The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 6

by Diane Carey

  One of the women had been on the fliers before—she was shy, but at last spoke up, and quickly explained how to use them. In minutes he and the other eight survivors of the now lost Glorious Sun were flying a meter above the deck… He was in the lead, passing through the second room, marveling at the alien constructions—when they heard the hissing sound, and turned as one to see the xenomorph queen stalking toward them from the shadows of the metal columns.

  Looking at the creature coming at them—a living killing machine towering over them—Xao’s heart became a stone at the bottom of an Arctic sea.

  But hefting his assault rifle, he made himself take action, remembering they had three missile launchers among them.

  “We will move on, quickly!” he ordered, in Sino-Multi. “We will find a place where we can catch it between many fires… hurry!”

  They accelerated through the next doorway, speeding along, the alien close behind them… They could keep out of its reach when they flew up high—though sometimes it climbed the walls and leapt at them—but when they had to dip down to go through the doors they were close enough that it grabbed two of them, at the rear of their retreat, pausing to kill them…

  Xao made a decision that it was too late to save them. They must find a place to take a stand…

  They sped through room after room, pursued by the enormous alien—the queen, one of the xenobiologists had called the creature. It leaped and bounded after them, snapping at them, its inner piston-jaw striking out, nearly catching the last of the expedition until at last they came to the final chamber on this level—this one contained a series of bulbous pipes, which were transparent in places, some surging with fluid, others with a glimmering vapor. Xao had seen an approximate diagram of the interior of the alien ship, worked up by the first expedition. He believed they were above the room thought to be the engine room.

  They would take their stand right here…

  * * *

  “There’s a field of some kind around them…” Ashley said, as they completed their tour of the room. “You can feel it… it must be preserving them somehow…”

  Corgan knew they should go on—he’d found the entrance to the maintenance tunnel at the far side of the room, opposite the tunnel they’d come out of—but he kept thinking that one of these weapons, however primitive, might be useful to him. Everything seemed well preserved.

  He saw no firearms, but there were crossbows—he knew the principle of how to use them, anyway—and swords, shields. Ashley was staring into the white, sunken-eyed, but otherwise perfectly preserved face of a warrior woman, a woman who looked German, to Corgan, with her wide sturdy face and hair braided atop her head, her body transfixed with arrows from some European tribe. “They were so small, our ancestors,” she said. “So the Giff sort of toured around Earth from time to time taking samples from battlefields?”

  “Yeah. Some of them, on the other side of the room—well, they’ve been dissected. Very neatly too.” He looked into the bearded face of a dead Viking warrior, trying to imagine explaining to this man, were he somehow revived, where he was now—and why he was here. “It’s not Valhalla, pal,” he muttered. He shook his head, thinking of the archaeologists and anthropologists on Earth who would literally sever a limb, if that’s what it took, to be in this room with him right now. Still—maybe they could get this back to Earth, too.

  Ashley was looking toward the dissection tables. She grimaced. “I guess we’d better go on…”

  They carried their diamond-flyers under their arms to the far wall, pushed them in… and drew back. They’d both heard a scratching, scrambling noise, then, from the dim further reaches of the low, rectangular entrance to the tunnel.

  He and Ashley looked at one another. She checked the rifle’s safety was off, and aimed it down the tunnel.

  “Send a burst down there, just a short one,” he said. “Maybe it’ll make them change direction…”

  She fired a short burst and he turned to the bodies arrayed behind him. He reached through the field around them— and found it didn’t restrain him. It made the hairs on his arm stand up, his skin tingle, but he was able to touch the body, which felt like it had been dead only an hour or two. He took a few items…

  * * *

  Xao and the five remaining CANC survivors were stationed at intervals behind the columns of the big, swelling pipes, firing to keep the queen back, watching her stalk back and forth, taking cover, climbing—trying to get above them. But then a missile round, fired above her, would drive her back down into the shadows again, squealing with fury—they could rarely hope to hit her directly, she moved so quickly.

