The Orbs Omnibus

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  With a quick flash of his right hand Le ordered the men forward. They entered the submarine in single file, motions smooth and calculated despite the bulkiness of their suits.

  Harrington swept his rifle across the hallway of the sub’s outdated interior. Metal pipes lined the ceiling, their paint chipped and faded. Large control panels with oversize buttons protruded from the walls around them. Compared to the GOA, the X-9 looked ancient.

  When they came up on the first bulkhead Harrington saw they would need to split up. The hallway curved into two separate corridors.

  Le was thinking the same thing. After checking the passages he divided the group into strike teams with a few quick hand signals. Harrington led Diego and one of the Chinese soldiers to the hallway on the left.

  Within seconds the footfalls of Le’s men faded away.

  Approaching the next bulkhead, Harrington shouldered his rifle and took in a measured breath. Around the corner he saw the first signs of struggle.

  Large holes peppered the ceiling. Harrington balled his hand into a fist and stopped abruptly. Slinging his rifle behind his back, he examined what appeared to be bullet holes from a high-caliber pulse gun.

  He took a step to his right directly under one of them. A gooey substance dripped from the ceiling. He flinched when a drop fell on his visor.

  “What the hell?” He wiped off the glass with a quick swipe. “Turn off your NVG,” he ordered.

  Setting his helmet light to low, he examined the substance.

  “Blood?” Diego asked.

  Harrington bowed his head and shined the light directly onto his gloved hand. He fanned out his fingers, revealing cobwebs of blue goo.

  “Yeah,” Harrington replied. “But not human.”

  “So where are all the bodies?” Diego asked.

  Harrington shook his head and in a mild voice whispered, “I don’t know.”

  They continued down the hall. Several more clusters of bullet holes pockmarked the walls and ceilings. The deeper they ventured, the more his hope began to slip away.

  A steel door sealed off the next bulkhead. He stopped and shone his light up and down the door, revealing red smears across the surface.

  With no sign of bodies, he knew that whoever had fired off the pulse rounds had likely closed the door in a last-ditch effort.

  He blinked on his infrared and scanned the corridor.

  Holy fuck!

  “You getting this, Diego?”

  Harrington heard the clank of an armored hand hitting his shoulder, but he didn’t balk. He stared at the steel door, watching the red heat signatures on the other side dance across his display.

  “Human?” Diego asked.

  The sergeant didn’t reply. He didn’t have an answer. The outlines looked human, but how the hell was he supposed to know? Whatever they were, they were stuck in the corridor beyond.

  Chinning the com link inside his helmet, Harrington opened a line to the team and said, “Commander Le, do you read? Over.”

  White noised filled the net.

  “Commander Le, report. Over.” Harrington repeated.

  More static. Was it possible that the thick steel walls were interfering with their connection? Harrington had a hard time believing it. The radios were designed to work under just such circumstances.

  “Shit,” he muttered. He chinned the com again, this time opening a direct link to the GOA. “Captain Noble, do you copy?”

  “Roger, go ahead,” Noble replied.

  “Sir, we have lost contact with Commander Le, and have spotted contacts on the other side of a bulkhead at”—he paused to read the marking above the door and snorted when he saw a Chinese label—“Not sure where we’re at, actually. Please advise. Over.”

  “Can you confirm there are human survivors?”

  “Negative, sir.”

  Another brief pause filled the net with crackling static. For a second Harrington thought he had lost his connection to the GOA, but Noble’s voice quickly reemerged. “Priority is given—”

  An abrupt, deep hammering from the other side of the steel door vibrated through the walls. Harrington stumbled backward into Diego, nearly knocking the man to the floor. They froze, listening in horror.

  “Report, Sergeant,” Noble said. “What the hell was that sound?”

  “Sir, whatever is on the other side of that door is not—” Before he could finish his thought another blast hit the door, sending a tremor down the entire passage.

  Harrington retreated several more steps and raised his pulse rifle to the door. Three heat signatures had clustered behind the bulkhead and now he could see their shapes clearly. They were snakelike, with no signs of arms or legs.

  Someone from the X-9 had trapped the creatures in the corridor, but they wouldn’t stay there for long. They smashed against the door again. It was only a matter of time before they tore the steel apart. Harrington eyed several deep dents already showing through the metal where the aliens had rammed it.

  “Move!” he yelled, finally snapping into action. He pushed Diego after the Chinese soldier, who was already running.

  He flinched at the distant crackle of gunfire. His earpiece came to life with the muffled voices of Le’s men.

  No longer worried about stealth, Harrington rounded the first hallway, nearly crashing into the wall. They were halfway back to the air lock in less than a minute. Behind him he could make out the distant hammering of the trapped aliens as they worked desperately to get out.

  “Commander Le, goddamnit, do you read?” Harrington yelled. Cursing, he tried to ignore the sounds. Between the gunfire and the screams he could hardly think, let alone decipher any of the voices coming over the net.

  When he reached the end of the hallway he finally made out two of the words.

  “Destiny 1.”

  That’s where Le was heading.

