by Tim Lebbon
“Who the hell is General Jones?” Mains whispered to Lieder.
“Battle of Kotto Plains, 2098,” Lieder said. “She was four feet eleven tall. Killed thirteen enemy with a Samurai sword.”
“Jesus. These psychos like their history.”
They followed, but Mains didn’t trust these people. Once of the Rage, now Founders again. He didn’t know what any of that meant. All he knew was that they had discovered this monstrous ship en route to the Human Sphere, and whoever had built the Othello meant to use it for war.
* * *
They reached a clean tunnel where the body-part-laden gel did not flow. It still stank, but it was dry and warm. It appeared that the three people had been living here for some time.
“You need to tell us everything,” Durante said as they came to a stop. He’d already warned those left aboard the Navarro to expect an attack, and ordered them to take off and shadow the Othello until he called them back. It was an incredibly risky move for those left on board the enemy ship, but it was the call Mains would have taken. None of Durante’s crew challenged the order.
Mains respected them hugely for that.
It was the one-armed woman who started talking. Her name was Sara, and once she began, the flow of words seemed unstoppable, as if this was a story she had been aching to tell for so long. It was amazing. Incredible, but Mains didn’t doubt any of it. It made so much awful sense, and the more Sara told them the more his stomach sank, and hopelessness set in.
The Excursionists had been posted at the Outer Rim because there was always the fear that something terrible would come at them out of the void. Humanity had always been afraid of what it didn’t know, and something that might exist in the darkness. Now that fear had been realized.
The most shocking aspect was that their doom had been seeded at the heart of the Human Sphere, so long ago.
The woman told them about the Founders and their journey out beyond the Sphere centuries before. Their discovery of Midsummer, what they found on board that strange alien habitat, and how they brought those creatures aboard their two remaining mother ships. She described the fall of the Founders, the death of Wordsworth, and the rise of Beatrix Maloney and the Rage.
All of these were events that had happened before they were born, she claimed. Shipborn, they called themselves, but still Sara relayed the story with the certainty of truth. Their history was transparent. Wordsworth had always insisted upon that, saying that selective history was as good as lying, and that way lay dictatorship.
“So the Rage wants to go back home,” Mains said.
“More than that,” Sara said. “Maloney wants to conquer. She says it’s about vengeance upon those who drove the Founders out in the first place, but that wasn’t what happened at all. They left of their own accord. They were seeking new truths, exploration, and freedom of expression they couldn’t find under the gaze of the rest of humanity. But now, with the Rage more powerful than even Maloney ever hoped, she’s coming back to destroy, and to take control of the Sphere herself.”
“Why?” Durante said.
“Because she’s mad,” Sara said. “Insane. She and the rest of the elders are more than three centuries old. They managed to slow the aging of their bodies, with the help of the life-giving compound they found on an alien world. But their minds did not fare so well.”
“Yet you were brought up within the Rage,” Lieder said. “What changed?”
“There’s always been a strong contingent of Wordsworth supporters aboard Othello. The Rage elders aboard our ship didn’t discourage Wordsworth memories as much as Maloney did aboard Macbeth, and over time a sort of underground movement was formed. An appreciation society—but it grew, and with it came a realization about what we were doing. The Founders were creative and open-minded people. They were experimenting with some incredible things, science that none of us shipborn can possibly understand—multiverse balancing, quark replacement theories, other things whose names are even a mystery to me—but the Rage has thrown that all away. The true reason for them fleeing the Sphere has been forgotten. Everything the Rage is doing now goes against what Wordsworth ever stood for.”
“So what happened here?” Mains asked, returning the focus to the present. He knew what Sara said was important, and that she and the others carried intelligence that might be vital to the future of this war, but their immediate concern was survival. This information needed passing back to the Sphere, and to do that they had to return safely to the Navarro.
“Rebellion,” Sara said. She looked away from them all, staring at the wall. Her two companions sat closer, sharing comfort. “Awful, bloody rebellion.”
