Tevun-Krus #22 - Best of 2015

(Military Science Fiction) Life On Earth - @MadMikeMarsbergen

1

"BRAVO team," I said into my radio. "Report in."

But they didn't. All I heard was static on the other end of the comms. I didn't like how this was looking.

2

WE'D been trained for this sort of catastrophe. But training doesn't compare to actually doing it for real. When the creatures suddenly emerged from the deep, we'd been taken by surprise. How were we supposed to know there was an ancient, sentient race living within a massive cavern under the sea? How were we supposed to react?

It happened like this:

Just a regular day in the world we knew. Stocks were high. The terraforming project on Mars was business as usual. The lunar bases reported clear skies in all directions -- nothing strange, nothing new.

We'd never actually faced an alien threat before. We hadn't even known if they existed. But we all felt fairly certain that alien life would have to exist out there. Somehow. Somewhere. It only made sense. If we exist here, then they must exist out there.

In a way, we were right. But we were also wrong.

Because the alien life wasn't even alien. Alien to us, maybe -- in terms of biological structure, and compared to humans, sure.

It came from Earth, though. It was older than us. It was aquatic but capable of flight and could breathe outside of water. But its closest relatives appeared to be the octopus and the squid.

3

I headed into work on the Moon the day the creatures emerged. I was stationed at Luna Outpost X1-B5. In a sense, I was one of the lucky ones. If I'd been down there on Earth, I'd've probably been one of the first to die. Like the other military forces down there. Our weapons couldn't cut through them. Not at first. Then we discovered their weakness.

But that's another part of the story.

I'd gone into work. Just another ordinary day. Used my eyes and fingertip to get me into the system. Accepting Mark O'Donnell, yada yada yada. Went in and said hi to Jack. He was my partner on Bravo team. My right-hand man. He's dead now. Was mangled by the monsters from the deep. His eyes dangling from their sockets. I'll tell you about that later.

Jack informed me that all looked clear on the lunar frontier. We went about our daily duties until lunchtime. Seemed like another boring day. Seemed like my training would never be put to use. Why'd they even bother? Wars were old news. We didn't fight 'em anymore. Humans had risen above such small-minded endeavours. After the Russians had tried to start World War III -- tried and failed. But yet we still trained for wars. Like the big-wigs knew. Maybe they did. Maybe not. They're all dead, too.

Then lunch rolled around and the first news reached our satellite.

A strange explosion in the middle of the ocean. Tsunamis rushing out from the epicentre of the blast. Islands wiped away, their bases destroyed. Then the coastal cities were hit. In too many countries. Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, USA, Canada -- just to name a few. If it was near the Pacific, it was affected.

We thought that was it. We didn't know what to do. Didn't know what was happening.

Then another explosion occurred. This time in the Atlantic. This time, we had eyes watching, waiting. This time, we saw what came out.

4

"BRAVO, come in." I waited a few kliks. Nothing, no response. I'd sent my team to investigate reports of gunfire in a nearby hospital. They'd gotten there, they'd told me that, but now the comms were dead. I wanted to know why. "Looks like I'll have to figure that out for myself."

I checked my rifle and headed out of the convenience store. I'd gone there to put an end to a hostage crisis. A customer had gone deranged after the creatures had risen. Took the store owner as his hostage. Should've been easy. Only I'd been too late. They were both dead when I'd arrived. The hostage's brains painted the walls beside her corpse, the top half of her head glued to the ceiling in chunks, some blood-soaked hair hanging with it. And based on the residue around his lips, the customer had then placed the barrel in his own mouth and pulled the trigger. A baby-smooth, clean, cauterized hole went out the back of his neck, just under the base of his skull.

The city around me was a shambles. Roads ripped away. Buildings crumbled. Cars torn and contorted. Bodies left in pieces, some of them still connected by long red-grey streamers of now-cold guts. Heads crushed like watermelons, leaking gore into the sewers.

Not a pretty sight. I'd grown tired of it. And there was a hell of a lot more of it coming. I knew that.

The hospital was a half-klik away, but I didn't need a map to find it. Thanks to the destruction all around me, the big H was a beacon. I simply headed in that direction, maneuvered around whatever was in my way and there I was. At the hospital. It looked more like a battlefield. Ambulances strewn about upside-down, on their sides. Any way except rightside-up. Nurses and doctors and paramedics lay dead in a heap. And laying on top was my unit. Jack with his eyeballs hanging by their optic nerves. The skin on his arms and legs flayed down to the blood-red meat, and in some places to the pale-white bone. The other boys and girls in Bravo were in a similar state of disrepair. Dougal had his head ripped off, missing in action.

"Jesus H. Christ..." I swallowed the puke rising up from my belly. Tried to keep myself together.

What kind of monsters could do something like this?

I'd soon find out for myself.

I entered the hospital.