“Nice of you to tell us now that we’re here,” Halley said. “Please, be quiet. Now’s the military part of this operation. Let us work.”
Kalien did not reply. She thought she heard a heavy exhalation from Shearman that might have been a laugh. Halley kept her eyes on the drone.
“Screen down,” Rosartz said. A holo-screen dropped and formed from the ceiling, drifting above the nav desk and increasing in size according to Rosartz’s signal. The image flickered for a few seconds before resolving into an image from one of the drone’s on-board cameras.
“Okay, give me a steady sweep anti-clockwise,” Halley said. “Sensor suite on.” As well as visual indicators, the drone would be checking for radiation leaks, atmosphere emission from damage to the hull, heat signatures, and other signs of damage or activity.
They watched in silence as the drone performed a full circuit of the Trechman Two. Hanning adjusted the controls and steered it around the structure in the opposite plane. Ten minutes later they’d all seen a full transmission of the space station’s exterior. There was no sign of damage or trauma.
“So now are we going in?” Kalien asked.
“Wait a minute,” Tew said. “Captain, can we swing by the central hub one more time?”
Halley nodded to Hanning. “What did you see, Sergeant?” she asked.
“Something…” He shook his head. He looked troubled, even scared.
“Sergeant Tew?”
“Just let me look.”
They all checked out the screen as Hanning steered the drone for another pass.
“Closer to the windows. The third one along, then hold there.”
A dark window reflected starlight.
“Lights,” Tew whispered. A light speared on.
Tew cried out and stumbled back, and he’d have fallen if it weren’t for Shearman holding him up. Rogers gasped and swore. Kalien drew in a sharp breath.
Teeth. Dappled wet skin. Tusks. The thing was back in the room, sitting almost motionless yet looking directly at the window. Watching them, watching it.
“Yautja,” Halley said. Of everything she’d been expecting to find here, this was the least likely.
“That’s it,” Tew said. “They’re toast. We blow the station to hell and—”
“That’s not gonna happen,” Kalien said.
“You’ve got history,” Halley said to the big sergeant, firm yet caring.
Tew only nodded.
“There’s no ship,” Hanning said.
“It didn’t come here,” Halley said. “It was brought. This is a research station, remember.”
Kalien was frowning, staring at the image of the Yautja sitting in the darkness inside the Trechman Two, watching them.
“So what’s the plan, Captain?” Rosartz asked.
“Stairway,” Halley said.
“Huh?”
“‘Stairway to Heaven.’ The song you were humming earlier.”
Rosartz beamed. “Damn, another fan of real music.”
“The plan is, you do your military part of this operation,” Kalien said. “You board the Trechman Two, retrieve the computer core, sweep for survivors, and kill that thing if and when it attacks.”
“In that order?” Halley asked. “Survivors second?”
Kalien stared at her. His silence spoke volumes.
“Nuke it,” Tew said. “There won’t be survivors. Nuke it and get the fuck home.”
“There’s research on that station that—”
“Screw your research!” Tew said.
Kalien moved quickly. Tew was a good foot taller than him, but the civilian still lifted the marine and shoved him back against one of the flight deck chairs. It rattled in its mounting.
“Are you a marine?” Kalien asked.
Tew struggled in his grasp.
“Then be like a marine! Take orders and do your job. Or walk home.” He let go and stepped away, straightening his clothes.
He could have killed Tew with one hand, Halley thought. She’d heard about some of the things Section Seven did. She didn’t want to see them.
“We need a full structural plan of the station,” Halley said. “Floor plans, service routing, location of the computer core.”
Kalien held up his palmtop. Halley nodded at Hanning and he lobbed it her way.
“Now listen,” she said. She felt a coolness descending, and behind that coolness was a driving need for a hit of phrail. Outwardly she presented a stony face, but inside she was quaking, nerves jangling as she anticipated the first hit.
When I get back, she thought. When this is all done. That’s my treat.
