Aliens vs. Predators, page 7
The usual flora hugged the side of the rift, roots digging deep into seemingly impenetrable walls so that the plants could grow outward and try to reach the sun’s short blessing. A variety of insects, most of them pollinators, moved from plant to plant, largely ignoring her as she descended. A few birds, riotously colorful, zipped among them, snatching slower moving bugs and caterpillars from branches.
What she didn’t see is a monster.
Fucking Shrapnel.
He was the kind of soldier who’d quit the military and gone in search of something easier, because serving was too hard. The kind who, when things got tense or there was even a hint of danger, shoved someone else in harm’s way.
Fuck that guy.
Margo lowered herself a little more, and saw the first signs of blood. It began as a splattering of red across the many greens of the moss and flora, but quickly devolved into a mass of red meat, flies buzzing madly as they dove and tasted and digested what was left of Khaleed.
Then she spied his head.
His face still was covered with the mechanical mask. Already worms and beetles had found his eyes and were making a fine meal of them. She saw the lips trembling and, for one insane moment, thought he was going to speak to her, but they parted gently. A red millipede scrambled out and across his sunken cheeks.
One thing was for sure. He didn’t just fall. So, what took him out?
Margo descended further, hyperaware of her surroundings. What sort of creature were they dealing with here? She was about two-thirds of the way to the rift floor when she realized that something was different—off. The surroundings had changed in subtle ways she didn’t quite understand.
The insects were still ever-present and the slight wind moving through the rift stirred the flora, but strangely, there was no sound. What had in the past always been a low, constant cacophony of birds and small animal noises was missing.
Then Margo heard something new, directly below her.
The sound of something moving… dragging.
Then there was a chittering sound, the movement of long legs through the weeds and stunted trees. She thought of activating the pulley so it would propel her back to the top, but curiosity got the better of her. She needed to know, so she hung on with one hand and leaned out to scan what she could of the shadowy canyon floor.
Nothing.
Then she spotted movement. While the rest of the saplings leaned in one direction, one of them rustled in the other. Margo stared at a shadowy figure until it passed into the light, then couldn’t stop herself from gasping.
It had four legs, the rear ones larger than the front. It might have been an animal, but the bullet shape of its head was all wrong. The body was strangely ribbed, as if the shiny, pure black skin was stretched over the bones because it was starving or something. Each limb ended in claws, and the tail had a tapered, almost blade-like end. It whipped back and forth, and she could imagine it tearing through human skin.
Where the hell had this thing come from? She’d been to LV-363 several times over the years, and had never seen or heard of this kind of predator.
Suddenly, it turned its head upward. It had no eyes, yet somehow it focused on her. Without hesitating, it leaped for her cable and missed. For a too-long moment, Margo’s pulse hammered in her chest and she froze.
It leaped again, and missed again.
How many tries before it succeeded?
Getting a grip on her fear, she almost felt like taunting it as she watched it pace back and forth beneath her cable, trying to work out how to get to her. Still, Margo didn’t feel quite that safe, and when it started clawing at the side of the rift, trying to climb, all thoughts of stupid fun vanished.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Margo actuated the pulley and it began to tug her toward the surface. Too slow! The walls of the rift were hard, and footholds among the moss and Khatura flowers difficult to find, but the creature wouldn’t give up. It scrambled around beneath her until it managed to climb just enough to leap and catch the cable beneath her, sending her swinging wildly. Margo and the beast rocked together on her cable, each trying to make the other lose their grip. As they bumped to a stop, Margo kicked downward, trying to dislodge it.
It swiped at her boot and she kicked again, catching it in the jaw. At that moment, she saw how much of an actual monster it was. Its mouth opened, revealing two rows of silvery teeth, many of them pointed and dagger sharp, all of them dripping with seemingly endless lengths of drool.
Another kick, and finally she dislodged it.
Margo pressed the emergency button, activating the pulley again, and brought up her rifle, trying and failing to get a bead on the hideous thing. The pulley sped up and she began to rise, leaving it below. She glanced up, seeing the freedom of the sky and begging in her mind for it to get closer faster.
Then she felt a tug.
Then another.
Then another, like she was a fish on the end of a line.
Full stop. The hoist system screamed above her as too much weight again forced it to a stop. Margo stared in horror as the creature tried to scramble up her legs. She could feel each grip of its claws digging into her boots and scraping her skin through the heavy canvas of her pants. The tail, whipping back and forth, was almost mesmerizing. But its mouth…
It opened wide and then another, smaller mouth snapped out, filled with oozing, needle-like teeth, trying its best to fasten anywhere on her leg.
Something jolted in her brain and she realized she still had the rifle in her right hand. She brought it up and just unloaded, her screams overwhelmed by the barraaaatt of the rifle and the inhuman shrieks of the creature. She watched the red indicator light count down the rounds she expended, and didn’t care if she fired all of them. But when it hit fifty-something, pain scorched through her lower body.
The creature’s blood—a volatile green—was like acid. It was eating through her clothes and her skin.
The last flood of adrenaline jolted through her and she kicked desperately at the monster, fighting against the fiery pain that threatened to blot out everything. With one last kick, Margo knocked it free and watched as it plummeted to the ground below. Then the pulley jerked back into motion, lifting her into a heaven where light was as present as the pain.
