Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon, page 28
“She really did it,” Halley said.
“So what about us?” Jiango Tann asked.
“What do you mean?” Robo said. “We’re heroes! I’ll start writing the songs right now.”
“No way,” Ware said. “I’ve heard your singing.”
“We haven’t finished yet,” Halley said. She looked to Palant, then back at the Tanns. “You know what I mean.”
“You mean the Company,” Palant said. “They’d like nothing more than to get their hands on what’s left of this ship. The warp drive, developed by the Faze. The surviving Xenomorphs. Who knows what else.”
“Yeah,” Halley said.
“Let’s take off and nuke it to fuck,” Huyck said.
“I’m not sure that’s our choice,” Palant said, looking to Hashori. The datapad had been translating their conversation for the Yautja, and now she tilted her head and spoke.
“The Yautja will retain Macbeth’s remains,” she said.
“No,” Halley said. She didn’t raise her gun, and neither did anyone else, but there was a ripple of something passing through the room. A tension, a potential. Palant didn’t like it one bit.
“We can’t stop them,” she said. “Even if we wanted to. Akoko, do you really want to carry on fighting?”
Halley sighed heavily.
“What about you?” Yvette Tann asked.
“I’m going with her,” Palant said, looking to Hashori. “I think… I hope… there’ll be room for you two, if you’d like to come.”
“Come where?” Jiango asked.
“I don’t know,” Palant said. “That’s what makes it exciting.”
“There’ll be Xenomorphs left behind,” Palant said. “All across the Human Sphere, even if the Rage is dead and gone, their soldiers will still be there.”
“Leaderless now,” Huyck said.
“Just sitting there, waiting to be found,” Ware said.
“That’ll keep the Company occupied for years to come,” Jiango said.
Palant sighed. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Me neither,” Halley said. “But… me and Huyck, we’re Marines. We’d best go back and face the music.”
“After all you’ve done?” Jiango asked.
“I was a Marine once,” Ware said, surprising them all. “Doesn’t mean you have to stay one. Me and Robo, we’ve lost two crew. And our ship, as it happens.”
Halley raised an eyebrow and looked at Huyck. He shrugged. Maybe the time wasn’t yet right for such a decision, but the offer was there.
“Let’s talk,” the Snow Dog said to Ware, and she smiled.
“So what about the Faze?” Jiango asked.
“The Faze has gone,” Palant said, looking at the empty pedestal at the room’s center. “Maybe it did what it intended. Maybe we’ll see it again. Either way, I’m not sure we can do anything about it.”
* * *
Hashori took command of a Yautja ship, and reported the unthinkable. Soon after, the Tanns and Palant sat close together, trying to comprehend the enormity of what had happened. The implications were more staggering than they ever could have imagined. The dropholes had deactivated. All across the Human Sphere, those vast structures hung dead in space, like the corpses of living beings. And like corpses, their demise could never be reversed. Palant thought of those people on Weaver’s World, assaulted and massacred by the Rage, now left to fight whatever remaining Xenomorphs still haunted their planet. Perhaps it would take months, or even years. They were alone.
She thought about the Titan ships, even now building new dropholes at the far reaches of the Human Sphere, and how they were trapped five hundred light years from home. They would never return. Perhaps those brave pioneers would die out there, or maybe they would settle on a planet or asteroid, start again.
Human civilization had gone from a single, widespread entity to many smaller pieces, parts of the same whole that had nevertheless been ripped asunder. Some would survive, and perhaps grow in new, distinct ways. Others would die.
All the while, the Xenomorphs would be waiting. Leaderless again, directionless, they were still as deadly as ever before.
“So many people,” Tann said. “So far away.”
“Humanity’s been pushed back centuries,” Palant said.
“No,” Yvette said, smiling. “I don’t think so. That sounds so negative. I think, in truth, humanity has been given a fresh start.”
Hashori said something from her seat, and Palant’s datapad crackled as it translated. She already knew what it would say. She was becoming very good at understanding Yautja, and in time she believed she could become fluent. She had plenty of time.
“The dropholes might be gone,” Hashori said, “but the Yautja have some of their own, as well as many other secrets.”
“And you’d show us?” Palant asked.
“Perhaps.” Hashori stared from the viewing port for some time before speaking again. “Every Yautja makes one pilgrimage to our home world during their adult life. Perhaps my time is now.”
“How far?” Palant asked. “How long?”
“Far. Long.” Hashori uttered something that might have been a laugh. For now, she said no more. Palant hoped that, given time, she and the Tanns would come to understand some of those secrets.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to everyone at Titan who has helped me through The Rage War, especially Steve Saffel, Natalie Laverick, Lydia Gittins, Katharine Carroll, and Chris Young.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TIM LEBBON is a New York Times-bestselling writer from South Wales. He’s had more than thirty novels published to date, as well as hundreds of novellas and short stories. His latest novel is the thriller The Family Man, and other recent releases include The Hunt, The Silence, Coldbrook, Alien: Out of the Shadows, and The Rage War trilogy.
He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, International Horror Guild, and Shirley Jackson awards. Future novels include the Relics trilogy from Titan Books.
A movie of his story Pay the Ghost, starring Nicolas Cage, was released in 2015, and several other projects are in development for television and the big screen.
Find out more about Tim at his website
www.timlebbon.net
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS
THE RAGE WAR BOOK 2
For Centuries Weyland-Yutani has tried to weaponize the aliens. Now someone has beaten them to it, sweeping through Yautja space and turning
PREDATOR INTO PREY.
Faced with the overwhelming forces of the Rage, Earth envoys forge an unprecedented alliance with the Predators. Yet even the combined might of two races may not be enough to stop the carnage, as an unstoppable swarm of Xenomorphs topples planet after planet, penetrating ever deeper into the Human Sphere.
TITANBOOKS.COM
Tim Lebbon, Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon
