Aliens vs Predator Omnibus

by Steve Perry

  Left to their own devices, the novices riled themselves into a masculine lather, bragging, shoving, generally acting like young males of any species. Noguchi spent most of the morning avoiding them; she hung around the ship’s docking connector in a corner of shadows, watching the visiting Hunters come aboard.

  Tress and another unBlooded she hadn’t thought of a name for yet had been assigned to greet the visitors, directing them to wherever they wanted to go—the mess hall, the armory, “guest” quarters. Another series of metallic thumps at the lock told her that a fifth (or was it sixth?) ship had docked. Noguchi had just about decided to call the unnamed yautja “Sakana,” the Japanese word for “fish,” when Topknot suddenly appeared at the mouth of the tunnel back to the main part of the ship. Half a dozen novices trailed behind him, their speckled chests heaving with excitement. Loincloths only were the standard dress for the trainees; Blooded generally wore chest harnesses as well, for which she continued to be thankful. The yautja wouldn’t be aroused in any way by her nudity, but she was still human enough to feel some modesty.

  Topknot and his followers lined up beside Tress and Sakana, the Leader speaking quickly, apparently wrapping up a speech he’d been at for a while. Noguchi stepped away from the dark corner, gleaning as much as she could from his postures and words. Her physical makeup made it nearly impossible to speak an entire sentence in their language, but after a year of total immersion, she understood a lot more than they suspected.

  …he is—a Blooded of songs, a yautja who—wins? wins many children, has trophies of all and many enemies…

  The Leader’s respectful tone and the eagerness of his students was impressive; she’d never seen Topknot acknowledge another Hunter as anything better than competent. Whoever was docking had quite a reputation, and she decided to stay for his grand entrance.

  Broken Tusk—Dachande—was sung about, all great Leaders are. Perhaps this one is actually as worthy as he was…

  As the air lock hummed into motion, Topknot finally noticed her. He silenced the hissing young males, ignoring her. Noguchi was well aware that her presence often complicated matters; she hung back but didn’t leave, determined to exercise the rights of a Blooded Hunter, doing as she pleased when not on a Hunt.

  She was surprised when he stepped into view, flanked by two others. He was in front, there was no doubt who was the Leader, but he was young. The new arrival wore body armor but no mask; the scars across his speckled brow and on his clawed hands were extensive, but from the condition of his tusks and talons, he looked no older than an unBlooded.

  Topknot greeted him, touching his shoulder and tilting his head, calling him by name, a phlegmy rattle. When the young warrior returned the gesture, Noguchi saw the piece of cloth wrapped around his wrist—

  —and her vision tunneled, her heart skipping a beat. Without thinking, without making the appropriate request to approach, she stepped forward to see it better, certain that she must be mistaken.

  No, can’t be—

  It was part of a Marine Corps banner, the three red stripes for land, sea, and aerospace, the design unmistakable—the meaning unmistakable, worn around his right forearm as a trophy, and she reached out to touch it—

  —and remembered herself even as he backhanded her, knocking her to the floor, her arm going numb from the powerful smack.

  Noguchi submitted automatically, her mind simultaneously chiding her for her stupidity and trying to rationalize the banner. The youthful Hunter stared at her for a moment along with Topknot and the others, silent and still—and then turned away, not acknowledging her apology but not interested in pursuing the matter, either. As one, the group started out of the lock, her insubordination ignored but not forgotten, Topknot already telling the newcomers about the territorial stakes.

  Alone, Noguchi stayed on the floor, feeling conflicted, angry and embarrassed and horribly confused. No Hunter would wear such a thing unless, unless he’d taken it.

  But the code, it had to have been a fair fight, the Marine must have attacked first because they won’t hunt intelligent species…

  She couldn’t even pretend to accept that. The predatory race Hunting humans? The difference in technology, in strength, in pure aggressive capacity—“fair” didn’t enter into it, a Hunter could easily slip away from a human assault. It wasn’t supposed to happen, there were rules against it in spite of the Clan’s general xenophobia—

  —and they respect him. If it’s such a taboo why do they respect him? What was his punishment?

