Ashlyn Chronicles 1: 2287 A.D. (6 page)

***

“External temperature is currently minus 187.6 degrees,” came Gena’s announcement just as Steven reached the bottom of the stairs.

Definitely the wrong time for the elevator to be broken,
thought Steven, shivering. He had counted the stairs. Eight flights of fifteen stairs each. He could only hope that Tynabo had allowed time to overcome any possible chaos.

“Time till self-destruct is T-minus ten minutes,” announced the computer.

The yellow warning light inside Steven’s helmet flashed. His energy core was already beginning to fail from the frigid temperatures, not to mention the armor’s heating unit drawing power at an alarming rate. He was shivering, unable to stop himself.

The room at the bottom of the stairs was of such immense size that even the highest setting of night vision could not illuminate the other side. Like something out of a B horror flick, a thick layer of dense fog clung to the ground. Rising up out of the fog he saw endless rows of frost-laden cryogenic stasis chambers.

“Welcome to the flip-side of r-reality. You’ve just entered the T-twilight Zone,” said Steven, in a good rendition of Rod Serling’s gravelly voice over his open comm. His broken speech reflected just how cold he really was.

“Make it quick, Admiral, or you’ll find yourself in that flip-side of reality—permanently,” said Stratton, who listened in from upstairs. “No movement on the spiders yet, but the wind is really kicking up. So we know they’re close.”

Standing three meters away from the nearest chamber, Steven slowly rotated, letting the pull he felt guide him in the right direction. His fingers already throbbed with pain, his legs shaking. He focused, trying to block out the loud
whooshing
noises created by the ruptured coolant lines in the room. The area around him grew quiet—still.

He could feel her. With each throbbing beat of his heart, she beckoned him to her side. He started forward, moving at a quicker pace through the rows. The darkness was deep and he had nothing to guide him but his heart.

The strength of his yearning and his need to be with Ashlyn carried all the weight and desire of a life-long obsession.

Suddenly, the room lit dimly from end to end. Steven looked around and was surprised to see just how large the room really was. As he had suspected, a series of large quakes that had shook everything from Wyoming to Colorado, over the last years, had ruptured the cryo’s coolant delivery system. Several plumes of freezing coolant had formed tall stalagmites on the floor, spewing the coolant into the air like miniature volcanoes.

The lights above dimmed and ebbed, straining valiantly to stay lit. “Warning, stasis chamber power will be exhausted in T-minus three minutes, resulting in cryogenic stasis chamber failure. Initiate manual emergency resuscitation procedures immediately,” boomed the computer voice as the lights above him flickered, fighting to stay on.

“Admiral, though you were supposed to have about eight minutes left, I suspect our presence has put a strain on the system, and the computer doesn’t have the reserves,” said Stratton. “I’d be willing to bet that if her chamber fails, the computer will believe she’s dead and drop the timer to zero.”

“Agreed-d,” said Steven.

“Maybe it won’t have the power to complete the self-destruct sequence,” said the typically quiet Cole from outside.

“Possibly, but we have to assume the good doctor made that his highest priority. He’s a cautious son-of-a-bitch,” said Stratton.

“Stratt, you s-should get the t-team ab-board the transport. I can’t g-get Ashlyn upstairs b-before the storm arrives.”

“Is that an order? Otherwise, we want to stay, sir. You need the armed support. If the door opens and we’re not here the spiders will get inside!”

Again, Stratton’s reply did not register. Neither did the voiced opinions of the rest of the team, who were in agreement.

Tromping through the fluffy, knee-deep snow, Steven worked his way up the stairs of a large, circular platform. It was a monitoring station, five meters above the floor in the center of the room.

“Cryo chamber shut-down will commence in 1 minute.”

Atop the platform, the snow nearly as deep as the consoles were high, he saw that the room separated into four distinct sectors.

He picked out the workstation that was facing Ashlyn and quickly swiped away the snow atop it. As the computer counted down the few remaining seconds, his eyes were drawn to the only button that was not glowing red. “Red is for dead!”

Above the flashing, yellow button were the words, “Initiate Resuscitation.” Flipping back the cover, he pushed the button. It instantly changed to green, the digital display message now showing a slowly rising temperature readout.

As Steven had expected, the waking procedure also shut down the need for the cryo coolant to be pumped into the room. The room grew quiet and still—all he could hear was his own heavy breathing.

“Cryo chamber resuscitation initiated,” announced the computer.

Overhearing the computer’s confirmation, “Glad to hear you’re making progress, Admiral,” said Stratt. “By the way, it’s a bit crazy up here!”

