Alien: The Cold Forge

by Alex White

  Pulling herself across the floor, inch by inch, she reaches her door. Wrapping her fingers around the lip, she pulls herself even with the hallway to the rest of the crew quarters. There’s a thin strip of LEDs in the hall with a green light running along them. It’s the navigation system, for guiding people around the station. It’s been so long for Blue that she barely remembers it—she only had to use it a few times in the very beginning, and even then it wasn’t all that helpful.

  Who is left, trying to find her room?

  A creature’s scream echoes in the darkness down the long corridor that leads to the central strut. She knows that tone all too well—it’s the noise they make when they call out to one another. Her veins fill with ice.

  They’re coming.

  Blue scrambles back into her room, pulling herself up on a nearby table to slap at the door closure panel. If she can lock it, they might lose interest in her and go back to where there are more humans to eat. Her fingers bounce off the doorframe, and she gets it closed on the second slap. She manages to strike the lock button, and with a chime the door panel turns red.

  Then it turns green.

  Then the door opens again.

  Dorian is controlling it from the server room.

  He closes it, then opens it, then shuts it once more, as if to say, “Yeah, I’m here to watch you die.” She knows he’ll toggle it again as a signal, once they get closer.

  Blue crawls as fast as she can, frantically scanning the room for some way to hide from them. Her bed is too tall, with no cover underneath. They’d find her in seconds. She spies a ventilation duct, but knows they’ll sniff her out. Without Marcus to sponge her, she’s grown pungent. No, she must ward them off entirely.

  Maybe she could improvise a flamethrower using Dorian’s matches. Her room has tubes and oxygen feeds, but the plastic would melt. She crawls to the bed to fetch the matches and striker from between the mattress and frame, fishing her fingers into the crevice. She hadn’t ever intended to retrieve them, and only finds three sticks—as many as she’d left him.

  Maybe she should just jam her pen into the ball spring valve of one of the oxygen tanks and fill the air with flammable gas. She could spark a match and take out a few of those fuckers with her. But then she imagines Dorian watching from Juno’s control center, a wide grin on his face.

  Fuck that.

  So she can make an explosion, but she has to find a way to survive it. If she had time she’d rig some kind of remote spark using a circuit board, wiring, and a few calls over the network. But that’s ridiculous. Even if she hides inside the ventilation duct, it’ll send shreds of the vent cover into her face, along with the flames. She needs something solid and flat to place between her and the explosion—something that’ll cover the vent completely.

  In the corner of the room, sits Marcus’s nursing stand, where he keeps the clean implements he needs for minor urgent care: scissors, gauze, and an assortment of other clean, packaged items. They all rest atop a detachable metal tray a little larger than the vent shaft cover.

  Blue surveys her course through the room. She’s going to have to climb upright twice to make this happen: once at the desk for her pen, and once at the bed for the oxygen valve. Using the drawer handles as a ladder, she pulls herself toward the work surface, kicking her atrophied legs to try and get her knees under her body.

  She brings her eyes level with the desktop and spots one of Marcus’s pens, arranged to be exactly parallel to the wall. She throws her arm across it and smacks her palm down on the pen before dragging it onto the floor with her. She’s panting, so exhausted after what she’s done, but she can’t stop to rest.

  Struggling to the bed she takes hold of the side rail, then scoots her butt to better position herself. Her hand muscles and biceps burn, but she pulls herself up high enough to get a second hand on the side rail. A few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have thought she could do this once, and now she’s done it a few times in two days.

  She folds at the waist over the side of the bed, her legs dangling helplessly over the edge, yanks the medical tubes out of the oxygen valves, and tosses them to the floor. She then unscrews the barrel of the ballpoint pen and pulls out the cartridge, leaving a hollow body with a funneled point. The cap fits almost perfectly within the entrance of the ball spring valve, and Blue shoves until the pen won’t go any deeper.

  A sharp, whistling hiss fills the air—too sharp, perhaps. The valves weren’t meant to be opened this wide.

