The Orbs Omnibus

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Wind screamed into the cabin, bringing with it a torrential spray of rocks and dust. Safety harnesses deployed from the ceiling and bolted the soldiers into their seats.

  “Close it!” Noble screamed. His words were lost under the sounds of the storm. He gripped the metal harness around his chest and watched the backup door slowly close over the hole in the helicopter’s side.

  Before the hole was sealed, he saw the darkness of the storm. A flash of lightning illuminated the sky just as the door crunched closed. Somewhere out there, Lenny was being torn apart. Noble closed his eyes, forcing the image out of his head. He had to remain strong. The drone was gone, but the Sea Serpent was still at the mercy of the storm.

  * * *

  Sophie awoke to the horrifying feeling of solitude. She tried to open her eyes, to scan her surroundings, but her eyelids were too heavy. The last thing she remembered was hitting her back on a pole. But oddly, she felt no pain. She reached where her visor should have been and instead felt her face.

  Then she remembered the black ship.

  Her eyelids finally snapped open, and a world of dazzling orbs surrounded her. She was back on the same ship she had dreamt she was on days earlier—the ship that was now hovering over the lakebed.

  But how had she gotten inside? And where were the others?

  Sitting up, she twisted to look for Overton, Jeff, and Bouma. Had they been captured too?

  Nothing.

  Wait . . .

  There, against the backdrop of orbs was something . . . alien.

  She counted them one at a time. Six gaunt, glowing figures hovered in the air. Like flames, the figures flickered, the blue light shimmering. The horrifying feeling of being alone disappeared.

  Sophie narrowed her eyes. She’d never believed in the paranormal. But the apparitions reminded her of ghosts, figures from a horror movie, flickering in and out of existence. Slowly she tilted her head.

  One of the figures disappeared and then reappeared above the platform, bathing her in a cool blue. Through the light, she could see the alien had no eyes, no face. It had no arms or legs or even a recognizable torso. The creature was just a conglomeration of shifting blue flesh. Nothing indicated it was even a life-form. It was like . . .

  No, that’s impossible, she thought. Multidimensional life-forms were just a theory.

  The creature continued to shift, flickering like a hologram. Sophie was so fascinated she had forgotten everything else around her. Oddly, she didn’t feel the same fear that had paralyzed her before, nor did she feel anxious. In fact, she felt nothing but awe.

  Sophie reached out toward the being. And then it was gone, a trail of blue light fading where it had just hovered. She crawled to the platform’s edge and looked down. Where there had been a circular opening in her dream, there was only the sleek dark surface of the ship. It was then it really hit her.

  This wasn’t a dream. She was trapped.

  She needed time to think. Were those shifting blue shapes the intelligent Organics? And were they really multidimensional creatures? Theoretically it was possible, but watching it was like seeing a god with her own eyes. She couldn’t explain it, but something about them seemed timeless. The revelation was gripping, but still she did not feel fear or anxiety.

  Sophie emerged from her thoughts at the sound of a distant, low humming. She’d heard the exact noise before in a secret NTC lab over five years ago. It was the sound of anti-gravity technology—technology that wasn’t supposed to exist. Only it did. And it had been hidden right under her nose.

  Eve.

  “Jesus,” Sophie muttered. Hoffman had been using the alien technology long before the invasion. Certainly he could have found a way to stop them, to defeat them. Unless he didn’t want to.

  Eve wasn’t the only part of the equation that didn’t make sense. What about Luke Williard’s magnetic technology? He’d built it to help shield the planet from solar storms, and NTC had initially expressed interest in buying the tech. But Dr. Hoffman had scrapped the project at the last minute. Somehow, Sophie knew everything was connected, and Dr. Hoffman’s lies ran deeper than she could imagine. Scrambling on all fours across the platform, Sophie realized she would probably never know the extent of the man’s deceit.

  A flicker of light distracted her. She paused and scanned the interior for signs of the entity. Again, she didn’t see anything except the glow of the orbs, and the longer she stared, the harder it was to see clearly.

  Somewhere beyond her reality she knew she was being watched by the Organic. She could sense it—almost feel its presence. As she turned, a blue radiance enveloped her and the same shifting blob of blue flesh appeared. Before she could comprehend what was happening, the room disappeared. Darkness washed over her.

  Then there was light.

  Her hands shot up to shield her eyes from the extreme brightness just as a force grabbed her. There was no resisting it.

  Her body went limp, her muscles useless. A warm sensation washed over her as she closed her eyes. She’d felt it before. Weightlessness. And yet she still felt no emotion. No fear or anxiety, just the awareness of being alive.

  She was being transported.

  She watched the blue walls of the wormhole race by, mystifying and beautiful. And then it was over her. She was back on a solid surface. Back on . . .

  Blinking, she opened her eyes to see an endless sea of red sand. Above her was a white sun. She knew at that moment she was on Mars.

  Reaching for her helmet, she felt her fingertips on her naked face. If she was on Mars and she wasn’t dreaming, then how could she breathe? She stood on the planet’s rocky surface waiting for the being to reemerge. Sophie knew it was there with her—she knew it had brought her here for a reason.

