Aliens vs Predator Omnibus

by Steve Perry

  Roth felt raw anger hit her system. He was going to let her take the fall, after she’d worked her ass off for him for three years!

  What a surprise.

  She stood abruptly. “Mr. Ackland, I’ve already explained the situation. And I quit. I’ll expect to be paid within the month.” Roth nodded at Noguchi and Hiroki.

  “Please let me know if I can help in any way, and contact me about charges as soon as you’ve decided.” She whistled softly; Creep jumped up to follow her to the exit. Already she could hear Ackland’s voice raised in a huff.

  “…I thought a man had a right to be present when his accusers were testifying against him!”

  She was glad to get out. Ackland talked big, there would be quite a scene—but he had enough sense to know when he was caught. Hiroki was a fair man… but Noguchi? Something about her was pure steel.

  Roth would hate to cross that one; nitrogen queen was right.

  * * *

  “So you were planning to try me in absentia? Don’t you need a judge to hold trial? Or is that some old-fashioned notion—”

  “Shut up, Ackland.”

  Stunned, he did.

  “You’ve violated company policy and jeopardized the security of this complex and its personnel, Ackland. I figure that’s all the legal authority I need.” Noguchi was royally pissed, but she kept her voice low. This overblown rancher had the gall to try to screw things for everyone and then cover it up?

  “You really think you’ve got the backing to make charges stick? In case you haven’t noticed, you aren’t exactly the most popular person in this settlement.” Ackland was shaken, she could tell, but he smirked at her.

  “You’re right, I’m just the new boss.” She had to make a conscious effort not to shout. “But Doc Revna has been here since the beginning, treating the ranchers’ stock, treating their families—delivering their babies. So far, he’s just missing. But if he turns up dead, who do you think folks are going to side with, you? Or his grieving widow?”

  Ackland seemed to shrink a little in front of her. He dropped his gaze to the unlit cigar he held and spoke uneasily.

  “Look, I didn’t expect the doc to go out looking for more of those things—”

  Hiroki stepped in. “But if he did, you wanted to make sure he looked in the wrong place.”

  Ackland flared again, but his anger seemed weak. “We had no way of knowing whether those rhynth were infected or not! I didn’t want to delay the whole operation—”

  Hiroki frowned angrily and pointed his finger at the rancher’s chest. “Didn’t it occur to you that trouble with your herd could be the reason The Lector is still parked out front?”

  Noguchi raised her eyebrows. “What?”

  “I meant to tell you—” Hiroki started, but she was already headed to one of the wall screens. She punched up a southern compound view and looked in disbelief.

  “Those rhynth are going to be hell to manage after standing in the sun all day!” She turned to glare accusingly at Ackland. He looked away.

  Noguchi tapped into operations. Collins appeared in front of her.

  “Collins—why hasn’t The Lector taken its first load back to its orbiter?”

  “I couldn’t say—ah, Machiko. We’ve been trying to contact them all day, but they haven’t responded…”

  “Send someone in person.”

  Collins nodded. “I’ll go myself.”

  “Good. And don’t waste your time with Conover, talk to Strandberg. Remind him we’re on a tight schedule. Report back immediately, okay?”

  “Gotcha.”

  The screen went blank. At least that was taken care of. She walked back to the table where Ackland had sat down, his face blank.

  “If this has anything to do with your little lie, Ackland,” she said smoothly, calmly, “I’ll see to it that you are put away for it. Until hell freezes solid.”

  The look in his eyes, defeated and guilty, was exactly what she wanted.

  * * *

  Scott ached all over. It was the hangover, and that Japanese woman, she was responsible—

  Except he couldn’t move his arms. And he was standing up—?

  He opened his heavy eyelids and blinked several times. It was dark, but he was inside; there was weak light coming from somewhere…

  “Tom?” His voice was a raspy croak. God, he was thirsty! He cleared his throat and tried again.

  “Tom. Can you hear me?”

  No answer. Was he in a med center, maybe? There might have been some kind of accident…

  He took a deep breath and spoke as loud as he could.

