Aliens vs Predator Omnibus

by Steve Perry

  Kesar was dead. Thinking anything else was folly. Perhaps the broken-tusked alien had something to do with it, but there was no anger in her heart, only a soft, wishful ache.

  “It’s so wasteful,” she said quietly. “We could learn so much from one another…”

  There was a sudden scratching sound at the door, a sliding knock.

  “Dr. Revna! It’s me, Machiko!”

  Why had she come back?

  Miriam hurried to the door. “Machiko? What happened?”

  She hit the entry control and stepped back. “Did—”

  Words escaped. The patient—no, it was a creature like the one on the table—

  Miriam turned and ran, even as the armored monster clutched for her.

  The weapon, table, trigger—!

  She ran, but the thing screamed behind her, too close.

  She was going to die.

  21

  After the initial conquest, Tichinde left the yautja to circle the ooman dwellings and get a feel for where the others might be. There were many in the same structure as the first group, but he wanted to be certain that there weren’t more, perhaps waiting to ambush them.

  He walked. And heard the sound of machinery behind him, coming closer. Tichinde blended with the shadows as they had all been taught and waited to see what would come. He patted the mesh sack on his belt; there were already three ooman trophies in it; there would be more.

  A single ooman drove a small aircraft into view, landed it, then ran to one of the dwellings, a short burner in its hand.

  Tichinde pressed the loop control on his shiftsuit, one that he had salvaged from the wreck, to record the language spoken. The tiny ooman shouted and then entered the building at the beck of another ooman inside.

  A short span passed and the flyer ooman came out and went away. He thought it was the same one—they looked much alike to him.

  Tichinde waited a few breaths and then walked to the same door from which the creature had come. He pushed the loop control on the arm of his suit and listened to the odd language spill from the copier.

  There was movement inside. And the door opened to reveal a lone ooman, defenseless. The creature’s face distorted in reaction and it howled.

  Tichinde ran forward and screamed for blood.

  The ooman stumbled back, turned, and ran for a table. A table with a strange burner on it.

  Tichinde raised his bladed staff high, ready for the final cut—

  —and there was something familiar here, a scent he knew, but it didn’t matter because the ooman must die—

  —the ooman raised the burner slowly and fired at nothing, the shot far and wide, then another—

  —and Tichinde brought the blade down, prowess and certainty in the fatal cut—

  * * *

  Noguchi heard a shot, then another. It came from the lab, or somewhere near it.

  She had stopped at the main control hatch for the front six buildings of the compound and studied the numbers, not certain of the proper codes for what she needed to do. She’d punched buttons, pretty sure that she had gotten it right, and checked her chronograph.

  The shots made her jump; they were accompanied by a shrill and primal scream.

  Noguchi jumped on the bike, turned it back toward the lab, and hoped she would get there in time.

  * * *

  Dachande opened his eyes at the sound of the yautja death cry and growled softly.

  Tichinde. And he pursued the creature, the ooman whose smell had become familiar.

  The desperate ooman ran to the table in front of Dachande’s resting place and snatched at a burner clumsily. Tichinde towered over it in classic pose, ready to deliver the death blow to the panicked ooman. The ooman who had nurtured him through the dark, what could have been his final moments until dhi’ki-de.

  Dachande lifted one of his arms. The strap holding it snapped. He thrust his talon forward and caught the staff right below the blade.

  Tichinde’s head jerked up in surprise. The ooman fell to the ground.

  With a quick shove, Dachande rammed the staff upward and knocked Tichinde backward.

  Tichinde jumped up and popped his wrist forward, extended the double bladed ki’cti-pa toward Dachande.

  The Leader growled in fury. Tichinde would raise a weapon against him? Had he lost his memory?

  Dachande freed his other arm easily and struggled, tried to leap. His lower body was still bound—

  Tichinde jumped to meet him, ki’cti-pa raised to slash.

  And the world exploded into a million flying pieces.

  * * *

  The sounds of battle were unmistakable. So was Miriam Revna’s scream.