  There was no point in trying to convince herself that the Hunter had suffered for his actions, and even if the Marine had attacked first, even if the warrior couldn’t get away and was forced to kill—she was human.

  Human, and living with a race that is disgusted by me and those like me. Hunting with a race that exalts a human killer.

  This Hunt would be her last. No one would be sorry to see her go, Topknot would surely be thrilled to drop her off somewhere populated by her own kind.

  And then what? Go back to corporate hustling, to a life with no life, to fifty hours a week behind a desk and no one to talk to. For excitement you could take up sport hunting, weekends spent at a sim range, firing light at a screen—and inside, the part of you that is warrior will wither and fade, and you’ll be one among billions, a lonely woman marking time until she runs out of will. Your Blooding will mean nothing, it will be an ugly scar from a life you once had. No more Hunting, Machiko. How honorable you’ll be…

  Noguchi sat on the floor for a very long time, feeling things that she thought she’d left far behind.

  11

  The drop into Bunda’s atmosphere wasn’t easy, but the small shuttle’s design had been loosely based on the USCMC UD-4 series—not close enough to allow for maneuverability or comfort, but Lara was willing to settle for what it did offer—the capacity to drop into a planet’s atmosphere without burning to a crisp.

  Thanks to an auto program loaded up by one of the pilots on Bunda, the shuttle broke through only moments from the survey station and flew itself to the designated coordinates, giving the three passengers an opportunity to see the world that had found them. H/K MAX teams usually stayed out in the field for months at a time, with occasional R&R stops at satellite stations—but even without weeks upon weeks of sterility to compare it to, Lara thought that she’d never seen such a beautiful place. Bunda was fantastically, wildly alive, the pale lemony sky strewn with flocks of indigenous birds, the surface thick with plants in multiple shades of green. Ellis pointed out some movement through one of the clearings they passed over, and they saw a group of brown-furred humanoid creatures loping through the heavy grasses, tailed, each no more than a meter high. Like primates, if Lara remembered her history, test monkeys. Seeing them running free through the warm, living jungle was amazing, an antidote to the slaughterhouse that had been DS 949.

  The three of them sat in the warming cockpit, Ellis and Jess half-sitting on the copilot seat together. Lara was the only one with any flying experience, although hers was almost exclusively zero gee. It struck her again how incredibly lucky they were; saved, with only a few hours of air left, by people who had the technology to see them safely to this paradise.

  If only it wasn’t Company…

  “There it is,” Jess said, pointing roughly northeast from their moving position. Almost as he said it, the shuttle veered toward the station, giving them a clear view of where they were going. It wasn’t as beautiful as Bunda, but it was close.

  It was a design that Lara had heard about but never seen—an ME.Hess, Multi-Envelope, named after the architect who’d drafted the first, on Earth. The MEs were relatively inexpensive, durable, and because their contact with the ground was limited to a small number of relatively slender stabilizing posts and a single industrial lift, there was little danger of unexpected interaction with a planet’s natural inhabitants—an important consideration in unexplored environments.

  “It looks like a bunch
of balloons with a couple of ledges tacked on,” Jess said, and Lara smiled, nodding. In essence, that was exactly what they were looking at; the gigantic off-white spheres were filled with buoyant gasses, supporting a series of decks for landing and observation, laboratories, and a decently sized living area. The uninflated “balloons” were much cheaper to transport than powdered plasticrete.

  And Lord knows the Company’s always looking at the bottom line—

  A rather tense male voice spoke clearly through the ’com, startling her a little. She wasn’t used to being addressed by her title anymore.

  “Lieutenant Lara, this is Kevin Vincent, ASM for Bunda survey, do you read?”

  Acting or Active Station Manager. Lara took a deep breath and tapped the return, aware that Jess and Ellis were both watching her nervously. She’d been second-in-command for the H/K team, only Pop outranking her; for a while, at least, she’d be speaking for all of ’them.

