Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon, page 20
It was obvious that she was in control here, and even more obvious that the indies didn’t like that fact.
“We’re on course,” Liliya said. She quizzed Hashori in Yautja, then translated her reply. “Three days until we meet up with them. From there, more decisions to be made.”
“Three days in this heap of junk,” Hoot said. The ship was far more advanced than Satan’s Savior and they all knew it.
“I’m going to see,” Liliya said, pulling herself out of her seat.
“Going to see what?” Ware asked.
“Him.”
* * *
Liliya stood before the enclosed suspension pod that contained General Alexander. She knew that sensing someone’s presence was a human conceit, a failing in the way their brains were wired, because such a sense did not exist. Yet she felt something drawing her closer to the large pod.
In weightlessness, Alexander’s gravity lured her down.
She reached out and touched the pod. Its composite exterior was cool and smooth. Looking around, she moved her hands over its surface, and a virtual control panel appeared on its side. She examined the markings and passed her hand over one section of it.
The pod’s lid became opaque, and then fully transparent.
She stared in at the beast he had become. She’d met Alexander many times before, while back on Macbeth. She could even recall the moment of his commissioning. It had been almost fourteen decades ago, when the Founders’ leader, Wordsworth, implemented a period of android manufacture. That had been after a visit to a small moon, when three crew members had been killed in an accident while attempting to land. Wordsworth had suggested that androids should be used for the most dangerous away missions, and as such a series of worker droids were commissioned and created.
They weren’t called generals back then. Purely functional, aesthetically homogenous, more than forty androids had passed through the production line before Wordsworth called a halt.
Back then, Alexander had been called M09.
“Hello, M-zero-nine,” Liliya said.
He slept suspended deep in whatever android dreams he enjoyed. She liked to think they were different from hers. She had many more years of life experience than him, and much more of a desire to become human. His drive was to be the best android he could, and since Maloney’s murder of Wordsworth, her corruption of the Founders’ original intentions, he and others like him sought to be the best soldiers.
General Alexander. Liliya might have laughed, if recent events had not been so terrible. He had even grown bright blond hair, mimicking that ancient general’s supposed appearance. Yet his face was still a blank, resembling a human’s only in that he had a mouth, nose, and two eyes. Nothing else was there. No emotion or drive, no scars to map his past, no creases folded into his skin by laughter or hate.
In his determination to fulfil his mission, he had become grotesque.
However, Liliya couldn’t help but admire his persistence. His desire to complete his Mistress Maloney’s orders had driven him across light years of space and through traumatic times, culminating in the need to use parts of his own soldiers to fix the parts of him that were broken. A Xenomorph’s clawed arm and hand was spliced into his shoulder. Its heavy leg, tipped in splayed, spiked toes, was melded onto his hip. It was horrific… and yet beautiful, the way this thing had surpassed his programming and made himself more than he had ever been before.
“You knew him?” Jiango Tann asked from behind her, and Liliya berated herself for not hearing his approach.
“Yes. On board Macbeth. He wasn’t much to look at, then.”
“Not much now.”
“But have you ever seen anything like him?”
Tann drifted beside her and his boots clamped down. “He’s out of it. Just a thing for us to use. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
“Oh, I’m sure he could,” Liliya said. She knew what Alexander would be dreaming—visions of her, in his grasp, as he presented her to Mistress Maloney. “Even asleep, he wants me dead.”
“He’ll stay asleep.”
She glanced at Tann and offered a smile. “I suppose you’ve come to ask me something.”
“Well… Yvette and I thought we might continue working.”
“On me.” She touched her chest where the hole had been temporarily sealed.
Tann shrugged, embarrassed, avoiding her eyes. She liked that about him. He and his wife wanted to open her up and delve inside, see what made her work. They also regarded her as human.
Which was why she said yes.
* * *
It was a long three days on board the Yautja ship. Ostensibly large enough for them all, it seemed as if the Yautja had little need for recreation, dining, or sleeping spaces. Hashori spent the majority of time in her seat at the ship’s main control panel, while the others tried to find various means to relieve their boredom.
The indie crew accessed their suit computers and immersed themselves in VR games or battle reenactments, while the Tanns and Liliya found the most convenient place to continue their experiments. Ironically, the most comfortable place for them to work was in the small welfare bay, close to Alexander’s suspension pod.
Liliya submitted herself willingly. The Tanns had brought little equipment with them, but everything they had learnt was still accessible on the datapad Yvette always carried. With so much to learn, it was too easy for them to be working for long periods of time without rest. Liliya didn’t require rest, but the elderly humans did.
She would find herself strapped down with her chest open and insides exposed, while Yvette and Jiango slept affixed to the wall, heads leaning against each other.
Several times each day, they convened on the bridge to listen to reports that Hashori seemed only too willing to share. How she was receiving these reports from so far across the Sphere was open to question, but Hashori never responded to any such query. Early on, Liliya thought the Yautja was being helpful. But as time went on, she started to detect something else in the big alien’s words, and even in the strange tone her clicking and grinding words sometimes made.
