Alien, page 9
It was almost on her.
Rearing up from the floor, it bared its teeth, dripping with its glistening saliva. It screeched at her, its bony frame tensing to strike.
Pulse rifles fired over her head. Fluorescing blood splattered from the creature’s shoulder and chest, spraying away from her.
Thank God.
The impact knocked it back on its feet. It screamed once, then fell forward, its arms flailing out in front of it. Siobhan rolled to the side just as the thing’s head and injured shoulder crashed onto the floor where she had been.
Then, all was silence again, except for the acidic sizzle of its blood eating into the floor, and the heavy breathing of the others. Siobhan looked down and saw the razor-sharp tip of a single talon curved over the tip of her boot. She pulled away with a jerk.
Alec appeared above her, offering a hand. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. Only then did she notice that she was still clutching the pipe in her free hand, when he glanced at it and smiled.
Turning, she looked down at the dead Xenomorph, at the sleek black curve of its head, the thin, powerful muscles that belied its bony frame, pinned by multiple shoulder beams. Its serrated tail trailed away behind it. The last foot or so, she saw, had been severed, and had landed nearby.
Then she looked at the others, who were once again creeping down the hallway toward the exit. She dropped the pipe, bent and picked up the severed piece of tail, and then she and Alec moved to catch up with the rest.
* * *
The area behind the Menhit facility was eerily quiet. It had stopped raining, but the sky above was thick with clouds, and thunder still echoed across the mountaintops.
The generators, Siobhan saw, had been badly damaged, much like the machinery inside the building. The fence around the generators seemed intact, though. There was some blood and bits of pink and gray in the mesh of the barrier, and it took Siobhan a moment to realize that she was looking at brains—which had been punched straight out of the skull of the Weyland-Yutani PMC corpse lying on the ground. A company-issued weapon lay in pieces next to the body. The name on the uniform read LOMBARDO, W.
“Shit,” Alec muttered to himself, and then repeated it even louder.
“What’s the matter?” Dr. Fowler asked. “Beyond the obvious fact that he’s deceased, of course.”
“Don’t you get it?” Alec shook his head. “A dead guy out here means that whatever killed him is probably out here, too. Those fuckers got out of your ‘secure, locked down’ facility, Doctor.” To Roots and Elkins, he said, “Let’s move. Eyes open—and shoot anything alive that isn’t one of us.”
They moved quickly in the cool night air, following the lengths and contours of the building, sticking close to its outer walls to protect themselves on at least one side.
The moonscape groaned, the ground rumbling beneath their feet. They climbed a small hill and the air dragged at their limbs. The gravitational pull of the planet was exerting its strain on the moon; more and more often, it made its presence felt as a gnawing in the bones, an ache in the head behind the eyes and in the sinuses. It felt to Siobhan like the moon itself was in pain, twisting within against the forces without, and it was catching them up in its tense grip with each throb of agony.
Elkins led them around a corner and stopped short. The others came to an uneasy halt and followed the trail of his gaze to the side of the building, up near the roof.
The Xenomorph clinging to the outer wall was enormous, two or three times the size of the ones they’d seen so far. Tufts of fur grew between the jutting blades of its shoulders and back spines, and its chest was much broader. Most notable, though—most terrifying—was the set of gigantic bony antlers protruding from the curved, eyeless head.
Siobhan shuddered as the full implication of the thing struck her. Humans hadn’t been the only hosts the Xenomorphs had managed to wrangle into that makeshift nest inside. This one had to have been incubated inside a vurfur—she was sure of it. As if to confirm her thoughts, its screech when it spotted them had the snorting quality of the large deer-like beast. It stomped and pawed at the wall in territorial hostility, then quickly began to make its way down, moving at a speed that seemed impossible, given its size.
“Go!” Alec shouted. “Go! Go!”
They ran, stumbling over the uneven landscape toward the next corner of the building, but it gained on them, galloping along the wall as if it were flat ground. Elkins spun and, still backpedaling, fired off a round. The creature dodged it without even slowing.