“If you go into space, you’ll die there.” She almost heard her mother’s voice out loud.
“Now listen,” she said again. “There’s six of us, fully armed, well trained, and six against one is—”
“About even odds,” Tew said. “I’ve seen one of these things in action.”
“Then you’re useful to us,” Halley said. “You all know the drill. You’ve all been instructed and trained to combat Yautja.” She looked to Kalien. “Will this one be weakened?”
“It’ll likely have been drugged,” he said. “But I can’t guarantee you anything. Somehow it’s escaped containment, so it’s not easy to say what’s happened in there.”
“Plans are up,” Hanning said, enlarging a 3-D image in the main holo frame.
“Right.” Halley nodded. “We go in three by three. Two teams. Team one is Tew, Hanning, Rogers. Team two is me, Shearman, Rosartz. Kalien, you’re staying here.”
“Fine by me.”
“Survivors. Computer core. Then out.” She stared at Kalien, daring him to not put the search for survivors first. He looked ready to speak, but said nothing.
That coolness within her grew even colder. Ice around her heart. Soon, she thought. When I’m back. Soon.
“Let’s arm up, then take us in,” she said.
Hanning set an approach vector on autopilot, then they trooped down to the hold to prepare. As the long docking arm extended from the Doyle to the Trechman Two, Halley made her troops double-check each other’s suits and weapons.
The nerves and fear were palpable.
She wished she’d popped one more phrail tab before suiting up.
* * *
There was still atmosphere. All life support systems were green. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, other than the fact there were no people to be seen, and there was a Yautja loose somewhere on the station.
They all wore full combat suits with protective skin-masks and status readouts. The suits were flexible, but could also harden into armor. The combat rifles they carried could fire plasma bursts, laser sprays, micro-dot solid munitions, and explosive nano ordnance.
They should have felt confident.
“Stay on open channel,” Halley said. “It knows we’re here.”
“No movement readings,” Tew said. His voice was higher than usual, on edge.
“Don’t trust your instruments,” Halley said. “Eyes front. Okay, two teams head out.” She watched Tew, Hanning, and Rogers break right, then led Rosartz and Shearman off to the left. Her team would reach the station’s computer hub first, but on the way were several labs and the habitation pod.
She threw movement and heat feeds onto her visor, but always kept one eye focused ahead. She’d never confronted a Yautja, but she knew that they were born warriors, and their advances in tech often took surprising leaps. Their familiar invisibility suits were understood now, but no one could figure out how the beasts could sometimes evade motion and heat detectors.
“Sarge?”
“Clear,” Tew said. His voice was smooth, almost in her ear.
“Stay cool,” Halley said. She felt a pang at her choice of words. Someone had once told her she was cold, and the accusation bit hard. Phrail chilled her blood and numbed her senses. She’d hate to think it would leave her cold forever.
The silence was disconcerting. The stillness felt like the
calm before the storm. Her heart hammered. Her suit gave a soft warning chime in her ear and fed her some calmer to settle her nerves.
They edged along corridors, checking every open and closed doorway, pausing at junctions and using suit drones to view around corners. They moved with caution but speed, aware that the longer they were on board, the more likely it was they’d make contact with the Yautja. It wasn’t a large space station, but it was big enough to get lost in.
Halley hoped the Yautja was injured. Or perhaps it had seen them come aboard and had sloped away to hide, knowing when it was outnumbered.
Yeah, right, she thought. Everything she knew about Yautja told her that it would welcome such a challenge, not shy away from it.
“Lab on the right,” Rosartz said.
The lab door was closed, but there was a large smear of blood around and on the handle. It was dried, flaky.
“Shearman,” Halley said. She and Rosartz held back across the corridor, weapons aimed at the door, while Shearman pressed up against the wall and rested his hand on the handle. Halley prompted her suit to project a countdown onto their visors, and at zero he threw the door open.
