Alien, page 20
Fowler’s back was to Roots.
The door to the escape pod had been lifted, and the scientist was busy securing a small, refrigerated bag into one of the compartments.
“Going somewhere, Doctor?”
Fowler jumped at the sound of Roots’s voice. He straightened and turned, and Roots could see that his brow was beaded with sweat.
“PFC Rutiani. Hello.”
Roots tapped the edge of the pod doorway with his gun.
“You thinking of leaving us?”
“Well, as you may have noticed, my ride is here. So, if you don’t mind—”
“Actually, I do mind,” Roots responded, getting between Fowler and the escape pod door. “I’ve got orders to bring you back and confine you to your cabin.”
Fowler sighed. “Honestly, why do you care at this point? You have no use for me—I know that. Can’t you just let me go?”
“Sorry, no can do. See, if we could trust you,” Roots said, “I mean, not to lie to us, try to abandon us, drug the crew, feed us to your alien pets, or whatever else you might be thinking, well then, hell, we already would have thrown you a going-away party. But we can’t trust you.”
The expression on Fowler’s face changed. There was something desperate there, something like genuine fear.
“I really think,” Fowler said, “that it would be better for all of us if I just leave. Please, just let me leave.”
“You can tell your friends on the big ship that they can pick you up on LV-846, just like we planned.”
“I have no friends on that ship,” Fowler said flatly.
“I’m surprised,” Roots replied, pushing Fowler in the direction of the metal ladder, “what with your sparkling personality and all.”
“No, I mean, it’s an automated ship, the Demeter. A new Weyland-Yutani design, a completely robo-piloted recon vehicle. I don’t think they’re even using synthetics on board anymore.”
“So, can’t you tell the ship’s piloting system to meet you?”
Fowler was quiet for several seconds.
“I don’t know how,” he said finally.
Roots considered this for a moment, then said, “You’re worried. You think sending a ship like that means they don’t care about coming to get you, don’t you? That they can’t be bothered to send people to make sure nothing goes wrong.” Fowler didn’t answer until they reached the bottom of the ladder. There, he turned again.
“Last chance. Let me go.”
“Not gonna do that,” Roots said.
“You should know, then, that I’m carrying—”
Just then, the ship lurched forward, knocking both of them down. Roots shook his head and looked up to see Fowler scurrying up the ladder. He jumped to his feet and followed, reaching out to grab hold of Fowler’s pants leg as the other man emerged on the main deck. Fowler stumbled, giving Roots a chance to finish his climb as well, but then Fowler was jogging down the hall.
“If you run, I’ll shoot you,” Roots shouted after him. “So help me God, I’ll shoot you right here.”
Fowler ignored him. Another sudden jerking of the ship sent them stumbling, giving Roots a chance to close the distance. Fowler turned, stomped on Roots’s bad foot, and took off down the hall.
Cursing under his breath, Roots tumbled after him, considering through the haze of pain the outcome of shooting the man. He managed to chase the scientist down one hallway and halfway through another before a blister on the top side of his foot split open and a sharp bolt flared across the flesh. He continued to limp as best he could, but Fowler was too fast.
Just as the scientist was about to round the next corner, though, Sarge appeared and shoved the muzzle of his gun toward Fowler’s chest. The man skidded to a stop, putting his hands up.
“All right, all right. I’m not going anywhere… obviously.”
“You okay, Roots?” Sarge called over Fowler’s shoulder. His eyes, beneath the glare of his knitted brow, never left the man.
“Fucker stomped on my foot,” Roots said, stumbling toward them.
“Dr. Fowler, we’re going to escort you back to your cabin now,” Alec said. “And you’re going to stay there until we land.”
Roots and Sarge walked Fowler back to his room in relative silence. Fowler must have given up trying to convince the men to let him go. In fact, he seemed unusually resigned. Roots didn’t trust it. When they reached the cabin, he confiscated Fowler’s key and did a sweep for anything Fowler might use to get into trouble. After pocketing a few items he had seen the prisoners on Nungal use for weapons, he and Alec locked their prisoner there, and headed back to the bridge.
