Alien, page 12
Kira sniffed, wiped her eyes and nose on her nightgown sleeve, and nodded. She was barefoot, and the dirt of the moon had dusted her legs nearly up to the knees. Siobhan could only imagine what the girl was going through.
“I’m going with you, too,” Hank said to Alec.
Kira looked at him, terror in her expression. “Grandpa, no!”
He knelt beside her, placing a hand on each arm and looking her in the eye.
“Kira, baby, I love you. You know that—and I loved your mom and dad, and I loved your grandma. It hurts to lose people you love—I know you know that, too, and I never want to lose you. So I need you to go with Alec’s men. I need you to stay with Camilla, where I know you’ll be safe.”
“Stay with me, then,” Kira said, fresh tears glistening in her eyes.
“I need you to be a big girl for me right now, okay? I need you to try to understand what I’m telling you. Alec and Siobhan need help. They need to make sure no one else gets hurt like Grandma, and I need to make sure the thing that hurt her is dead, so it can’t come after you and me. If you’re safe, I can concentrate on doing that. Do you understand?”
Kira nodded slowly, sniffling.
“Okay, Grandpa. But please be careful.”
He winked at her. “I will, baby. I will. Now go on—go with…?”
“Lance Corporal Elkins,” Elkins replied. He smiled down at Kira. “You can call me Kenny, okay?”
She nodded again, and Elkins took her hand.
Hank watched the two Colonial Marines lead his granddaughter away. When he stood, he nodded at Alec.
“I’m ready.”
* * *
“So how many people are we looking for, exactly?” Hank trudged a little ways behind Siobhan and Alec. “I didn’t think there were too many left. Mostly, the residential pods are a ghost town.”
“Well, aside from you, Kira, and Vic—” She stopped, both mid-word and mid-step. “Hank, I’m so sorry.” She met his gaze for a moment and saw the tears in his eyes before he nodded once and turned his head.
“I couldn’t get to her in time,” he said in a low voice. “I couldn’t… but I could save Kira, so I did.”
Siobhan put a sympathetic hand on Hank’s shoulder, and then they both continued forward again. After a moment, she spoke again.
“I count four—four other people, I mean, to answer your question. Arthur should still be here, and I think Leo is, as well. And then we’ve got Bill Maloney and Shannon Lee.”
Arthur Benton, Siobhan’s supervisor, had stayed on with his skeleton crew, even though Siobhan was mostly in charge of the evacuation. As director of research, it fell on him to dot the last few i’s and cross the last few t’s, to make sure the information and products produced by the lab saw their way off into the rightful hands. He was a tall man, neat and quiet, with a low, firm voice and an unflinching gaze.
Many of the staff found him quirky at best and unlikable at worst, but Siobhan got along with him just fine. She understood that life had not always been easy for the man, although he never said as much or even hinted it in words. It was in the way he carried himself, as if the weight of the galaxy without and his memories within were opposing forces holding him up and keeping him standing. It was in those dark eyes, and in the undercurrent of sadness in his voice.
His partner, Leo, on the other hand, was bright and buoyant, a mostly retired journalist with an endless supply of warm smiles, funny stories, and—amazingly—bottles of fairly good wine. Siobhan enjoyed talking to Leo at the yearly Seegson holiday parties and summer company picnics. At those events he often picked up where Arthur sorely lacked. They lived on the west end of the residential pods, away from the labs, along with Bill Maloney.
Siobhan wasn’t exactly sure what Bill did at Seegson; he seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades. She had seen him volunteer for research testing in the past, so she supposed that was what he was employed for in an official capacity. However, he was just as often fixing lights, mopping floors, or tinkering with the damned air conditioning in the east end, calling it a “fickle ol’ bird.” Bill had told Siobhan that he’d once been a hunter, and that he was itching to get out sometime and bag him one of the vurfur. She hoped now that his experience as a hunter meant he was okay, that he might have been able to defend himself with the big storm rifle that he kept mounted on the wall over the couch.
