Orbs II: Stranded (5 page)

Before the next wave hit, he hunched over to take off his boots. The rest of the suit had to be removed by unfastening several metal clasps. The damned thing was difficult enough to take off on land. It was going to be next to impossible in the water.

But he had to try.

He reached for the neck clasp first. It opened with little resistance and he felt the armor covering his back and chest pop open. Another wave sent him spinning before he had a chance to remove it. By the time his body stopped rotating, he was too dizzy to move.

The taste of salt water spurred him back into motion. He reached for the two clasps on his belt. The one on the right clicked open, but the left wouldn’t budge.

Alex sucked in another deep breath, immediately choking on the water as it continued to fill his helmet.

Get it together!

Alex calmed his breathing. He spit the salt water out of his mouth and reached back down to the other clasp on his belt. This time, it popped open. He grabbed the radio and then kicked out of the bottom half of his armor.

With his body free of its metal prison, he let the current take him again. He had bought himself minutes, just enough time to regain some strength.

When the water in his helmet reached his mouth he closed his eyes and took one last breath through his nostrils before unfastening it and
ducking beneath the surface.

And then there was only darkness.

He could feel his body spinning but had no idea in which direction. Ten seconds passed. He could still feel his legs—they were on fire, every inch of muscle burning.

Another couple seconds passed. So did the agonizing pain.

After thirty seconds his eyes snapped open, the salt water burning them immediately. Something had changed.

The beam was gone.

So was the drone.

The irony was not lost on him. He had been camouflaged by the very resource the aliens had come for. In the end, water was what protected him from the alien ship.

He kicked violently upward. Just when his lungs felt like they were going to burst, his head exploded through the surface. Above him, the stars dazzled like a field of orbs, sparkling in the darkness. Somewhere out there was the aliens’ home world.

The current was getting stronger, pulling him farther out to sea. He watched, too tired to swim back against it, as the shoreline diminished until it was just a thin ribbon of yellow sand in the distance. He had been fighting for so long—to escape the Biosphere, to escape the Spiders, to find water. And for what? Everyone he had ever cared about was dead. He didn’t know this Dr. Rodriguez. For all he knew, the man would soon be dead, too.

The water felt cool and warm around him as the waves lapped against his bare skin. Time slowed to a crawl. Maybe he would just float here for a while until the water took him. Float and maybe sleep. He was so tired. It wasn’t such a bad way to go out; his vision slowly fading to darkness, his body simply giving up, his lungs filling with salt water—certainly better than being torn apart by the aliens or turned into an orb. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Yes,
he thought.
Much better than being turned into an orb.

He was going to join Maria in a place where the monsters couldn’t get him anymore.

CHAPTER 5

S
OPHIE
splashed water on her face. The liquid immediately cooled her flushed cheeks. She hardly recognized the face in the mirror: a pair of brown eyes sunken and framed with more wrinkles than she ever remembered having. And the worst part? She reached for a long gray hair protruding from her dirty-blond ponytail. She yanked it from her scalp and dropped it into the sink. The hair swirled several times around the drain, as if it knew what awaited it below. Sophie empathized. She knew better than anyone—well, anyone besides Alexia—how bad the odds were, and what horrors awaited the survivors outside.

She thought again of the Spider cradling that young boy as it climbed the pole and attached the helpless child to the alien structure. It made her stomach lurch, and she rushed over to the toilet to hurl up the remnants of her dinner. Coughing, she pushed herself away from the toilet seat and back to the sink. Her bloodshot eyes stared back at her from the mirror.

How had it come to this?

Wiping her mouth, she stepped into the hallway and made her way to her room. Collapsing on her bed, she allowed herself a moment to sob into the pillow. The sound of footfalls rang in the hallway outside her room.
Please go away,
she thought,
I just want to be alone.

“Sophie?” Emanuel said from the open doorway.

With a deep breath she sat up and shielded her eyes with her left sleeve, holding out her right hand like a stop sign. “I’m fine, Emanuel. Really. I’m fine.”

Emanuel ignored her lie and rushed to her side. “Sophie,” he said, grabbing her hand. He inched closer, putting his other hand on her back and gently massaging the knotted muscles there. “You can’t keep all this pent up inside. It doesn’t do any good. What we’ve seen can’t be unseen. The best we can do is share the burden. Be there for each other. Without that, what do we have?”

The question lingered in the air. Sophie knew he was right; she needed to confide in him now more than ever. She had isolated herself from the group over the past few days. She couldn’t let that continue; she had to be a leader.

