasties convinced me to get them food from the cafeteria.”

  “I thought we were trying to keep them healthy.” Clarissa wasn’t angry. They’d carefully prepared their kids’ lunches like they did every day. She had a dream of raising them on real food, not grub grown in a lab.

  “I know, babe. I know, but they wore me down. Soon as they smelled pizza and burgers, there was no way to get their mind off it.”

  “Oh no, you fed them that pizza? It comes from a damn pallet. Who knows what the hell it’s made of?”

  Sara climbed up into view of the video HUD call. “I had pizza and fries and soda…”

  “That so? Well, I hope you enjoyed it, darling, because you’re never having it again,” said Clarissa with a teasing smile.

  “Nooo!” Sara pretended to be distraught. She laughed and climbed out of view.

  Clarissa lowered her hand, where the camera for video calls was embedded, and laughed. She raised it up again so her husband could see her face. “Other than all that, how’s
it going down there? All quiet?”

  “All quiet on the western front. Just another day at—” Blake’s call cut off, and there was the sound of an explosion.

  “No, no, no, not again.” Clarissa had known it was coming, but still hoped, in her heart of hearts—naively, stupidly—that it would be different this time.

  There was a small explosion in the fusion plant in the distance, then an extremely bright white light. It was so bright and so hot it burned Clarissa’s retinas, rendering her blind. But since she wasn’t in the moment but merely reliving a memory, Clarissa could still see.

  Clarissa watched as her past self fell to the ground, screaming, holding her eyes, which literally burned in their sockets. She watched as a blast wave knocked down all the trees between her and the plant in a miles-wide radius. Then they caught fire.

  Saito laughed as the blast wave hit him. If he were human, he might’ve taken out some popcorn and a soda, he was so entertained. Then he started clapping.

  “Bravo. Bravo. You human beings truly have a gift for destruction. So I’m guessing Blake and the twins didn’t make it out of there. Did they?” Saito stood over Clarissa, past Clarissa, as she held her eyes and screamed and cried in a fetal position on the asphalt. “And look at you, maimed, scarred inside and out. What say we rewind and do this all over again? Or you can give me what I want. No? Okay.”

  Saito held up one finger and spun it around in a circle. Clarissa’s surroundings rewound like a video, back to when she’d stopped at the scenic overlook.

  Clarissa turned her hoverbike off. “Answer call.”

  “Hey, there she is! It’s your mom, Sara. And Mara, uh, Mara! Stay away from that. Come on over here. Say hello to mommy.” Blake’s smiling face appeared in the small video window through Clarissa’s HUD.

  Mara poked her head into the video window. “Hello, Mommy!”

  “No,” Clarissa whispered, shaking her head. “Not again.”

  “Yes, again. And again. And again,” Saito said. “Until you give us what we—”

  Clarissa felt something change. The memory flickered. She spun around, looking for Saito, but she was all alone.

  Saito had disappeared.

  Twenty-Eight

  Saito was thrown across the room by the force of an explosion, and landed on his back.

  “What’s happening?” Beverly cried. She, too, had been thrown off her feet.

  Saito staggered up to his hands and knees and crawled his way over to Clarissa. The tentacles that pinned her to the floor by the living ship itself were withered and brown. They kept shifting in and out of form. At last, they simply melted and started to retract.

  Clarissa fell free and started to slide around on the floor, which was now uneven and listing badly. Only the single tentacle attached to her head was still in place, and it was looking sickly.

  “Why are we phasing?” He looked around. Other parts of the ship jumped in and out of phase as well. “What’s happening?”

  He began to sink into the floor of the room. Everything was losing its form. He turned and crawled on all fours, trying to find his way to something that approached sturdy, solid ground.

  Beverly screamed. He looked back, and she’d been enveloped by the floor up to her knees.

  Saito spun around and kept crawling. Suddenly he felt air flowing over him. A breeze. Then he saw light.

  It was outdoor light. The ship was literally coming apart all around him.

  “How?”

  He clawed at the room’s door, but it simply crumbled under his touch. At least it seemed sturdy enough here that he could stand, if only for a moment.

  When he finally stood, he found himself staring at what looked at first like a human coming toward him. Not a Shapeless. Not one of his own. An actual human.

  “What is this?” he gasped.

  But something was off about the human. Pieces of her were missing, exposing not flesh or bone, but metal and machine underneath.

  “Who…how?” Saito, for the first time in the alien’s life, was truly in shock and surprised. It should have been impossible to get that far without him detecting the threat, but he’d been lost in the dream with Clarissa, and then consumed in understanding what was happening to the ship.

  “Don’t worry about those details,” the machine woman said. “I’m LeFay, and I’m just here to get something you took.”

  She frowned and made a tsk-tsk sound. She seemed to be bleeding, but it didn’t seem to affect her ability to function. “When you take things without asking, bad things happen.”