“The storm, S-stratt?” asked Steven.

“The worst of the storm is still a few minutes out, but the spiders are here! They are probing our defenses. I’ve never seen them this methodical.”

“Tell Victor to g-get r-ready, Stratt. W-when the d-door opens, have Victor g-get s-setup in the r-r-room upstairs. Have him bring a c-cardio unit, b-blankets, and s-some replacement en-energy c-cores.” Steven knew that Victor was listening in, but he didn’t have the time to engage him in a direct conversation.

“We’ll try. It’s starting to become a serious fight,” said Stratton. A rocket explosion up the street peppered his words.

“Have the t-transporter lower V-victor d-d-down in the s-sling if you n-need to! Just g-get it done,” ordered Steven.

“Time till self-destruct is T-minus 5 minutes,” announced the computer.

It was then that the red warning light inside Steven’s helmet winked out. His energy core was failing—his suit in its final seconds of reserves. “Gena, t-turn off all of m-m-my suit’s s-systems except h-heating and external flood.”

With his suit’s electro-magnet off, Steven’s heavy rifle fell to the ground, the sound of its impact muffled by the deep snow. He now bore the full 160-pound weight of his suit, and he fought the urge to rip it off and discard it. Each movement was cumbersome, slow, and deliberate. At the top of the platform’s stairs, he placed each gloved hand upon a bannister. Lifting his feet from the ground, he slid to the main floor. Rising from his knees, he felt the pull to Ashlyn growing stronger, clearer—and it told him that she was waking.

***

Upstairs, Cole and Martinez fought an all-out war. Flamethrowers sent out long streams of liquid plasma, incinerating scores of pony sized spiders. Everything was alive with energy—life—noise. It was a war that raged amidst a background of tranquil, crystalline beauty—a battle being waged from within the courtyard of the Emerald City.

Outside, just beyond the cavern of crystalline webs, the violent winds of the storm front began to arrive, bringing with them turbid clouds filled with rumbling thunder and lightning. Without mercy, the lightning lanced through the darkness, striking the webbing. The webs now sang a different song, a song of war, a song of foreboding. It resonated in the heart like the beats of a kettledrum, and from somewhere in the far distance, behind it all, the winds howled through the web-strings like the cry of a lone, ghostly wolf.

As for the webs themselves, they mirrored the light of the plasma-flames in a million faceted reflections, turning night into day. The spiders, invigorated by the sound and charred smell of their own roasting brethren, poured in. It was a battle to which every spider within twenty kilometers was invited.

Stratt and Moore acted as spotters, occasionally firing a rocket into the heart of an approaching swarm. They tried to use the missiles sparingly for fear they would shatter too much of the webs’ heavy foundation and bring the cavernous structure crashing down upon them.

Everything within a hundred meters was in flames. At first, the spiders had simply tested the perimeter’s defenses, but now their numbers were huge. They blackened the buildings and webbing, advancing on all fronts. The noise they made was deafening—a cacophonous clacking, squealing sound that grated upon the nerves.

The flamethrowers scorched hundreds of spiders. They crackled and sizzled, many bouncing on the ground like giant kernels of popping corn as their abdomens burst.

The spiders had arrived fifteen years ago, days after the original attack. Earth’s surface was but a graveyard of dead when the enemy carrier ships released hundreds of thousands of spiders on each continent. They were amazing scavengers, and once the easy food was gone, they ferreted out the few remaining survivors who had managed to find shelter below ground.

Within three months, their human food source exhausted, they grew bolder and more aggressive. Recon missions had observed battles taking place between warring factions of spiders, the flesh of their own dead going to the winners. The spiders adapted, learning that the larger the hunting pack, the more likely the success of victory against smaller numbers. The strategy—very human.

Today, Stratton’s team witnessed a new, tactical stratagem, the ability to attack in thickly churning, rolling waves. The spiders worked together, turning their armor plating outwards, shielding those beneath. As the ones on the front lines died, those behind crawled to the surface, providing new layers of fresh armor.

“Welcome to Hotel Hell, little buggies,” said Martinez as his flamethrower sent out a long stream of fiery plasma in their advancing path.

***

In stark contrast to the inferno raging above, the world in which Steven moved was one of frozen, torturous pain. His suit was out of power, and a light layer of ice formed atop it began to hinder his movement. He had no heat, no air. Each breath was a last desperate gasp for life as blood vessels in his oxygen-starved lungs burst.

As his heart guided him to her, he fell, first once, then twice, taking him longer and longer to rise after each fall. His arms and legs were little more than lifeless, mechanical stumps.