  There’s a flammability alarm when there’s too much oxygen in the room—it shuts off her tanks when the alarm is triggered. That means, once the alarm sounds she only has a short while before her oxygen dissipates harmlessly.

  Her gaze falls upon her portable terminal, resting upon her nightstand. She needs to bring it with her if she can. It’s the last, best way to access Juno and Titus, and maybe the power loader. She hugs it against her chest and falls back to the floor, protecting it with her body. She strikes her shoulder and almost cries out, but stifles it. Every part of her is exhausted, and she feels like she’s on the edge of a seizure, like distant rumbles before a storm.

  The nursing tray isn’t far from her—maybe a yard or so. She must crawl over the caster base of the gurney to get to it. Her hands and arms don’t want to cooperate anymore. She’s put them through too much already, and she needs to rest. No time. She hauls herself over the bed’s base to the nursing tray. She’d originally thought she would pull herself up on it, but her body won’t let her. She rocks the nursing stand to see if the tray is detached, and it sways freely. She could knock it over, but that would be like smashing a gong while the snatchers stalk the hallways. She’ll have to catch the tray if she wants to live long enough to get into the ventilation duct.

  Grasping the stand, she leans it carefully toward her. It’s lighter than she expected, and it topples almost immediately. Blue catches the tray, but the tools on it roll and clink to the ground. She flinches hard, certain that the chitinous beasts will come scrabbling at her doorway like hungry cats.

  But they don’t, and Blue is left staring at the closed portal, shaking. She rolls onto her stomach and crawls toward the maintenance shaft, pushing the tray and portable terminal with her chin. They make a negligible scraping noise, but it sounds like a bullhorn. Reaching her goal, she pushes the tray and computer aside so she can get better access to the ventilation cover and its knurled thumbscrews.

  She takes hold of the first one, and it refuses to turn. In her heyday, Blue could open any jar or bottle, but now her pinch-grip strength isn’t enough—either that, or some maintenance person threaded the screws too tightly. She eyes the slot that goes across the top of the screw head and glances back to the tools on the ground. Next to the roll of gauze, she finds a pair of surgical scissors.

  Her lock beeps, freezing her heart in solid ice. Dorian is locking and unlocking her door to get their attention.

  Not dead yet. Just go. With her soft medical slippers, she hooks her big toe through the finger ring of the scissors and drags them up toward her hand. Grabbing them, she slots one of the blades into the screw head and twists with a little more leverage.

  The screw clicks free, and she repeats the process on the other screws before shoving the scissors aside. She’s gotten the first screw entirely out when a terrifying sound fills her ears.

  The oxygen saturation alarm.

  It rings out again, and the hiss of her oxygen leak fades. Another hiss comes in its wake—muffled out in the hallway. Dorian hasn’t opened the door yet. He’s savoring this.

  Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Blue mouths the words as her fingers work the second screw, unwilling to utter even the tiniest noise. She takes out the third screw.

  The oxygen alarm rings again. How many goddamned warnings do they get? There might’ve been a footstep outside her door. It doesn’t matter—she can’t look back. What would it change if she did?

  The fourth screw comes free, and she pulls the grate aside before car
efully setting it on the floor. With all of her strength, she lifts the portable terminal into the ventilation duct. It’s grown so unbelievably heavy.

  The door opens, and the sounds of chewing and ripping meat slide into Blue’s ears. One of them is eating Merrimack. The dead bastard bought her some time.

  She frantically slides inside, but there’s no room to turn around, so she has to push back out. Her skin is electric with fear. This isn’t her best plan. It’s not even a reasonable plan. If she isn’t eaten, she’ll be blown to pieces. Blue turns around on the floor and positions herself to go in feet-first. She pushes herself backward, her robes riding up her thinning body, scraping her stoma-ridden stomach even more.

  The lock panel on her open door chimes a few more times in rapid succession—a dinner bell. The creature in the hallway screams.

