by Tim Lebbon
“Protective perimeter,” Halley said. “Billy, now!”
The aft hatch powered down, the ramp flexing into steps. McIlveen and Palant went first, then Sprenkel and Huyck to prep the ship for flight. Bestwick fired off three more nano rounds, gritting her teeth, swearing under her breath, before Halley shoved her toward the ramp.
“Gove!” Halley said.
Gove ran for the ramp.
The Xenomorphs appeared from behind the ship, hidden by the dropped ramp until the last moment. Two went for Halley, two for Gove.
Halley’s com-rifle was knocked from her hands. The first creature shoved her off the ramp and down onto the landing pad. It hissed, dribbling onto her visor and obscuring her view. Another shape reared behind it. The second Xenomorph.
Halley drew the combat knife from her boot and slammed it into the side of the first creature’s head.
It screeched and thrashed, limbs and tail whipping at the air and knocking the second monster from its feet. Halley shoved it aside and withdrew the blade, but the metal was already melting. She dropped the smoking knife and dived toward where she’d seen her com-rifle fall.
A bright light erupted around her, suit hardening against the blast. She was blinded by the glare, her visor smeared with a Xenomorph’s blood and innards, unable to react.
“Halley!” someone shouted, and she stood and ran toward the voice, colliding with the ramp and being hauled aboard by Bestwick. Tripping on a step, she fell and turned onto her back, wiping her visor so she could see.
Gove was crawling toward them, screaming. A Xenomorph was slumped across his legs, half of its torso blown away, and Gove knew what was about to happen.
The dead creature exploded. Its head came apart, toxic insides slumping down across Gove’s back and head, blood splashing down around him and across the Pixie’s ramp. He screamed again as the gel-like insides ate away at his suit. Perhaps if it had been whole he might have survived, but the dead Xenomorph must have slashed at him before he killed it.
Acid blood found its way inside, eating at the damage in the suit and melting its way deeper. Flesh bubbled, boiled, blood steamed and spewed from the slashes in his suit, and his body began to liquefy from the inside out. As Gove began to burn, Halley pulled her sidearm and put a laser shot through his head.
“Here,” Bestwick said. She held out her hand and Halley took it, hauled inside just as the smoking ramp began to close.
Inside the ship, combat suits were being shed as acid steamed, sizzled, and made the atmosphere acrid and rank. Billy turned life support to maximum and there was a breeze as air was cycled.
“Get us up,” Halley said.
“Already moving,” Sprenkel said.
“Gove?” Huyck asked.
Halley shook her head. She looked at Palant and McIlveen, checking them over for injuries. They seemed fine. “There are two spare seats,” she said.
Halley and her crew took their seats, Sprenkel piloting and Huyck at the weapons point.
“All weapons online,” Huyck said, “but Major, the Pixie’s designed for space combat. Anything other than the lasers on low charge will be like—”
“Let’s worry about that when we’re airborne,” Halley said. “Billy, let’s have a schematic of the battle, as accurate as you can.”
The ship’s computer formed a grid of information in holo screens before each of them, combining all transmissions from combat suits on the ground and anything left working in the base to form a picture of how the battle was going. It made for sobering viewing.
The defending BloodManiacs had been driven back against the burning base. Xenomorphs were still charging, and others continued dropping onto them from the base’s roof, rushing through flames that would have killed anything less hardy.
“Lasers, half charge,” Halley said. Huyck glanced back at her but said nothing. “And keep an eye on that bastard android’s ship.”
Sprenkel guided the Pixie toward the base, drifting sideways so they were always nose-on.
“Do it,” Halley said.
Huyck opened fire. Lasers streamed out from the Arrow-class ship, smashing through lines of Xenomorphs and scorching half-mile trenches in the ground, blazing furrows filled with the torn and melting remnants of a hundred enemies. Even from this far away, they could see the marines retreating, huddling against the base’s walls and protecting themselves as much as they could from the lasers’ sparkling emissions.
