by Tim Lebbon
Or maybe it was because after UMF 12, and losing most of his friends and crew, he considered every extra moment borrowed time.
“Boss!” Hari called. “We’ve got incoming.”
Mains called up a schematic on his suit visor, as did every other marine. He and Lieder worked effortlessly with this crew they barely knew, their training coming to the fore, years of experience flowing through their veins and making every action second nature.
“Sara, you two are our guides,” Mains said.
“They’re coming to kill us,” Sara said.
The movement sensor in Mains’s suit indicated intruders closing on the hold from several directions. They approached on the level they were on, and above and below. He counted at least thirty traces. They were coming in force, General Jones wasn’t messing around.
“We choose our own time to die,” Mains said. For the first time since they’d encountered the shipborn, Sara did not look scared.
“Moran?” Durante asked.
“Three doorways into this shithole,” Moran said. “We’ve mined all three.”
“There’s service ducting, too,” Sara said.
“We’ll barely fit through there,” Hari said.
“Which means the Xenomorphs can’t get inside,” Sara said. “They’re bigger than us.”
“They might be waiting wherever they think we’ll emerge.”
“We can’t afford to make a stand here,” Durante said. “Johnny?”
“I agree.” The traces were closer, maybe a minute away. “We leave some surprises for the fuckers here, and get out through the ducting. If we’re quick enough we can drop from the ducting and run like fuck before they know where we’ve gone.”
It was a plan, but the ship was a mystery to them, their suit schematics confusing. Plans made on the run rarely ran smoothly.
Sara and the ship’s engineer led the way to the service ducting in the ceiling. They had to stand on one of the wheeled vehicles, and Lieder tugged on a grating until it hinged down. She shoved Sara up through the opening, then her shipborn companion. Mains, Moran, Durante, and Hari followed, before Mains reached down and lifted her up after him.
Every moment left alive is precious, Mains thought. He enjoyed the pressure of Lieder’s hand in his, their touch through the thin gloves, but he mourned the fact that they’d never feel each other skin on skin again. Their sex had gone from screwing to making love, and the passion of those moments came back to him now. Deep, intense.
“Come on!” she said, reaching for the swinging grating. It took two of them to pull it back up and secure it.
“Close,” he said. He didn’t need to. They could all see the traces on their movement sensors, converging on the storage hold, slowing, circling… and then the impact sounds began below.
“Move it!” Mains hissed, but they were already wriggling through the ducting ahead of him, combat suit lights barely visible because their bodies almost filled the compact space. The ducting was only a little wider than Mains’s shoulders, and he had visions of it starting to slope, slick and slippery, and then narrowing…
He shoved his com-rifle ahead of him as they went. He was last, following Lieder. If the Xenomorphs did get in and somehow squeeze into the tunnel, he’d jam himself in there, shoot and fight, stab and tear them with his bare hands, giving the others every chance to move ahead while the beasts ate their way through him.
They would all be thinking the same way. They were Colonial Marines, and more than that, Excursionists. Every Excursionist signed up expecting to end their lives far, far from home, and often in violent situations. It was the manner of a death that defined a person, not the place and time.
From behind him came the first mine blast, followed by shrieking as a Xenomorph was smothered in blazing plasma. The duct shuddered. Several more explosions followed, more screaming, and then angry hissing as more creatures smashed their way into the hold. Clawed feet scampered, and then a different sound came as they swarmed across the old parked vehicles.
Mains continued moving. They were all doing their best to make as little noise as possible, shimmying on elbows and knees, pushing with rubber-soled boots, but they couldn’t be completely silent. When he heard the animal noises cease from behind and below, he knew they were listening.
Mains paused, turned onto his side, slid the com-rifle down across his stomach. He had to jam it diagonally across the duct, and even then it only just turned.
“Johnny?” Lieder whispered through the suit’s comms unit.
“Go,” he said. He heard them crawling ahead of him.
From behind came a violent, rapid impact of something trying to smash through the access grille.