12
Ca’toll had everything set up and ready to go in the ship’s lab when she keyed into the comms and called in her team of unblooded Yautja. She had placed the Ovomorph within the largest isolation cube, where it was sitting in the open, resting on a cooling table that kept it in a deep freeze.
She’d left the entrance open and motioned them all to come inside the fairly roomy area. Hetah, Ptah’Ra and Sta’kta kept a respectful distance, as she expected of them, never taking their gaze off the cube as they circled it carefully.
“It’s an impressive example of biology,” Ca’toll told them. “Very complicated. Research indicates that some of these eggs—Ovomorphs—can remain viable for hundreds of years, perhaps longer. They are laid by a queen, although the Xenomorphs are supremely adaptable. In the absence of a Queen they can multiply via an alternative known as eggmorphing.”
“Do the eggs ever die?” Ptah’Ra asked.
“Eventually,” Ca’toll answered, “but there is no reliable data as to when that happens. Remember that, because if ever you are hunting in what appears to be an uninhabited or expired environment, you may come across one… or more. In such an instance, exercise extreme caution.” She moved past the unblooded, stepping up to the cooling table. She could practically feel her students’ nervousness.
Good—they have every reason to feel that way.
Although she’d told them there was no need to wear their armor, she remained fully protected.
“Note that, even in stasis, there remains an attempt at the Ovomorph’s instinctive response.” Without wavering, she reached out a hand and drew the tip of a sharp fingernail from the top of the egg down to the middle. Although the temperature was too low for it to open, there was still a… shiver of sorts that ran through the entire form. The sounds her unblooded made were a healthy cross between fascination and anxiety. “When an Ovomorph senses an approaching organism that might make a viable host, the four triangular pieces at the top peel open to release its facehugger. If the target is near, the parasitic creature will launch itself at its victim. Alternatively, if its objective isn’t close enough, instinct will tell the facehugger to hide and wait for a chance to strike.”
Ca’toll stepped back and motioned at her team. “Everyone outside the quarantine area,” she ordered. She waited until they obeyed, filing into the corridor, then keyed the command to close off the entrance. They could watch her through a large, impenetrable window. Off to the side was another sturdy table, this one with a smaller but functional isolation container. The lid was open. A flip of a finger opened the comms so her words could be heard in the corridor.
“Now I’m going to show you how an Ovomorph awakens, and what to expect when it does,” Ca’toll said. She pressed a series of controls along the edge of the cooling table, then stepped around it and unlocked the failsafe on the opposite side. The lower half of the platform began to transform, going from cold silver to a soft, orange glow as it heated up. Through the speaker she could hear their mandibles chitter involuntarily, an apprehensive reaction. Good; there was no relaxing around a viable Ovomorph.
The display on her helmet revealed that her own vitals had increased substantially in response to what her brain knew was coming. Ca’toll slowly circled the platform, never taking her gaze away from the rapidly warming egg.
“Witness my body’s reaction to what my brain knows is about to happen.” The three unblooded remained silent, entranced. “My normal response is anticipation,” she continued. “However, I will not allow myself to forget that, when you are dealing with an Ovomorph or a Xenomorph in any stage of life, anything and everything can change in an instant.”
The table’s computer gave off a series of warning chimes; soon the egg would be fully thawed.
“For instance,” Ca’toll continued, “what if I hadn’t done proper reconnaissance, and came upon this Ovomorph without warning?” She glanced quickly at them, noting with approval that all were paying close attention, then refocused on the Ovomorph. “And what if…” She dragged out the sentence, then was pleased when the top of the Ovomorph shuddered and fissures appeared. Her timing was perfect.
The petals folded back until they were fully opened.
The facehugger exploded from the top of the Ovomorph and launched straight for her face. Despite its terrifying speed, Ca’toll’s gloved hand shot out and snatched it in mid-air. Outside the quarantine area the unblooded jerked involuntarily. More than one gasped. The spider-like creature thrashed wildly in her grip, and even though she was helmeted, she kept it well away from her face.
“What if this had been a hyperfertile egg?” she continued calmly. “In that case, the Ovomorph might have released multiple facehuggers, and my situation would become immediately dire.” Ca’toll turned her wrist so that her team could see the creature’s proboscis, furiously trying to find an opening into which it could bury itself, while its tail lashed furiously in every direction.
“The facehugger’s goal is to impregnate a host with a Xenomorph embryo. Once this takes place—and it will be rapid—it will subdue the host with chemicals that both paralyze it and suppress any immune system response, so the hosting body does not attempt to attack the developing embryo. The paralytic substance is secreted by the proboscis itself as well as the flesh surrounding it. Once the facehugger has settled over the host’s mouth, the struggle is over. Impregnation is almost instantaneous and the host is beyond saving.”
Ca’toll let that sink in, then used her other hand to grasp the creature’s flailing tail. It continued to fight as she stretched it out so they could glimpse the full length.