“Hold,” Halley said. Smoke and fire obscured the battlefield.
“Third ship’s coming in again,” Bestwick said.
“How far out?”
“Two miles and closing.”
“Nuke ’em.” Halley knew it was overkill. But no one questioned her, and none of them really knew just how effective the enemy’s shields were.
But before they could fire the nukes, the enemy ship exploded above the forests, and a few seconds later massive shockwaves shoved the Pixie sideways over the base and into the billowing column of smoke and fire.
Sprenkel guided them out, lowering them over the besieged marines. In the air out beyond the cliffs the explosion expanded, dropping debris and fire into the forests below, trees flattened, the fresh new landscape altered forever by conflict.
“What the hell—?” Halley said. She couldn’t hide the fact that she was shaken, Snow Dog or not.
“Another ship,” Billy said. “On screen now.” A ship appeared, magnified many times and flying in delicate, diversionary patterns.
“Yautja!” Palant said.
“Come to help,” McIlveen said.
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Halley said, struggling to damp down the awe she felt, in spite of herself. “Guys, keep an eye on that ship. This isn’t over yet.”
With sensors keeping watch on the Yautja ship as it orbited the site of the raging battle, Halley and her crew turned their attention to the landed craft, and the humanoid figure that still watched from beside it. A score of Xenomorphs stood around him, hunched and ready to defend him against attack.
“Open every channel,” Halley said.
“Open,” Bestwick confirmed.
“Stand down or be taken down,” Halley said.
“Who are you?” a voice said. Deep, emotionless. From this distance they could not see his mouth working, but Halley heard the hollowness of an android.
“Major Akoko Halley of the 39th Spaceborne,” Halley said. “I’ll take your surrender or your head.”
“Oh, boss, you make me hard,” Sprenkel muttered.
Halley cracked a smile. The crew were together, solid, and the loss of Nassise and Gove would only hit home after this was over. She and Huyck really had picked the best for this mission.
For a while, the android did not respond. Then he spoke.
“I am General Rommel of the Rage,” he said, “and the Rage never surrender.”
At Rommel’s silent signal, the remaining Xenomorphs across the plateau launched a final attack against the regrouped marines. A surge of laser and nano fire erupted, lighting up the sky.
“Huyck.”
At Halley’s command, the Arrow’s laser cannon pummeled the ship. Rommel fell sideways, then disappeared in a haze of smoke and deflected laser blasts. Huyck kept firing, and after a few more hits the ship’s shield collapsed and blasted apart, exploding across the plateau and wiping out the android’s guard.
“You got this?” Halley asked, opening a channel to the BloodManiacs. In her holo screen she saw marines advancing across the grassy plains, executing the few remaining Xenomorphs as they charged, working in small groups against the faster, more brutal enemy.
“We’ve got this,” a voice said. “Just make sure you’ve got him.”
“That’s my plan. Sprenkel?”
The Pixie purred across the plateau and circled the burning ship, weapons at the ready. There was no sign of the android, and Sprenkel moved out so that Billy could scan the cliffs.
“There!” Palant said, pointi
ng at her holo screen. “Something moving, bottom of the cliff.”
“That’s a hundred-yard drop!” Sprenkel said.
“He’s an android,” Halley said. “Take us down. We need him.”
“Few Xenos went with him,” Bestwick commented as they drew closer.
“We’ve got a bigger gun,” Halley said. “Put us down.”
As they dropped toward the android Rommel and the remains of his Xenomorph army, they saw him scurrying across shale slopes at the base of the cliffs. The creatures remained close to him, forming a protective shield. He didn’t even appear to be limping.
Halley considered her next move. It would be easy to kill him, but he was valuable to them. If they caught him, accessed his core, maybe they could discover so much more about this new enemy that was attacking them. The Xenomorphs were just weapons, but this was their master. To know the identity of his master might give them the upper hand.