  “Affirmative, Mr. Vincent. This is Second Lieutenant Katherine Lara from W-Y49392 Nemesis. Also present are Martin Jess and Brian Ellis from Nemesis. On behalf of all of us, I’d like to—”

  She’d wanted to thank him first thing, boost their chances for a warm reception, but Vincent cut her off.

  “You’ll be landing on Deck Seven, ETA four minutes. Please remain aboard until we’ve had a chance to verify your status; we’ll let you know when you’ve been cleared.”

  Lara frowned, her gut sinking. “Mr. Vincent, I can assure you that—”

  “Over and out,” he said. The ’com went dead.

  Ellis looked pale. “What does that mean?” he asked. “Are they—do we have to wait until they call one of the home offices? Find out who we are?”

  “It means they already have,” Jess said, his voice tight with anger. He glared out at the growing station, his upper lip curled. “They don’t want us wandering around, telling people what really happened. Probably gonna feed us some bullshit line about quarantine.”

  “But it’s standard protocol, isn’t it?” Ellis asked. “Us coming from an infected area?”

  Jess laughed, a humorless bark. “Yeah, right. We don’t have sleep capacity, they’d know that. For Chrissake, if one of us was dorked and corked, we’d all be wiped by now.”

  They fell into an uneasy silence as the shuttle lowered itself over LZ Seven, the station giant now that they were so close, Lara keeping her hands on the controls in case the program glitched. Jess was right, Bunda wasn’t worried about infection—which could only mean that someone, Grigson maybe, had sent word. They were the sole survivors from an infested DS terminal, the only witnesses to a terrible mistake made by Weyland/Yutani, and there was no way the Company was going to let them walk. What was the old saying? Out of the frying pan, into the fire…

  As soon as the shuttle touched down, Jess stood and walked to the side hatch, talking back over his shoulder.

  “We can’t get off, but they didn’t say anything about opening the door, did they?”

  Before Lara or Ellis could move, Jess had hit the lock panel, jabbing at the controls determinedly. The thick metal door raised with a hiss and warm air flooded in, warm and almost overwhelmingly fragrant. It smelled of soil and vegetation, of sun-warmed life, of jungle rot. It was exquisite, and Lara and Ellis both stood and moved toward the open hatch, Lara feeling a reflexive need to breathe it in. She didn’t notice that Jess had frozen, gazing out into the sunny morning with a look of disgust on his unshaven face.

  “I guess they really don’t want us to get off,” he said softly.

  Lara and Ellis stood on either side of him, looking at the six men and women standing some ten meters away, standing near a fuel hatch. Their expressions were grim, their bodies tensed—their hands white-knuckled on the carbine rifles they held, pointed at the open door of the shuttle.

  At us.

  The half dozen “guards” didn’t move, didn’t speak; they didn’t have to. She and Jess and Ellis were prisoners, and would be until the Company decided what was to be done with them. And in that second, realizing that the situation was only going to get worse, an idea that had been gradually forming in Lara’s tired mind finally took shape. It was so obvious that she could hardly believe it hadn’t already occurred to her.

  “Jess, Ellis. Back away from the door, slowly. We have to talk.”

  The Trader’s log had been destroyed, along with the Trader, the space station, their ship—but the Company didn’t know that. If they did, she and the boys would be dead already.

  And as long as they think we might have something they want…

  Slowly, hands raised, the three of them moved away from the hatch, away from the light, the hope that Lara had felt at the sight of the beautiful world reborn as the idea solidified, the details falling into place.

  If they played it right, there was a chance that they could walk away, after all.

  * * *

  Noguchi was in her quarters, sitting on her rumpled bed and lost in thought. The Hunt would begin soon, probably as soon as dusk fell over the planet Shell was orbiting. Most of the eggs would have hatched by now, the face-hugging embryo carriers finding incubators, the aliens born in crunches of blood and bone. They were much more active at night, on worlds that had night; most Hunts started when the day star set over the seeded planet. Even now, as the bugs began their violent domination of their new home, the Hunters would be arguing over the best sites, working through the rankings for each group of warriors, and planning path direction; Hunts usually started scattered, but almost always ended with all of the groups meeting at a predesignated site—the better to display their bloody trophies, to count losses, and step up in caste.