“You’re alive, so you must have won,” Durante said.
“You call this winning?” the man asked. His burned face was still wet with leaking fluids, his right eye a hazy, blind mess.
“Eddie, we need to get Sara and the others back to the Navarro,” Mains said.
“Yeah,” Durante agreed, then he spoke into the comms unit. “Bekovich, you there?”
“Here, boss.”
“How’s it looking out there?”
“All quiet. We left the docking bay, no problem, and we’re shadowing the ship. Boss, there’s more life-form readings now, and before we left we picked up more movement. Might have been you guys, but there were other areas, too.”
“Right,” Durante said. “Might need you to come and pick us up in a hurry. Still trying to establish exactly what’s happening here, but meanwhile put a transmission together. Lock into Moran’s suit cam and that’ll tell you all you need to know.”
“Already viewed some of it, L-T,” Bekovich said. “It’s unbelievable.”
“Which is why you’ve gotta make the transmission clear,” Durante said. “Keep channels open.”
“What’s our situation?” Mains asked Sara.
“Not good. The three of us are all that’s left.”
“Of the whole crew?”
“No. All that’s left of the rebellion. The fight was quick and brutal. The Rage elders were wiped out, much of the crew killed. Escort ships clashed and were destroyed. The fight went on, smaller scale but just as violent. General Jones launched his Xenomorph soldiers against us, and we were all but wiped out. Now, it’s him and a few Rage-loyal shipborn who control the Othello. Them, the Xenomorphs, and us. That’s all that’s left.”
“Out of how many people originally?”
“A thousand,” the man said. “Maybe more.”
Lieder whistled softly. “So we’re on a ship ruled by an android with delusions of grandeur and an army of Xenomorphs,” she said. “How many does he have?”
“A hundred hatched, maybe more,” Sara said, “but you’ve seen what the Othello carries. Kill one, and he hatches three more. That’s why we’ve been on the run for so long, hiding, moving, hiding again. All control decks are sealed off, fully automated. If we could destroy the ship, we would have by now, but it’s just become a matter of survival.”
“So what’s all this for?” Durante said. “What’s the ultimate purpose of the Othello?” He gestured around them, pacing, and Mains realized that Sara and the other two were only revealing parts of their story. So much remained untold. They could never afford to trust these shipborn people.
Sara and the others exchanged glances.
“Sara,” Mains said. He shifted his com-rifle, just a little. “What’s the plan?”
“Have there been attacks?” she asked. “Assaults across a sector of the Outer Rim?”
Mains nodded. He thought of Patton, but decided not to mention the android and his ship of Xenomorphs. They had to gather intelligence here, not give it.
“That’s Maloney,” Sara said. “As we understand it, the plan was for her to make a lot of noise, while the Othello slipped into the Human Sphere, unseen and unnoticed. Once inside, the ship’s programmed to split into a dozen component vessels, each one filled with Xenomorph soldiers, Rage commanders, and android generals. Sur
prise attacks, hit and run, and our main target was the Sol System.”
“Old Earth,” the man with her said, his one good eye suddenly filled with wonder.
“But your rebellion stopped it, right?” Moran asked.
“No,” Sara said. “The ship’s fully automated. General Jones is in command now, and all the damage we did to drive and navigational systems has been fixed by the Faze.”
“What the fuck is a Faze?” Hari asked.
“Our maker,” Sara said. “The fixer. The engineer. The beast.”
“My day’s just getting better and better,” Lieder said.
“We know enough,” Durante said abruptly. “We need to send all this info back to Tyszka Star. Meanwhile, we get off this ship and nuke it to hell. Any thoughts?”
Mains liked the way Durante invited input from his crew. The man was a decision maker, but this was unknown territory with plenty of intelligence they still didn’t have or understand. He was wise to ask the opinions of others.
“Boss… so many people,” Moran said.
“They’re not people anymore,” Sara said. “We harvested them from big ships we tracked and found, impregnated them. They’re just birthing vessels for the Xenomorphs.”
“They can’t be saved,” Mains agreed. “We’ll be doing them a favor. Besides, we can’t risk allowing this ship to enter the Sphere. There might be thousands here, but there are billions there.”
“Bekovich, we’re getting back to the docking bay,” Durante said. “We might be running.”
“Oh, we will,” Lieder said. She glanced at Mains and he saw her fear, felt it himself, because they had been through this before. That time they had survived, but only because Durante and his HellSparks had showed up at the last minute. No one would be coming to rescue them this time. They were on their own.
But they were fully armed and suited, and they knew some of what to expect.
“You’ve been surviving here for a long time,” Durante said to Sara. “You must know the hidden routes and crawl spaces.”
She nodded, and looked suddenly scared. All three of them did, glancing at each other and drawing closer.
“What is it?” Mains asked.
“This ship is all we know,” Sara said. “We were born on Midsummer, but we’ve lived most of our lives on board Othello.”
Lieder looked around, sniffed the air.
“I thought you’d be pleased to leave.”
“Boss!” Hari said. She’d been standing a little way along the tunnel, keeping watch, and now she was moving back toward them.
Mains listened, his suit amplifying sound, expecting to hear the dreadful noise of spiked footfalls. But it was something else.
Something splashing.
“They know you’re on board,” Sara said, panic slurring her words. “General Jones is preparing to fight.”
“How do you know?” Mains asked.
Several globules of gel drifted into the tunnel. Each carried a stench with it, age and rot and fresh blood, and when the trickle turned into a surge, the body parts started to come.
“He’s started the birthing process,” Sara said. “The Xenomorphs are hatching, the pods are venting. We need to run!” She and the others stood and hurried in the opposite direction, insulated boots clomping softly on the deck.
Mains caught Durante’s eye and they exchanged a silent nod. For now they would follow the rebels, but they still couldn’t trust them, and they would have to prepare for a fight.
They switched on their lights. Something nudged Mains’s hip and he looked down at the severed arm. It was tattooed, wearing an image he didn’t recognize from centuries ago. Its ragged end was still bleeding. He kicked it aside as Lieder grabbed his own arm and squeezed.
“Johnny, we’ve got to go!” she said.
The entire group ran together. Durante was at the front, his com-rifle trained on the three rebels ahead of him. Moran and Hari brought up the rear.
A roar behind them signaled a sudden increase in the gel surge, and Lieder slipped, tipping back with her arms held wide. She splashed down into the mess, her impact causing a slow wave of further impacts that splurged gel up against the wall. Mains reached back, grabbed her, and pulled.
He was holding a man’s arm. It was attached to a ruined, headless torso, torn across the stomach, chest open with shattered ribs pointing outward.
“Fuck!” Mains shouted, shoving the corpse aside.
Lieder splashed a little way from him, sitting up, then standing again, kicking body parts aside as she pushed through them. The gel was thick now, deeper, heavy and flowing all around, driven from behind by the weight of yet more. It was laden with lumps that Mains had no desire to see. The flow moved slower than water, the gel thicker, but its weight was substantial, shoving him forward every time he lifted a foot. He was forced to run, carried along with the sickening surge.
Sara’s torch flashed ahead, lighting their way. The combat suits added their own lights, and the tunnel flickered with reflections from the gel’s surface.
“Not far now!” Sara shouted back.
“L-T!” Hari shouted.
Mains tried to turn to see what was wrong, but his foot caught on something and he went sprawling. Just as his head passed into a floating mass of gel and shreds of flesh, he caught a fleeting, terrifying glimpse.
Moran was rushing toward him, his eyes wide. Behind him, Hari stood braced against the wall, com-rifle aimed back the way they’d come at shadows that danced, scraped, and swam toward them.