  When she turned, the red landscape disappeared, replaced with the most beautiful sight she had seen in months: an ocean. She found herself beneath the slurping waves, sinking deeper and deeper into the blue abyss. Above her the sunlight began to disappear, but another light illuminated the seafloor from below—a dazzling blue glow radiated from giant coral-like tubes that twisted between hundreds of bright domes that littered the ocean floor.

  As Sophie sank deeper, she could see signs of movement under the clear surface of one of the domes. What appeared at first to be miniature crabs turned out to be thousands of Spiders. They were just tiny specs moving back and forth, some carrying orbs while others roamed freely.

  As she got closer to the dome she could see Sentinels, Worms, and other creatures. Ones she had never seen. Before she was close enough to examine their anatomy, a guttural sound erupted, and with it came a fiery glow. The seafloor began to shake violently, a fatal crack ripping through the surface. The dome shattered, and the aliens were sucked out of their habitat. Lava burst out of the gash in the seafloor, instantly consuming the entire city of domes.

  Sophie began to rise toward the surface, an unknown source pulling her away from the catastrophe below. Another crack broke through the seafloor, running perpendicular to the river of lava carpeting the bottom. Sophie could see the fissures were beginning to spread, extending in every direction. The faint glow of other domes in the distance vanished as the massive underwater volcano consumed them too.

  As she rose up toward the surface, she saw there was something else rising with her.

  Ships.

  She tried to count them as they escaped, but the scene disappeared.

  Sophie found herself back in the bowels of the black ship. She slid her hand across the metal platform. The sleek surface was still cold. For the first time, her mind struggled against the odd sense of peace. What was she doing here? Why was she being shown these things? And what had happened to the Organics on Mars? If they were intent on exterminating the human race, then why show her all this?

  The questions raced through her mind as she sat waiting for something to happe
n. None of it made any sense. A faint glow shrouded her. The being had returned. She spun around to see the shifting blue flesh just inches away.

  She tried to think, to comprehend what she was seeing, but her mind felt trapped.

  What do you want from me?

  There was no immediate answer, only the silent hum echoing off the walls and the constantly shifting flesh in front of her.

  Why am I here?

  Still there was no response.

  She took a step closer to the alien and reached out for it, her fingers inching closer and closer to the fluid skin.

  Another inch.

  One more.

  Her finger swiped through emptiness just as the alien vanished. Sophie fixated on the orbs lining the ship’s walls. For whatever reason, the alien had shown her what had happened to the Organics on Mars. They had been torn from their homes beneath the ocean by a massive volcano, and then left the planet in their black ships.

  Above her, another light emerged. This was different from the blue she had become accustomed to; this was a soft teal that crept across the ceiling and ballooned into some sort of hologram. As the light expanded, it formed an image, one that Sophie recognized immediately as the solar system. The glow of the orbs in the background faded.

  The hologram zoomed in on a comet racing through the darkness of space. Behind it several of the Organics’ black ships collected the icy residue from its tail.

  The next image was of Jupiter’s moons. The same black ships hovered over the frozen surface of Europa as they collected the water beneath the slabs of ice.

  And then she saw Earth. The beautiful blue oceans surrounding the continents she had memorized when she was a little girl.

  Sophie realized that the images, the visions, were all snapshots of the Organics traveling across the solar system for water. They had sucked dry thousands of moons and planets. Killed hundreds of civilizations. Earth had simply been next.

  Questions consumed her. Why hadn’t NTC or NASA discovered this before? Why hadn’t they detected the Organics? It was then she finally realized that they had. Eve had just been the beginning. Dr. Hoffman must have known all along the Organics had left Mars. He had to have known that if the Organics came to Earth, they would leave the planet desolate, dead, and void of life.

  Sophie finally understood that the Biospheres weren’t just an experiment to help colonize Mars. The mission wasn’t to help humanity escape from the destruction their own hunger for resources had wrought; it was to help humanity escape from the Organics. There had been no need for Williard’s magnetic technology, because there was no stopping them.

  But why had the multidimensional alien brought her here? Why had it shown her these visions?

  She had to know—she deserved to know. With a new resolve, she pushed herself off the metal surface and yelled, “What do you want from me?”

  The only answer was the sparkle from thousands of orbs. Inside were aliens from worlds she would never see, creatures like the flower-shaped one she had seen in her dream. But why were they here? Why had the Organics kept them alive, the last remnants of their species?

  No, no, she thought, shaking her head. It couldn’t be. But at that moment everything was finally clear. She was nothing more to the Organics than insects were to humans. She was simply a specimen for their collection.

  A high-pitched shriek filled the chamber. Sophie reached for her ears as the noise intensified.

  Not again. Please, not again.

  A tremor shook the ship violently, and several orbs fell off the walls and splattered into a gooey mess below.

  Sophie grabbed the platform’s side as another vibration ripped through the ship. The noise intensified. This was some sort of alarm.

  A tremor brought her crashing to the platform’s metal surface. Sophie cupped her ears just as another sound broke out. A familiar sound—a human sound.

  Gunfire?

  Another tremor shook the ship, and an explosion tore through the wall she was facing. Hundreds of orbs burst into a blue mist as fire enveloped them.