Closest to the lab on the east end was Shannon Lee’s apartment suite. Siobhan didn’t know much about the pretty little woman other than that she was a chemist and that she and Kenny Elkins had had a brief fling two or three years ago. The relationship was technically against company policy, but no one had cared. They were on an outpost moon in the middle of nowhere, in a dying solar system that even the gangster who theoretically owned it had forgotten about. It had been lonely living there long before it had ever become so stressful.
If this little group of people she had come to think of as a makeshift Seegson family found comfort in each other, she certainly wasn’t going to stand in the way, nor would she have tolerated anyone who did.
Thinking about it now led to thoughts of Alec. She felt the way he looked at her sometimes, and warmed at the way he said her name. He was certainly no rule-follower, but he had never made a move in the years he’d been on BG-791. He had come close a few times, in those suspended moments when looking into each other’s eyes had become a gaze, and that gaze, a pull toward each other for a kiss. He had never taken it beyond that, though, and Siobhan had assumed the reason why was buried somewhere behind that dark and troubled gaze.
Alec glanced at her now from a little ways ahead and gave her a small smile. She returned it.
They reached the residential pods and slowed, taking in the quiet building shouldered against the coming dawn.
Hank frowned. “Lights are out,” he muttered, glancing up at the sky. “They shouldn’t have gone out for another hour yet.”
Alec raised his gun. “Follow me,” he said in a low voice. “Siobhan, stay between me and Hank.”
They moved quietly and quickly, like they’d done at the Weyland-Yutani lab, entering the front lobby unit. It was dark inside, as well, and empty, but that wasn’t unusual. No one had sat at the desk in the back left corner for a long time, because no one received visitors anymore. Alec lifted his rifle, and the flashlight revealed mail cubbies that were bare because there were no deliveries to BG-791 for anything other than essentials. The dust was thick on the long desktop, the pale gray-greenish color of the moon’s soil.
The door against the back wall led to the west and east wings of the apartment complex, and Alec headed toward it, the others following close behind. The deep shadow of the hallway beyond was broken only by a sparking control panel on the wall. The thought occurred to her that Bill would fix that panel, before a more serious realization dawned on her. The broken panel, a “fickle ol’ bird” now if ever there was one, meant that something was wrong—something Bill, if he was even still alive, wouldn’t be able to fix.
She hadn’t noticed in the dark, but when a fresh set of blue sparks erupted from the panel, Siobhan caught a glimpse of long claw marks dragging down the wall beneath it. A flash of fear moved through her. Glancing at the men, she saw from their expressions that they had noticed the marks, too.
Alec turned away from the wall. “What apartment is Shannon Lee in?”
“Number 102,” Siobhan replied, turning as well. She pointed to a door two down on the left. “That one.” They made their way to the door. Alec knocked, leaning in toward it.
“Miss Lee? This is Sergeant Brand. Are you alright?” When no one answered, he knocked again.
They waited for several seconds, listening for some sounds of life from the other side of the door. They heard nothing.
After a moment, Hank said, “I guess it’d be too much to hope that she’s just a heavy sleeper.”
“We should go in,” Alec said, and without waiting for an answer, he tapped the control panel to the left of the door, which opened soundlessly.
“I’ll wait out here, keep guard,” Hank said. He held up his gun. Alec nodded.
The layout of the apartment suites varied very little. The one-bedroom suites were more compact, with the living room central to the layout. The two-bedroom suites had at least one of those bedrooms down a hall. Shannon’s apartment was the former and stood nearly bare, with a single chair and small table in the kitchen and a loveseat in the living room.
There was no life in those rooms, literally or figuratively. There was barely any light, except for the dim glow that came through the windows. Whatever had made it Shannon’s home was gone now, likely packed up and waiting in the barracks for the evac ship. All the rooms were dark except for the bedroom. From beneath the closed door, Siobhan could see a thin sliver of yellow-white glow.