“Maybe Sergeant Overton’s right,” she said. “Maybe we should try and help the survivors now. Take a chance. We’ve done it before.”

He shook his head. “No. Give me a chance to build us a weapon that works. I’m so close, Sophie. Now that I’ve discovered the source of their defenses . . . ” His face filled with excitement.

Sophie laughed, snorting and sniffling in the same moment, a sound that only made her laugh harder. They both chuckled together, and she rested her head against his shoulder, turning away so he couldn’t see her red, puffy eyes. His fingers twined with hers, and a tingle warmed her numb body.

“It’s okay,” Emanuel whispered in her ear. “You made the right choice.”

Sophie nodded, leaning into his grasp. She wanted to feel safe in his arms. But deep down, she knew things would not be okay—deep down, she was losing hope.

In his quarters, Overton slowly slid a sharp razor over the stubble on his jaw.

It was tradition.

Before he went to war, he shaved. There was something about going into battle with a freshly shaved face and head that made the killing feel more civilized. It was cleaner.

Over the years, he had killed countless men. It had never really disturbed him. Even his first registered kill in San Juan hadn’t bothered
him that much. From the beginning of his long career, he had been a recruiter’s dream, the type of man who didn’t need convincing to sign on the dotted line. The type of man the government didn’t need to invest millions of dollars brainwashing.

He was the perfect marine: never questioning orders, never wavering, and, best of all, always following through, even when things got tough. His commitment to the military was also what made him a lousy husband and father.

“Shit!” he hissed as the blade nicked his jaw. A trail of bright red blood began flowing down his chin. He wiped it away with a towel and put pressure on the nick with a finger while continuing to shave with his other hand.

Adrenaline swirled in his bloodstream. He wasn’t sure if it was from the sting of the cut or the thought of saving Thompson and Kiel. Two members of his squad had survived the initial attack after all. And he would be damned if he let them die now, no matter what Sophie had to say.

With one final, swift stroke of the blade he stared into the mirror at his clean face. He was ready again for war.

ENTRY 1891

DESIGNEE: AI ALEXIA

There is no program in my system that can accurately describe what I have observed over the past five weeks. In fact, there may not be an algorithm designed that could explain what has occurred beyond the Biosphere doors. And no matter what program I run, I cannot seem to find a way to explain the fact that Dr. Winston and her team are still alive.

A human might say this is a miracle. I acknowledge that anomalies are inevitable. Isaac Asimov once said, “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.” As I continue to . . .
feel
, I suppose is the only proper word for it, I wonder if it is possible that there is more to the team’s survival
than what my programs are telling me.

Whatever the case, the results should be fascinating. Whether they live or die, the data will be more important than the Biosphere mission ever would have been. The results will indicate how humans survive in a worldwide post-apocalyptic scenario. The psychological implications will be invaluable, although there may be no human left to analyze the data.

I return to the images the maintenance drone transmitted before being crushed. This information will be vital in explaining how the Organics operate. The aliens have continued to surprise us. The latest video from the human farms depicts an organized and efficient species.

Early-twenty-first-century scientist Stephen Hawking imagined that an alien race might live on massive ships, having used up all the resources from its home planet. He said that such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they could reach.

He was almost right.

Initially, all evidence pointed at an invasion that would leave the Earth devoid of all water. But this latest video demonstrates where Hawking was wrong; it shows the aliens are not merely jumping from world to world. They are much more efficient than that. Instead, they have found a way to sustain the resource they came for by using the biological life-forms they encounter.

It is logical. Farming humans is a way to keep their armies fed while the ships drain the oceans from orbit. However, while fascinating, this development has caused morale among team members to drop substantially.

I believe Sergeant Overton intends to leave the Biosphere to attempt a rescue mission against Dr. Winston’s orders. I’m not certain how Corporal Bouma feels about this, but I presume he will follow whatever orders are given to him.

Overton has a 9.325 percent chance of success.

I wonder if the percentage of success would increase if he waited for Emanuel to finish his weapon. Dr. Rodriguez has already made great progress on modifying the RVM, and he’s calling it the reverse magnetic
automatic pulse, or RVAMP.

The alarm from a motion detector outside the blast doors chirps. I pull up Camera 1 to see Sergeant Overton smoking a cigarette on the tarmac outside. His pulse rifle rests against one of the open blast doors.

This is not the first time he has broken protocol. The Biosphere has been infected multiple times by outside toxins from the sergeant’s habit. If it were not for the homemade cocktail of chemicals Dr. Rodriguez has been able to create, the garden biome would be in ruins.