  They had been firing at the queen for several minutes, keeping her at bay, but somehow, in a rush, she had slipped through the shadows under the great pipes and snagged one of his men, Chin, whom she dragged away by the ankles, screaming. Moments later his body, torn in half, was flung into view, spewing its insides. And Chin, still alive, screamed pitifully for five long seconds before his last breath left him…

  Then she charged again, and again Xao fired, striking her glancingly along her armored abdomen. He had noticed it was difficult to penetrate the creature’s exoskeleton, one must aim very directly. A mini-missile struck obliquely against the queen alien’s hoodlike carapace, bouncing off to explode against the ceiling. She was climbing a pipe now— she was going to try again to leap at them from above.

  Xao made up his mind. “Move out!” he shouted. “We will come from three sides—you, you, go there! You come with me! You there! Wait till I give the order to fire!”

  Their faces were drawn with fear but he felt a surge of pride when they pursed their lips, nodded, and obeyed, rushing into position.

  He came from the left flank, the others from the center and right, and in a moment the chance was there—the alien queen was poised on the bulb swelling out from a gigantic vertical pipe, right above them. Poised to leap down on them!

  He threw his rifle to his shoulder and aimed, shouting the order.

  “Everyone—fire at once at her mid-section! Where the breastbone would be! Now, now—now!”

  And they fired at once, so that rifles and missiles, converging from different angles, struck the same spot, dead center on the creature—all three missiles hitting her at once.

  It worked—the creature’s exoskeleton burst apart, she exploded in a gush of yellow fluid, a waterfall of her inner liquids falling down upon him…

  The last thing Xao saw was the wash of yellow coming down at his eyes. He was in too much pain to scream—but it was all over very quickly, as the acid burned through his eyes and into his brain, in bare seconds. Two of the others were caught in the acid, too—

  The remaining CANC soldiers watched in paralytic horror as the acids from the interior of the gigantic alien splashed copiously over the deck, and began to sizzle through… a great wash of the acid burning through to the next level…

  * * *

  The xenomorph in the rectangular maintenance tunnel dodged left and right, the last of the bullets in the first clip striking it but not penetrating its exoskeleton—and it scrabbled toward Corgan and Ashley with frightening speed, grasped the outer lips of the entrance, and pulled itself through, leaping at Ashley, knocking her down, flinging her rifle aside…

  Corgan shouted, raising the shield on his left arm, the sword in his right hand. “No! No, to me you bastard!”

  He rushed at it, as it reared its head back, about to slam its jaws into Ashley’s forehead…

  The alien turned to him and raised its talons—he struck down with the Roman short-sword, struck off one of its fingers, so that its yellow acidic blood splashed the deck between him and Ashley, who was scrambling away from it, trying to get to her fallen rifle.

  The creature leaped at him and he sidestepped, caught some of its rush and some of the flying acid on his shield, smashing at its pistoning jaws with his sword, striking its eyeless forehead, feeling the exoskeleton crack.

  The creatur
e shrieked and writhed aside, twisting about to get its feet under it for another lunge at him—then he saw that his sword was dissolving. And holes were appearing in his shield from the acid. He flung them both at the alien—

  Heard Ashley yelling for him to get out of the way so she could get a shot at it.

  But he was afraid to do that—afraid it would leap at her, take her down, if he got out of the way. So he grabbed the crossbow, an artifact perfectly preserved from more than a thousand years before—he’d set it up, primed to fire its bolt, at the foot of the nearest table, close to the dead Norman soldier he’d taken it from—and swung it between him and the onrushing alien.

  The alien leapt at him, its jaws wide—and he fired the bolt point-blank between its jaws. The alien struck him, knocking him flat—acid splashing the deck beside his head, steaming, sizzling—and then it gurgled and quivered and spasmed once, rolling, clawing at its mouth…

  And the xenomorph died, the bolt sticking out of its jaws.

  He took time for one deep breath, then rolled over and got up—and Ashley came into his arms. “Oh shit,” she said. “I thought it had you.”