  “Hello! Where am I? Tom!” His throat protested; it felt like he’d swallowed a bucket of sand.

  A slow hissing filled the room. The shadows in the room moved, unfurled themselves from the walls and the dark corners. He could make out—

  Teeth.

  Jesus!

  He tried to move, but his arms were pinned.

  “Oh, God, no—” His voice was barely a whisper.

  The room swam with darkness, and then once again, there was nothing.

  * * *

  “…the company has billions invested in this project,” she continued. “Where the hell do you get off fucking with us? Not to mention possibly endangering the lives of millions, maybe billions of people? You think the quarantine laws are there just for the fun of it?” She was still on a roll and unwilling to doppler down.

  Ackland hadn’t spoken for several minutes. Neither had Hiroki.

  “Well?”

  Ackland looked up at her and said nothing.

  The tension was broken by an incoming message over Noguchi’s com. “Ms. Noguchi, report to the med center immediately. Ms. Noguchi to the med center.” Miriam Revna. She sounded agitated.

  Noguchi tapped the received button and looked at the rancher. “You’d better pray they’ve found Revna, Ackland.”

  “I didn’t make him go out there! And if he hurt himself, it’s his own fault!”

  She hurried out of the rec center and was blasted by the afternoon heat.

  Ackland and Hiroki followed; she deliberately walked ahead of them to avoid further conversation for the moment; by the sound of it, Ackland was trying to reason with Hiroki, his deep voice apologetic and contrite.

  Asshole.

  Noguchi waited at the entry to the lab for them to catch up; if Revna was dead, she wouldn’t want to walk into it alone.

  The three of them stepped into the lab together. Noguchi saw what was strapped to an examination table, and took in a deep breath, to scream or faint she didn’t know.

  Dragon!

  14

  “So much for your precious quarantine,” said Ackland softly.

  Noguchi closed her mouth. Miriam Revna and two local pilots were looking at a readout on a small screen across the lab.

  One of the pilots, Spanner, turned and grinned. “Hey, look what we found!” He pointed at the creature unnecessarily.

  Hiroki took a step toward it and then paused. “Is it—alive?”

  Miriam Revna stood and walked over. “Yes. It’s injured, but not in any danger. At least, I don’t think so. Four cracked ribs and extensive contusions in the dorsal region. And it’s male, I’m fairly certain.”

  Noguchi saw what she meant about the maleness. She couldn’t miss it.

  The thing was a giant, maybe two and a half meters tall. Humanoid, but its head like some sort of mutated crab. It wore armor, and was bound to the exam table by several thick straps of rhynth hide—its long, taloned arms were speckled, reptilian, but not scaled. Noguchi saw the slight rise and fall of its chest. There was a mask over its face. What was it breathing? she wondered.

  After the initial shock, she tried to remember what the company’s off-planet manual contained on the subject of possible XT encounters; something like “Avoid direct contact until trained personnel arrive!”

  Looks like we’re going to write a whole new chapter…

  “We found a
ship, too,” Spanner said. “It’s mostly blown to shit, but we should get a salvage team up there!”

  Noguchi found her tongue. “Any idea what it is, Doctor?”

  Revna looked at her blankly. “Hmm? I’m sorry, I’m not thinking clearly today.”

  Noguchi nodded. “Of course. We are still looking for Kesar. I just wondered if there was any connection between this and those unclassifieds that Roth brought in.”

  The doctor shook her head. “This creature has a completely different cell structure. No relationship at all. He”—she nodded at the monster—“is more like us than the little crablike things.”

  Hiroki walked over to a table covered with pieces of the alien’s armor. He held up a broken staff tipped with a vicious-looking blade. “Quite an arsenal.”

  Noguchi joined him and picked up a large chunk of dark metal with a strap. She could barely lift it. At closer inspection, it was apparently some kind of weapon, a rifle or a flamethrower. It was damaged.

  She set it down and picked up a mask.

  “This is stuff you’d pack for a hunting trip. Or an invasion,” she said. “This guy’s no peaceful explorer.”