“We could go down there,” Bestwick said. Sprenkel drifted the Pixie sideways, slowly shadowing Rommel’s movement along the cliff’s base. The android glanced at them now and then, and did not appear to be in a hurry.
“I’d want to take out those Xenos first,” Halley said. “Huyck, can you be that accurate?”
“I wouldn’t be confident of not hitting him,” he said. “The ship’s weapons are designed for maximum effect, not pinpoint accuracy.”
“Shit!” McIlveen said. “Don’t you see where he’s heading?” He pointed at his screen, and Halley only saw the cave at the last minute.
Then Rommel was inside, closely followed by his Xenomorph guards. One of them paused just inside the narrow cave entrance, sun shimmering from its dark carapace. Waiting.
“Damn it!” Halley said. “Billy, can you scan that cave, see how big it is?”
“Give me a minute,” the ship’s computer said.
“You two okay?” Halley asked Palant and McIlveen. Palant seemed to be shaking a little, head back in her chair.
“I got splashed,” she said, revealing her forearm. On it was a bubbled, bloody mess the size of her thumb. “It’s nothing.”
“Nassise will…” Halley said, voice drifting away.
“I’ve got it,” Bestwick said. She stood and grabbed a small first aid box from beneath the seat, then squatted beside Palant.
“Really, it’s nothing,” Palant said.
“Chill,” Bestwick said. “None of this is your fault.”
Halley felt a swelling of pride. Bestwick, hard as nails and twice as sharp, had read Palant’s concerns and tried to put them down.
“The cave system is extensive,” Billy said. “The entrance is narrow, but it soon opens up into several tunnels and caverns, some going quite deep. There’s evidence of volcanic activity further in, but past that my sensors can’t reach.”
“We’ll have to go in there,” Halley said.
“Yeah,” McIlveen said. Halley and the other marines looked at him. He withered beneath their glare. “I… I mean… that android’s important. We need to…”
“They know what they need to do,” Palant said.
“Sprenkel, find somewhere for us to—” Halley said no more.
Then the world exploded.
The ship rolled and spun. Something struck Halley’s head and darkness fell, accompanied by the sounds of screaming.
10
JOHNNY MAINS
Outer Rim
November 2692 AD
Patton grins at him. It’s unnatural, because an android like this was never meant to grin. He is not one of the more graceful creations built to look, act, smell, taste, and exist like a real person. He is more functional than that, more targeted in his design and purpose.
Patton is built for war.
Johnny Mains tries to back away, but his dead crew are piled around him. Faulkner, arm melted and bone showing through. Cotronis, her features bloodied and frozen in terror. Snowden, her body whole, face caved in by a Xenomorph’s teeth. Behind them stand the aliens, the android’s army hissing, dribbling, and waiting for his orders. Patton’s name is stamped on their hides. They might as well be machines, droids to the android, and perhaps beneath their hard, reflective skins there exists a metallic skeleton, carbon-filament organs. Acid for blood.
He reaches for a sidearm, but all his weapons are gone. His combat suit is malfunctioning, torn in several places and letting in the monsters’ toxic body fluids. He can feel himself beginning to burn.
Even behind his grin, Patton is still damaged, searching for something inside his wounded chest. His smile falters a little, his hands delving deeper into his wound. Pinned to the wall, still he has full motion, and the heavy Yautja spear does not seem to concern him.
His left hand pushes fully inside his chest, fluids spurting, blood hissing as it strikes the Yautja corpses at his feet. It’s as if he and the Xenomorphs are actually of the same species.
Mains searches around for a weapon of any kind. There’s nothing. His dead crew stare at him, lifeless, loveless. He is there now only as a witness, one man left alive among so much death and destruction. He wishes himself dead. He wishes he could be part of his crew again.
Patton screams.
It’s a scream of triumph. Startled, Mains looks back to the android and sees what he has done.
His wounded chest has been wrenched open around the spear. The weapon has passed close to his spine, splitting ribs and destroying internal organs, but that’s not what captures his attention. His whole focus, for those last few seconds, is taken by what Patton holds in his hands.