In the background the facility’s computer announced, “Self-destruct will occur in T-minus 1 minute.” The computer began verbally counting down the final seconds.

The light on his helmet dimmed, then turned off, but he took comfort in knowing that he was near her. In near total darkness, he bumped into a chamber, worked his way around it and continued. Stumbling the last few steps, Steven collapsed atop the chamber that he sensed held Ashlyn inside. Three seconds later, a small beep from her chamber acknowledged his arrival. Relieved, knowing he had nothing more to do, he waited for the chamber to open.

Each passing second seemed an eternity. His mind was locked within a fog that kept him from giving thought to how he would escape. His heart barely pumped. Each slowing beat drummed in his ears, a distant and unforgiving reminder that his life was ebbing away.

He straightened, trying to take his weight off the chamber as he heard the clicks of the latch trying to unlock itself. A moment later, the latch recycled and tried again. Something was wrong.

The dim lights in the ceiling died out, pitching the room into darkness. From deep within the bowels of that darkness, his chest seized, unable to expand. He was out of air. It was with eyes that were losing their clarity that he realized his mistake. A small fleeting twinge of panic flashed before him. His last thoughts were of a small, white, flashing button on the panel beside him.

His world grew silent. There were no more gasps for air, no more struggling for survival. As death lay claim to him, his connection with Ashlyn left him. He had no thoughts neither of his wife or children, nor of hope or despair—no flashing reminiscences of his prior life. There was simply—nothing.

“20—19,” announced the computer.

Even as his heart was near to taking its last beat, to his unhearing ears, a shrieking alarm from the chamber sounded, echoing throughout the large room.

“13—12—11.” From some distant, unfathomably faraway place within his subconscious mind, he heard Ashlyn scream. Though he was unable to feel his body and his eyelids were frozen open, her scream was like a final, rallying battle cry. With a gut driven force of will, he gathered the last ounce of his strength and banged his useless stump of a frozen hand on the flashing white button. “0.”

***

“Robbie, lower the doc down. The admiral got the door open,” yelled Stratton over the noise. He saw that Cole and Martinez were getting into trouble and he stepped up, offering support. “Hitch, Paris, Tomlinson! The door is open. Get your butts out here and help.” When there was no reply he called again, “Moore, when the doc arrives get him set-up inside.”

Robertson began to descend. A violent wind shook the transport. Two bolts of lightning struck its topside in quick succession. “It’s like riding a brahma bull.”

“There’s no way I’m getting into the sling!” said Victor.

“Hanson, if he doesn’t get into the sling, throw him out the door without it! That’s an order,” said Robbie, yelling over the din of noise to his co-pilot. “I’m not leaving without the team.”

“You heard the man!” said Hanson, rising from his seat to enforce the words, “Get into the sling or jump. Either way, you’re going.”

Victor slowly got into the sling, looking like a scared kitten. Hanson latched Victor up and pivoted the sling outside the door.

Almost instantly, the transport was rocked by a wind shear, causing it to plummet thirty meters. Hanson, had he not been secured by a tether, would have been tossed from the transport. As it was, he barely managed to clamber back inside before the transport bounded left, almost pinning him against the crystalline shroud through which it was descending. The ship’s dampeners were maxed, but they had little effect against the violence of the approaching tornado.

Seconds later, explosions and flames burst all around them. “That’s as low as I can safely take the transport,” shouted Robbie to Hanson.

“Sorry, Doc, you’re on your own the rest of the way,” said Hanson as he began to lower the sling down. Victor was strapped in and lying flat. The ride was wild. The sling swung violently back and forth. The wind lifted it and dropped it. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god,” was all Victor could say.

He could hear the explosions below. He could feel the heat and then just as suddenly a blast of freezing cold air, driven by the storm. He wasn’t trained for combat. Moreover, he was a timid man and without his even noticing it, he began to pee.

Stratt yelled to his team, “The doc’s coming. Push the spiders back, clear a spot for him.”

Cole and Moore moved forward, pushing the advancing line of spiders back.

“Robbie, twenty meters more,” said Stratt. “You’re right on target.”

Without warning, the transport lurched, falling another ten meters. The steel cord, holding the sling, snapped from the jolt, dropping the sling the last four meters.

As Stratton rushed toward Victor, he saw that the doc’s eyes were closed tight, his jaw clenched. “It’s over, Doc. You’re on the ground. Now help me get the equipment inside.” Never had Victor moved so fast, as when he was unstrapped from the sling.

