Foresight, page 7
The tablet showed the scene from the front of the APC marked in the top left corner as A1. The vehicle had already cleared the eastern side of the base, passing through the open center of a half-collapsed fence and moving onto a road along flat terrain. The final choke point before the base quickly became visible ahead in the form of a man-made barrier across the road. Extending nearly a half-mile in either direction, it was composed of abandoned cars, old construction vehicles, sandbags, and other found debris. It created a twenty-foot high barrier with a single lane down the center. Metal bars had been welded to the vehicles, and wood planks ran across the detritus, forming walkways for the Marines to move safely about on should the trife break through the other choke points.
“Why don’t the trife just go around?” Briar asked, noting the width of the choke point.
“Because they dumb,” Gills said.
“They aren’t dumb,” Scott replied. “They exist to kill humans. Marines are humans. Why would they go around? The base isn’t the target. We are. All of us.”
“Exactly,” Auntie agreed, glancing at Scott. “Are you eighteen yet? You have the look of a Marine.”
“Not yet,” Scott replied. “Another year and a half. I don’t think we’ll still be Earthbound by then.”
“Let’s hope not,” Rocky said.
“I spent almost a year alone out there,” Scott said. “I’m pretty good at killing trife with arrows, knives, and bare hands. They’re pretty brittle, actually.”
“Yeah, they’re built like birds,” Rocky agreed. “Some big brain downstairs claimed it’s because they grow so fast. Bones don’t really have time to harden or some shit.”
“Maybe if there weren’t a metric ass ton of them, we would have stood a chance,” Gills said. “I think I must have killed ten thousand of the bastards already. I don’t want to have to off ten thousand more.”
A1 passed through the center of the chokepoint to the next one two miles down the road, similar to the first. The third and fourth also had the same base materials, though the last barrier was considerably larger than the first.
The driver kept the APC back from the center of the area. As soon as it came to a stop, the camera shuddered as Marines jumped out and ran past it, rushing from the vehicles and scaling the makeshift walls. The butchers pounded past too, taking up positions in the center of the open lane.
Auntie picked up the tablet and switched the feed to one marked B1. From the view and height, it was obvious to Luke they were looking through one of the Butcher’s eyes.
“This should be more exciting,” she said.
“Not so far,” Gills replied. “Boooorrrinnnggg.”
“Look!” Briar said, pointing past Luke at the tablet.
An incline in the road reached its apex about five hundred feet or so from the Marine’s barrier. A single trife appeared over the crest, its long, lean humanoid body bent slightly, its demonic head tilted upward toward the Marines on the wall. It opened its mouth to hiss, revealing rows of long, sharp teeth.
A single round hit the creature in the head, knocking it down.
“That was easy,” Briar said.
“Wait for it,” Rocky replied.
Another trife appeared, quickly taken down. Then another. And another. The first dozen or so succumbed immediately to a single round each.
Then, as if someone had their hand on an invisible spigot, the floodgates opened. Dozens more trife crested the hill at once, hissing as they frog-hopped agilely forward on both hands and feet, rushing the choke point.
“Here we go,” Gills said.
Chapter 12
“Initial rush is the easiest to manage,” Gills said as the Marines opened fire for real on the advancing aliens. The constant gunfire came through the feed as a rain-like patter, but dozens of the demons succumbed to Marine fire within the first few seconds.
“And they don’t believe in tactics,” Rocky said. “They just rush themselves right into our rifle fire and die by the hundreds.”
“You don’t need tactics when you can reproduce an army of ten thousand inside of a week,” Auntie said. “That’s what the researchers estimate a small nest can produce. I heard there’s a nest in the Everglades that puts out nearly a hundred thousand a week, thanks to the abundant solar radiation.”
“Why didn’t we blast that nest?” Luke asked, mentally answering his own question. “It would have to be out in the open, wouldn’t it?”
“It is, but we’ve given up on hunting nests. We’re in full evac mode. Have you ever heard of the Vultures?”
“No. Should I?”
“I’m sure your father has. Led by Sergeant Caleb Card.”
“Legend,” Gills said.
“He’s got a reputation,” Auntie agreed. “Him and his whole team. If you need someone important pulled out of a real shitstorm, you send in the Vultures.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they came for Grimmel, in the event we somehow got pinned down here,” Rocky said. “Oh, they noticed the Butchers. This should be fun.”
Luke watched the trife continue pouring across the road and the shoulders on either side. They rushed headlong into the Marine crossfire, collapsing like waves against a seashore. A bunch of the demons spotted the butchers, and they seemed more angered by the robots than they did the Marines. They changed direction at the walls, rushing the metal men, mouths open in silent hisses.
“They kill humans like we swat bugs, without a thought,” Gills said. “But they freaking hate Butchers. Gang up on them every time like flies on shit.”
Through the Butcher’s feed, they saw the head of its axe-bladed arm come up in preparation for the trife charge. Some of the trife collapsed, hit by rounds from either side of the barrier. The first trife to leap at the Butcher was met with a hard swing that sliced off its head, leaving the body to smack harmlessly into the robot’s metal shell. More trife lunged at the machine, slashing at it with their claws. It crushed their throats and tossed them aside with one hand, the other swinging the axe to slice others in half, sever their limbs, or decapitate them.