  “I don’t understand,” Saito said. Whatever was affecting the ship was affecting him. He was suddenly extremely hot. It felt like his body was melting away with him inside it.

  LeFay loaded a grenade round. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

  Saito bounced up off the ground, propelled by tendrils from his body. He called upon the ship to imbue him with every last bit of strength it had. Together, they rushed at LeFay.

  LeFay raised her weapon, aiming it right at Saito’s chest. But before she could fire, she found her legs grabbed by the very ship she stood in. The floor morphed into arms, with an iron grip around her ankles.

  “What in the hell is this?” LeFay looked down, and couldn’t believe that the ship itself was alive and defending itself. But she didn’t have a lot of time to think about it, because Saito wasn’t about to just stand around and wait for her to free herself.

  LeFay was able to dodge the first two swipes of Saito’s arms, which had turned into large blades, like gigantic swords. She even managed to grab him by his shirt and let out an electric shock, which made him stumble backwards.

  But it was only for a moment. Saito simply shed the pieces of him burnt by LeFay’s electrical shock. He was able to draw power from the Atlas. LeFay might be mortally wounded, he understood now, but plenty of her was unharmed.

  He smiled and raised one arm. A tendril shot out of one of the ship’s walls and grabbed LeFay’s arm, the same one that had emitted the electrical shock earlier.

  Unable to move her left arm, LeFay tried to aim her grenade launcher at Saito. He swiftly moved in on her.

  She fired it, missing his head by inches, and blew out the wall of the ship behind him. Beverly screamed as she was sucked out.

  LeFay let out a howl of pain as Saito cut off her immobilized arm. He then grabbed her by the throat and tossed her across the room.

  “I don’t know what you are,” Saito said, “but you’ve badly underestimated me.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Clarissa woke up to the sound of an explosion. She tried to move her arms, and was stunned to find they were free. The tendrils that had held her in place were gone. She sat up slowly, and realized that she was inside an alien spaceship. How?

  She grabbed at the tendril attached to her head and ripped it off. A revolting slimy trail from the tendril to her forehead almost made her throw up, but there would be time to be sick later. All the walls were moving, and parts of it were actively fighting someone.

  A woman.

  A woman she recognized.

  “LeFay?” Clarissa was still trying to regain her bearings. She rubbed her eyes, thinking she must be dreaming.

  “What are you?” screamed Saito as he kicked LeFay over and over again. “Who are you?”

  LeFay, who’d clearly been playing possum and waiting for an opening, rolled over and grabbed him by his planted leg, and yanked with all her strength.

  Saito fell over backwards, screaming obscenities. He kicked at LeFay’s head and connected. She grunted and went sliding backwards, towards one of the ship’s walls. The wall opened up for her to fall out, but she managed to dig her remaining hand into the living ship’s floor and stop her momentum.

  “Who am I?” LeFay croaked, blood spilling from her lips. “I’m Poison.”

  She slammed her one good arm into the floor of the ship. Electricity crackled from her arm, then seemed to draw from her entire body. Every part
of her seemed to be conducting electricity right into the ship. Her hand sank down like the floor was turning to putty under her touch.

  Clarissa swore that she heard the vessel itself let out a screech. The floor bucked violently upwards, taking everyone and everything off their feet. She was being thrown towards Saito and LeFay.

  In the chaos, she saw LeFay’s chest cavity open up. Inside, clear as the first time she’d shown it to Clarissa, was LeFay’s power core.

  Clarissa was probably one of only two people in the universe that knew exactly what she was seeing and what it meant. After all, she’d been LeFay’s only friend, and maybe more than that at one time.

  The flashing symbols on the core told a simple message. LeFay was going to blow herself up.

  “Goddamn you, LeFay!” Clarissa screamed in her face.

  LeFay’s face was bloated and cracking at the corners, but she still managed to smile. “Hey, kid, fancy meeting you here.”

  “Turn off the electricity,” Clarissa told her.

  “I think it’s the only thing keeping it from killing us,” LeFay said.

  “Do you trust me, LeFay?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Then turn off the electricity.”

  LeFay’s smile grew broader still as the halo of electricity pouring from her body and down her arm subsided. “You always were good at making me make bad choices.”

  Clarissa reached out and grabbed LeFay in a hug. LeFay’s mechanical body slumped forward against Clarissa, who felt tears in her eyes.

  “Then you’re going to love this,” she whispered in LeFay’s ear. With her free hand, she reached into LeFay’s chest.

  “I’m going to kill both of you,” snarled Saito, back up on his feet now, propelled forward by his tentacles, and reaching out for the two of them from behind.

  Clarissa ripped out LeFay’s core, causing the biohacker to immediately shut down. Then she shoved her backwards, out the opening in the side of the Atlas. As they fell out, Clarissa tossed the core back into the ship.