Alien vs. Predator: Armageddon, page 8
It didn’t resemble any dropship Devon had seen before.
“Is that a Marine ship?” someone asked nearby. There was a permanent Colonial Marine presence on Weaver’s World, with bases in each city and several larger outlying facilities. Their numbers had increased recently, especially following the tragic attack on Swartwood Station 3, where almost two thousand people had been killed. That had hit the whole planet hard. It seemed as if everyone knew someone who had been affected by those deaths.
“Not Marine,” Devon said.
“Then what?” the person replied. “’Cos that’s like no dropship I’ve ever—”
Objects started falling from the ship. They landed far away, across the river and behind buildings, but the vessel still drew closer. Upon nearing the spaceport it shifted direction, banking, rolling, aiming directly for the facility.
“Bombing!” someone else shouted.
But there were no explosions.
Devon stood, guitar in one hand, the other delving into his pocket to clasp the three phrail vials resting there. He tried not to use during the day, especially when he was busking, but grabbing hold of them made him feel safe.
The craft flew across the river, about half a mile from the spaceport. More objects dropped, and even before they hit the ground Devon saw them unfurling, long limbs sharp in the stark sunlight.
“Oh, no,” someone said. “Oh no, it’s them, it’s the Rage. It’s the Xenomorphs!”
Devon didn’t understand. He didn’t keep up to date with developments in the Sphere, because all his interests were on this planet. Nothing beyond concerned him anymore.
People started to run and scatter. They tripped, fell, shouted, and then screaming began as the things dropping from the aircraft began to kill.
Devon ducked down and looked up as the craft roared directly above him, passing over the spaceport’s boundary buildings and disgorging many more of those dark shapes as it went. He heard a heavy thud behind him, felt it through the ground.
He turned around, guitar raised in both hands.
Two weird, sharp-edged creatures were ripping through a group of people. Blood flew, spattering the bright green grass. Screams rose and were cut off. Vicious tails whipped, a head rolled, limbs fell, guts spewed and were trodden into the ground by harsh, sharp feet.
A set of teeth snapped out and punched right through someone’s chest.
Devon dropped his guitar and fell onto his rump, phrail vials clasped in his left hand.
A Xenomorph ran at him. It was coated in gore from the people it had already killed, blood and skin hanging from its claws.
Devon didn’t even open the vials. He dropped all three into his mouth and bit, crunching the glass, swallowing the shards and the sickly sweet fluid. Blood filled his mouth. He took in a huge breath, and moments before the nightmare beast reached him, the drug carried him away.
* * *
Corporal Dentz had once seen some headcam footage of a Xenomorph attack. It had been lifted from a Company quantum fold by an info-pirate, and if anyone knew he’d seen it he would have been dishonorably discharged, at the very least. But of course he’d watched. Sickly fascinated. Terrified.
Now he was about to face the real thing.
Everyone in the rolling troop carrier was wide-eyed and silent with shock. He had fifteen Colonial Marines under his command, and he was doing his best to rein in his terror at what was happening. However well trained they all were, this was the last thing they’d been expecting. Posted to Weaver’s World after the disastrous and tragic attack on Swartwood Station 3, they had only arrived several days ago, after a long space journey involving two drops.
Despite what was happening in Gamma quadrant, Dentz had considered this a cushy posting. Weaver’s World wasn’t a military target. It was also a posting with benefits, because where there was a large civilian population, there were plenty of sons and daughters wanting to meet marines.
He hadn’t even had a chance to go off-base.
“All units, listen up,” their lieutenant said through his comm. “It’s looking messy. Reports coming in from across the inhabited zone. Xenomorph attacks everywhere, and they’re coordinated and brutal. Largely civilian targets. It’s a massacre, not an assault, so we’ve got to do what we can.”
“Where are we heading, L-T?” Dentz asked.
“Penperlleni Plains,” she replied. “The villages out there are getting hit hard.”
“Shouldn’t we be defending the cities?”
“We’re responding to reports and defending what we can.” Their lieutenant went quiet for a moment, and Dentz was sure he heard a deep sigh, despite the noise the vehicle made rolling across the terrain. “There’s a big enemy ship dropped into orbit. There’s been fighting up there, too, and it sounds like the 7th Spaceborne has lost a destroyer already. This is a sustained, well-planned attack. Enemy dropships have been reported in over twenty locations. We’re doing what we can.” He paused and glanced at his screen. “Okay, ten minutes.”
Their lieutenant signed off, and Dentz looked around the troop carrier’s interior.
“Check suits and weapons,” he said. “Carry all the ammo you can. Double up on grenades.” He hefted his own weapon, knowing he should have felt comforted by the blistering firepower he was carrying. He did not.
Ten minutes passed quickly, and Dentz’s visor screen revealed that they were heading across the Penperlleni Plains. Eight troop carriers came with them, over a hundred Marines, all packing serious weaponry. Each carrier would launch a drone upon deployment, and the lieutenant would follow and oversee the operation. They were a formidable unit.
“Holy fuck,” the lieutenant said.
“L-T?”
“Deploy. Deploy! Units one to four, swing north. Five and six, direct assault. Seven and eight, swing south. Go, people, go!”