* * *
When Alec and Roots returned to the bridge, Gavin and Sam were awake and at their stations. Siobhan had seen them stir about ten minutes before, and had given them some coffee and boosts of stabilizers to counteract their sedation hangovers and shortness of breath. She and Elkins had just finished explaining what had happened to the groggy men.
“Are you okay?” Alec asked as he joined them at the dashboard.
“Got a wicked headache,” Gavin said, manning the controls.
“If I see that bastard,” Sam said, “I’ll kill him.”
“He’s locked in his room,” Roots said. “I’ve got first watch over him tonight.”
* * *
The blasts from the Demeter had done damage. This became increasingly evident over the next two days. While Alec, Elkins, and Roots took turns making sure Fowler stayed put, Gavin and Sam worked on compensating for the damage to the navigation, fueling, and steering systems.
By the time they entered LV-846’s star system, though, the ship was shaking badly. Gavin had to lean on the steering lever to keep it on course, and they had lost more than three-quarters of their fuel.
When the planet came into view, Siobhan was relieved. She may not have understood the ins and outs of running a ship, but she didn’t need to. She could feel the trembling, the hitches in its forward movement. In some ways it was like standing on the surface of BG-791 again, with everything around her and under her feet threatening to give way and fall apart.
Gavin and Sam prepared to orbit the planet. In the front viewport, Siobhan could see the black of space growing lighter as the corona of LV-846’s atmosphere came into view.
“It’s going to be a rough one,” Gavin said. “Strap in.”
Siobhan and the others took the seats lining the sides of the bridge. The star map flickered on the table, winking in and out. A few minutes later, the lights on the bridge followed suit, and the shaking caused by damage to the navigation systems was compounded as the highest layers of atmosphere swirled around them.
“Looks like we’ve got an electromagnetic storm brewing down there,” Sam said. “It’s wreaking havoc with our controls.”
“Can’t wait it out,” Gavin replied. “No more fuel.”
“Are we gonna crash?” Kira asked.
“Not if I can help it, little lady,” Gavin said.
“Don’t worry,” Elkins reassured her, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “They know what they’re doing.”
“Better than you?” Kira sounded skeptical.
Elkins chuckled. “Way better than me.”
The ship rattled hard, and Siobhan felt her teeth grinding together. Every muscle tightened as they descended into the EM storm. She had never liked re-entering an atmosphere, even on planets where the weather was always mild. Something about the shift from space to sky made her uneasy, and a little nauseous. She didn’t mind being above the clouds or below them, but had never much enjoyed the transition.
In storms, it was so much worse.
Lightning flashed outside the front window. Droplets of water pounded the glass. All Siobhan could see were gray smears of cloud; she couldn’t fathom how Gavin and Sam could manage to pilot a ship through all that, safely to the ground. But then, she supposed, that was what Elkins had meant. It was one thing to fly a ship like the Astraeus. It was something else entirely to land it.
“Captain, I’m picking up a distress signal from below,” Sam said. “It… it’s not going out on military and government channels. I’m not sure how it’s transmitting at all. LV-846 is a private military complex—the security protocols should have squashed this transmission before it ever left the surface.”
“Some kind of breach,” Gavin agreed. “I hear it.”
“What is that code?” Alec called. “That’s not USCMC.”
Sam listened a moment to the series of beeps and tones that grew increasingly louder over their comm system, then shook his head.
“It’s… Grant code, and it’s repeating—a loop.” The Grant code system had replaced the ancient and archaic Morse code—Siobhan had learned that from Alec—and it was, in her opinion, exceedingly more complicated. It had originated with pirates and scavengers who used it to locate, transport, and trade illegal goods across the galaxy. While the military were trained in deciphering it, it was still primarily used by independent shippers and traders.
Alec and his men listened, as well.