  Noguchi stamped the pedal and ducked.

  * * *

  Miriam cried out and fell to the floor as the wall cracked open in a roar of thunder and shattered around her. A chunk of something sharp and heavy gouged her right calf. The pain was horrible. The terror was worse.

  The thunder ceased. Miriam pulled herself around a table leg and turned to see what had happened.

  Noguchi had come through the wall. The bike was turned on its side and Machiko was propped on her elbows, pistol aimed behind Miriam.

  The doctor snapped her head around and saw that the attacking creature was sprawled facedown on the floor. It didn’t move, but she could hear its labored breathing.

  The patient was still on the exam table, pinned there by one remaining bond across its abdomen. He fumbled with the strap frantically.

  “Lay down flat, Miriam!”

  Noguchi had her gun pointed at the struggling patient. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

  * * *

  The doctor stood up, right in the line of fire.

  “Jesus, get down,” Noguchi’s heart pounded.

  Miriam didn’t even look back at her. She held both of her hands up and walked slowly toward the tethered warrior.

  * * *

  Dachande redoubled his futile attempts at freedom as the ooman came at him. The creature held its odd, clawless hands open and moved slowly. The other, dressed as a warrior, had a weapon on him—but the approaching ooman blocked the small warrior’s efforts.

  It could be a trick, a ploy to calm him before the Soft Meat ripped him open…

  But the slow-moving creature was the one that had tended to him; the ki’cti-pa was unmistakable. If it had wanted him dead, wouldn’t it have struck when he was injured and unaware? There was a thick bandage of some kind around his chest—not the work of a Hunter. A healer, then.

  Dachande stopped his labors and held still, but kept his body tensed and ready. He hissed a warning to the ooman.

  And it leaned toward him, very slowly, and unlatched the restraint.

  * * *

  Miriam unhooked the bond and stepped back, careful not to move suddenly. The creature had growled at her, a foreboding gurgling sound, but didn’t attack when she was in reach.

  “What are you doing?!”

  Miriam kept her eyes on the patient “I think it’s okay,” she said softly.

  The creature studied her for several long seconds. Miriam held still, not wanting to frighten it.

  “Are you insane?” Noguchi was furious. “They killed Hiroki and six others!”

  She didn’t move. “They did. He didn’t.”

  Miriam was scared, in spite of her intuitive feeling that the creature wouldn’t harm her. Intuition wasn’t a lot in the face of death.

  The patient moved fast. It slammed one clawed hand down on her shoulder.

  * * *

  Dachande inspected the ooman thoughtfully. This was what he had wanted to Hunt all of his life? It was ugly, but certainly not dangerous-looking. It was stupid, too. Approaching a warrior with no weapon didn’t indicate a particularly high intelligence. Or it was incredibly brave and ready to do battle. Small as it was, if it wanted to fight, perhaps it was also mad?

  The armed one babbled at the ooman next to him. Dachande got the impression that th
e defenseless creature had kept him from being killed. The ooman with the handheld burner lowered the weapon slowly.

  Overcoming a lifetime of yautja lore was not a thing he wanted to do—but good warriors stayed open to new information. Perhaps the Soft Meat on this world were different.

  Dachande decided. He placed one of his claws on the ooman’s shoulder and shook, the symbol of greeting.

  The ooman shrank slightly, and the other raised its weapon again. Dachande took his claw away and waited.

  After a pause, the tiny ooman stretched itself high and returned the gesture.

  Dachande tilted his head at her. Fascinating!

  Then it was that Tichinde clattered his mandibles and slowly got to his feet.

  Dachande’s anger flared. The s’yuit-de! He would die!

  Dachande jumped past the ooman and whacked Tichinde’s skull. The blow knocked the student to the ground.

  Tichinde said nothing, but scrabbled at the pouch on his belt.

  Dachande snatched the sack from the idiot yautja and held it up. Trophies.

  Ooman trophies.