  The feed cut out as they rounded the next corner. Metal crunched in the passage behind them as the aliens finally broke through the steel door. A loud thud reverberated through the vessel as the bulkhead hit the floor.

  Harrington didn’t dare risk a glance over his shoulder. Even with a head start, he knew they had only seconds to get back to the air lock. Bowing his head, he ran as hard as he could, passing both Diego and the Chinese soldier.

  When he glanced up, the air lock was in view. His heart climbed to his throat when he saw three of the men lying outside the entrance. Blinking off his NVGs he narrowed his eyes and saw Le’s team struggling beneath the weight of the aliens pinning them down.

  His heart rate skyrocketed as the snakelike aliens came into focus. Their bioluminescent bodies yielded just enough light for Harrington to make out the Organics perfectly. The one closest to him was curled into an S shape, with the tail of its elongated body wrapped around the armored legs of one of Le’s men. As it unwound itself, its midsection opened, revealing a cavity filled with jagged black teeth. In one swift motion the creature’s torso expanded and clamped down on the soldier.

  Blood exploded into the air, a red mist peppering the hallway like spray paint.

  “My god,” Harrington whispered. He slowed to a stop, nearly tripping over his boots, raised his rifle, and fired off a volley of shots at the monsters.

  He moved methodically, squeezing off a three-round burst into the thickest portion of the closest alien. The creature disappeared into a cloud of blue goo. Their shields were down. “Open fire,” he yelled. He pulled down on the trigger again and watched the next snakelike creature explode.

  The last alien let out a high-pitched shriek right before Diego turned it into a blue smoothie, but there was no time to celebrate. Behind them the screeches were growing louder.

  They’re getting closer.

  Harrington twisted to see five of the creatures slither around the last corner. They shot down the corrid
or. He hesitated for a second, studying their faces, or the part of their body he assumed was a face. They had no eyes, no nose, only a hole in their stomach that released horrifying sounds.

  He fired off the rest of his magazine into the center of the pack. But these aliens didn’t explode like the others.

  Harrington froze.

  “They have shields!” Diego yelled.

  Harrington shoved both men toward the air lock. “Run,” he shouted. They moved in unison, turning every few seconds to fire off a few more shots at the monsters hunting them.

  At the air lock one of the injured soldiers began to move. Harrington crouched down and grabbed him under one arm, exchanging looks with the man. Le stared back at him, his eyes wide with fear. Harrington helped him into the air lock. At least a dozen other Chinese crew members had crowded into the air lock, their faces drenched with sweat and covered in grime.

  “What the fuck are you waiting for?” he finally yelled. “Get into the mini sub!” But they all stared back at him like he was speaking a foreign language. And then he realized that he was.

  Commander Le let out a groan and started yelling something in Chinese at one of the X-9 survivors.

  Gunfire snapped Harrington back into motion. He maneuvered back into the hallway where Diego and the remaining Chinese soldier continued shooting at the aliens that were closing in. One of them sank its claws into the ceiling and slithered across it.

  Diego fired off another flurry of shots, but the creatures zigzagged around them. Harrington concentrated on the beast racing toward him on the ceiling. He didn’t know what the hell he was looking at. He had always thought of aliens as little green men with big oval eyes, but these things were fucking monstrosities.

  More of the serpentlike aliens lunged forward, their bodies coiling and twisting for momentum. One of them wrapped around the soldier next to Diego.

  Harrington reached out for the man, their fingers touching before the creature pulled him back around a corner, out of reach of gunfire. The sound of his screams faded against the crack of Diego’s rifle.

  “Get into the pressure chamber; I’ll cover you,” Harrington yelled. “We don’t have much time. Hurry!”

  Diego nodded, finished off the last of his magazine, and climbed into the compartment. Harrington walked backward, reaching above him and grabbing one of the handles. By the time they were inside, the rest of the crew had already boarded Destiny 1. Le was waiting at the hatch, waving his hands at the men.

  “Move!” he yelled.

  Harrington went to seal the hatch to the X-9 when one of the snakes jammed half its body through the opening with a cry, knocking his rifle away. He slammed the hatch against the slithering alien.

  “Get out of here, Diego!” he yelled, holding the creature back with all his strength. The monster squirmed and pressed harder, pushing Harrington backward. He knew he could only hold it a few more seconds.

  From his peripheral vision, he saw Diego climb into Destiny 1.

  “Come on,” Diego yelled.

  Harrington grunted, putting all his weight against the door. He caught a glimpse of the frightened crew through the porthole windows of the minisub; their looks filled him with strength. He knew if he let go of the hatch, the snakes would have a free boarding pass onto Destiny 1.

  He thought of his code.

  Always do the right thing.

  He was ready to die—ready to join his family.

  “Go!” he yelled. “Close the hatch.”

  “No, Sergeant!” Diego screamed, reaching out for him.

  Taking in a measured breath, Harrington slammed his shoulder into the hatch, stunning the alien for a moment. It screamed, the hole in its stomach widening in anger. Then he scrambled across the floor of the pressure chamber to the mini sub and slammed the hatch shut in Diego’s face, locking it with one swift motion.