  Sophie dropped to her stomach. The sensation of amity vanished, and she once again was paralyzed by fear. She could no longer feel the being’s presence.

  The thunderous explosions continued. For the second time in a single day, she thought she was going to die—that her journey had finally come to an end. She had seen Mars, and she had seen the intelligent Organics. She was ready for it all to be over. Closing her eyes, she let the darkness wash over her before one last explosion tore through the ship’s belly.

  CHAPTER 32

  THE right rotor of the Sea Serpent coughed thick plumes of black smoke. Captain Noble wasn’t sure how, but the pilot had managed to get them through the dust storm. The men owed Lenny and the pilot their lives, but for now they had bigger concerns.

  Looking out the window, Noble saw another volley of rockets racing out of the tubes beneath the left wing. He watched them tear into the black ship’s sides. Fiery explosions erupted out of the sleek matte surface, prompting cheering from the soldiers.

  Harrington unsnapped his belt and jumped to his feet. “Shut the hell up and prepare for insertion. Team go green. We drop in five!”

  Harrington turned to Captain Noble. “Requesting permission to tag along, sir. I’m more effective on the ground than barking orders from the air.”

  Noble thought about the request. Standard operating procedure was for Harrington to lead the battle from a mobile CIC, but this was no standard operation.

  “Granted. I’ll be right behind you.”

  “Roger, sir.”

  One last barrage of rockets ripped into the side of the alien ship as it began to maneuver away from the lakebed.

  The sound of explosions mixed with the groaning of the opening cargo door. Noble reached for his visor, shielding his eyes from the intense light. He could hear boots smacking the dry dirt below as the soldiers jumped out onto the lakebed. With one final deep breath, he closed his eyes and jumped into the fray.

  * * *

  Sergeant Overton watched the last rocket from the NTC chopper tear into the side of the alien ship. He flinched every time one of them exploded. It was a beautiful sight. Finally he had his vengeance—finally the tide had turned.

  The chopper lowered onto the cracked dirt of the lakebed, sending a plume of dust exploding into the air. Overton watched anxiously as the bay door opened and a dozen NTC Special Forces soldiers tore across the landscape.

  “Bouma!” Overton yelled over the net.

  “Here,” the marine responded. He was standing a few feet behind the sergeant with Jeff.

  “Where’s Sophie?” Overton asked in a raspy voice.

  “She’s unconscious, sir. Hit her head hard earlier. I rested her against the pole over there,” he said pointing.

  Overton took a quick glance before moving toward the NTC soldiers who were now racing up the hill. While he ran, the injured alien ship blasted back into the sky, the shockwave sending a massive cloud of hot, dust-filled air through the lakebed.

  “Run, you bastards!” he shouted, raising his fist into the air.

  Before he had a chance to shield himself, the backdraft sent him tumbling head over feet. He landed on his back, sliding across the dirt before finally coming to a stop just inches from one of the glowing poles. A woman stared down at him with glazed eyes, her arm hanging loosely at her side from a gash that had nearly severed it. The exposed muscles were too much for even his hardened stomach to handle.

  Behind him the NTC soldiers slowed to a trot and blossomed out to form a perimeter around the hillside. Two of them broke off from the pack and paced over to Overton and Bouma.

  “I’m Captain Noble with the NTC submarine Ghost of Atlantis, and this is Sergeant Donald Harrington, NTC Special Forces,” the man on the left said. He slipped off his helmet and res
ted it on the ground.

  Overton studied the man’s bald head and iron-colored beard. He could tell just by looking at him that he wasn’t a soldier, but frankly, Overton didn’t care. If the man was the captain of an NTC sub, then he had traveled a long way to get here.

  “It’s fucking great to see you guys,” Overton said, holding out an armored hand. “I’m Sergeant Ash Overton. That’s Corporal Chad Bouma and our friend Jeff,” he continued, pointing to the pair. “Doctor Sophie Winston from the Cheyenne Biosphere is back there. She needs immediate medical attention. I hope you have enough room in that chopper for survivors. We may be dealing with quite a few,” Overton finished, looking back at the poles.

  Captain Noble scanned the rods rising above Overton’s head. “Harrington, I want half of your people searching for survivors. Position the other half along this ridgeline. I don’t want any surprises.”

  “Roger that, sir,” Harrington said as he opened a private channel to his men. Six of them took off running before Captain Noble had a chance to give another order.

  Noble turned to look at the helicopter. Thick spirals of smoke rose into the sky. “As you can see, our bird took quite a bit of damage on the way here. Requesting permission to regroup and perform maintenance at the Cheyenne Mountain Biosphere.”

  Overton watched the man’s lips move but didn’t hear a single word he said. Across the lakebed, a carpet of blue was spreading across the landscape. The light shimmered for several seconds before breaking past the houses and spilling over the dry dirt. For a beat, Overton thought he was looking at a lake again.

  The sound of screeching aliens reminded him he would never see another body of water again. Before he had a chance to react, the far end of the ridgeline was teeming with Spiders.

  But how was this possible? The range of the RVAMP was supposed to have cleared every alien for fifteen square miles. There was no way they could have . . .