  His rage was blinding. Tichinde had Hunted with no supervision—and had Hunted ooman!

  Dachande lifted the yautja by his tresses, the fury boosting his strength. He could smell his own musk, hot and heavy with the desire to kill. He raised one fist and smashed Tichinde in the mouth.

  Tichinde tried to pull away, responded with a weak blow to Dachande’s gut.

  Dachande howled in his face, a shriek of pure disgust and outrage. He struck again.

  Tichinde was his student, once. He had broken the rules of the Hunt. There was only so much slack Dachande could give him, even as a Leader. Now the rope must be pulled taut. Now, Tichinde must be destroyed.

  It was the law.

  It was a matter of honor.

  22

  Noguchi watched in amazement as the two huge warriors fought. The broken-tusked “patient” was the more skillful—and was winning easily.

  Myriad half thoughts ran through her mind. The patient was grateful, the other was with the killers, the broken tusk was better, older, brighter perhaps, the doctor was insane, they had to get out—

  Miriam stood a few meters from the battle, just stood there and watched.

  Noguchi ran forward, pistol ready, and grabbed the doctor by the arm.

  “Come on!”

  The monsters could slug it out to the death for all she cared; they had work to do.

  She and Miriam ducked through the shattered wall and ran across the compound. Noguchi steered them toward the main garage, to the east. The med center was closer to the holding pens, but they would need a flyer for what she had in mind and the hover bike was totaled; there would be other bikes at the garage—

  Except Miriam can’t fly one and they won’t carry two people.

  Noguchi wanted to scream. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  And on the heels of the panic, she remembered the copter.

  The copter!

  She ran faster.

  Miriam had trouble keeping up; blood ran down one of her legs. The compound was completely dark now. Many of the building lights had been broken at some point, and the few remaining only seemed to add to the shadows. A faint breeze had sprung up, hot and fetid. A death wind, full of carrion stench.

  Behind them and ahead, shapes moved and shrieked. It was hard to see what was happening. Noguchi guessed that the two alien races were fighting.

  Maybe they won’t even notice us—

  A giant black bug leapt in front of them from a shadow and raised its strange arms to attack.

  Miriam screamed.

  Noguchi pointed and fired twice. The first shot was too high. The second tore out the bug’s throat. Blood sprayed.

  A drop of the fluid spattered against one of Noguchi’s padded suit arms and hissed, ate through the fabric and burned her skin.

  Acid, some kind of acid—

  The noxious substance ate deep into her flesh. As they ran forward the garage, Noguchi felt her own blood soak into the coverall. She ignored it as best she could; they were almost there.

  They reached the garage, Miriam now stumbling badly. Noguchi half dragged her toward the back of the building. The copter was usually kept at the med center, on the roof’s helipad; the doctors used it to get to emergencies. But Noguchi remembered that it needed some minor adjustment after the weapons-collecting run.

  I just hope it wasn’t engine trouble—

  Noguchi laughed sharply as the rounded the corner, a short bark of relief. It was there! She looked around for trouble, but the yard seemed clean.

  Miriam stumbled behind her and fell.

  “Oh, shit, I can’t get up, I’m sorry, Kesar, I’m sorry, I can’t—” The doctor tried to hold it together, but she looked close to a breakdown. Her face was the color of dust, her eyes rolled upward.

  Noguchi pulled Miriam to her feet and dragged her to the copter.

  “It’s okay, Miriam, you’re going to be fine, okay?” She hoped she sounded soothing. “Everything will be fine, really, okay?”

  They reached the vehicle. She opened the door and hustled Miriam in, still talking. “Don’t worry, we’re going to get out of here, okay? I’ll help you fly this thing, just tell me what to do and we’ll be fine.”

  That seemed to cut through the doctor’s hysteria Revna raised her tear-streaked face to Noguchi, eyes wide.

  “Kesar always flew. I don’t know how.”