Roots frowned. “Isn’t that…?”
“An attack, I think,” Alec said. “Right, Sam?
“Not attack… that’s code for ‘infection’… no, wait. Sorry. That’s ‘infestation.’ God, what the hell happened down there?”
Siobhan’s blood ran cold. “Can we respond and ask what’s going on?” She looked to each of the men, but they were concentrating on the sounds, pulling secret meaning out of what sounded to her like some weird middle ground between music and noise.
“No one to ask,” Sam said. “That signature there… hear that? That means it’s a recording re-looping, which is done when there are no living people—at least not within range of the broadcasting area.”
“Doesn’t mean there’s no one left at all,” Gavin added, “but… it’s not a good sign. Like Sam said, the security down there is tight. Unauthorized messages should have been stopped immediately. So should unauthorized ships. No one’s hailed us to ask why we’re in orbit or ask for our authorization code. And no one’s shot at us—that’s even more surprising.”
“There’s a time stamp on this message,” Sam said, “from a few days ago. Damn it.” He sighed, fiddling with a few controls on his end of the dashboard. “The storm’s interference is blotting out a lot of the message, but—wait, that was ‘conference center.’ And ‘summit’—I think this is originating from the summit meeting down there.”
“Damn,” Gavin said. “Now, that’s really not a good sign—for anybody.”
Siobhan’s chest felt tight. Gavin was grasping the greater truth. Under the best of circumstances, tensions at the summit would be high, governments would be wary of one another, and any number of terrorist threats or violence could upset a balance crucial for the continued safety of countless colonies all across the galaxy. Of course, it made sense that security protocols would block unauthorized travel to and from the planet, as well as outgoing messages. Under such circumstances, it would have made sense to just shoot the Astraeus down outright…
Unless there was a bigger problem than political tension.
If the distress signal had originated days ago, however, that meant the summit had barely gotten under way before whatever occurred had provided the incentive for the distress. Had they communicated the trouble to Earth? Was help on the way?
A sudden violent jolt shook the ship, causing Siobhan to bite her lip, and then they were through the upper layers of the atmosphere. Gray sky around them gave way to a view of the planet below.
Much of LV-846 was a temperate or subtropical zone, with huge, sprawling fields of green and few mountains. There were some central jungles where both plant and animal life flourished. Under other circumstances, Siobhan would have found the place fascinating, from a professional point of view, but at that moment she was afraid—of the storms, of the distinct lack of a platform to land a ship, and because her instinct told her that the situation down there was bad. Very bad. They were an unauthorized ship, after all. Why wasn’t anyone trying to stop them?
“Hold on,” Gavin said, and the ship brushed the tops of some jungle trees. Siobhan could hear the engine sputtering. The landing gear was stuck.
One of the few and far between rocky hills came into view, and Gavin had to practically stand on the steering lever to keep the bottom of the ship from clipping the rock. The ground came up very fast—so much so that Siobhan flinched when she saw it.
The front of the ship dipped. Gavin pulled back on the wheel and it righted itself just as the landing site for the Pushan Conference Center reared up from the ground.
“Platform,” Sam muttered.
“See it,” Gavin answered. The ship touched down, bounced hard, and shivered in the air. Kira squeezed her eyes closed. Elkins gripped her hand.
“Come on, you bastard,” Gavin muttered, slamming a lever forward. The landing gear lowered just as the ship met the ground, and the whole of the Astraeus slid along the platform, past the conference center and toward a net of dense, jungle-like trees. There was a flurry of green foliage which suddenly covered the window, accompanied by the tearing of massive leaves and vines.
Then the ship came to a stop.
For a moment, no one spoke. Siobhan could almost hear the collective beating of their pounding hearts. Gavin turned in his chair. His expression was unperturbed, as usual, but sweat slicked his forehead and neck.
“Everyone okay back there?”
“Fine,” Alec said, and the others echoed the same.