  “Come on,” he said. “We’ve gotta hurry…”

  * * *

  Reynolds was crouched inside the crumbling glassy bell, watching in disbelief and spiraling terror as the acids burned through the shield, and the three xenomorphs clawed their way through. They’d been so very persistent, clawing and digging and pistoning and smashing and exuding acid and gnawing and never giving in, though he tried to tell them about his destiny, the greatness that awaited him, the importance he held for all the universe, the empire that was to be his…

  Then he saw the big dollops of acid falling to either side of the glass bell and he looked up to see them on the ceiling—they were dripping through a big burn mark up there. He could just make out the broken outline of the head carapace of the fallen xenomorph queen, quite inert, through the irregular hole in the ceiling—she’d been broken open, he saw, her blood was burning through to the engine room…

  And it was falling on the shield now.

  Acid was burning through…

  Reynolds screamed as the bell shield burst apart and, blindly, he tried to run…

  Xenomorphic countenances, without eyes or pity, came at him from three sides, extending their wet, steel-colored jaws…

  He tried to think of something to say, some last words fitting for a great man. But he only squeaked out: “Mama!”

  And then they closed in on him.

  * * *

  Corgan was just emerging from the tunnel into the engine room when he heard the voice speaking in English, coming faintly on his radio—a voice he didn’t know. “Unidentified vessel, this is UNIC commander Haz Ahmed, of the United Nations Interplanetary Corp vessel Al Gore requesting, again, that you identify yourself… There is a Chinese/Asian-Nation Cooperative vessel approaching and if you don’t cease your movement toward their colony they are going to open fire! I repeat…”

  But the signal, all along spotty, stopped coming through.

  “Commander Ahmed,” Corgan tried, “This is Corgan onboard the vessel… this is the anomalous alien vessel we were sent to investigate—do you copy?”

  There was no reply. Corgan didn’t think his weak signal was being picked up.

  He and Ashley climbed out of the tunnel entrance, to one side of the axis tunnel, and stared at the sight of the three xenomorphic aliens tearing Reynolds’s body…

  And the acid was burning through the deck all around the control dais.

  “Ashley—put on your helmet now, that’s an order!” he snapped.

  As she put her helmet on, Corgan took the device Larry had given him from the zippered leg pocket of his spacesuit, ran his thumb along the mark as he’d been told, felt it vibrating in his hand—

  And he threw it at the control dais, so that it rolled at the feet of the aliens there. They turned toward him…

  The lights on the controls went dark.

  “I have control of the ship, now!” came Larry’s voice the radio, as Corgan put on his own helmet. “We are changing course…” His voice was almost lost in static. “I believe there are two vessels following us. One resembles the craft from which your competitors came… They are issuing some kind of warning. I take it they are going to fire at the ship if we do not stop our movement… try to make your way to the shuttlecraft…”

  “Larry—where are you going?”

  There was no reply—and the xenomorphs were moving toward him and Ashley now. She raised her rifle and fired a burst toward them—

  The acid was burning through the deck. He quickly put his own helmet on. Started the pressurization, air flow.

  The deck was bubbling with more xenomorph acid than he’d seen in any one place before. He looked up and saw the xenomorph queen’s head, distinctly, projecting out over a big hole in the ceiling… the acid had missed the big glowing spheres powering the ship, but it was cutting through the deck…

  “Back into the tunnel!” Corgan said. “Give me the rifle, Ashley—go!”

  “No—you go, I’ll cover you!”

  “Bullshit, get in there, that’s an order!”

  “Fuck your order!” She fired a last burst—and ran out of bullets. The xenomorphs, holding back, dodging the gunfire, now started toward them again…

  “Never mind,” she said, throwing the rifle at the xenomorphs.

  The acid was still burning through the deck at their feet… The aliens charged them…

  And then the acid burned through the hull—at the same time as a cluster missile exploded close to the lower aft hull of the alien spacecraft. The ship lurched and shuddered— and the artificial gravity went off.