Mains aimed his suit light back along the duct. He could see the grille bending inward under each impact. He didn’t think the Xenomorphs could fit inside.
A clawed hand burst through and tore the grille away, and he waited for the domed head to appear. He’d give it a plasma burst. It would be risky, as the white-hot flames might double back up the duct, but his suit should protect him against the worst of the conflagration.
Still nothing.
He frowned.
Something small appeared over the edge of the opening, then something else, and then a score of them were scampering after him, their footfalls kicking from the duct’s sides to propel them forward, darting shadows like a disturbed nest of spiders.
Xenomorph infants. General Jones had initiated the birthing process, and already he was putting his new army to work.
“Plasma!” Mains said, and he fired a burst along the duct. It roared, and then he felt the metal around him heating, the suit’s visor darkening but not quite enough. He squeezed his eyes shut against the glare and heard the high-pitched squeals of burning baby Xenos, accompanied by the anguished cracking of superheated metal. The surfaces around him shuddered, and for a terrible moment he thought the ducting might collapse and spill them all back into the hold.
“Come on, Johnny!” Durante called.
Mains turned and started crawling again, hauling his com-rifle by its strap so that it remained pointing behind him. The plasma fire continued burning, but it would soon fade away. Now that the Xenomorphs knew where they were, though, they would not give up their pursuit.
They never gave up. Death did not deter them—but Mains and his companions now had an advantage.
Because death did not deter them, either.
He scampered quickly, listening for movement behind him and checking the motion scanner readings on his visor. There was movement all around, but it was only them in the duct. For now.
“Durante, we’ve got to get out of here,” he said.
“Already on it.”
Then Lieder was facing him. She reached back and grabbed his hand, pulling Mains through into a larger dispersal pod.
“Up there,” Sara said, pointing at a narrow duct that sloped upward.
“You’re sure?” Mains asked.
“Leads to the next level,” she said.
“Fifteen yards, then we can get out into a corridor and run like fuck,” Hari said.
“Story of my life,” Lieder said. “Let’s do it.”
This time Moran volunteered to bring up the rear, taking a couple of plasma grenades from Hari. He grasped her shoulder, and their foreheads touched. Mains wondered whether there was something between them. It didn’t matter. They were Excursionists, and there was something between all of them.
“Don’t hang around,” Durante said to Moran.
“Right.”
Sara and the engineer went first, followed closely by Mains and Lieder. The others came behind. The duct was smooth and layered with a film of slick, greenish slime—detritus of centuries of conditioned air flow, Mains assumed. They had to shove through by crouching with their backs pressed against the ceiling and heavy boots pressing against the floor.
Just as Sara reached the end, and Mains heard a cover being shoved aside ahead of him, the first sh
ooting came from behind. Laser blasts first, then the heavier, booming impacts of plasma shots. Moments later a shattering explosion shook them all as a plasma grenade detonated.
“Hurry!” Durante shouted, his voice almost swallowed by the grenade’s echoes.
Mains scrabbled from the duct and pushed himself to the left, rolling, coming to his feet to see Sara and her companion hunkered against the wall. He looked to the left, then the right, and saw that they were in a small, dark corridor. Empty. Lieder came through next and he pointed left. She crouched and covered that direction.
More explosions sounded from below, and light flared from the open hatch as Hari and Durante clasped the edges and propelled themselves through.
“Moran?” Mains asked.
“He’s coming,” Durante said. “Which way?”
Sara pointed to the left.
Mains checked the movement detector and saw nothing that way. Behind and below them, the signs were swarming.
“We need to go,” he said.
“No!” Hari said.
“If he’s coming, he’ll catch up,” Durante said. “Mains is right. If it takes all of us staying behind for one to reach the core, so be it. You know that.”
Hari pursed her lips, then she was the first to lead their way along the dark corridor. Suit lights lit the way, and on their visors the movement detector flickered as it probed the space ahead of them.