“That was some fine flying,” Elkins offered with genuine appreciation in his voice.
“That was luck,” Sam said, giving Gavin a sideways smile.
The pilot chuckled. His laugh, like his expressions and inclination to chat, was minimal. “Got the job done,” he said.
“Certainly did,” Sam agreed. “What say y’all to stretching our legs and finding out what happened to our welcoming committee?”
22
The storm that had been brewing in the upper stratosphere resulted in thunderous skies, flashes of lightning, and clouds which emptied a downpour of rain for about ten minutes, then stopped. When Sam opened the ship’s outer door and they filed out, the air still crackled with energy.
The atmosphere of LV-846 was hot and humid, but breathable. The twin suns around which the planet revolved were high in the sky, but remnant clouds obscured most of the glare.
Though Siobhan was glad to stretch her legs, almost instantly she began to sweat. Relief in the form of an occasional breeze blew across her skin. After the staleness of the doomed moon’s terraformed atmosphere and the regulated environment of the ship, it felt good, however heavy, to breathe a planet’s real air.
It also felt good to plant her feet firmly on ground that wasn’t moving or crumbling. Whatever had happened on this planet, whatever they would encounter going forward, for the moment, Siobhan was glad for what she had. Still, she clutched the flamethrower from Weyland-Yutani’s underground storage room. The looping distress signal, according to Sam, came from somewhere nearby, and Siobhan wasn’t taking any chances.
Alec joined her, shielding his eyes from the new light, followed by Kira. Roots and Elkins emerged with Fowler. Behind the scientist, the two crewmen glared at the back of his head.
“No welcoming committee, I see,” Fowler muttered.
No one answered. From the ship, the complex where the Pushan Conference Center was located looked devoid of movement, as did the central building itself. No one milled about or moved between the housing and business areas. No one sat eating lunch on the benches that lined the wide walkway or strolling the landscaped garden areas out front. No marines with guns swarmed across the complex to arrest them all.
“It’s awfully quiet,” Roots said, glancing around.
“This place should be crawling with people,” Elkins added. “Marines, local law enforcement, government paper-pushers, reporters, the works. Where are—”
Then they saw the bodies.
It looked as if a number of people had tried to flee into the surrounding jungle. A woman in business clothes hung from a high limb of a tree, tangled in vines. She was missing a shoe. Her blonde hair, coated in blood, hung in her face. A trio of badly contorted bodies, their backs and limbs broken, looked as if they had been tossed hard against the trunks of trees.
Another woman in a military uniform had been torn in half; the upper portion of her looked as if it had tried to crawl to the tree line, while the lower portion lay twisted among some shrubs. A number of men had been clawed or chewed on, their chests raked open, eyes glazed and mouths slack. One man’s bottom jaw had been torn off.
As they approached the complex itself, they found several more bodies. A man and a woman, also dressed in military uniforms, bore the insignias of high rank on their chests and shoulders. The woman’s scalp had been torn clear off her head, and most of her hair lay in a bloody heap next to her slumped body. The man’s face had been caved in.
“Who did this?” Roots asked. “Why didn’t the Colonial Marines stop it?”
“Maybe it has something to do with that,” Gavin said, gesturing.
The others followed his nod and gaze toward a crashed ship. It was a Conestoga-class frigate, a massive bulk of dark gray metal with an antenna that had been crushed, evidently on impact. Siobhan could see the name of the ship, the Alexiares, painted near the rear, in the part still protruding from the ground. Beneath it was the USCMC insignia, the four white stars with red and white stripes. Beneath that was stenciled the logo of the ship’s manufacturer, Lunnar-Welsun Industries.
“Shit, Sarge—that’s one of ours,” Roots said. He jogged toward the ship.
“Roots, wait,” Alec called, but Elkins had already taken off after his squad mate, so Alec followed suit. Fowler, seeing an opportunity to break away, turned to run, but Gavin and Sam each caught an arm, and the rest of the group headed after the marines.
