Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon, page 6
“What about the systems and sectors we haven’t heard from yet?”
“There’s no indication to suggest Rage incursions anywhere other than the Gamma quadrant,” Bassett said. “But it’s only a matter of time. With the number of dropholes they’ve taken, and the speed of their proliferation through Gamma, I don’t think we’re going to see them stopping.”
Marshall shook his head and looked at the holo screen. It displayed a range of information uploaded directly from the General’s own datapad—stats and imagery that sent a shiver down even his icy spine.
“It’s all gone to hell,” he whispered.
“We’re mounting defenses,” Bassett said. “I won’t go into detail, but—”
“Why not, Paul?”
The question seemed to throw the General. He paused, frowning, then relaxed a little, leaning back into his seat.
“Because I can sit here telling you about every defeat as it happens, or I can be in my central control room overseeing our defense.”
Marshall nodded. Sighed. Closed his eyes.
“You’re the soldier.”
“I’ll leave the file with your holo frame. It’s all there. Review it, message me if you’ve got any queries.” He paused, and added, “I don’t guarantee I’ll respond instantly.”
“And Charon Station?”
“As of four P.M., we’re on a war footing, level one alert.”
“But we’re safe here, aren’t we?” Marshall asked.
“As safe as anywhere.” The General stood, turning to leave.
“Paul,” Marshall said. He stood as well, swaying slightly, space sickness always threatening, teasing. “The inhabited worlds. Addison Prime, Weaver’s World, all those other planets…”
“No reports of problems as yet,” Bassett said. “We’re reinforcing defenses wherever we can. It’s all on there.” He nodded at the holo screen.
“Because if these things get down there—”
“Yes, Gerard.”
“I mean, there are millions of people on those planets.”
“Yes.”
The two men—Company man, Marine commander—stared at each other for a moment, and for that brief time they were equals. Men, humans, vulnerable and scared. They held a grudging respect for each other, even trust.
“We’re doing everything we can,” the General said. “You need to see if there’s more you can do.” It was a loaded comment, directed not at Marshall, but at the Company, and the cabal of the Thirteen who controlled it.
Without another word, Bassett left the cabin and returned to the war.
Marshall sighed heavily, poured a drink, and sat back down. However hard he stared at the holo screen, he could not wish things better, and the information it conveyed remained the same.
News from Gamma quadrant was grave. Seven dropholes were confirmed lost, their control points—on orbiting space stations or habitats, nearby moons or planets, or asteroids—either destroyed or overrun by the Rage. Contact had been lost with another seventeen, and it was safe to assume that those had also been taken. That was a comprehensive network of dropholes covering a substantial area of Gamma quadrant.
All of the seven confirmed lost subsequently had been activated, and it was impossible to tell where the enemy ships had gone.
Reports of attacks on Marine bases and drophole infrastructure were staggering. Losses were terrible, and the weaponized Xenomorphs were virtually unstoppable. They had even been used in deep-space attacks, sent across between ships like pollen flying on the air, equipped with some form of breathing apparatus or life support system that enabled them to withstand the cold, airless vacuum.
Some attacks involved hundreds of the beasts. In other instances, thousands. And they were being controlled, tasked like traditional troops and sent on their missions. No one had been able to capture one alive. Whatever tech was being used, it was mysterious, almost arcane.
For his entire career with the company, Marshall had been striving to discover the ways and means to control a Xenomorph. As director of ArmoTech, he considered it the ultimate prize. The Xenomorph was an almost unstoppable force—vicious, violent, fast, unpredictable. Its defense mechanisms were second to none. Its reproductive process was sublime. There were even those who suggested that the Xenomorphs were a bio-weapon, manufactured by an unknown alien intelligence. Creatures of war.
Whatever their provenance or history, a human intelligence had now harvested and nurtured those creatures, and created their own war.