  Blue tucks her shoulders and pushes all the way into the darkness of the shaft. She pulls in her computer, then reaches out and takes hold of the nurse’s pan, ready to position it over the opening. As she lifts it into place, Blue swears she can see a snatcher’s long talons wrapping around her doorframe. She wants to scream, but she holds it in—years of pain have taught her how.

  The nursing tray must be propped at just the right angle—it’s big enough to fully cover the opening. Too much, and it might be knocked free during the explosion. Too little, and it might tip forward and give her away. It’s solid surgical steel—if it seals against the opening, it should blunt the explosion. Blue sets it into place and scoots further into the ventilation shaft to put even the tiniest distance between herself and her room.

  The oxygen alarm has stopped. Does that mean her room is safe? It can’t be. It’s only been a few seconds.

  With shaking hands, Blue draws the trio of matches from her pocket and lines one up with the striker, only to immediately break it in half. She hasn’t lit a match since she was a small child, and there aren’t a lot of uses for them in modern life.

  Tossing it to the side, she raises the next match, aligning it to the striker. She’s deep enough into the ventilation duct that her feet come to rest against the deactivated airflow motor. Blue ignites the match, and as she places it against the tiny crack between wall and tray, her own shaking hand extinguishes it.

  One match left.

  Maybe she can wait for them to clear off. They might not see her. Then comes the click of a talon so close to the opening that Blue can count the toes. It’s now or never—light the fire or lose the oxygen. So she edges up to the tray, so close she can almost touch it with her forehead. She holds the last match close to her body, as though it’s the last remaining source of heat in the universe. She places it against the striker.

  The crack on one side of the tray darkens.

  Black lips, a sneer, viscous drool and glassy teeth. It hisses like a flamethrower, and Blue gasps, taking in its fetid breath. It’s been eating corpses.

  Then she exhales the words “fuck you” as she strikes the match.

  The flame catches and zips around the corner of the tray. Fire licks between the openings, scorching her arms in the fraction of a second. Then the explosive pressure snaps the tray against the ventilation duct with a deafening clap, and Blue screams.

  The explosion has nowhere to go except out her door— but she could swear she failed to fit the tray right. A roar fills her head and rattles her bones, spinning her world with the concussive blast.

  The howl dies to tinny ringing, like a drill on teeth.

  She imagines the beast propelled into the hallway.

  The creature’s cries drown hers out, its anguish palpable, and she remembers the fury of the one she let burn to death over the fires of Kaufmann. She’d been so terrified then. This time, she was close enough to touch it with her flesh-and-blood hands. She backs away as station fire alarms blare, curling further and further into the ventilation duct. The fan unit blocks any further egress.

  Steam forces its way inside the duct with her, scorching her exposed face and hands. The pressure in the room diminishes, and the nursing tray falls away, creaking and steaming.

  A shadow thrashes in the flames, its scorpion tail striking everything in sight, its mouth and toothy tongue snapping at anything it can find. Her linens have caught fire, belching dark smoke and licking the ceiling in spite of the sprinklers. The creature isn’t going to die, though. The systems designed to save the humans on the station are going to extinguish the flames around it, and it will kill her.

  Then it knocks over her medicine cabinet, full of all her supplies for the next six months—gallons and gallons of isopropyl alcohol along with emergency oxygen bottles and spare compounding waxes. The resultant fire is like staring into Kaufmann’s light.

  Heat washes over Blue’s face as the flames begin to draw their air from the ventilation duct, sucking at her, beckoning her inside. Cold, fresh air slides across her legs, and she yearns to taste it.

  The shadow’s thrashing grows more labored, and it slumps against her bed, plunging into the bonfire. Its skull splits like a pustule, acid blood boiling over the side, choking the room with sulfurous smoke. The sprinkler system doubles its output, washing the deadly blood and blue-burning alcohol outward—toward the ventilation duct.

  Blue pushes back as far into the vent as she can go, kicking at the deactivated fan blade. The cyan flames creep closer and closer to her face, and she makes herself as small as she can be. Before the roving wave can reach her, it recedes. The flames in the shaft flicker out. She peers down the duct, through the opening, to see her flaming bed sink into the floor, the creature atop it like a devil returning to hell.