Liliya thought she sounded smug.
“Your planet of Weaver’s World is under sustained attack, with many thousands dead. No honor in such a slaughter. It’s not hunting, it’s murder,” the Yautja said. “Many Colonial Marine bases have been destroyed. Many dropholes taken. In accordance with instruction from Elder Kalakta, my Yautja kin are aiding the fight against the Rage whenever and wherever possible.”
Relaying news and reports about how the Rage was assaulting the Human Sphere, defeating the Colonial Marines, and decimating populations, Hashori sounded pleased.
Liliya wanted to call her out on it, yet at the same time she saw the danger in that. If she was right, and Hashori had begun to gloat, it might cause fatal tension between her and the indie crew still mourning their lost member. If she accused Hashori of gloating and she was wrong, the Yautja would doubtless take offence at the affront to her honor.
Either option might result in violence.
So Liliya listened to the news, watched the reaction on the human faces around her, then closed her eyes and returned once more to the Tanns’ probing experiments. That was how she would best serve humanity. She had fled the Rage for this, and now was not the place to endanger her ability to help. Nor was it her right. If the Yautja were pleased at the human suffering, so be it.
Liliya’s purpose had long been the same, and current circumstances could not alter that. She was here to change things forever.
* * *
Four days after capturing Alexander and defeating the Rage at the drophole, the two Yautja ships came in close once more. Flying within a couple of miles of one another, the three ships changed course, and then reduced speed.
Everyone convened on the bridge, with Hashori still in the main seat. She did not tell them what was happening, but there was no need. The holo screen before her displayed three specks indicating their ships, and a million miles ahead were three different colored specks.
Slowly but surely the distance closed, and Liliya felt a thrill of anticipation at the meeting to come.
20
ISA PALANT
Gamma Quadrant
December 2692 AD
With four Yautja vessels cloaked and performing orbital patrols, the Pixie docked with the ship that supposedly contained five humans, as well as the android who’d fled the Rage. As airlocks equalized, Halley suggested that perhaps it was best if a non-military person made their first contact.
So with Halley and her DevilDogs covering her from all angles, Palant stood before the airlock doors as they slid open. A brief hiss, a breath of cool air, and then the doors at the far end of the Pixie’s docking umbilicus also opened. A woman stood there, smiling. Palant smiled back. It was only a few seconds later that she noticed the open wound in the woman’s chest, the tubes protruding, and realized that this was the android.
Behind her stood a tall Yautja.
Kalakta! Palant caught her breath.
But of course, it was not. This Yautja was younger, less scarred, and it did not project Kalakta’s strange regalness.
“My name’s Liliya,” the android said.
“Isa Palant.” She pointed at the open wound. “That looks… painful.”
“It does sting,” Liliya admitted. “May I come on board?”
“It’s not really my ship, but permission granted.”
Liliya walked toward her, held her hand out, and Palant shook it. This is something important, she thought, grasping the android’s warm hand, feeling her strength, sensing her great age. She exuded it, her eyes glimmering with deep, dark memories. She would know so many stories, and Palant suddenly needed to hear every one of them.
“I think we might be able to help each other,” Liliya said.
“I hope so. We had a general, and—”
“Oh, we still have one.”
Liliya laughed at Palant’s surprised expression, and in that moment the distinctions between real and artificial were forgotten. These were just two women fighting for their futures.
“Welcome aboard the Pixie,” Palant said. “Why don’t we get your people on board, and we can talk.”
* * *
The tension was palpable from the start.
The two crews mingled. Halley and the DevilDogs met Liliya, the Tanns, and the three indies from the Satan’s Savior.
Akoko Halley didn’t like indies. Though gone rogue, Halley and her remaining crew were still Colonial Marines at heart. As soldiers, they didn’t have much time for mercenaries.
Yaquita pulled herself through from the Pixie, her lack of legs causing no hindrance in zero gravity, and she and the big Yautja named Hashori held conference on the Yautja ship. While the humans and android spoke, the aliens maintained their distance.
After the greetings, they gathered around the table in the Pixie’s rec room, straps and magnetic boots holding them in place. Drink bags were distributed. Palant, Liliya, and the Tanns sat. Halley and her crew marked the doorways, while Ware and the indies held onto wall straps. They’d been allowed to keep their weapons, as a mark of faith. Trust, Palant knew, would take a little longer to find.
They related what had gone before. Palant knew there was much more to tell—she could see it in the Tann couple’s haunted eyes, the indie crew’s sense of loss, and feel the weight of experience burning behind her own face. But the time for detail would be later, if at all. Everything that mattered was here with them now.
All attention turned to Liliya.
She told her tale, as well—though it took a little while. Part of that was because her tale was so much longer and deeper than anyone else’s. Palant suggested she might be the oldest living android in the galaxy, and Liliya smiled, shaking her head, casting doubt.
“There’s always a greater story,” she said, but Palant doubted it.