I can predict—and perhaps even understand—Sergeant Overton’s behavior after careful observation. Lecturing him about the potential risks of letting in outside toxins will more than likely fail to produce any desirable result. He has proven time and again that he does not care about the possible hazards. A man with his background might be expected to doubt science, but what I do not understand is his lack of regard for his teammates.

I have observed this selfish behavior increase the past few weeks. Since the death of Private Finley, Sergeant Overton has been increasingly irritable, lashing out at the others for no discernible reason. Part of this is due to being confined to the Biosphere. I have data describing similar situations. From prisoners in solitary confinement to astronauts in space, not all humans have the ability to deal with confinement.

I observe Sergeant Overton as he jams another cigarette in his mouth and exhales a trail of smoke into the sky. I calculate the odds of his rescue mission one more time. If he leaves the Biosphere, it is likely I will not have to spend hours destroying any toxins he might bring back. If he leaves the Biosphere, he will not be coming back at all.

CHAPTER 6

S
ERGEANT
Overton grabbed his rifle and paced farther out across the empty tarmac. Wedging another cigarette in between his lips, he cupped his hands over the flame from his lighter. Sucking in the sweet smoke, he paused to look at the valley below.

“Hell on earth,” he mumbled. What had once been a lush valley with crystal-clear creeks snaking throughout was now an arid wasteland. The skeletons of pine trees dotted the scorched earth in all directions. Boulders peppered the hills like tiny impact craters. It was no different from a battlefield.

Somewhere out there, most of his squad was dead. The thought burned his already sweltering skin. Three cigarettes and several minutes in, sweat was bleeding down his face. The temperature continued to rise.

Grunting, he swept the horizon for signs of enemy drones. The red sky matched the color of the landscape through his scope, making it difficult to find the horizon. He hadn’t seen a drone or an Organic for several weeks, but if combat had taught him one thing, it was to never let his guard down. He’d seen men survive ninety-five percent of a deployment only to make a careless mistake at the very end. It had cost one of his best friends his legs, and another friend his life.

“Are you going back out there?” asked a young voice behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder to see Jeff propped up against one of the blast doors, his right leg crossing over his left foot. He looked mischievous as he waited for a response.

Shrugging, Overton took another drag on his cigarette and said, “Dr. Winston would not be happy if she knew you were out here.”

Jeff took a cautious step forward. “Well?”

Overton snorted out a cloud of smoke. “What are you doing, kid? Get back inside.” He turned and faced the valley.

The sound of small footfalls made the sergeant cringe. A second later the boy was standing next to him. “I’m coming with you when you do.”

Overton laughed. “Like hell you are. I don’t need a kid weighing me down.”

“This
kid
saved your life on more than one occasion,” Jeff said. “Seems to me like you might owe me a favor or two.”

A pair of blue rays shot into the sky a few miles away. Overton watched the light fade as the water disappeared into the belly of an unseen, orbiting ship.

Jeff stared at the sky. “So, there are people out there?”

Overton didn’t respond. He wasn’t sure what Jeff had overheard in the mess hall earlier, but Sophie’s orders had been clear: Don’t tell the kids anything about what the team had seen in the CIC. That seemed to be the one thing they agreed on. He shrugged and took another long drag of his cigarette before dropping it onto the pavement and slowly suffocating it with his boot.

“I don’t see how anyone could have made it this long,” the boy said.

Another ray of light burst into the sky. Overton raised his rifle and zoomed in on the spot where it had originated.

“You made it by yourself. I’m sure others have, too,” he said gruffly.

Overton dropped the rifle to his side and strolled back toward the blast doors. He wasn’t in the mood to engage in small talk, particularly not when he had a mission to plan.

Jeff trotted after him.
At least the kid has enough sense not to stay out here by himself
, Overton thought.

They were a hundred feet from the blast doors when a deep roar ripped through the afternoon sky. Before Overton had a chance to react, a blue drone appeared overhead. It must have been patrolling the opposite side of the mountain, just out of his line of sight. The craft hovered over the blacktop, its sides pulsing deep blue. It hung there,
suspended overhead, as if it were calculating its next move.

Overton remained frozen, watching the craft. He had never seen one this close. The translucent blue sides were mesmerizing, like staring into a crystal ball. He thought about swinging his rifle around and emptying his clip into the ship, but he resisted the urge, recalling what Sophie had said:
They seem to be drawn to movement. As long as the RVM scrambles their water sensors, they can’t see us.

But Jeff didn’t know that.

Shit,
Overton thought.

He had two options. One was to fire off a volley of shots, grab the kid, and slip back into the facility. The other was to wait and see if the craft retreated.