She touched Alec’s shoulder and gestured. He nodded, led the way to the door, and glanced at her before opening it.
Shannon Lee was not in the bedroom. At least, most of her wasn’t there. She had stripped down and dismantled the bed, and parts of it lay strewn about the carpeted floor, but otherwise, the room held no furniture, no knickknacks, nothing like that. Across the back wall, however, was a splash of blood. It made a dizzying pattern—dark against the white behind it—that hurt Siobhan’s eyes as much as her heart. Strands of black hair and chunks of something gray stuck to the various streaks of red. Shannon’s body, though, was gone.
Siobhan’s stomach roiled and she turned from the doorway.
“If you want to wait with Hank, I’ll sweep the other rooms,” Alec said. “I doubt there’s anything to find, but…” He shrugged.
“Okay,” she said, and trudged back to the front door.
When Hank spotted her, he stood up straighter. “Did you find her?”
Siobhan considered for a moment how to answer, while he peered over her shoulder into the living room.
“No,” she said finally. “She’s… not there.”
Hank didn’t reply, but she could see from the look in his eyes that he understood what Siobhan meant. They stood in silence until Alec joined them a few minutes later.
They moved further west, toward Bill Maloney’s apartment. Alec shifted his flashlight from side to side, revealing more blood that streaked the walls, which were gouged and scratched. About ten feet away from the open door was a trail of drag marks, also in blood, which curved around the doorframe. The smell emanating from inside was strong, a coppery, heavy smell that turned Siobhan’s stomach.
Alec crept up to the opening and peered around it, gun drawn. Silently, he motioned for the other two to join him.
The trail of blood continued far into the room, to the center of the living room. Siobhan followed it with her eyes to the motionless form on the floor, where it ended. Sidestepping the blood, the three entered the apartment. Alec motioned that he was going to check out the other rooms. Siobhan and Hank nodded, each kneeling to one side of the body.
It didn’t take long to identify Bill. Deep claw marks had been gouged into his face, chest, and abdomen, and the bottom half of his right leg was missing, but Siobhan knew it was him. She felt tears well up in her eyes but she wiped them away. His neck, at least, was intact, so just on the off chance that he might still be alive, she checked for a pulse there and in his wrist. She found none.
His flesh felt cold.
Looking up at Hank, Siobhan shook her head.
Alec joined them a few minutes later, glancing down at the body. “Apartment’s clear. Whatever did… that… is gone now.”
Siobhan rose, then offered a hand to help Hank. “We need to check on Arthur and Leo. Then we can get out of here.”
14
All was quiet inside the Seegson lab. None of the group wanted to be alone: given the circumstances, Elkins and Roots agreed that it was probably a good idea to stay together. The quarantine room was deemed the safest, with the emergency shower stalls and warm beds and strong locks, and so Elkins got Kira and Dr. Fowler situated there with Roots.
Elkins noticed that Roots’s limping was getting worse, so he volunteered to take the first shift. Roots tried to protest, but not too hard. He seemed genuinely grateful to get some shut-eye with the civilians while Elkins stood watch in the small common area just outside.
“Are you hungry, Lance Corporal Elkins?” Camilla stood in the doorway of the adjacent kitchenette. “I can make you something to eat. Some eggs, perhaps? Maybe coffee?”
Elkins gave her a weary smile. “That would be nice, Camilla. Thanks.”
She returned the smile and slipped back through the doorway.
There were a few desks in the common area with communications terminals set up, generally for checking the news or playing computer games during break times. Camilla didn’t have an office but had been assigned a small desk nearest the doors to quarantine, where she could process data. Elkins eyed her chair. His legs ached, his back ached, and his arms ached. He was so exhausted that he could have fallen asleep on his feet.