The group turned the corner. The APC stood waiting about fifty feet ahead of them. Siobhan glanced back at their pursuer and saw it had leaped the corner, too. It was making its way down toward them.
Just then, the ground beneath them began to tremble.
“Oh fuck!” Roots shouted, leaping over a fissure that zigzagged out toward him from under the facility.
The building to their right shook hard; in the next moment, the Xenomorph was twisting in the air. It landed hard on the ground just as Alec reached the APC. He trained his gun on the Xenomorph, which shook itself off and stood, then screeched loudly.
That sound, Siobhan thought. It wasn’t natural. There was something inorganic, an almost metallic whine beneath the heavy breaths and squealing and roaring. It was something… well, something alien. In all the worlds Siobhan had experienced, and of all the flora and fauna of those worlds, nothing she had ever heard sounded like it.
She thought it must be the sound of nightmares breaking free.
The Xenomorph charged them, pounding forward on all fours, its antlered head low. Alec kept firing. Undeterred, it skirted each explosion in the dirt. Elkins reached the APC and began pulling the others inside as they arrived—Dr. Fowler and Cora, Camilla, and finally Siobhan. He and Alec jumped aboard and slammed the door shut, seconds before a powerful crash rocked the vehicle.
It was battering the APC, trying to force it open.
“Elkins,” Alec warned, “get this bucket of scrap metal moving!”
“On it, Sarge,” Elkins said, sliding into the driver’s seat.
Outside, the roar of the ground splitting open mingled with the frustrated squeals of the giant Xenomorph. Another crash lifted the APC up on one side, tilting it dangerously to the left. For a moment, Siobhan felt certain the vehicle would flip. She held her breath.
It slammed back down.
Then it lurched forward, and they were moving.
They bumped along the terrain, flying over a hill and landing hard. Then another. The sensors in the APC tracked the Xenomorph behind them. It was matching their speed.
“It’s still on us,” Elkins said through gritted teeth.
“Impossible,” Dr. Fowler called from the back. “It can’t—”
“Well, it is!” Elkins shouted. “It’s right behind us!”
Over the low wail of the wind outside, the eerie shriek of the creature seemed to surround them. A sound like thunder rumbled underneath them, for a moment blotting out everything else. Then the road ahead suddenly split open, dirt and rocks tumbling down into the newly formed hole.
“Shit!” Elkins cut the wheel and made a hard right. The hole seemed to grow, reaching out toward them, pulling in more dirt. The APC dipped a little where the ground slipped out from under it, but Elkins held fast, pulling them back out onto solid terrain. They fishtailed, gripped the road—such as it was—and they jerked forward again.
The shrill squealing of the creature behind them became a piercing screech as it leaped and dodged the shifting landscape. Then a heavy thud above them jolted the vehicle again.
The Xenomorph was on top of the APC.
“This is bad, Elks,” Roots muttered. “Get it off us.”
“I’m trying,” Elkins replied. He cut the wheel and they were all slammed to the side as the APC turned sharply to the left. He turned the other way, trying to shake the thing off the roof. According to the sensors, it clung fast, no doubt digging those talons as deep into the metal as it could. Pointed dents appeared in the roof of the cab.
The corporal cut the wheel back and forth again, and the APC fishtailed to keep up. Ahead, through the windshield, Siobhan saw a dark hole where the road had opened.
“Elkins, turn!”
He did so, jerking the wheel hard. The vehicle skimmed the edge of the hole and hit a bump in the dirt. The sensors picked up the Xenomorph careening over the side—an instant later they saw it with their own eyes—and then it was tumbling into the hole.
The group cheered in relief as Elkins put more and more churned-up road between them and the hole the Xenomorph had fallen into. Siobhan just hoped it was a deep enough crack in the failing moon to swallow up the creature for good.
P A R T I I
E X I T P L A N
11
When Elkins pulled up in front of the Seegson Pharmaceuticals lab and killed the ignition on the APC, no one spoke for several seconds. Siobhan could hear her own ragged breathing over everyone else’s. She leaned forward and tapped a few commands into the sensor interface, and it did a quick scan.