Liliya spoke of the Founders and Wordsworth, of the crime she’d committed in his name, her decades spent adrift, their journey from the Human Sphere aboard the ships Hamlet, Othello, and Macbeth. She told the group about Beatrix Maloney and her rise to prominence. Their discovery of the miracle gel that prolonged and preserved life. She related the events of Wordsworth’s murder, and the change of their society from forward-thinking Founders to hate-filled Rage.
She talked of Midsummer and the wonders they had found there. Suddenly Hashori and Yaquita appeared through the open airlock, as if they had been listening and somehow understanding all along.
“Drukathi,” Palant said.
“You know the Faze?” Liliya asked.
“Only as much as Elder Kalakta would tell me, which wasn’t much. I’m not sure it concerns us in our current fight. I think they’re… beyond us, in many ways.”
“We need to know what you know,” Jiango Tann said.
“Liliya said you have a general?”
“In cryo-sleep, yes,” Liliya said. “Sent to hunt me down.”
“He’s been persistent,” Captain Ware said.
“We had a general,” Palant said. “Yaquita and I learned what we could from him, but we need to know what you know, too. Perhaps combining our knowledge can help—and I already have some ideas.”
“As do we,” Yvette Tann said. “First, though, a favor?”
“If we can,” Halley said. “This is my ship, you’re guests now. What is it you want?”
Yvette glanced at her husband, nodded. “Please tell us you have some human food,” she said.
* * *
They broke bread, still in the rec room. The food came from the Pixie’s replicator, but they all agreed it was far better than anything they’d been eating courtesy of the Yautja. Spiced meats and grains followed, and then strong coffee.
Even Hashori and Yaquita ate with them. They growled and grumbled at the strange meal. Some of those assembled even found it in themselves to laugh.
They were heading toward the last known location of Macbeth, gleaned from the dead general by Yaquita and her covert interrogations. The ship’s computer, Billy, calculated that, traveling at just under the speed of light, they’d reach the Outer Rim drophole in a little less than a day. During that time, they had to prepare a plan of attack.
To Palant the meeting, this strange group of allies, held a weight that every one of them could sense. Eager to know what the other group had gleaned from their captured android, she tingled with the sense of history being made.
She told them about the android Oscar, the Yautja asteroid where they had been taken, and how she and Yaquita had spent many days interrogating and dismantling the general.
“We took his heart. Even after all our cautionary approaches, even though his heart was no longer part of his body, he was close to detonating the charge they all carry with them. Yaquita and I think we could do that. With the right approach, I think we could detonate the heart of any general, from a distance. I’m not certain of what distance, and… Well, there are still details missing.”
“Liliya has the details,” Jiango said. He leaned forward, excited, reaching across the table for Palant’s hands. He held on tight. “Liliya has something we can use. Tell them!” He nodded toward the android.
“It’s why I left the Rage,” she said. “I stole the alien tech the generals use to control their troops.”
“Where is it?” Palant asked.
“In these veins.” Liliya traced a finger down her opposite arm, and Palant followed, seeing the pale white gleam of a vein beneath the android’s skin.
“We’ve been testing it!” Tann said. “It’s strange, some form of nanotech I’ve never seen or heard of before. I think that, with more time, we could understand it.”
“We don’t have more time,” Palant said, “but perhaps we don’t need to understand it to use it.”
“How do we use it?” Yvette asked.
Palant looked around at the assembled group. Her datapad floated before her, translating the conversation directly to Yaquita and Hashori. Even they seemed to be holding their breath while listening to her.
“I think I can create a signal that will hijack a general’s self-destruct,” she said. “Perhaps Liliya here, with the tech she stole, would be able to link herself to a general—any general. If so, then I can program the signal into Liliya’s heart, and she can transmit it.”
“And then we can send the self-destruct signal to all of them!” Jiango whispered. “Brilliant. Wonderful!”
Palant held up her hand.
“Don’t celebrate yet. It may not be possible, at least not without having physical access to all of the generals. But perhaps from the Macbeth…”
An ominous silence fell across the room.
“But would it work?” Halley whispered. “Aboard the Macbeth?”
“I really don’t know,” Palant said. “There are so many variables, so many unknowns.” She looked to the Tanns. She’d already recognized their quiet wisdom, and the intellects that hid behind their calm silence. “What do you think?”
“I think the theory is sound,” Jiango said.
“I agree,” Yvette said. “The greatest unknown is…” She nodded at Liliya.
“Then we have to test it,” Liliya said. All heads turned her way. “We have the perfect subject, after all.”
* * *
“What the fucking hell is that?” Sprenkel said. Halley didn’t berate him this time. Probably because she was entertaining exactly the same thought.
Isa Palant certainly was.
“He was a pretty determined android,” Captain Ware said.
“Looks like something you might find in a swamp,” Bestwick said. “A radioactive swamp. On a dead planet. Only… about a hundred times bigger.”
They were on board the Yautja ship now, all of them huddled in the small room containing two cryo-pods. One of the pods was empty, and lay open. The other contained the thing that had once been General Alexander. Liliya stood to one side, staring down at the android–Xenomorph amalgamation. It was as if she was afraid.