Then Mains was subsumed in a mass of the sick fluid, splashing with one arm, rolling, trying to kick himself upright without dropping his com-rifle. His suit gave him air, but he could still feel the sick warmth of the gel through its thin, sensitive material. Warm like blood.
Laser flashes flickered across his vision. Something grasped his heel and pulled, and Mains pushed against the slick floor, finding his feet and turning in one motion in case it wasn’t a human hand.
His weapon was pointed at Lieder’s face. She slapped his shoulder, then turned and started shooting.
Hari and Moran were firing along the drainage tunnel, laser blasts and nano-shot forming a deadly kill zone in the confined space. Soon, it wasn’t only human body parts that bobbed and flowed past them. Slicks of acid bubbled, and Mains was glad for his suit’s protective qualities.
But not everyone wore a suit.
“Sara!” he shouted. “Get out of the flow!’ Ahead he could see Durante trying to shove the woman and her companions into a higher side tunnel. Sara pulled the burned man up after her, but the other woman slipped, gagging as gel washed into her mouth.
Durante pulled her upright and she screamed blood. Clawed at her throat. Smoke came from her mouth and nostrils, and as he tried to grab her she lashed out, knocking his hand aside and sending herself spinning against the opposite wall. Agony made her mad as the flesh, skin, and cartilage of her throat burned through and thicker, darker blood began to flow.
Mains turned away just as Durante put the woman out of her misery.
“Fall back, we’ll cover you!” Mains shouted. Hari and Moran did so without looking back. The attack seemed to have paused, and further along the tunnel clouds of steam and smoke obscured where the Xenomorphs had died. Molten metal dripped slowly through the floating gel from where one of the HellSparks had unleashed a plasma burst.
Mains and Lieder aimed their weapons past the two retreating Excursionists, waiting until Hari and Moran reached them, then waving them on.
“L-T needs your help,” Mains said.
“You two got this?” Hari asked. She was wide-eyed, wired, but she still sounded in control.
“Yeah,” Lieder said. “We’ve met these fuckers before.”
As the other two splashed toward Durante, Mains and Lieder backed away from the enemy. Mains flipped his suit from normal view to movement detection, but the gel stream and what it contained confused the reading.
Something scraped
, just beyond their vision.
Gel slurped against the tunnel wall.
A shadow darted toward them.
They fired together, nano-shot followed by laser blasts. The stream erupted, smoking and burning, splashing from walls and ceiling and sending body parts splatting and ricocheting.
Another weapon opened up and Moran was with them, his firepower adding to the chaos.
Still out of sight, Xenomorphs screeched as they were blasted apart. The tunnel ceiling collapsed, metal groaning and melting as Mains let go three rapid plasma bursts. It was risky in such an enclosed space, but with what he knew about these bastards, there was no such thing as overkill.
“To me!” Durante bellowed.
They backed along the tunnel, more confident with their footing now. Mains tried not to imagine what the objects were that brushed past him, and he was glad when they reached the smaller side tunnel. Sara and the man were up there, a grim-looking Durante crouched low. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll have to fight our way back to the ship.”
“We’re relying on you two,” Mains said to Sara and the man.
“No,” Sara said. “We’re relying on you. We’ve been trying to find ways to destroy the Othello for months, and now you’re here.”
Together, they crawled into the darkness.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later they emerged from the drainage tunnels and found themselves in a small storage hold. It contained several wheeled vehicles and other equipment, much of it rusted and decaying, tied down with heavy chains and magnetic locks. The place smelled of age. Some of the wheels still had mud on them, and Mains wondered what strange world it came from.
“Everyone okay?” Durante asked. There were nods all around. Sara and the man were close together, relatively calm now. Mains guessed they had seen many of their friends die, and one more wasn’t a shock.
He smiled at Lieder and received a smile in response. He felt a surge of emotion, and perhaps he could call it love. He’d been in space for so long that he wasn’t sure. It had a way of reducing a person, stark infinity crushing down on your soul. He railed against it, as they all did, but sometimes it was all too much.