  Hiroki fingered the strap on the odd weapon. “I don’t think this is his first trip to Ryushi, either. I can’t place the rest of it, but this strap is definitely rhynth-hide.”

  “Any sign of the Doc?” Ackland nodded at the pilots.

  The slender young woman, Ikeda, sighed. “Negatory. But Iwa Gorge connects with a maze of canyons and arroyos; it’d be easy to get lost. Well go back out pretty soon.”

  There was a small shield of some kind with the other weaponry, a plate-sized disk with a strange-looking creature etched on it. Noguchi ran a finger over the blackened metallic substance. The drawing was the head of an unknown animal or bug, an elongated skull with sharp teeth and no eyes; she traced the outline thoughtfully. There was something familiar about it.

  Was it a dream? It was dark and hot…

  She looked again at the unconscious alien and shuddered. Maybe Doc Revna hadn’t gotten lost—

  There was a scream from outside, followed by a crash. Noguchi started; what now? She and Hiroki ran to the door together with Ackland behind them.

  A flier had slammed into the transmitter building directly across from the med center. There was no fire but a lot of oily smoke; a small body lay on the hot pavement next to the accident. Several others had come out of the op center and were also running toward the scene. Hiroki got there first.

  “What happened?” Noguchi called out.

  Hiroki knelt by the victim and carefully touched its face. “It’s the Sheldon boy,” he said.

  Noguchi looked down at the child’s still, tear-streaked face and felt her heart tighten. So young…

  The boy opened his eyes and started to scream.

  * * *

  Bobby woke up with a scream. It was hot, the air smelled burnt, and his parents—

  He sat up quickly and looked around. He was in Prosperity Wells, there were a bunch of people gathered around him and the flier lay nearby, broken.

  “Bobby,” said a calm voice. Mr. Shimura was next to him. “Are you hurt—?”

  “Monsters,” he whispered. And he started to cry.

  Ms. Noguchi was there, too. She leaned down next to Mr. Shimura and smiled at him. “It’s okay, Bobby. You’re safe now. What happened?”

  He closed his eyes, unable to stop the tears. “Mu—monsters killed my dad and then my mommy and then before that they kuh—kuh—killed Dax and we couldn’t see them, but then I got away—”

  He couldn’t say anything else; he wanted to tell them how scared he had been, how there were so many of them, and how Dax had seen them first—but all that came out were loud sobs of terror and sadness.

  “Let’s get him to the med center,” someone said. Gentle hands lifted him off of the burning ground and carried him away. One of his legs hurt really bad and he cried harder.

  Cool air washed over him as they went inside, the world dimmed.

  “We’ve got an emergency here, Doc!” the person holding him shouted. Mr. Shimura.

  Bobby opened his eyes and looked past Dr. Revna at the medical room. And he started to scream again; just like the tears, he was unable to stop. Fear and hatred and sadness and anger for the thing that they had lying on a table.

  “Monsters! Monsters! Monsters!”

  * * *

  Dachande remembered movement after the loneliness of pain, the new pain. Once, he had opened his eyes and seen that he was indoors, in a moving ship. There had been heat and then cool, and strange, animal sounds—

  He realized he could see a little, but could not focus. Dark and light shapes folded and formed in front of him. But now his gaze sharpened, just for a second, at the horrible cries of some creature in front of him. It screamed and howled its nonsense language, the thing. It was pale and little, like—

  Like an ooman?

  Dachande sank back into the quiet darkness. Fear fought to rise in him.

  He was caught by monsters.

  15

  Noguchi and Hiroki walked into a room filled with low, nervous chatter and grim faces. The gathered ranchers and Chigusa staff fell silent and looked at them, their expressions fearful and expectant. The rec center was packed, but suddenly a hundred-plus people didn’t seem like so many.

  Noguchi cleared her throat. “Before we start, is everyone here?”

  Mason stood from his seat near the door and read from a piece of paper. “Everyone except Ikeda, both Revnas, three ops people, two of Marianetti’s people who are on their way—and the Sheldons. Oh, and the Barkers haven’t answered yet.”