“If the host manages to keep the facehugger from inserting its proboscis,” she noted, “its goal becomes to wrap its tail around the neck of its victim. In that manner it will cut off circulation to the lungs and brain until the host becomes unconscious and can no longer resist.” She carried the facehugger over to the smaller isolation container, then slammed the creature into it. When the weight of its body landed on the container’s bottom, a blast of cryo-cooled air from side vents stunned the creature just long enough for Ca’toll to yank out her hands and slam the top shut, where it automatically locked.
An instant later the facehugger was battering nonstop at the walls of the container. Ca’toll stepped back and stripped off her gloves, then turned to face her watching team.
“You’ve been trained to be the best warriors you can. Even so, I can’t stress enough that you must continue that training and, in particular, pay extra attention to your reflexes. A single response, if it is a half-second too slow, could cost you your life.”
As she spoke, T’U’Sa stepped up behind the unblooded to watch her presentation. Ignoring the other hunt captain, she keyed in the sequence to open the quarantine area’s door and stepped out. Continuing five meters down the corridor she flipped a switch, and a panel slid up, revealing one of LV-363’s local animals. To her knowledge, no one had ever bothered to categorize the local fauna, so there was no scientific name for the medium-sized quadruped. On the oomans’ home plant, Earth, it might have been labeled a species of deer, although there were distinct differences in the feet of the animal and its long, split tail.
It also had a double row of short, flat plates that ran from just above its oversized eyes to where the base of its skull stopped. Ca’toll wasn’t particularly interested in animal evolution, but the logical conclusion was the creature was prone to head-butting. As if to support this, the creature lowered its head and grunted as it shuffled its feet. Before it could do anything, however, Ca’toll snapped an electronic rope around its neck and tightened it, then pulled it out of the compartment.
At first it resisted. Then when it cleared the doorway, it tried to run, but as much as it was firmly muscled, it was no match for Ca’toll. She easily dragged it over to the quarantine cube and forced it inside, then withdrew the rope and reclosed the entrance.
“Watch carefully,” she instructed, “and you’ll get a firsthand look at how a facehugger attacks and incapacitates its victim so that it can implant the embryo.” She took off her helmet. There was a smaller keypad on the wall below the one that controlled the entrance. Opening it, she rapidly keyed in a code, then paused. “Look away even for an instant, and you’ll miss it.” She hit the final number.
The lid of the smaller cube suddenly flipped open. The facehugger’s response was instantaneous—it hurtled toward the animal so quickly, it was only a blur. It fell short, however, and with a low, terrified sound the quadruped jumped sideways, crashing into one of the tables. It tried to scramble away and almost lost its footing, then found itself backed against the wall just to the right of the rapt team.
The facehugger skittered toward it and in an attempt to protect itself, the mammal lowered its head and jumped toward its attacker.
It was a bad move, and the perfect example of what not to do.
The facehugger leaped from the floor and landed squarely on the quadruped’s short muzzle, wrapping its bony legs and tail around the animal’s nose and mouth. The creature reared and shook its head. After a few moments it went down on its forelegs, and was still.
“See how quickly the facehugger’s paralytic agent goes to work,” Ca’toll told them. She keyed open the entrance to the quarantine area and stepped inside, motioning at them to follow. They did so with intense caution, and when they were in a circle around the still animal, Ca’toll extended one of her wristblades and prodded at it with the tip.
The mammal didn’t move, and she pushed harder, piercing its exterior; the wound released a milky goo. The facehugger didn’t move at all. “At this point,” Ca’toll said, “the facehugger cannot be extracted from its host without killing them both.” In an instant, both Ca’toll’s serrated wristblades were out and she impaled the parasite from two different angles, running the blades through it and into the brain of the quadruped.
Neither creature moved as they died.
Her unblooded were silent and thoughtful, and Ca’toll was pleased. There was a lot to be absorbed here, and they would discuss it among themselves while they prepared for their next incursion into the rift.
Meanwhile, T’U’Sa stood in his original place outside the quarantine area. His gaze met hers and he gave a low, mocking laugh as he turned and strode away to get his team ready for their turn in the planetary gash. Ca’toll scowled and watched him go.
13
Murray was in his tent going over the supply requests. Fucking paperwork, again. It just never ended. He stared at the documents and absently scratched at his arms. Everything on this planet seemed to make him itch. It wasn’t the Khatura pollen, but who knew what other kind of shit was floating around in the air from thousands of other flowers? While the cartel had tested for and found Khatura, however many years before, there’s no way they’d looked for stuff that might cause allergies.
Like they even gave a flying fuck.
Finally he swore aloud and pushed back hard from the stupid, crooked table, then stood and went over to the storage box next to his cot. He keyed in his personal code and the lid popped open, giving him a view of the only thing that brought him any relief on this fucking nowhere rock—a smaller, cloth-lined case holding a bottle of vodka. It cost a helluva lot of credits to get it from Earth, but who cared? It wasn’t like he could go shopping.
Careful to make sure he had a good grip on it, Murray lifted the bottle out of its case with one hand, then reached with his other and snagged the shot glass next to it. It wasn’t actually glass, just a shot cup, and it seemed like a fucking crime to pour the prime vodka into a battered piece of round aluminum that had seen way too many trips to harvester planets.
