Alien, page 21
When they reached the downed ship, Siobhan could see that the door had been torn off, the doorframe bent outward, as if there had been an outpouring of hate from within. She thought there very likely had been—long claw marks were gouged along the sides of the opening. Her heart sank. She had seen those marks too many times in the last week not to feel an absolute dread at seeing them now.
The marines saw them as well, and drew their weapons.
Alec motioned silently for Roots and Elkins to take one side of the opening while he took the other. He silently counted to three, and the marines swung around the doorframe to the inside of the ship, guns ready. They paused a moment in the shadowed interior, their bodies tense. There was no sound, except for the faint chirping of bird-like creatures deep in the surrounding jungle.
Leaning out of the doorway, Alec said, “We’re going to check it out. Von, can you stay here with them? Guard them in case… well, in case.”
“Got it,” she said. “Be careful.”
He winked at her, then ducked back into the ship.
* * *
They were gone for about an hour, during which Siobhan’s group said little. She scanned the tree line of the jungle and the building complex, both several yards away. Watching for movement, she listened for the telltale chitter-purring, or those almost-metallic screeches, but there were no signs of Xenomorphs that she could pick up.
“It’s oppressively hot out here,” Fowler said at one point, and Siobhan noticed the sweat pouring down the sides of the man’s face. He was deeply flushed and, given the way he was hugging himself around the middle, appeared to be in some pain.
“Are you okay?” she asked, frowning. “You don’t look so good.”
“It’s the heat,” he replied, gesturing to the shade of a nearby tree with large, frond-like leaves. “May I sit?”
“Sure,” she said. “Go ahead. We can all sit in the shade.”
The group migrated to the spot beneath the tree where it was, she had to admit, markedly cooler. There they sat down, Gavin on one side of their prisoner and Sam on the other. They weren’t about to lose track of the scientist who had drugged them.
“How much longer do you think they’ll be?” Fowler asked, absently rubbing his stomach.
“I don’t know,” Siobhan said. She was about to hazard a guess when the marines emerged from the hole in the ship, crossing the grass to the shady spot where they rested. Their expressions were grim. Siobhan stood up, concerned.
“What is it?” she asked Alec. “What did you find?”
Elkins shook his head. Roots looked pale.
“The ship is empty. No Xenomorphs. No marines—at least, no living ones. We found a lot of blood, and a ship’s log. You—you have to see the ship’s log.” Alec’s voice was dull, as if a profound shock had knocked the feeling from it.
Siobhan touched his arm. “Are you okay?”
The shadow in his eyes deepened. “I’ll show you.”
The group followed the marines back onto the ship. Immediately, Siobhan could see the devastation. Metal plates had been torn from the walls and floors, wires sparked where they hung from the ceilings, and doors hung off-kilter from their tracks. There were splatters of blood everywhere, as well as abandoned boots and torn uniforms. The occasional dead marine sat slumped against a wall or lay on the floor. The bodies had been mauled, but the marks were different from those on the bodies at the Menhit Lab. There seemed to be many more of them, but the cuts were shallower.
“What happened here?” she wondered aloud.
The marines didn’t answer. They simply led the way through one hallway to the bridge, across that to another hallway, and down to the sleeping quarters. The ship captain’s room was down a small side corridor, set apart—along with the first mate’s—from the rest of the marines. It was here, in front of the open door, that Alec stopped.
“Captain’s log, moved offline,” Alec said, “when she decided it was no longer safe to log official records.”
He gestured for them to enter and they filed in, moving toward the desk by the bed. On it was a computer and monitor, the latter showing a woman with bright green eyes and black hair pulled into a neat bun. She had a pretty smile. She wore the uniform of the USCMC ship captain. The image was paused, and everyone gathered around the monitor.
Alec said, “Play,” and the video started.