  They all floated upward, the aliens too, floundering and clawing in the room’s middle spaces—

  “Daryl!” Ashley yelled, in panic, on the suit radio, as she spun by him, turning end over end in weightlessness.

  Corgan grabbed at a cable floating from a break in the wall, held onto it with one hand, with the other caught Ashley’s wrist. He pulled her close, stabilized her—but the atmosphere in the room was sucked downward—

  The steel egg cracked open. Stars showed through a crack in the deck…

  And first the xenomorphs, then Corgan and Ashley were sucked by the depressurization out through the crack, were drawn on an inexorable current of escaping atmosphere, spinning out into space…

  “Larry… we’re in space!” Corgan shouted, on the radio, as he and Ashley clung desperately together, tumbling in the void. “Can you help us?”

  “I regret that I cannot!” the Giff radioed back. “There are many eggs, many xenomorphs remaining in this vessel. I cannot let it infect your world. Its technology also is a kind of infection— it is too soon for your people to have it! I must hurry on my way! The ship must be purged… Perhaps you…”

  But the signal faded and Corgan heard no more from him.

  There was just the crackling of space talking to itself, in his helmet radio, and the radioed sound of Ashley’s fast, frightened breathing.

  He managed to pull her close, to cling to her, and that slowed their spin… they were in a kind of waltz, together, a dance, adrift in space, then…

  A turn brought the steel egg visible to him, receding, and the two ships in pursuit of it…

  He suspected the CANC ship, not wanting to damage the valuable anomaly, had fired a warning shot—it would have been impossible to miss so large a target. But the blast near the ship had exploded closely enough to interact with the damage done by the acid to the hull. The acid and the blast together had cracked it open…

  Larry would have sealed himself into the bridge. But where was he going?

  They spun around in space again, and Corgan lost sight of the ship. Around once more and he saw, then, the steel egg silhouetted against the sun.

  And it was getting smaller, smaller against the sun.

  Corgan was sure of it. The Giff was flying
the Unbreakable Womb into the sun. He would purge it, destroy the xenomorphs—and keep it out of human hands…

  “Corgan… Daryl Corgan…” Ashley’s voice over the radio, hoarse, afraid—but there was courage in it too. He turned and he could see through her helmet—the light shifting as they turned, but he could see her eyes in there, looking back at him. A beeping sounded in his helmet radio: she’d turned on her spacesuit’s mayday beacon. Just her eyes visible in her helmet, looking at him, then blotted by shadow out as they turned… a beep… then her eyes… the darkness… a beep… her eyes… the darkness… her eyes… the darkness… her eyes…

  “Daryl… You were going to tell me something.”

  “Hey,” he said, “you got to know I love you, Officer Norton.”

  “Wanted to hear you say it. I love you too, Captain Corgan.”

  “You people are making me sick,” came Commander Ahmed’s voice, over the helmet radios. “We’ve got your mayday beacon… we’re giving up the chase—that ship’s heading right into the goddamned sun. I don’t think we can follow it there… Hold on, I’m sending out a drone… we’ll have you inboard in a few minutes…”

  * * *

  Sitting under a palm tree, drinking beer. Overlooking a beach. A white beach. A white beach under a balmy blue sky. A beach on St. Croix. Corgan and Ashley, in swimming suits, sitting together in the sand, each with a beer, both a bit stunned to be honeymooning. Still surprised to be alive. Corgan looking at the sky—and wishing he could forget what they’d been through up there. He drank his beer, and took another from the cooler.

  The crew of the Al Gore and the CANC vessel had seen, had recorded the sight of the Unbreakable Womb, the steel egg that had burned up in the sun. There was digital video taken by the automatic cameras in Corgan’s spacesuit, and Ashley’s, that showed the aliens, the interior of the ship, fascinating details…

  And apart from that, there was no proof that anything had happened. The Hornblower and the rest of the crew were gone, yes—and no one blamed Corgan for it. His court martial was a formality. But that wasn’t proof…