He didn’t like either idea, but option one was too risky. There was only a five-foot gap between Overton and Jeff, and a smaller gap between the kid and the craft. As long as Jeff stayed still, the craft would leave. He’d seen it happen twice.

But Jeff didn’t stay still. He took a step back, nearly tripping over his feet.

“Don’t . . .” Overton said under his breath.

It was too late. The drone’s shell pulsated as a small opening formed in the nose of the craft. A brilliant blue light shot toward Jeff. He turned to run, reaching out to Overton just as the beam gripped him.

“No!” Overton screamed. In a single second he had shouldered his rifle and fired off a dozen shots into the drone’s side.

The pulse rounds bounced harmlessly off the ship’s shields as the beam lifted Jeff from the ground and began drawing him inside. Before Overton could do anything else, another boom tore through the air. The subsequent shockwave knocked him to his knees. He could only watch helplessly as the ship disappeared over the horizon.

“What do you mean, Jeff’s gone?” Sophie yelled.

Overton stood in the center of the mess hall. For the first time in years, he felt ashamed. He’d done exactly what he had promised himself he would never do—he had let his guard down.

“I can get him back,” he said, his tone harsher than he had intended.

The commotion drew the attention of David, who emerged from the hallway. Holly rushed over to him.

“What are you doing here?” she said, cupping her hands over David’s ears instinctively. But it was too late; he had already heard the news. Struggling from her grasp, he dashed toward the blast doors in an attempt to escape.

Bouma took off after him and dragged the boy back screaming a few minutes later. “Where is my brother? Where is he?”

Sophie turned to Holly. “Take him into the other room,” she said. Holly nodded and ushered the boy away.

“Corporal, please accompany her.”

“How did this happen?” Emanuel asked once the boy was safely away. “Why the hell was he outside?”

“I’ll get him back,” Overton repeated, ignoring the question. He sat at the nearest table and reached for Emanuel’s tablet. Before the display glowed to life, he caught a glimpse of his reflection. His eyes were accented with dark circles. Was he beginning to lose it?

No,
he thought.
Just shaken from Jeff’s abduction.
He stood and paced back and forth between the tables.

“We need you to focus,” Sophie cried. “Tell me what happened.”

Overton locked eyes with her. “It was a drone. Must have been patrolling the area above the mountain, out of sight. Snuck up on me. Nothing I could do,” he said, speaking briskly as if reporting to a superior officer. Then he added, more slowly, “I saw it take him into the city. We can get him back.”

Emanuel spread his hands wide. “How do you suggest doing that?”

“We know the coordinates.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Emanuel blurted.

“From the rover that discovered the human farm. We know its location. That’s where the drone will take him. I have no doubt,” Overton replied. “That’s also where you’ll find the human prisoners. Two of whom are
my
men.” Overton paused, cocking an eyebrow at Sophie, challenging her. “You don’t really expect me to leave them all out there, do you, Sophie?”

It was the first time he’d called her by her first name since back at Denver International, just after she had saved his life.

She didn’t reply.

Overton knew that Jeff’s abduction changed everything; it gave him the leverage he needed to go back outside. He knew how it looked—like he had somehow
let
this happen. But he knew the truth and didn’t give a fuck how it looked. All he cared about was getting the boy and his team back to the Biosphere.

“Well,” Overton said after a moment of silence. “
Now
are you ready to authorize a mission? Now that it’s one of our own out there?”

Sophie chewed her lip and snarled, “You, of all people, have the audacity to question me?”

“What the fuck does that mean?” the marine shouted.

Emanuel stepped between them, holding up his hands. “Enough already. We can’t have you fighting with each other when you need to be fighting the Organics.” He paused and looked at the ground.

“I’ve made a breakthrough with the weapon. I think I’ve found a way to bring down their shields. But it needs be field-tested,” he finally said. The doctor looked at Overton first for a reaction.

“Hell yeah, I’ll do it,” the marine responded without hesitation.

“That’s what I was afraid you would say,” Emanuel said. “There’s one condition,” he continued, managing a confident smile.

“What’s that?” Overton asked.

“You have to take me with you. I’m the only one who can operate it.”

Sophie reached for Emanuel’s hand. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s the only way,” Emanuel said. His voice was soft, tinged with a hint of sadness.

The biologist and the marine both looked at Sophie.

“Okay,” Sophie finally replied.

The terse response took Overton by surprise. It lingered for an uncomfortable moment before he turned and nodded. “All right, then. I’ll brief Bouma, and we’ll head out as soon as the weapon is ready to go.”