“Captain’s record, Thursday, July 5th, 2187, Earth-time. This is Captain Angela Forrester of the USS Alexiares. Happy belated Independence Day to those who celebrate it on Earth! We’ve been given a prestigious assignment by Assistant Commandant General Vaughn—to provide security detail for the UAAC Joint Chiefs at this week’s summit meeting on LV-846. It should take us about six days to get there. We have been given important cargo to deliver, as well, to facilitate the summit meeting. The squads here have been training for weeks, and are prepared for the assignment. We are all proud to be part of this historic event—”
“Forward,” Alec said, and the video sped forward. “Play.”
“Captain’s record, Sunday, July 8th, 2187.” The captain sat at the desk with a glass of wine. She sipped it and said, “A little more has emerged about the cargo we’re carrying. Our synthetic, Gene, has been put in charge of its security, since information about the content apparently requires a higher security clearance than any of us possess. My understanding is that it’s research and supporting materials on the pathogen used to bomb the colonies.
“The bomb signatures apparently contain some evidence as to who may be responsible for them—which is the primary item on the agenda for the summit. There’s proof in the research that neither the UA nor the UPP is responsible. I have high hopes that this crucial information will provide the necessary common ground for peace—”
“Forward,” Alec said, then, after a moment, “Pause.” He turned to address the group. “The next several entries are basic ship management stuff, but then we come to this. Play.”
The video resumed. The captain was wearing nightclothes and a bathrobe. Her hair was down. This didn’t seem to Siobhan like an official entry. The captain looked concerned, leaning in confidentially.
“Captain’s private record. New information has come to light. The supplies that ACG Vaughn has ordered us to deliver to LV-846 are actually…” She took a breath. “Weapons. Bio-weapons. None of us has been given clearance as to the details. In fact, the only reason we know what’s stored on the lower decks is because of a minor malfunction with the synthetic, Gene. He apologized for the glitch and went to perform self-maintenance.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “I’m not comfortable with bio-weapons on my ship. We should have been notified if we were carrying the pathogen. Nothing has been said to the squads because we don’t want to cause panic. Many of them have seen colonies that were destroyed by pathogen bombs. And to be fair, it can’t be said for sure what’s down there. But Gene used the term ‘bio-weapon’ and… I don’t like it. There’s no valid reason we should be transporting any kind of weapons to a peace summit.”
She sighed. “I intend to see for myself what’s down there. It means breaking protocol, but something is wrong here. I don’t think—”
Alec said, “Forward,” and the video fast-forwarded. In double-time, Siobhan saw the woman visibly deteriorate.
“Play,” Alec said. The video resumed.
The woman looked exhausted. Long strands of dark hair had escaped her usual bun, and she no longer wore the uniform. There were bags under her eyes and her skin looked very pale.
“Captain’s private record. It’s worse than I thought,” she said. “The cargo in the lower deck isn’t guns, and not even the pathogen. It’s… something else.” She leaned in toward the computer’s camera. “There isn’t much time, so this will have to be fast, before…” She glanced over her shoulder as if expecting someone to walk in at any moment. Then she continued. “Gene’s continued breakdown has been very illuminating. Apparently, the… things… down there are called biodrones. Genetically engineered killing machines, dozens of them, and… they got out. I think… it looks as if Gene let them out.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and that frightened Siobhan more than anything they’d seen to this point.
“We’ve been orbiting LV-846 for a day now. There isn’t enough fuel to fly anywhere else. Gene destroyed all the escape pods, as well as the other vehicles on the ship.” She bowed her head. From beneath the strands of her hair came a voice choked with tears. “There were two thousand, one hundred and three marines on this ship. Men and women with families. Sons and daughters. I’m not sure how many are left. Our guns only make it worse, with the corrosive substance they have for blood.”
Siobhan felt a lump in her throat.
The captain’s voice dropped down to a whisper. “I think I’m going to have to crash the ship. Destroy it entirely.