Halley held her breath, finger squeezing the trigger. Nothing moved. But there were things inside the lab that had moved, once.
“Fuck me,” Shearman breathed.
“Keep it down,” Halley said. “Kalien, you getting this?”
“Yeah.” His voice crackled in her earpiece, as if he was very far away. He might as well have been.
The lab was twenty meters square and filled with tables, pods, and sample storage cases. Some of the sample jars contained weird specimens—biological, mechanical, and strange mergings of the two. Blood was sprayed across almost every surface, and hanging from the ceiling were several bodies. They had once been human. They were badly mutilated, hanging by their feet from holes punched in the ceiling panels, spines torn out, bodies spewing insides to the floor and surfaces beneath them. Each swayed very slightly with the change of air pressure from the opened door.
“Six down,” Rosartz said.
“Tew, anything?” Halley asked.
“Bodies,” Tew said into her ear.
“How many?”
“Er… don’t know. I’d guess… a dozen.”
“Okay, we head to the computer hub,” Halley said. “If we find survivors on the way—”
“There won’t be any survivors,” Kalien said.
“Radio silence from you, Kalien,” she said. “Don’t confuse the issue. This is a combat situation, and you’re not involved.”
They moved out, closing the door behind them. Halley wondered briefly about who those people were and what their families must be going through. Best they don’t know the truth, she thought. Company can tell them their loved ones died in an accident.
“Movement!” Rosartz said. “Level two, zone four.”
“Tew!” Halley said. “Got movement coming your way. Can you see—”
“Holy shit!” Hanning shouted. Then the shooting began.
Halley switched visual feed into her visor from her squads’ bodycams, so she saw everything that happened next. Confusion, chaos, shooting, horror. And blood.
Hanning from Tew’s point of view, sweeping her com-rifle up and around and unleashing a hail of laser fire, peppering the bulkhead and blasting electronics into a starscape of exploding points.
Rogers ducking down and rolling beneath the laser burst, then rising and being pinned to the wall by something penetrating her chest. Her suit hardened into protective armor, but not fast enough. She opened her mouth to scream and blood filled her visor.
Tew staring, open-mouthed, terrified, as Hanning closed on him and passed by, shouting over her shoulder for him to hurry, focus on her, run so that—
Hanning’s vision blurred as she was plucked from the floor and smashed into the ceiling. Her bodycam flickered, then focused again as she struck the ground. Above her, a shimmering shape manifested as if from nowhere. It stood astride her chest, raising one foot and bringing it down onto her face, again and again.
Her bodycam gave out.
Tew saw, and through his point of view, Halley saw as well. The Yautja was huge, head brushing the ceiling even as it stooped and stomped on Hanning. Sparks of white light sizzled across its armor. It wore bandages around its upper arms and wide thighs, and its traditional helmet was missing, revealing deep welts across its cheeks and around its throat. Tubes hung from these wounds. Its forehead was dotted with sensor points.
If it was sick, it didn’t appear to care.
Tew raised his weapon, and at the last second Halley saw on his readout that he had selected plasma.
“Tew, no, you’ll take out the entire—”
He fired. Halley’s visor grew dark against the glare, and when she prompted it to access Tew’s bodycam feed once more, there was only darkness. No vision. No sound. Nothing.
“We have to help!” Shearman said. “Level two, there’s a staircase at the end of this corridor.”
“They’ve gone,” Halley said. It was not the first time she’d lost a marine on a mission, but it was the first time such a loss had felt so hopeless, so wasted. The Yautja had crushed the three of them, like grinding insects beneath its feet.
“The plasma blast must have killed it,” Rosartz said. “Right, Captain?”
Halley wasn’t listening. An alert was chiming in her suit, and the computer translated it from the Trechman Two’s systems.
“Hull breach,” she said. “Blast door on Level two, zone four has closed. Anything in there has been sucked out into space.”
“No,” Shearman said. “No.”