Though she knew what the result would be, she still needed confirmation. No foreign objects or lifeforms of any significance were attached to the vehicle. The alien was gone. One by one, they climbed out of the APC and looked around.
The ground beneath them had quieted for the time being. The dark beyond the Gatelands, though thick, was still.
Dr. Fowler eyed the Seegson building with disdain. “Well, I suppose it keeps you out of the elements, at least,” he said. Siobhan resisted the urge to lash back at him.
Instead, she said, “This way,” and led the group into the lab building. When they reached her office door, she turned to Alec.
“Sun-up will be in about three hours. I think we should get Cora and Dr. Fowler into the quarantine quarters so they can rest until their ship comes.”
“So you still insist on quarantine measures?” Dr. Fowler waved a hand dismissively. “I told you, it isn’t necessary.” Siobhan turned on him, and all the tension of the night burned like fire behind her eyes.
“My lab, my rules,” she said, not bothering to hide her anger now. “You will sit in quarantine like you’re told, or you can wait for your ship outside, with whatever manages to make its way here from your lab.”
Dr. Fowler opened his mouth to reply, closed it, and nodded.
“Quarantine it is, then.”
“We’ll get them tucked in for the rest of the night,” Rutiani said. His hand rested casually on the stock of his weapon to dissuade any argument.
“Thank you, Private Rutiani,” Siobhan said. “Remember, we need everyone on the Gatelands platform by ten forty-five p.m. The Seegson ship will be here by eleven.”
“It can’t come soon enough,” Elkins said.
“Dr. Fowler,” Siobhan added, “do you have contact information for your corporate liaison, so I can notify them of the change of pick-up location?”
“I can handle that,” Dr. Fowler said. “Our rendezvous isn’t scheduled until tomorrow, in the afternoon. We can avail ourselves of your comms systems after you leave.”
Siobhan shrugged. “Suit yourself,” she replied, punching in the combination to her office door. “Good night, everyone. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Good night,” Alec said, giving her shoulder a light squeeze as he walked by. She smiled to herself and entered her office.
* * *
The quarantine area of the Seegson Pharmaceuticals lab’s medical bay was located near the rear of the facility, between the emergency shower stalls and the bioprocessing and chemistry labs.
Sarge gave Roots and Elkins the task of escorting the Weyland-Yutani scientists to the quarantine area and seeing they were comfortably secured. He told them he was going to take care of some things at the barracks, and the men knew what that meant. Compton and McGowan had families, whom Sarge had to notify that they had been killed in action. They had personal effects which had to be packed up and sent home.
Lives well lived created ripples outward that continued after death, and it was up to the survivors who cared about those lives to follow the ripples to their natural conclusions. It wasn’t an obligation either of the soldiers envied, but they knew Sarge would handle it with respect, pride, and genuine care. That was enough for both men to feel at least some peace in the passing of their squad mates.
“I trust we’ll be released before you ship out,” Dr. Fowler was saying. “You won’t leave us to starve to death or miss our ship.”
Roots had been tuning out the scientist’s passive-aggressive banter as they followed Elkins down the hall.
“You’ll be fine,” Elkins mumbled, and from the tone, Roots guessed he had checked out of the conversation as well.
“And the quarantine quarters are adequate for the both of us, I assume,” Dr. Fowler added. “This place seems… well, Seegson never had quite the funding that Weyland-Yutani provided, but I suppose you’ve all done the best you could with what you had.”
“You’ll be fine,” Roots echoed in the same noncommittal tone.
“I don’t feel so good,” Cora Lanning said.
“You’ll be fine,” Elkins repeated.
“What time is your ship coming again?” Dr. Fowler asked.
“We were told eleven a.m.,” Roots answered.
“And where are you scheduled to be relocated?”
Elkins glanced back at Roots. The look told him not to commit to specifics.
“A UA outpost in the Reticuli System,” Roots replied.
“Dr. Fowler?” Cora slowed nearly to a stop, but Dr. Fowler gently tugged her forward again.
“I didn’t think the UA had any current outposts in the Reticuli System,” he said.