The heart is a mechanical wonder, still pumping and dripping white fluid as if dispensing the seed of life, but Mains knows from Patton’s expression that life is not his wish.
The android grasps his beating heart in both hands, squeezes, and—
* * *
Mains snapped awake, panting in the darkness and confused at his weightlessness. Perhaps the explosion had blasted him out into space. Maybe he was dead, shattered and burnt to atoms by Patton’s self-immolation, and his memory was only now catching up with that knowledge.
“Fuck me!” he said. Then he felt a hand on his chest and lips against his ear, and the cabin’s light glowed softly. Lieder sat up beside him and reached for a drink, holding onto the bed straps to prevent herself from floating across the cabin. She passed him the water pouch. He nodded his thanks.
“Same dream?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Crew hears your screaming, they’ll wonder what I’m doing to you in here.”
“I screamed?”
Lieder shrugged. Smiled. “More of a loud grunt.”
“Thanks for making me feel even worse.”
“Hey, you’re awake and here with me. How bad can you feel?”
She had a point, but the humor masked her own lingering depression, and a grief that they both knew would never fully fade. They were a lieutenant and a private without a ship or crew, adrift in an uncaring universe. That they had each other, Mains thought, was probably all that prevented them both from going insane.
“I wish Durante would initiate gravity,” Lieder muttered.
“His reason’s a good one,” Mains replied. Durante had filled them in about the Yautja incursion, and the Navarro was still on a war footing. Forcing the crew to operate in zero gravity prepared them for conditions should they enter into combat. Mains had forgotten how much Durante liked to run things by the book.
“Yeah, it is,” she admitted. “I like him, and his crew, and I still can’t quite believe they got to us in time.”
“One day we’ll find someone who can be fucked to calculate the odds.” Mains took a drink and looked Lieder up and down. They slept in their underwear, like any good Marine, always ready to slip on their combat suits in a matter of moments.
“About what I said when I woke up,” he said.
“About dreaming?”
“No, the other thing.”
“Is that an order, L-T?”
>
Mains signaled for the light to dim down, and the darkness that welcomed them was warm and sweet.
* * *
In an Arrow ship built for eight, ten people did not make for comfort. But the Navarro’s crew welcomed Mains and Lieder, and Lieutenant Durante ensured they had a small cabin to themselves. He hadn’t even asked if the two of them were comfortable sleeping together. Mains wondered if it was so obvious.
It had been almost thirty days since they’d been rescued from the ship docked at UMF 12, and Mains and Lieder were trying to be as useful as possible. It was difficult. The Navarro flew itself, heading back toward the Outer Rim at top speed and under orders to patrol the area around drophole Beta 37, now only two days away. The crew went through routine maintenance briefs and diagnostics, but spent much of the time working out, eating, and filling their time with holos, reading, and sleeping.
Mains was well used to the boredom that could set in on a long journey.
He found Durante on the flight deck, sitting in a seat that must have been specially built for his big frame, feet up on his control panel, reading from a datapad and sipping coffee. Three of his crew members were there, the others either in the rec room or sleeping.
“Eddie,” Mains said.
“Johnny.” Durante stuck the datapad to his chair and sat up straight. Even seated he looked huge. He hardly had the build for space travel, especially in a cramped ship, but he oozed charisma and was a natural leader.
“What’re you reading?”
“Combat Tales from the Twenty-Second Century.”
“Always took you for a Stephen King kinda guy.”
“I scare easily,” Durante said, and they both laughed.
“Any more contact from Tyszka Star?”
“Nothing new,” Durante said. “Three drophole attacks confirmed in Gamma sector, and contact has been lost with five more, two of them deeper into the Sphere.”
“So why send us to the Beta quadrant?”
“Insurance,” Durante said, shrugging. “Can’t guarantee whichever bastards are doing this will confine their attack to just four-hundred-thousand square light years of space, can we?”