  Its acid blood has created an impromptu sinkhole. Blue hopes the station’s hull will eventually stop it, but it’s pointless to worry about now. She cannot escape this vent—her room is scorching hot, and she needs to wait for the acid to neutralize on the metal.

  So, she waits in her long coffin, trapped within in the walls of the Cold Forge, clutching her portable terminal and weeping.

  INTERLUDE

  LUCY

  Of all the people in RB-232, Lucy Biltmore doesn’t deserve to be there. She’s the one who developed a conscience.

  She’d written to her mom about the horrific experiments that were going on, and her communications leaked somehow. Maybe her mom’s network got hacked. Maybe her mom talked to someone. Either way, it’d been all too easy for her contact to blackmail her.

  Do as we say, or this goes out.

  Lucy hadn’t responded. She’d been too frightened. Weyland-Yutani assigned a COMSEC officer to her, as well as a member of USCM Counterintelligence Command. She was given explicit instructions to report suspicious contact. Before she could answer, however, a second message arrived.

  A picture of her mother entering her apartment.

  Do as we say. Do not contact Bill Prater or Colonel Weber. Do not discuss this with your crewmates, or anyone else.

  Whoever it was, they knew her handlers, and that was the most credible threat of all.

  Then they sent her code to insert into Silversmile, followed by code for Javier’s flash tool. It was supposed to export all the security feeds from the Cold Forge to a satellite downlink. That was it.

  There was no way the snatchers ever could’ve gotten out. The cell doors were all manual control—no computer in the loop. Yet the creatures now roam the station, and it has something to do with Lucy’s betrayal. She’s certain of it.

  Watching her crewmates working diligently, taking shifts, aiming for their long-shot rescue, their deserving salvation, her heart sinks more with every passing moment. Every time she looks at her fingers, she imagines all the blood on her hands, and wants to vomit. Kambili’s blood mingles with the rest of the dead. He’d comforted her without question when she was falling apart, loved her, and now he was just a corpse.

  “…we know of your faults,” someone says, and Lucy jumps. No tears come to her eyes—she’s cried them sore already. It’s Nick.

  Is it ha
ppening? Have they found her out?

  She looks the kid over and swallows. “Excuse me?”

  He cocks his head, concerned, verging on cautious. They’ve all been suspicious of her for weeks—she can tell.

  “We know of four faults in the electricals. Do you think you can run some diagnostics?”

  “I’m,” she stammers. “I’m not really a power grid person.”

  “And I’m not a project manager,” Nick says, smiling at her, “but you know… stuff has to get done. We need someone to review our routing code, and you’re the most available person here.”

  Lucy can’t imagine concentrating right now. In truth, she wants nothing more than to slit her fucking wrists and bleed out in a hot bathtub.

  “Sure,” she says. She imagines herself getting through this, arriving back on Earth, living in happiness for a few months—until she gets the subpoena. The line of inquiry starts out innocently enough. “Can you explain the events that transpired on the Cold Forge, Miss Biltmore?” The deeper they dig, the worse it gets, until they know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it was her.

  She killed everyone.

  That’s probably why Blue hates her. Lucy sees the accusations in Blue’s eyes, one traitor to another.

  Lucy sits down at one of the Rose Eagle terminals and sighs. The letters on the screen don’t want to make sense anymore, and she can’t make her fingers type her credentials. It’s pointless to try.

  Given what she’s done, does she owe it to everyone to get them home safely? Can she still have a purpose when she’s committed so heinous an act? They don’t deserve to be here. Not one of them.

  Then there’s Dorian, the newcomer, who had nothing to do with the hideous experiments taking place on the Cold Forge. He’s the most innocent of them all—brought here by work just days before the containment failure. The man tracked down Blue’s embezzlement, and was probably close to sniffing out Lucy’s secrets when everything went to shit.