“Dr. Fowler?” Cora rubbed her stomach lightly. “I feel queasy.” She did, in fact, look a little pale to Roots.
“You ask a lot of questions,” Elkins said to the doctor.
“I just like to know whose bed I’m sleeping in.”
Roots was about to answer when Cora stopped short, gasping loudly and jerking her arm from Dr. Fowler’s grasp. Immediately she bent over in pain, clutching her stomach. From beneath the curtain of her hair came retching sounds. Foaming spit pattered to the floor.
In seconds Roots and Elkins were by her side, shoving Dr. Fowler out of the way and easing her to the floor. Fowler took a few steps back.
“Doc, what can we do?” Roots looked up at him, but the man didn’t answer. Cora spasmed violently in Elkins’s grasp. From the gurgling sounds, it seemed as if she was trying to talk, but the pain ate up the words.
“Fowler, goddamn it! Do something!”
“Back away,” Dr. Fowler said, heeding his own advice. “Now.”
At first, Roots and Elkins just crouched there by the girl, confused. The girl was twisting in pain; they couldn’t just leave her writhing on the floor. The exams had said she was okay, stable. Wasn’t she?
“Get away from it,” Dr. Fowler said.
It?
Roots had just enough time to register the man’s use of the word before the girl’s stomach exploded outward. He fell backward, spattered in blood and bits of bone, crab-crawling away until his back hit the wall.
Blood saturated the thin fabric of her top, quickly spreading outward. The cloth tore and a crescent head, slick with blood, followed by a lithe body, all sharp angles and edges, chewed its way out.
It screeched once.
Roots raised the butt of his gun, intending to bring it crashing down on the little creature’s head. It seemed to sense his plan, though, and launched itself at his face.
At first, he felt the panic, the gut-deep loathing and fear of the thing—even at so small a size—being so close to him. Then the pain came as needle-sharp teeth penetrated his cheek. Instinctively, he swatted at it, but it was already moving. Pain and blood clouded the vision in his left eye, but he heard Elkins’s weapon firing and turned in time to see the tiny monster leap to the wall, scale it, and disappear into one of the dark corners.
Then it was gone.
* * *
In the barracks, Alec sat on the cot that the squad sometimes used for naps. Two moving crates, each filled with the clothing and personal effects of his dead squad members, sat in front of him.
He held a picture of Compton’s two sons. It was an old-fashioned paper photograph sent by their father, and on the back was a note.
John – ten
Robbie – 6
2187
In the photo, the older sibling had an arm flung around the shoulders of the younger one, and both were grinning broadly under mops of thick, curly dark hair. Compton had loved that picture; she’d told him that she kissed it good night every time she went to bed.
Gingerly, Alec put it in the box, on top of her other things.
He barely remembered his own mother. When he was a kid, he’d been sent from El Hoyo to a colony ship as a lucky recipient of the town’s generosity and his parents’ kindness and meager pooled resources. It had been a second chance, a rare opportunity to get away from a life of poverty and violence and have an actual shot at a life he chose, undefined by forces beyond his control.
It hadn’t quite worked out that way, though.
The ship, the Gaspar, had been hijacked and sent to a secret testing facility on an unregistered moon so that Weyland-Yutani could experiment with Xenomorphs. He’d never understood all the details, not even the “how,” let alone any inkling of the “why.” All he’d known was that for a long, terrifying time which could have been a day or a week, he’d run and he’d hidden in a strange jungle, holding in his breath and his tears, hoping like hell that those things—he didn’t know what they were at the time—didn’t tear him apart like they had the thousand other colonists on that ship. Everything he was, everything he’d become and accomplished, had been defined by that time in the jungle, and by the women, Amanda Ripley and Zula Hendricks, who had rescued him.
Alec was a Colonial Marine because of that. He had fought and killed to protect and save people on more moons and planets than he could count. He had lost years to hypersleep. He had given his life to the USCMC. He had thought—had stupidly let himself entertain the fantasy—that the horrors he’d faced in places overrun with Xenomorphs were behind him.