“I suspect Assistant Commandant General Vaughn knew all along what we were carrying. What would happen. I don’t know if she meant to take out the security guarding the Joint Chiefs, or if she meant for us to bring this infestation right to the door of the conference center itself, but I’m sure she is involved. I can’t prove it, but it seems impossible that she wasn’t aware of what we have in our cargo hold. I’m going to upload a backup of this recording to a safe place in case—”
On the video, there was a loud, metallic bang.
She turned sharply at the sound.
“They’re coming,” she said to the camera, and reached over to shut it off. The screen went dark.
“That’s it,” Alec said. “There’s nothing after that.”
For several long minutes, no one said anything.
“Guys, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.” The lump in Siobhan’s throat threatened to choke her up.
“That’s fucked up,” Gavin said.
“ACG Vaughn actually planned for more than two thousand marines to die. She sent them on their way with a death sentence, and didn’t even tell them what they were in it for.” Roots shook his head. “My buddy Carlisle was on this assignment.”
“So Vaughn put these—these biodrones, whatever they are, on the ship, hoping to, what, sabotage the summit meeting?” Elkins asked. “Why? Why would she do that?”
“Take control of the Allied Command, maybe,” Sam said. “Then she could use the combined force of the Colonial Marines, Aerospace, Army, and Navy any way she wants—for whoever she wants.”
“That would give Vaughn a lot of power,” Alec said. “Maybe a lot of money.”
“What are they?” Gavin asked. “The biodrones, I mean. According to that video, they sound worse than the pathogen bombs. And if so, we need to get off this rock faster than we did your dying moon.”
Fowler cleared his throat. “You’re right… they’re not bombs. Not exactly.”
They all looked at him.
“Of course you’d know something about this,” Roots said.
“I can shed some light, yes,” Fowler said. Despite sitting in the shade, he looked even more flushed, and was clutching his stomach. “The biodrones were a result of Project Life Force.”
“Project Life Force?” Siobhan felt that unease again in her stomach, and thought of the scratches on the side of the marines’ transport ship.
“A Weyland-Yutani bio-weapons division initiative. I worked under Dr. N.L. Babak, who served as lead Xenomorphologist for the project. His goal, as it was relayed to his team, was to manipulate the genetics of the XX121s and create a subdivision of the species that could be controlled.”
“Wait, wait, wait—this was the project you were working on?” Alec asked. “On BG-791? The experiments with the Xenomorphs?”
“No, no. Project Life Force came before that, and was quite different. The goal was to develop something other than the Xenomorphs, like I said, using their DNA. Something we could control. Babak was convinced that killing machines as perfect as the Xenomorphs had to have been genetically engineered by some greater intelligence, and if they could be created, they could be recreated.
“Making them in the lab was the easy part,” he continued. “Our research focused on ways to enhance certain traits and eradicate others, to make them manageable. Primarily, that meant manipulating their physical development on a genetic level. Their maturation was controlled, their reproductive ability halted, and their life spans reduced to six days. You know, it was from some of this research that I was able to develop my own serum—”
“Get back to the biodrones,” Alec snapped.
“Right. So, Babak and our team were successful at least in creating this variation of the Xenomorphs. We called them XX121Bs—our own biodrones. We designed them to mimic the Xenomorph drones in almost every way, except for our… improvements. The biodrones are similar in appearance, but a little smaller, a little faster. Not quite as strong, but just as fatal, and ideally, dead in just under a week.
“Problem was, our improvements—it turned out—were neither reliable nor consistent. The biodrones—well, I can’t say for sure if they evolved or devolved or what, but they didn’t die in six days, like we’d planned. Their ovomorphing reflex, which we failed to take in to account, provided an end run around their reproductive and maturation limitations. And they were surprisingly hostile to the natural Xenomorphs, so much so that we had to keep the samples—the originals and our recreations—strictly segregated. Where we had hoped to apply the technology for military purposes—such as to removing strategic targets without subsequent infestation—there, our efforts failed.”