Within seconds, Stratton and Victor had grabbed the equipment and were making a run for the door. “Doc, we lost contact with the admiral four or five minutes ago. I heard him order Gena to turn his comm off. For right now, we will assume they are on the way up. Get your equipment set up inside, and if you see the team tell them to report to me. We’ll hold the line as long as we can.”

The battle scene was like a glimpse into the bowels of Hell. Walls seven meters in height, made from thousands of spider carcasses, encircled the perimeter—and yet the assault upon them was gaining intensity. The wall encroached upon them, growing ever closer with each new layer of dead spiders. The survivors scrambled in every direction, trying to wipe the sticky plasma off their charring bodies.

Stratton saw that high above, the spiders were spinning new web strings, racing to close the window the resonator had created, trapping the transport. “Follow your butts, guys. We need to go inside and regroup with the admiral.”

The three men slowly backed up. “Hey, Martinez, did you know that those ugly sons-of-bitches see sixteen of us?” said Cole.

“Hey, Cole, did you know that their noses are in their feet?” Martinez responded in kind.

Above the clamor, something captured Stratton’s attention. He could feel a soft vibration beating the ground in a rhythm. He recalled Steven’s warning about the tunnel. “Both of you make a run for the door! That’s an order!”

Cole turned. “They’re circling around behind us.” He sprayed plasma high on the wall of the red brick building.

On the front line, as if it were chasing them, a large sphere of spiders came rolling down the mountainous wall of dead remains.

“What the hell?” shouted Martinez.

Together, Cole and Martinez lit it up. The sphere burst apart, scattering the spiders in every direction. Gathering themselves, the spiders turned in perfect unison and rushed at the men.

Both men scoured the area before them with plasma, setting hundreds of spiders on fire. Like his team, Stratton, who had witnessed the new strategy, was speechless.

High above, a lightning bolt struck the ascending Dolphin transport. The transport pitched right, hitting a portion of the newly rebuilt crystalline ceiling, shattering it. Stratton watched Robbie fight against the wind, trying to regain control. “They do work fast,” said Stratton. The spiders had nearly managed to close the hole, until Robbie punched the vertical thrusters hard, crashing through it.

The air resonated with crackling, sizzling noises of electrical energy, ionizing it. A bolt of lightning snuck through the hole in the webbing, striking one of the already burning, abandoned cars on the street.

Though fire resistant, even the street now began to burn under the sustained onslaught.

Two more spheres of spiders rolled at them from the left. The two flamethrowers lit them up. The shrill screams of the frying spiders echoed, challenging their sense of reality. “This is crazy! Their attack is organized!” yelled Martinez.

Though their cooling systems were maxed, beads of sweat ran down the faces of both men. Their anxiety grew as they gave ground.

“Four o’clock,” shouted Stratton, as he simultaneously noticed that the drumming vibration grew louder.

The two men turned. Behind them, four more spheres were rolling toward them. “My tanks are down to 12 percent,” said Cole, as he sent a narrow stream into the heart of another ball.

Behind them, Stratton spotted the horror of which Steven had spoken. It came up out of the tunnel. “Dammit you two, get inside now,” shouted Stratton. “That’s an order!”

Martinez turned and ran. Cole backed up, laying down cover fire. Though each ball was in flames, they kept rolling toward him, growing smaller as they discarded the bodies of those in the fried outer layer.

Three of the flaming spiders broke free and came charging at him. “All right, you want a piece of me? Come and get it.” The first spider launched itself through the air, but with the battle armor’s heightened strength, a good backhand with his right fist sent it flying back into the wall of flames.

The next landed at his feet, where it lunged, rocking back and forth trying to bite him. A good kick sent it sprawling against the far wall of the cavern. The other landed atop his chest, its face staring straight into his faceplate, its fangs scissoring near his neck. “I almost forgot how much I hate you ugly maggots.” Grabbing it by the head, he tore it from its body.

Such was the battle, he never noticed the ground shaking, vibrating beneath his feet.

Having reached the door, Martinez spun around. Standing beside Stratton, they were awestruck.

“Cole, get—get back here now!” yelled Martinez.

“I’m coming.” At that moment, a fourth spider jumped through an open gap in the flames and wrapped itself around Cole’s legs. Though Cole wore the regulation armor that could take a tank blast at fifty meters and still leave its wearer no worse for the wear, this spider seemed to understand the armor’s weakness. Its fangs bit deep between the layered plates into a virtually invisible seam just behind the knee. Cole screamed out in pain as the spider’s bite sent virus-laden enzymes into his bloodstream.

Even as he sent the spider sprawling, hitting it with the butt of his flamethrower and then finishing it off with a stream of plasma, the blood vessels in his eyes had already begun to grow and extend.