  Harrington bumped his com as he turned back to see the alien poised above him, its bioluminescent skin casting a blue glow over the air lock.

  “Irene, get them out of here. That’s an order,” he said, as the creature’s body shot forward and wrapped around him. He closed his eyes and pictured his family. It was the last thing Sergeant Harrington would ever see.

  CHAPTER 5

  HOURS had passed since the X-9 had been destroyed, but the phantom sound of explosions drowned Noble’s mind in dread. He could still see the missiles racing from the GOA and hitting the smooth black surface of the Chinese sub on the main display. He could still feel the tremors of their impact. Somewhere out there, Harrington’s and Lin’s remains were floating in the depths.

  What a horrible way to die, he thought. Noble scanned the room for his XO. “Richards, send Diego to the bridge ASAP,” he yelled.

  “Aye aye, Captain,” the man replied.

  Noble bowed his head. He ran his finger across his name and rank, stitched into the leather of his chair. But as he sat down, he did not feel much like a captain. He’d sent Harrington to his death, and he’d lost many other men in Colorado Springs.

  “Captain, reporting for duty, sir,” a voice said from behind him.

  Folding his arms, Noble spun his chair to see Diego standing at the entrance to the command center. “At ease, son.”

  With a sigh, the new lead of the Special Forces team strode across the platform and made his way down several stairs to the bridge.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?” Diego asked.

  Noble regarded the man with a reassuring nod. “Sergeant Harrington was a good man. He spoke very highly of you.”

  “Thank you, sir. He was the best mentor I could have had.”

  “We will have a brief ceremony for him and the others at nineteen hundred hours.”

  The slightest of nods from Diego told Noble that the man had seen something awful inside the X-9.

  “When you’re up to it, I’d like a briefing on what you encountered down there. Anything that you think might help us in the war.”

  Diego looked very unsure of himself. His brown eyes swayed to the right and then down to his feet. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood straighter. “I’m ready now, sir.”

  Noble leaned back in his chair to observe the man. He was short, but made up for his size with wide shoulders and thick arms. His face was covered in scruff that could hardly be considered a beard. Diego was loyal, intelligent, and graceful both on and off the battlefield.

  The soldier tensed his jaw and narrowed his brown eyes when he noticed he was being scrutinized.

  Diego broke the silence with a measured voice. “Those things were everywhere. I’ve never seen anything like them, sir. They had a snake’s body, but no face. At least, not like any face I’ve seen. They move quickly, slithering and then wrapping their bodies around their prey. When they feed they split down the middle,” he said, pausing. “That’s the most awful part. Their chest cavity, or whatever you want to call it. It’s filled with hundreds of teeth.”

  “So those things can live in and outside the water?”

  “As far as I can tell, sir.”

  “Did they have shields?”

  Diego’s features darkened. “Only when they weren’t feeding.”

  “That’s interesting,” Noble said. He habitually ran his finger along his jawline, pausing when he remembered he’d shaved his beard. “The Biosphere team at Cheyenne Mountain reported the same thing with the Spider species. Their shields power down when they feed.”

  Diego shrugged.

  “Is there anything else you can tell me? Anything that might be useful?”

  Diego looked deep in thought. He finally shook his head. “I don’t think so, sir.”

  Noble unfolded his arms and stood. “Thank you,” he said, patting the man on his shoulder. “You’re one courageous bastard, volunteering for that mission.”

  “Thank you, sir.
I just . . .” His shoulders sagged a bit when he said, “I wish Harrington had made it out. He gave his life to save ours.”

  Noble looked at the soldier thoughtfully, again recalling what his father had said about the end of the world. Harrington, like Overton, was a man who made the ultimate sacrifice in the face of adversity. There were still men and women out there who would do the same. But with every passing second, the Organics drew closer to wiping out the human race.

  There weren’t many heroes left to stand in their path.

  A stern voice resonated from the top of the bridge. Noble swiveled his chair to see Richards looking down from his station. “Captain Noble. We have an incoming message over Lolo’s channel. It’s from Cheyenne Mountain, sir.”

  “Patch them through.”

  A fuzzy image of Dr. Sophie Winston and Dr. Rodriguez appeared on the screen. And they both looked very frightened.

  * * *

  Sophie waited for the feed to reconnect with the GOA. They’d lost the uplink seconds after their first attempt. Lolo had probably passed over a dark zone.

  While she waited, she scrolled through a database of pictures. The images from Lolo were terrible, but fascinating.

  A swarm of black ships straddled the Earth in low orbit. The image was surreal, like concept art from some science fiction novel. Streaks of ocean water shot up toward the vessels, forming a solid wall, as the alien ships moved over the Pacific.

  It was the first time anyone, as far as she knew, had actually seen the Organics in orbit. And the first time anyone had seen them removing water from the oceans.

  With a swift flick of her index finger Sophie swiped to the next image. An army of Spiders marched across the cracked earth, trampling one another in a twisted heap of blue limbs. The picture only added to her confusion. Days earlier, when she’d been taken aboard the alien ship, she’d seen hundreds of different life-forms. It was some sort of ark, or maybe an alien museum. Whatever it was, it was driving her mad with questions.