  Noguchi nodded. “Ikeda will be here shortly, and Miriam Revna is tending to Bobby Sheldon—”

  A slender blond woman called out from a back corner of the room, her voice tinged with worry. “Is it true? About the Sheldons?” Noguchi recognized her as one of the garage maintenance workers, a mechanic.

  Noguchi took a deep breath; she and Hiroki had discussed how to handle the situation after Ikeda had called in, but it wasn’t going to be easy—the Sheldons had apparently been well liked on Ryushi.

  “I’m not sure what you’ve heard, but I’ll tell you what we know,” she said. She consciously kept her voice low and firm; panic in the crowd would help no one.

  “Approximately two hours ago Bobby Sheldon came into town on a flier, alone. He said that his parents had been killed by a group of XT life forms. Just before he arrived, Spanner and Ikeda found an injured… being in Iwa Gorge that is currently unconscious in the med center. Bobby Sheldon identified this being as similar to the life forms that killed his parents.” Noguchi took another deep breath. “When we were unable to reach Mr. and Mrs. Sheldon by radio, we sent Ashley Ikeda on a flyby. I am sad to report that she just called in with the news that the Sheldon house is in flames, and their breeding stock has been slaughtered.

  “We must assume that an attack is imminent.”

  There was a slight murmur through the crowd. A few people coughed, a few children started to cry softly.

  Loren Gaunt, one of the ops screen-watchers, stood and raised his voice to be heard above the uneasy group. “So what are we going to do with the thing in the med center? And what is it, exactly?”

  Several others nodded.

  Hiroki stepped forward. “At this time, we know very little about the creature currently in Miriam Revna’s care. It is a large, humanoid being, unlike anything previously registered in the EXT guide. It is under restraint, and has shown no signs of recovering so far—although Revna doesn’t seem to think it’s in critical condition—”

  “You mean you haven’t killed it?” Gaunt sounded incredulous. “After it murdered Bob and Sylvan?” A couple of others called out agreement.

  Noguchi raised a hand for silence. “The creature in the med center was not involved in their deaths; the time frame—”

  “Fuck the time frame,” said Gaunt. “For all we know
, that thing was responsible for sending its buddies out to murder them!”

  The calls of agreement were shouts now.

  Noguchi felt that spark of anger she’d had for Ackland. She clapped her hands sharply above her head and yelled.

  “Be quiet!”

  The room quieted. An infant howled loudly in the back and was soothed by its mother.

  “Perhaps if we all panic and turn ourselves into mindless animals, we’ll get out of this situation! Who else wants to add to the problem?”

  Her voice carried well. She could feel her cheeks flushed with anger, and was gratified to see that Gaunt’s were also red—he dropped his gaze to the floor and didn’t speak again.

  Noguchi nodded. She had everyone’s attention.

  A young boy raised his hand.

  “Yes?”

  “Is Bobby okay?” The boy was no more than twelve; his voice was high and shaky, obviously upset by the situation. His father placed a hand on the child’s shoulder.

  She nodded and attempted to smile. “He has a sprained ankle and is in shock, but he’ll be all right. Squires has agreed to watch him for a while.”

  Noguchi motioned at the young, teacher who chewed nervously at her lip.

  She scanned the room, watched the fearful crowd with a calm eye.

  This is bad, but we will handle it. She felt in control; for once, the people of Ryushi looked to her to tell them what to do. She wouldn’t let them down.

  “If we could hold other questions for a few moments, I’ll tell you what we propose. Mr. Shimura is in charge of security. All ablebodied personnel will be expected to take a shift on watch, and anyone not on duty will remain within the main complex. First, we’ll do what we can to barricade the town with the cargo crates from the move here—” She nodded at Mason. “Mason here will head up that maneuver. Anyone trained on lift equipment will report to him after the meeting. There is a thirty-three-hour curfew in effect as of now; no one will go anywhere alone unless they’ve cleared it with me or Hiroki, and it will have to be a good reason. Those of you with weapons, please list them with Spanner ASAP. Ben Davidson and Jess Jonson have volunteered to show our younger members holovid graphics at the school this afternoon, so meet with them afterward for specific times.”