Shortly Marshall would contact the Thirteen, and he knew he should prepare, but he was struggling to find anything positive to relay to them. He was the man closest to the war, and as such he was best placed to provide the directors of Weyland-Yutani with the latest data. But he didn’t fool himself, and never had—more than likely, every member of the Thirteen would be up to date already.
No, this contact would be more about the Company than the war. What it could gain, how it could benefit.
With a chill, he realized that he must also ask them how Weyland-Yutani could help.
Nevertheless, he reviewed the information Bassett had left behind. As he finished his whiskey, a chime told him that the time had come. A dozen more holo screens drifted down from the ceiling, and each screen turned opaque. The rest of the Thirteen appeared, their instant communication a marvel of technology. The images of these distant people flickered and danced with the strange sub-space ghosting he could never grow used to. Some of them seemed to age and then grow younger, others faded in and out of existence. It took massive computing power, and a mind-boggling energy expenditure, to settle the shifting images and secure the open communication channels.
Weyland-Yutani possessed a thousand marvels. Marshall only wished they could find one to win this war.
James Barclay, their notional leader, was the first to speak.
“Let’s not waste time here,” he said. “We all know how dire the situation is in Gamma quadrant. Perhaps Gerard could fill us in on what he knows, just in case some of our own sources are misinformed, or behind the times. Gerard?”
Marshall stood to make his presentation. He told them everything that Bassett had told him, skimming over details where they weren’t required.
“Where do we stand with obtaining a sample?” one of the Thirteen asked. She was a harsh woman, older than she looked, and Marshall had never met her in person. The holo screen projection made her eyes look like deep, soulless pits.
“So far we’ve been unsuccessful,” Marshall said.
“Didn’t you send one of the Marines’ best majors? With Bassett’s own personal Arrow-class ship?”
He sensed a mocking tone. Bit his lip. Maintained composure.
“Major Akoko Halley and the Pixie have vanished without trace,” he replied. “In this time of war, it’s still a great and noticeable loss. Before that, however, they succeeded in rescuing the Yautja expert Isa Palant, and as you know, it was she who secured a peace treaty with the Yautja.”
“For all the good it did us,” the woman replied.
Marshall offered a humorless smile. “Obviously your information isn’t as up to date as you believe.”
The Thirteen shimmered, as if their emotions could affect their sub-space transmissions.
“Please, fill us in,” Barclay said.
“There are reports of Yautja ships fighting alongside Colonial Marine units,” Marshall said. “At least seven confirmed instances of this happening. In four of those engagements, the Yautja involvement changed the course of the battle.
“Remember, the Yautja traveled into the Human Sphere from beyond, ahead of the first wave of Rage aggressors. There’s no saying how many times they’d met contingents of Rage warships before. Many of them are more battle-hardened than most of the Colonial Marine regiments. One of the engagements occurred on LV-1657, close to drophole Gamma 116, and resulted in the Pixie and crew making their escape.”
“Their escape to where?” Barclay asked.
“That, we still don’t know.”
“The Yautja are unpredictable beasts,” the woman said, “and the last thing we should do is involve ourselves with them.”
Such ignorance, Marshall thought. And she calls herself a leader.
Maxwell, another of the Thirteen, interrupted. His voice was low and deep, and quite scathing.
“Is that really what you think of them?” he asked. “Fool.”
“Unpredictable, true,” Marshall said, “but in these engagements, their technical superiority has proven decisive. Pitch a Rage ship against a Colonial Marine destroyer, and the result will inevitably go in the Rage’s favor. But the Yautja ships we’ve seen have all possessed advanced cloaking tech, as well as weapon systems we’ve never before encountered, even in our own battles with them.
“Without them, our losses would have been far greater.”
“So what do they want for helping us?” the woman asked.
“Want? I’m not sure they want anything,” Marshall said. “Elder Kalakta, the Yautja with whom Palant made peace, has informed us that he’s ready to share intelligence. There’s been no official attempt to create a joint force, but the informal situation seems to be holding well. Perhaps it’s a case of ‘the enemy of your enemy is your friend.’”