Ten trife fell to the Butcher within seconds, but the demons continued to intensify their effort, still more of them joining in to bring the robot down. Even laid out on the ground, the Butcher didn’t stop slashing and hacking, tireless for as long as its battery lasted. Meanwhile, the Marines continued blasting the trife from the wall, killing hundreds. More and more replaced them.
“This is crazy,” Briar said, watching the assault as dozens of trife reached the Butcher. It slashed and choked and kicked as they scratched and grabbed at it, eager to put it out of action. One of the trife wound up directly in front of the camera, giving them all a close-up view of its large teeth and demonic eyes. The Butcher ripped it away and tossed it to the ground, heel-stomping it until it died.
“Wow!” Jennifer said, impressed by the robot.
The fighting continued for nearly another minute as the trife pressed the attack on the Butcher, so many demons clinging to its hard shell—scratching, clawing, and biting at the metal and the filler epoxy—it limited the machine’s effectiveness. The Marines moved around it, falling back from the wall as the slick grew too thick to manage.
Rounds cut into the trife, the Marines helping free the robot as they retreated, enabling the robot to throw the dead bodies off and get back up. The Marines positioned themselves behind it, using it for cover and shooting past it as it stepped backward, swinging its axe, in retreat.
So far, the heavy machine guns mounted to the tops of the APCs had been silent, but they blazed to life now, their thunderous roar a muffled crackle through the feed. Large, heavy rounds tore through the demons, mowing them down like blades of grass. The sudden barrage gave the Marines the time they needed to get back to the vehicles, quickly loading up and making U-turns to head back toward the base. They only stopped long enough for the Butchers to climb on board before accelerating away, leaving the trife slick to advance on them at a faster pace.
“They breached the first choke point,” Mackey said.
“Is that bad?” Briar asked.
“They do seem a bit more aggressive today, but it’s still nothing to worry about. Even if they make it to the third choke point that leaves plenty of space between us and them. You’re fine.”
“Okay. Good.”
Auntie leaned forward, switching the feed to B6. Another Butcher, this one waiting at the second choke point. The APCs from the first became visible through its feed a moment later, well ahead of the oncoming slick.
“How many do you suppose they killed?” Luke asked.
“At least a thousand,” Rocky replied. “Not their best effort, to be honest. Sergeant Isaiah didn’t even let them get close enough to use bayonets before calling the retreat.”
“Pansy-ass,” Gills said.
“A thousand irreplaceable rounds,” Auntie said, voicing the downside of the trife death toll. “And they’ll make up for their losses within a day or two.”
“The Butchers from the first position will drop off to bolster the second choke point,” Mackey explained. “The Marines will fall back to the third choke point and regroup. They’ll see how many Marines they have bullets to support and send the rest back here to reload and join the hangar defense.”
The APCs went around B6, vanishing from sight. A moment later, B1 entered B6’s peripheral vision, easily identifiable by the claw marks in its hard shell.
“How long do these attacks usually last?” Luke asked.
“Depends,” Rocky replied. “Sometimes only a few hours. Sometimes all night. We’ll see what they throw at us next. Whatever it is, we’ll turn the tide on them pretty damn quick.”
The Marines at the second choke point were already on the walls, and they started shooting sporadically, taking out targets of opportunity from a distance. The pattern continued for a few more minutes before the pace of gunfire slowly increased. The oncoming mass of trife were visible through the Butcher’s feed by the time the barrage had reached a nearly constant rhythm.
B6 didn’t wait for the trife to spot it. It launched its attack, running forward to meet them. The feed shook as it lumbered toward the writhing black blob.
“Yeah, you get ‘em Butch!” Gills said.
The scene played out similarly to the attack on the first choke point, though it seemed to Luke that the extra Butchers served as an additional distraction to the trife, drawing them from the Marines and enabling them to riddle the thick swells of bodies going after the robots.They didn’t care they were dying by the hundreds. And why should they? Fear was nothing to them. They were hard-wired to obey their queen, who could produce them in the thousands in virtually the blink of an eye. So what did she care how many she lost in battle? They were nothing to her. Expendable.
“There sure are a lot of them today,” Toast said, looking past the immediate mass of trife to the huge slick moving in behind them..
“Yeah,” Mackey agreed.
The mood in the unit of Marines seemed to shift, from comfortable observation to a tense alertness. The situation wasn’t developing the way it normally did. The way it should.
Something had changed.
“We’ll hold them back at choke point three,” Rocky said, trying to sound optimistic. “I’ll take bets on that.”
B6 fought hard, fighting through the trife that approached it like a swarm of gigantic locusts. The Sergeant in charge of the choke point must have called a retreat, because the Marines on the walls started coming down, the demons close enough to lunge at them as they fled. Luke flinched when he saw one of the Marines go down under a pile of four trife. A second Marine tried to help him, only to be overwhelmed himself. A moment later, B6’s feed was blotted out by dark alien flesh, the trife finally gathering around it in great enough numbers to pull it down.
“Come on Butch,” Gills said. “Get back up.”
Auntie tapped the screen to switch the feed.
Her head jerked up as the entire hangar began to shake.
Chapter 13
“I never would have taken you for such an incredible cook,” Nicholas said after swallowing his first bite of the Chicken Adobo Grimmel had prepared. Moist, juicy, and flavorful despite the man’s lamenting the lack of spices in the kitchen. “At least something positive came from another planet.”
Grimmel coughed, choking a little on his own bite. “What do you mean?”
“The gravy,” Nicholas said. “It’s too good to be from this solar system.”
“Ah. Figure of speech. Right. Haha! Thank you for the compliment, Nicholas. I try my best to be a good host.”
“This is fantastic,” Yasmin agreed. “I haven’t had anything like this in ages.”
“And you probably won’t ever have something like it again,” Haines said. “Once we’re on the ark ship, we won’t have access to chicken anymore.”
“That’s not completely true,” Grimmel said. “The ship has culture farms on board. Meats will be grown on scaffolding instead of blood and bone, but it should be a decent substitute.”
“Surely not enough for forty-thousand people,” Nicholas said. “The resources for that would be immense.”
“An astute observation. You’re right. Foods we enjoyed as simple staples here will become a luxury out there, but I do believe the trade will be worth it.”
“How could it not?” Colonel Haines said.
“Speaking of which,” Nicholas said. “You mentioned that you had business to discuss.”
“Nick, have a little more wine and cool it,” Yasmin said. “We have all night to talk business, and this is too good to let anything detract from it.”
“Sorry, Yazz. I don’t want to spoil the mood or the fine taste of the meal, but I think it will all digest better if we get this conversation out of the way.”
Yasmin glowered at his pushback, which only added to her general annoyance with him. “Not for me, it won’t.”
“Nicholas has a point,” Grimmel agreed. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that there’s no time like the present.” He smiled before taking another bite of his meal, talking as he chewed. “Have you heard anything about the plans for Foresight once the systems testing is completed?”
“I haven’t,” Nicholas replied. “To be honest, I was just wondering about that earlier today. Once we’re on the Pilgrim, what’s going to happen to the prototype?”
“The perfect question,” Grimmel said. “And I already have a potential answer, but it all comes down to you, Nicholas.”
“Me?” Nicholas said. “What do I have to do with it?”
Grimmel took a sip of wine. Placing the glass back on the table, his gaze shifted between the three guests. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Actually, it’s a pretty big secret, since my lead developer doesn’t even know about it yet. Haha!” He paused as though he was trying to decide on how to broach the subject. “The ark ships are supposed to each go in a separate direction, toward systems within one hundred light years of us where we think there are inhabitable planets. Seventeen ships. Seventeen directions. Seventeen worlds. That’s nothing you don’t already know. But I think we can all agree the process is inefficient, with a high probability of leaving a minimum of five to seven of the ark ships stranded, floating in deep space or orbiting an otherwise toxic environment. Not a pleasant future at all.”
“You’re talking about recon,” Nicholas said. “A scouting mission.”
Grimmel smiled. “I knew I wouldn’t have to feed you very many crumbs. Yes, that’s my consideration.”
“But there’s no way to survey a planet a hundred light years away from here, is there? And no way to go there in person.”
Grimmel lowered his head. “Yes, you’re right, of course. No way to get there. I should have thought of that.” He fell silent for a moment before picking his head up. “Unless there is a way to get there.”
“That’s not possible,” Yasmin said.
“Define not possible,” Grimmel challenged.
“Sir, I’ve been with your company for five years. I admit, I’ve already seen so many things I never thought possible that I shouldn’t question this. But you’re talking about faster than light travel. To hit seventeen planets within the next two months, you’re talking about a lot faster than light travel. I don’t know everything, but I’ve never encountered any scientific theories that would make something like that work. And even if you figured it out, why would you keep it secret? We could use the same technology for the ark ships. We could shuttle back and forth to pick up everyone. I–”
“I appreciate your thought process,” Grimmel said, putting up his hand to interrupt her. “And your passion for the idea. Obviously, if it was possible to do more than I’m aiming to do, I would have done it already.”
“So what are you aiming to do?” Nicholas asked. “I know this has to do with Foresight. And it doesn’t take a genius to guess it’s related to the ship’s ability to carry a small crew.”
Grimmel shrugged. “I think the goal is self-explanatory based on the information I’ve already provided.”
“A little more description would be helpful,” Haines said.
“And also, what this has to do with us,” Nicholas added.
Grimmel didn’t hurry to explain. He took another bite of his chicken. Another sip of his wine. Nicholas didn’t touch his food, growing antsy with the suspense. He liked things as direct as possible. Up front and blunt.
“Well?” he said after nearly a minute passed.
“Where was I?” Grimmel asked.
“Elaboration,” Nicholas replied.
“You can start with how you plan to get Foresight to seventeen different planets before the ark ships take off,” Yasmin said. “Pioneer is scheduled for launch in forty-three days. Pilgrim in sixty-one. Deliverance, ninety-four. She’s the last ship out.”