He had never personally witnessed the
rage
, but he had heard about it from others who had. His mind raced, trying to separate fact from fiction, fear from hope—he realized just how little he knew. However, there was one inescapable fact—the rage was always fatal.

The spot where the spider had bitten him already grew numb, unresponsive.

Before him, coming at him from all directions, were twenty or more spiders. With a quick glance at Stratton and Martinez, who stood in the doorway, his situation became instantly worse. They stared wide-mouthed at something high above him.

Looking up, Cole hobbled around to see a spider more than twenty meters tall. It was like the others in appearance, but ten times bigger. He staggered back a step, half in shock from the sheer size of the thing and half because of the painful venom in his right leg. “Gena, all systems to maximum,” he managed to say, just as the spider flipped him high into the air with a swipe of its front leg. Though his inertia dampener was at maximum, he landed hard against the glowing crystalline wall of webs. He fell to the ground far below. The spiders around him skittered away, making room for their queen.

Letting out a heavy sigh, he rolled over onto his back. Looking up, he saw that the spider was already on top of him. It reared back on its hind legs, and as if it were already declaring victory, let out a long, roaring, deafening shriek. Weakened portions of the crystalline cavern fell, unable to withstand the percussive noise.

Lunging, the spider grasped him between its fangs, tossing him into the air. It just as quickly caught him, almost as though it were playing with him. Even with the armor’s dampening field, the pressure the spider exerted registered over 630 kilos per square inch. Though he could barely breathe, he attacked the rock-hard fangs, throwing an endless flurry of heavy servo-assisted punches. Slowly the fangs showed signs of cracking, fracturing.

Martinez, helpless to assist Cole without endangering him further, stood in the doorway, incinerating all periphery spiders until his tank sputtered and the flame died.

Beginning to feel the damage of Cole’s blows, the spider spewed venom all over Cole, hoping to immobilize him.

“I’m not dead yet, you bitch!” he screamed.

“Gena, fire turrets!” Instantly, a pair of small shoulder turrets unfurled and unloaded sixty-four hundred rounds of armor-piercing, explosive-tipped micro-needles. The spider shrieked as the needles tore through its internal organs, blowing large exit holes out its backside.

The west end of the cavern blew outwards as hundreds of unobstructed micro-needles exited the shredding spider and struck the webbing beyond, opening a large hole.

The spiders that had been advancing on the web, along with thousands of shattered crystalline shards, were sucked up and swept away by the monstrous tornado that bore down on them. The display of raw energy within the tornado dwarfed the largest Kansas twister.

Thrashing in the throes of death, the spider dropped Cole from its grasp. It tottered above him, staggered, and then collapsed to the ground. With a few lingering twitches it released a last exhale of breath.

Throngs of spiders watching the battle stilled, seemingly shocked by what they had witnessed. As the death of their mother and queen settled in, an air of vengeance seemed to permeate the surroundings.

Behind Cole, the cavern’s already weakened structure disintegrated as chunks were ripped away by the charcoal-brown tornado. The earsplitting noise overwhelmed them, but even as the world the spiders had built was disappearing around them, their attentions remained solely focused on Cole. He lay on the ground before them, unable to escape. As one, they moved with lightning speed, swarming over him.

With a final glance at Stratton, Cole’s blood red eyes and an affirmative nod told him what he had to do.

Cole screamed—not the scream of a man in pain, but the gutsy scream of a man that refused to die easily.

Pulling Martinez inside, Stratton grabbed the door and slammed it shut, pinching the armored leg of a spider that had almost managed to make it inside. The leg shook and then went limp. The spider had bitten it off, freeing itself.

In direct contrast to the clamor of noises outside, with the door’s closure everything went eerily silent, leaving them with only the sound of their own breathing.

“Cole’s still out there,” shouted Martinez as he reached for the handle of the door.

Stratton shoved Martinez hard into the wall. “No, he’s not! He’s dead!” Their eyes locked, the faceplates of their helmets pressed together. “He was bitten! He has the
rage
. He’s not human anymore!” The image branded into Stratton’s mind was terrifying. He had not seen Cole get bitten, and it had taken him a moment to process the information. Cole was a close friend and the look in his eyes conveyed a flood of emotions. In a single glance, Cole had asked for compassion, for understanding, and yet, it was one of compulsion, of hunger—a look of rage.

The whites of Cole’s eyes were a solid mass of red corpuscles, his face a roadmap of veins that pulsed on the surface of his skin. His bared teeth were drenched in the blood of his own hemorrhaging gums.