“I’ll never call the Yautja our friends,” the woman said.
“There are those among the Thirteen I’d never call friends,” Maxwell said, his voice causing a ripple of reaction—some smiles, some frowns. “That doesn’t prevent us from being a formidable organization. Am I right?”
The woman said nothing. It was answer enough.
A flicker in the corner of his vision, and Marshall glanced at his main holo screen. A flow of new information came through in lines of statistics, graphics, and imagery laden with dread. He felt a thud in his chest, a hollowness growing inside him.
“Marshall?” Barclay asked. “Anything else?”
Marshall took a few moments to read and absorb the new information. It must have been fresh, unfiltered, and gathered from multiple sources, because much of it was confusing. But he was used to identifying the truth embedded in such a mass of data. It was part of what made him good at his job.
“Nothing good,” he whispered. There was a wash of expectation from the Thirteen, and an impatient cough from James Barclay.
“Well?” Weyland-Yutani’s leader asked.
“Attacks in Beta and Delta quadrants,” Marshall said. A deathly silence from the other Thirteen members indicated their shock. “Two dropholes taken in Beta. Five in Delta, with more gone silent.”
“They’re spreading too fast,” another of the Thirteen said. “They have to be stopped. What’s Bassett doing there, Marshall? What the fuck are the Colonial Marines doing?”
“Everything they can,” Marshall said. The realization hit hard. “They’re doing everything they can, but they’re still losing.”
“You’re ArmoTech!” the woman said. “Haven’t your people got something we can use to fight the Rage?”
“We’ve got plenty,” Marshall said. “At Porton Station, orbiting LV-244 in the Alpha quadrant, I have an engineered plague that will kill any living thing. Any living thing. It’ll wipe out mammals and insects, reptiles and fish, and all known bacteria. We’ve found nothing that can withstand it. The plague survives temperatures of over a thousand degrees, and if exposed to deep space it’ll exist for a hundred years. But how can we ever use it?”
“We need to stop the spread,” Maxwell said. “We need to shut down the dropholes.”
A stunned silence filled the cabin. He remembered General Bassett’s reaction when Marshall had suggested the very same thing. “Shut down all six hundred Gamma quadrant dropholes and you doom everyone out there to die a cold, lonely death.”
“Don’t be a fool,” someone said.
Another voice whispered, “That’ll be the end of us.”
“It’s not feasible,” Marshall said. “If we do that, we’d be giving up the areas of the Sphere where the Rage have already infiltrated.”
“To save the rest,” Maxwell said.
“Impossible,” Barclay said. “Throw away five hundred years of advancement and exploration?”
“We’d get it back.”
“At what cost? No. That’s not an option. This war has come as a surprise to us, but we are far from defeated. We all have work to do. First, find out just who or what the Rage are, what they want, and how they can be stopped. Second, acquire a sample of their Xenomorph soldiers, experiment on it, analyze it, find its weak spot. If they’re under control of these monstrous androids, as seems to be the case, then that control can be usurped, or even hijacked.
“Imagine if we could control them!”
For a moment, the Thirteen imagined. Marshall knew where each of their thoughts lay—beyond victory, and how they might then benefit from possessing the means to control the mighty Xenomorphs. It was a long-held Company desire.
Barclay continued, “Lastly, we need any means necessary to defend the Sphere’s most important populated and settled areas. Sol System goes without saying, but Weaver’s World, Addison Prime, and the other major settled planets must be protected at all costs. I’ll initiate contact with Elder Kalakta myself, and ask for the Yautja’s help.”
Barclay paused as if to invite dissent. There was none.
“As a Company, we’ve been building and maintaining the Colonial Marines for centuries. We’ve always feared something like this. Internal strife is bad enough, but a threat from outside, initiated by a force we can hardly know, and with which we cannot reckon… No, this isn’t just something to fear. We can’t leap to knee-jerk reactions. We pool our intelligence, think outside the box, and come up with a way to win this.”