The carriers screeched to a halt and doors opened. The air was cool after the heat of the vehicle. Dentz and his unit stormed out.
He led the assault.
Ahead of them, on the banks of a small river, the village burned. Smoke rose from several locations, and at its center a large building was blazing, pouring smoke into the sky. A schematic showed him that it was a school.
“Contact?” the lieutenant asked.
“Negative,” came the reply from all eight units.
“Whatever happened here’s already over,” Dentz said.
“Don’t be so sure, Corporal. Head into the village and…” Her voice trailed off as she saw what every other soldier saw.
Dentz slowed. Shock weighed him down. He’d been in combat before, had seen people die, and he’d killed three people by his own hand.
But he’d never seen anything like this.
The village was red. People lay dead in the streets, some of them huddled in groups against the walls of buildings, others on their own where they’d attempted to flee. Their bodies bore terrible wounds. Blood flowed in the gutters. Adults and children alike, the dead were still warm, their insides steaming into the fine summer air.
“Move in,” Dentz said. He led his unit, entering the village past a building with holes blasted in its walls and windows smashed. Someone had attempted to fight back. He saw a man lying dead on the road, his head a bloodied ruin. In one hand he still clasped a blaster. His other hand and arm were melted, and patches of acid sizzled on the road surface.
“Don’t step on that,” Dentz said. “Movement?”
“Negative.”
“Move forward. Teams of three.”
They penetrated deeper into the village, and with each step the horrors mounted. Close to the school they found a mass of dead children. Teachers had attempted to protect them. Nothing had stopped the Xenomorphs.
They didn’t go too close to the dead kids.
Dentz felt his fury rising. This was senseless, random, and whoever the Rage were he wished their leaders were here with him now, tied up and facing the justice these marines would be happy to give them.
“Contact, north end of village!” the lieutenant said through Dentz’s comm. He accessed his visor screen and saw the schematic, with gunfire marked by red points to the north.
Audio brought the sounds of heavy laser fire from com-rifles, and the sounds of squealing and screaming as Xenomorphs died.
“Hold position here,” Dentz said. “They might be trying to—”
“Ten o’clock!” one of his unit shouted, and then all hell broke loose.
The creatures came pouring out of the buildings. They ran across the corpses of those they had already killed, closing on the marines and being cut down by heavy fire. Six fell, nine, and as they hit the ground they burst apart in some sort of self-destruct, spewing burning acidic remains across the ground.
Dentz and his unit put down a defensive fire, forming a rough circle and keeping the creatures away from them. But there were too many.
“We need help!” Dentz shouted, but his plea was met with desperate shouts from the other units. Shouts, and screams.
“Drone support!” the lieutenant shouted.
Drones whistled in, firing on the Xenomorphs from above.
Dentz checked his visor schematic for life signs. All he saw were the Colonial Marines, and the Xenomorphs. More and more were making themselves known now, emerging from the buildings where they’d been hiding. Launching attacks in a well-coordinated effort.
Two of his unit fell, and when the Xenomorph that had dropped them was struck by laser, it erupted and splashed its insides across the other soldiers. Molecular acid worked at their combat suits. Dentz felt the heat, all too aware that their resistance would last only so long.
Past the attacking creatures he could just make out the square at the center of the village, a place where its inhabitants would gather to socialize and enjoy themselves. It was piled with dozens of dead, maybe hundreds. Almost as if the Xenomorphs had dragged them there to kill them in the open. A display. A gruesome point to be made.
Someone screamed, and a woman beside him fell with her head torn apart. Another marine blasted the creature that had killed her. They were down to three marines now, the others wounded or dead, and the attacking beasts pushed in from all sides. They did not pause. They would show no mercy.
Sweating, heart hammering, Corporal Dentz knew that this was the end.
He dropped his com-rifle and grasped a grenade in each hand.
From: Major Sergei Budanov, Weaver’s World Garrison
To: General Paul Bassett
The death toll is catastrophic. The attack was sudden and huge, and early estimates put Xenomorph numbers on the surface at over five thousand. The ships dropping them have concentrated on heavily populated areas, ignoring most military targets.
A Fiennes ship identified as the Aaron-Percival is in orbit, along with at least six accompanying vessels and an unknown number of dropships. All assaults on the Aaron-Percival have resulted in heavy Colonial Marine losses, including two destroyers and a dozen manned drones from the 7th Spaceborne. We are concentrating our forces on defending the cities, but they are already under sustained attack, and the dropships are landing Xenomorphs scattered over hundreds of areas. However fast our response, we are usually too late.
I hereby request full reinforcements. I’ve never known such willful destruction or slaughter on this scale. We are living through a tragedy the likes of which humanity has not seen in many centuries, if ever before.
I fear for Weaver’s World. I fear for us all.
8
AKOKO HALLEY
Gamma Quadrant
December 2692 AD
Halley wasn’t used to inaction. Especially considering recent events, remaining cooped up inside the Yautja asteroid seemed… disingenuous. They should have been out there fighting, taking part in the defense of the Human Sphere. Halley was an intelligent woman, and she knew what they were doing was the right thing, but sometimes it felt like sitting down and ignoring reality.