“Let’s get this finished,” Halley said. “Computer core, back to the ship, then we’ll blast this shithole into atoms.”
“You sure our scientific advisor will like that?” Rosartz asked, dripping sarcasm.
“He can eat me,” Halley said. “Stay sharp. Move out.”
Every instinct was screaming at her to abandon the Trechman Two and get back to the Doyle. The whole place was compromised, with a dangerous alien on board and a hull breach. Even now she could feel a growing vibration through her feet as the superstructure strained under the tension. Fault lines would be spreading, pressures building, and internal blast doors were never designed to provide a permanent barrier between atmosphere and vacuum.
Time was ticking.
Halley led the other two past more closed doors. She knew they should be checking each room so that their retreat was covered, but they had no time. Now, they had to trust in speed to get the mission done.
She could mourn the loss of three marines and agonize over what she might have done differently later, when they were back aboard the Doyle. She’d have some questions for Kalien then, too. Like just what the fuck were they doing experimenting on a Yautja.
“Station’s computer core ahead,” Shearman said. “Security door sealed.”
“Rosartz, get to it,” Halley said.
Rosartz shouldered her rifle and got to work on the door mechanism, while Halley and Shearman covered the corridor in either direction. She tried to maintain her cool, but found that she was blinking rapidly, and sweat slicked between her face and visor. The suit removed it efficiently, but she was not handling this well.
Her vision was blurry. The distinction between her body inside the suit, and the outside, felt wide, as if the suit itself was much more than simply a thin layer of complex, hi-tech material. Halley felt apart from the action, and that would not do. Not now. Now, she had to be in the thick of it. Her two remaining marines depended on her.
“No movement,” Shearman said.
“Yeah, nothing on sensors,” she said. “It’ll be coming, though.”
“We’re in,” Rosartz said. The door whispered open and they backed inside, closing the door behind them. Rosartz keyed in a code and the door clunked locked.
“Kalien, we’re in the computer core,” Halley said.
�
�We need the hub and any backup devices,” he said.
“We’ll carry what we can without compromising our safety,” she said.
“The Yautja’s still with the dead marines,” he said. Halley froze, glancing at Rosartz and Shearman.
“But they must have been blasted out into space when the hull went. All of them.”
“Just telling you what sensors are telling me. It must have survived, dragged their bodies to safety.”
“Why?”
Kalien remained silent.
“I’ll check,” Halley said. “You two get what we came for.” While they worked, she tried switching her feed back to the fallen marines’ bodycams.
She gasped, then turned away so that Rosartz and Shearman could not see her reaction.
Viewed from Rogers’ damaged camera, she saw the Yautja butchering Tew’s corpse. She knew that the creatures often took trophies from the bodies of their victims, but to see it happening to someone she knew…
She switched off the feed. “We need to hurry,” she said. “Done yet?”
Rosartz was prying a small unit apart with her combat knife, while Shearman loaded several circular objects into the belt around his waist. The backing sprung from the unit, and Rosartz reached inside and tore out an obsidian cube, about the size of her fist.
“We’re done,” she said. “Let’s go.”
As Halley approached the door, her suit warned her of movement on the other side. She glanced around the room and saw no other means of exit. She caught Shearman’s eye. Nodded. Signaled to Rosartz.
Rosartz dropped the cube into a big pocket in her suit and aimed her palmtop at the door.
“As soon as it starts opening,” Halley said. “Micro-dot. Fill the corridor and blast it to shreds. On three.” She started the countdown.
As the seconds ticked down, she frowned. The movement looked odd. Too small.
Reaching one, Rosartz signaled the door to open.
“Wait!” Halley said.
“Thank God—” a new voice said.
Shearman fired. A score of micro-dot munitions powered through the growing gap between door and frame, and Halley had a split second to see the woman standing beyond. Her white suit was grubby and stained with smears of dried blood. Her face was pale and drawn, as if she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. On her collar, the familiar Company symbol.
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