Mutters of agreement. Even Marshall, so close to the realities of their situation, felt inspired by Barclay’s words.
“We speak every day from now on, at this time,” Barclay said. “Get to work.”
The holo screens fizzled out, plunging Marshall’s cabin into a temporary murkiness, lit only by his tactical screen. He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
One of the blank screens turned opaque again, and moments later James Barclay was there, staring at him as if he was in the same room. Marshall had never seen the man looking so serious.
“Gerard,” Barclay said, “we need to talk about those dropholes.”
“Shutting down the entire network,” Marshall said, nodding slowly.
“It’s a doomsday scenario,” Barclay said. “This is between you and me. Always. But talk me through how it would be done.”
6
BEATRIX MALONEY
Outer Rim
December 2692 AD
“Do you want to go across to see it, Mistress?” Dana asked.
“No,” Beatrix Maloney said. “No, I can see it from here.” She had not been off the Macbeth in more than a dozen years, and she had no desire to leave it now. She was old and frail. Although the life-giving gel they had found on their long journey was keeping her alive—she could feel it coursing through her veins, filling her, surrounding her in her containment pod—she could not deny her vulnerability.
The next time she left the Macbeth would be to step out onto Earth once again, victorious at the end of her mission. That was a promise she had already made herself. Until the Rage triumphed, this ship was her home.
That didn’t mean that she could not look.
“It’s amazing,” Dana said.
“Incredible,” Kareth agreed from Maloney’s other side. She floated between them on her support platform, torso and shrunken limbs contained within the gel pod, head still exposed.
“I think it’s almost done,” Maloney said. “Summon Challar to me. I want him to see.”
“Yes, Mistress.” As her helpers Dana and Kareth left to bring Challar, Maloney floated closer to the viewing portal and watched the Faze at work.
They had been in geostationary orbit around the drophole for almost forty days, and for all that time the Faze had been working on the vast object’s superstructure and controls. The being was as mysterious now as it had been when they’d found it and its cousin, deep in that alien habitat of Midsummer. The other Faze was dead now, destroyed with the Othello. The loss of both had planted a cold seed in Maloney’s heart.
But her Faze still flourished, and it had been working nonstop ever since leaving the Macbeth.
As ever, the being had known what she desired of it. No one—Rage, shipborn, or android—had ever successfully communicated with the creature. There were some who remained unconvinced that it even was a creature. It might have been manufactured by an ancient, unknowable intelligence, and left behind on Midsummer to continue its work. Perhaps it was a machine, almost as old as the galaxy itself, so advanced in its own constant reimaginings that it resembled nothing they had known before.
Perhaps it was a god.
Maloney watched it now from afar. Though she was old and jaded, and her mind had been alive and conscious far longer than was natural, still she enjoyed experiencing a glimmering spark of wonder.
The drophole ring was huge, almost two miles in diameter. Over the past forty days the Faze had traveled the entire circle five times, extruding new material from its amazing body, reshaping, reforming, breaking down the structure here, constructing something new there. The drophole mechanism retained its previous shape, but there could be no doubt that it was now something different.
At six points around its circumference were the nodes, where the real technical guts of the drophole were housed.
The Faze had remade these from scratch. They now resembled bulbous growths, randomly shaped and filled with technology that no one on the Macbeth could hope to understand.
Maloney did not need to understand.
As ever, the Faze seemed to instinctively know what was desired of it, and it worked nonstop until that task was complete.
Even from several miles away, she could see it slowly circling the drophole’s outer ring, moving between one control node and the next. A haze of gas accompanied it as it laid what Maloney hoped was the final layer of material upon the ring’s outer shell. Several long limbs that had formed across the being’s back worked hard at the material it expelled, twisting and knotting, turning and smoothing it into shape, like a massive spider manipulating its silk.