  The problem was, she didn’t know if she could Hunt this time. Seeing the human trophy carried by the young Leader had shaken her, thrown her off-balance in a way that she hadn’t expected. How would she be able to find the focus she’d need to Hunt? The damage that had been done to her respect for the yautja was deep, and probably irreparable. She was afraid to leave, to go back to a way of life she didn’t really understand—but she couldn’t stay, either. The only question was, would she Hunt this last time? Could she?

  So heavy was her introspection, the thud at her door made her jump. It had to be Topknot, no one else had ever come to her quarters. Noguchi stood and walked to the door, not sure what she would say to him about her behavior in the ship dock. He hadn’t Blooded her, but she was still a Hunter on his ship; her actions could affect his standing among other Leaders.

  To her surprise, Topknot didn’t seem angry when she opened the door. He greeted her instead, his massive claw covering her shoulder, his upper and lower mandibles at rest. The Leader motioned her out of her room and toward the main part of the ship, his small eyes shaded in the low light by the thick bowl of his skull.

  She stepped out into the corridor with him, somehow knowing what was next as they moved away from her room.

  I’ve known for some time, haven’t I? That it would come down to this…

  The Leader signed as he walked, punctuating the simple gestures with simple words. He raised his hands, extending his claws. Touched his Blooding mark, a cross shape. Tapped his chest and motioned toward hers, clattering the sounds of proverb.

  Those without honor are not part of the Hunt/Clan. Those who do not fight for their honor have no honor.

  Noguchi signaled, fist to brow. I know this.

  Topknot didn’t speak for a moment, giving her time to prepare for the inevitable. She’d had the impression from the beginning that there was no love lost between Broken Tusk and Topknot, but he’d given her a chance, at least. For that, she still respected the Leader, even as she felt her anger rise.

  The first thing she’d learned about Hunter culture was that you were only as good as your last fight; in that way, every yautja was equal, Leader and novice alike. When a Hunter’s courage or honor was in doubt, he had to fight. She waited, again, already knowing.

  Topknot raised his claws agai
n, gurgling the name of her opponent.

  Noguchi signaled her understanding. Shorty. She was to fight an unBlooded. If she won, her status would remain unchanged. If she lost—if any Blooded Hunter lost to a novice—

  I lose my place in the Hunt. In all Hunts. In time she’d be given a chance to prove herself again—but considering what she’d been thinking and feeling lately, there wasn’t going to be a later. Her break with the Hunters was imminent.

  Noguchi turned her face to an invisible sun, tracing her hand in a half circle. When?

  “H’ka-se,” Topknot growled. Now.

  They were already walking toward the kehrite, the room where novices learned unarmed and simple blade combat. Noguchi took a deep breath, nodding inwardly, resigned to whatever fate lay ahead.

  Win or lose, it would be a relief.

  12

  “Stupid damn gun—”

  Davis Pratt jerked at the shotgun’s cartridge holder as he stumbled through the bushes, wishing that he knew what the hell he was doing, or better yet, that he wasn’t in the middle of the damn jungle with Rembert. Of all the men to be teamed with, something just had to go wrong when he was out taking samples with Harold Rembert—

  “Wait, wait a second,” Rembert gasped from behind him, and when Pratt felt the touch on his shoulder, he very nearly turned and shot the fat geologist.

  Jesus, he’s trying to give me a heart attack!

  “Rembert, keep your damn hands offa me!” Pratt could hear the panic in his own voice and it only made him angrier and more afraid. He’d never seen a bug before, eleven years doing soil tests for the Company and he’d seen a video, but that was all—

  —and that was one of ’em, had to be, and what the hell is it doing on Bunda?