“Strategic targets?” Alec raised an eyebrow.
“Military targets.”
“Whose?”
“Babak’s team wasn’t given that information. We had theories, of course. The pathogen bombings were all the newswires were covering back then. UA and UPP tensions were high, rumors were flying—and military contracts were pouring in.”
“So what happened?” Elkins’s expression revealed his disgust, and his question was more an accusation.
“I’m not sure. Only some of the experimentation had been completed when I was reassigned to the Menhit Lab to work on… other things. From what I’ve heard, the remaining samples were sold off, and—”
“Samples? You mean the biodrones? They were sold off?” Siobhan felt the horror of that implication. “Who bought them?”
Dr. Fowler shrugged, looking toward the conference center.
“I think the answer to that is obvious, isn’t it, Dr. McCormick?”
23
They were all quiet as they made their way back to the Astraeus. The horror of what the video imparted weighed on each of them.
Siobhan had so many questions.
Where were the bodies of the marines from the USS Alexiares? Had the biodrones consumed them? Dragged them back to a hive somewhere? And what, exactly, were they up against with these creatures?
They were stranded on LV-846, at least until a distress call reached some government agency that would send help. Further, they might well be stranded there with dozens of creatures nearly as bad as the Xenomorphs they had just escaped.
She couldn’t help thinking that their flight had been mostly luck. Few people encountered Xenomorphs and survived once, let alone more than once. She didn’t think anyone had ever survived an onslaught of dozens… except Alec.
Siobhan looked at him. When he noticed her staring, he looked back and tried to smile. He was gutted, though, by what he had seen in that video.
Finally, Alec spoke. “Only thing I’ve ever seen the Xenomorph drones respond to is a Queen. Maybe we should’ve brought one of those along from your lab. Or at least some of the Xenomorphs. Make it a fair fight.”
Fowler was uncharacteristically silent. He had grown pale, and the hand that wasn’t clutching his stomach trembled as he wiped his sweating brow.
“Dr. Fowler…” she began.
“I’m fine.” He waved away her concern before she could express it.
“You don’t look fine,” Elkins said.
“What’s going on with you?” Alec stopped the man.
Fowler sighed. “No sense now in hiding it,” he said. “I’m going to die either way.”
“Die? What do you mean?” Alec stepped away from him.
“My serum,” he replied. “Cora wasn’t the only one who took it. When I woke up in the lab, after the initial outbreak, I… I thought maybe…”
He shook his head.
“We’d all been out for hours. I knew what the Xenomorph’s primary biological goals were. Of course I did, and I knew they’d left me alone, let me live, because… I’m carrying one of them inside me.” He winced and clutched his stomach. “Weyland-Yutani wasn’t about to shell out millions of credits on the word of one man, even if he had been prominently involved in Project Life Force. Maybe because he had. They wanted something bold, something that would prove to them my serum was worth the funding.
“So even before the outbreak, I implanted one of the Xenomorph embryos inside me, and then I took the serum. When the Company learned that I was still alive after the usual gestation period, they were thrilled. They poured more money into my work, and every day I showed proof of life—evidence of the success of my serum. When the… ahhh, the outbreak happened, I knew outside interference would be a problem, so I stopped our synthetic from sending his distress call.
“But then I saw the devastation at the lab,” he continued, “found Cora, and, well, I resumed the distress call transmission. It was the only way—for me and for Cora. For the corporation—it was the only way.”
“You…” Siobhan couldn’t finish. Not only had this man prevented his own people from receiving outside help—probably to protect the corporation’s secrets—but he had also set her up, along with her team.
“The serum’s worked better on me than Cora, obviously, but we’re close—really close—to the end of my three weeks. You’ve successfully managed to thwart every attempt I’ve made to get to Weyland-Yutani and their medical personnel, before this thing eats its way out of me.” He strained with the evident pain in his stomach. “It’s a Queen, you know, and it’s almost time.”