Blinking a few times, he shook his head to bring some wakefulness back into him, and moved over to the synth’s station. At the least, he could check the news of the summit meeting on LV-846, and catch up on what was happening beyond the doomed space rock they all were riding.
He tapped on her touchpad to bring the terminal out of sleeping mode and hoped she didn’t have it password protected. The screen sprang to life with a spinning Seegson logo which twirled out of view. In its wake, a few file folders appeared, as well as the Newscore icon.
Thank God for small favors, he thought, and tapped the app on the screen.
The major headlines, of course, centered on the summit and speculations about what the United American Allied Command scientists intended to reveal about the black goo. He tapped a headline that outlined the basic agenda for the four-day meeting. United Americas joint chiefs were to meet with leaders of the Union of Progressive Peoples and the Independent Core System Colonies, among others. As ordered by Assistant Commandant General Vaughn, the joint chiefs would, of course, be escorted by USCMC forces, no doubt in an overt show of UAA power, as well as to quell any violence that might arise.
The goal of the summit was to reach agreements as outlined in a new peace treaty. Since recent evidence indicated that the pathogen bombs—like the pathogen itself—might not be the work of any of the Earth governments, the hope was that all parties would agree to and sign the treaty.
The Newscore article went on to emphasize the importance of the treaty as a foundation for peace moving forward. Failure might mean countless more years of war.
“No pressure,” Ekins mumbled, his eyes scanning the rest of the information. None of it came as a surprise. When he, Roots, and Sarge arrived on LV-846, they would be assigned—along with the rest of the Colonial Marines—to make sure nothing went wrong. Nothing that they could address, anyway. Whether the UA and UPP governments would see eye to eye with each other, let alone the crooks that were running different parts of the ICS—well, that was beyond the marines’ control.
He tapped out of the article and skimmed through another about the unified forces that had been sent to other outer rim colonies to quell riots. Elkins thought it looked like more black goo trouble—colonies too close for comfort to others that had been exposed to the pathogen. People were terrified of being bombed with the stuff, and angry that no one in power was doing anything about it.
Elkins and Roots had once been assigned to riot control on the moon Kepler-2801, a UA trading outpost and associated colony, and it had gotten ugly. He’d seen fire-bombed colonial settlements and paranoid vagrants gunning down refugees. The way those refugees’ eyes turned black, the way their bodies swelled and twisted and their skin grew pale and spider-webbed with dark veins, Elkins couldn’t help thinking that maybe those crazy vagrant fuckers had done the refugees a mercy.
Elkins tapped the terminal screen again. His finger hovered over another headline—about a mining incident—when a message popped up on-screen. Addressed to Camilla, the message was from a Rebecca Mueller at the UA Office of Interplanetary Resettlement, with the subject line “Xenomorph Infection.”
Frowning, Elkins tapped on the message.
Hello, Camilla.
Thank you for your communication. I checked with my superiors and, as you may have surmised, with the ongoing conflicts surrounding the pathogen and its mutations, I have been advised that it would not be feasible to send a UA ship to evacuate your team. The likelihood of Xenomorph infestation and subsequent devastation to both UA personnel and property is considered too great a risk.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this causes and wish you all well on finding a suitable solution to the issue at hand.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Mueller
UAOIR
“Camilla? Camilla!” Elkins jumped out of the chair and headed for the kitchen. “Camilla, what the—”
He glanced around the kitchen, but no one was there.
* * *
Arthur and Leo’s apartment was, to Siobhan’s dismay, in much the same condition as Shannon and Bill’s. Alec found some blood on a countertop, and Siobhan found a finger under the glass coffee table in the living room. The end of it looked chewed. Siobhan’s heart hurt for her boss and his partner.
“Any luck?” Hank called from the doorway.
“Nothing,” Alec said. Using the muzzle of his gun, he lifted the edge of a bloody towel just outside the bathroom, saw what was underneath, and grimaced. “Doesn’t look good for them.” Realizing how that sounded, he looked up at Siobhan. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