Despite appearances, she knew that her crew felt the same. Bestwick was reclined on one of the soft beds extruded from the floor, reading a book contained on her datapad. Sprenkel and Huyck were servicing their weapons. The Yautja had allowed them to retain their com-rifles. Halley suspected a certain element of trust lay behind that, but also confidence on the part of the alien warriors. If she and her DevilDogs did decide to cause trouble, the Yautja would be able to isolate and neutralize them instantly. This was their base, after all.
The room they were staying in was just off the large lab, where even now Isa Palant and that spooky-looking Yautja were still trying to glean information from the captured android. Since the Yautja’s troubled turn a few hours before—uttering the word “Drukathi” and stating how that changed everything—Halley and the others had performed as many searches as they could on the name. But the limited computing power in their suits yielded nothing. If they were outside the asteroid, perhaps they’d have been able to hack some of the Company’s quantum folds. However, the Yautja base was heavily shielded.
They were trapped.
“Drukathi,” Halley muttered. The name sounded heavy and alien in her mouth. There was nothing familiar about it. The Yautja had appeared worried, even seeming to fear what it represented.
The Major was eager to speak to Palant alone, but the scientist and the Yautja hadn’t taken a break in hours.
Halley paced the room. It was circular, cave-like, walls lined with a smooth, almost fluid material from which beds and seating areas had extruded as soon as they had entered. The chamber seemed to perceive their needs, with a water dispenser and food replicator also appearing. The doors remained open. They weren’t prisoners in here, yet none of the Colonial Marines were comfortable, and all were well aware that they were guarded guests of the Yautja.
“Huyck, c’mere,” Halley said. She gestured to him, and he strolled across to her, carrying his partly stripped com-rifle in one hand. He and Sprenkel were each dealing with one weapon at a time, always ensuring they had others to hand.
“Major?”
“I want to take a walk,” she said. “Look around. You and the others stay here, relax, keep calm. Exude chill. I’m not sure whether or not they’ll let me out, but if they do, I want to sniff around. Something’s happening here, and I don’t want to wait for Palant to finish playing with her new toy to find out what.”
“I could come with you.”
“No, you’re in charge while I’m gone.”
“You sure?”
She didn’t like having her orders questioned, but these were unusual circumstances. In truth, no, she wasn’t sure at all.
“It’ll be fine,” she said. “I don’t trust them one bit, but they could have taken us out a thousand times already. I think this is all as it seems, for now. I just want to know more. If they don’t want me wandering around their rock, they won’t let me.”
“Okay, Major.” He glanced down at her sidearm.
“I’m taking it. They’ve let us keep our weapons up to now.”
“I can’t help thinking that’s because we’re completely outgunned,” Huyck said.
Halley looked around the room at the strange walls. Anything might have been hiding behind or within them.
“Yeah, I think you’re right,” she said. “Perhaps it should make us feel safe.”
“I just feel twitchy.”
“We’re not built for sitting back and being passive,” she said. She even offered him a smile.
“Be safe,” he said. “You’re the only one who can handle Sprenkel.”
“An hour, that’s all.” She slapped his shoulder and left the room.
Passing into the lab, she was hit by the smell. It was a warm, singed stench, like an electrical short, and beneath it was something altogether more biological. She took several deep breaths, trying to identify the constituent aromas, but failing.
Palant and the legless Yautja were working within the central blue containment field, the android splayed on a raised platform between them. While Palant seemed to be questioning the android itself, datapad in one hand while she spoke to it, the Yautja was slightly removed, consulting various displays on a sphere that had risen from the floor.
It was odd watching human and Yautja working together. Halley had developed a huge respect for Palant, for the way she had handled herself and pulled through violent and dangerous events, and also for what she had achieved. Because of her there was peace between Yautja and humanity, when it could have escalated into all-out war. That in turn led to the possibility of the two radically different species working together.
Like now. If what Halley saw could be replicated elsewhere, perhaps they could stand against the Rage.
Palant looked up and caught her eye. Halley cocked her head, eyebrow raised. Anything? she mouthed.
Palant shook her head.
Yaquita had yet to enlighten them about who or what the name “Drukathi” applied to, or even if it was a name, for that matter. Halley suspected the Yautja was waiting for permission from a higher source. That, or perhaps it didn’t consider humans important enough to share the information.
A worried and scared Yautja. That was enough to concern and frighten Halley.
She nodded at Palant, then started walking toward the lab’s entrance doors. She expected at any moment to be called back, or for the doors to open and reveal a couple of heavily armed Yautja standing guard. But neither happened. As she neared the doors they misted away to nothing, and she passed through into the hall beyond.
Ahead of her was the passageway they’d followed down from their moored ship. The Pixie felt like a very desirable destination right then, but Halley wasn’t out here to find somewhere comfortable and familiar.
She looked left and right. Left, the passage curved around the lab and led somewhere out of sight. Right, it headed down a nearby series of deep steps, illuminated far below by a subtle glow emanating from the walls. She chose the steps. Deeper into the asteroid somehow felt like the way to go.