  * * *

  Dachande didn’t want to spend too much time on Tichinde, much as he felt the idiot deserved to die slowly. He had to find the other yautja, if there were any. Find out what was going on, how he had come to this state. It did not feel good, what had happened.

  Tichinde fell again. His tresses were matted with thwei, two of his mandibles broken and crushed against his worthless, dying skin.

  Any fight the student had in him had fled. He tried to crawl away.

  The sight of the yautja slowly inching from his Leader was infuriating. The kwei would die as an animal, a coward, rather than go out like a warrior.

  Dachande waited no longer. He snatched Tichinde’s bladed staff from the floor and raised it over his head, aimed it at the base of his student’s upper spine.

  Brought the sharp blade down—

  Shiiink!

  Dachande jerked the blade from the body in a patter of blood and then spit on the corpse. The Leader donned the kwei’s armor and took his weapons; he left the bandage on his chest. There was some pain there, perhaps the dressing would help. After a second’s hesitation, he pulled the recording loop from Tichinde’s chest; there might be a use for it later.

  Armed and ready, with a fire in his gut that screamed for justice, Dachande stepped into the dark night to find his other students. Perhaps Tichinde had been alone, but he doubted it. Hunting alone was not common behavior to the young.

  And if they were here, in the ooman camp, on a Hunt—nothing would stop him from the lessons he would teach them.

  * * *

  “What?”

  Revna nodded. “He was going to teach me—”

  Noguchi tuned her out for a second.

  Okay, she can’t do it, we’re fucked—

  She searched the myriad of buttons and switches on the console and found one that said MAIN. She flipped it.

  The copter’s engine hummed to life.

  She tapped her comset. “This is Noguchi in copter”—she looked over the board quickly—“copter one. Do you read me, tower?”

  A hiss of static.

  And then Weaver’s welcome voice.

  “We copy. What’s happening?”

  “Miriam Revna and I are at the garage and neither of us are checked out in a copter. We could use some help here.”

  Weaver sounded calm. “Okay, we got you. Hit the switch that says MAIN.”

  “Did it.”

  “Do you see the button that says COMP? Punch that.”

  Noguchi spotted it and
did what she was told. A small screen flickered on with program questions. She and Revna both sighed at once.

  “Okay, we’re on a roll,” Noguchi said quietly.

  “David, get over here.” Weaver’s voice was distant, then came back through the com. “I’m going to let Spanner talk you up, okay?”

  “Fine. What’s the situation there?” Noguchi touched her arm lightly and grimaced at the pain. At least the bleeding seemed to have stopped.

  “We’re all set for your signal. Everything’s locked up, for a while at least. But you should see what’s happening in the southwest quad; looks like an all-out war.”

  “Consider the signal given. Wait until we get off the ground, and then go as soon as you hear it. Good luck.”

  “Copy that, boss.”

  There was a pause; Noguchi waited for Spanner to come on and tapped the comset, anxious to get out of there. She turned to look at Miriam—

  —a dark shape popped up in front of the copter, a nightmare bug. Its teeth dripped and gnashed as it plunged one claw through the windshield.

  * * *

  Scott and Tom had stayed quiet for a long time. The sounds outside of weapons fire and death cries were incentive not to move around much. The monsters were out there and maybe if they stayed under their rock here long enough, they’d eat each other and go away.

  Scott figured out that they were in the southwest quadrant of the compound, in one of the two empty holding pens. There were six others, full of bellowing rhynth; their cries mingled with the alien screams.

  Harmony à la hell.

  “I’m starting to think we were better off in the ship,” Tom whispered.

  “Yeah, right. Stuck in the spider’s web waiting around for dinner. Their dinner.”

  Scott cracked the door slightly to see if anyone was coming to help. So far, they had seen nothing. Well, no people.

  Strange humanoid creatures were at war with the bizarre animals that had taken over the ship. It was too dark to make anything out clearly, but the situation was obvious; between the screams and the weapons, there was one fuck of a battle going on out there. They couldn’t tell who was doing what to whom and for what reasons, but it was bad.