Mains followed close behind Hari. She moved quickly and quietly, weapon at the ready—the consummate warrior. If she was mourning Moran, she didn’t show it.
A couple of minutes later another, larger explosion came from behind them, slamming the floor upward, dropping the ceiling, fracturing walls and spilling a boiling wash of flames along the corridor. Durante and Lieder fell on the two unsuited shipborn, trying to protect them against the flames.
Mains ducked and closed his eyes. He knew that the suit could protect him for a while, but instinct still took over. He felt the air simmer around him as he was surrounded by fire, and as the roaring flames retreated he heard screaming.
The engineer was on fire. He’d been behind Mains, and Lieder’s small body had only partially protected him. He rolled back and forth and Lieder slapped at him, trying to extinguish his burning hair, shouting at him to keep still, and then Mains saw the shapes climbing from the ruptured floor and he stepped past Lieder and opened fire.
The com-rifle juddered in his hands as he unleashed a burst of nano-shot. The thousand microscopic specks impacted on and around the two Xenomorphs rising through the flames, stuck to their hides, and blew them apart.
The man was still screaming.
Mains checked the movement sensor and saw nothing close by. No Xenomorphs, no Moran. He dashed back to where Sara was crouched by her companion, not quite touching his bubbled face and melted eyes, crying. Durante was there, too, and Hari, and Lieder was already pulling the laser pistol from her belt.
“No,” Durante said.
“Yes,” Lieder said, and she fired one shot through the man’s ruined face. He jerked once and was still. Sara fell back and screamed.
“I would have done it,” Durante said.
Lieder stood and pulled Sara away, holding her around the shoulders. She was rigid, her eyes were wide and her mouth was open, though no sound came out now. Her limbs relaxed a bit, and at Lieder’s prompting she began to walk. As they moved along, they leaned their heads together. Mains wondered who needed most support.
“We can’t lose her, too,” Mains said.
“Yeah. She knows the way.”
“Moran?”
Durante looked along the corridor and shook his head. “He turned his comms off four minutes ago. He knew he wouldn’t be following us.”
“So let’s take the fucking head start,” Hari said. “Come on!”
They started running. Hari went first, followed by Lieder and Sara. Mains and Durante brought up the rear. Mains switched his motion scanner to probe behind, reloading his rifle as he went. He had plenty of laser charge and nano-shot left, but he was already low on plasma. The ship was huge, but he didn’t think they had so far to go. The drive core wouldn’t be as far back as the engine room.
He watched Lieder ahead of him, and every step he took reinforced the idea that this didn’t have to be the end. Blowing the ship was the priority, but surely there was a chance they’d survive. There must have been some facility for escape—lifeboats, escape capsules. Maybe they’d be able to drop from warp and change direction, fly the ship into a star and escape beforehand. If Othello was designed to split into separate attack craft, perhaps they could escape in one of them.
There was so much allied against them—including the android General Jones they had yet to meet—and so many variables, which meant that no outcome was certain or written in stone. Moran had already sacrificed himself to improve their chances.
Dedicating themselves to die couldn’t be the only way.
They had to keep all options open.
* * *
At first Mains thought the voice coming through his comms unit was Moran, groaning as he struggled through burning corridors and past fallen ceilings to catch up to them. He felt a flood of delight.
They’re just animals, he thought of the Xenomorphs. We out-gun them, we’re smarter, and we’re Excursionists, doing what’s right. The Rage were the bad guys, there was no doubt about that. The bad guys always lost.
Then the strained voice turned to a deep, throaty laugh, and a chill traveled down his spine.
“Keep running,” the voice said. “Keep running fast. It’s good training.”
“General Jones, I presume,” Durante growled.
“Dead Marine, I presume,” Jones said, mocking Durante’s voice. He was surprisingly good at it. Perhaps an android could adapt his voice box in order to impersonate.
“Sending your toy soldiers, instead of fighting us yourself,” Lieder said.
“Well, I am a general.”
“Generals are normally good at tactics,” Durante said. “You don’t seem to have any idea what you’re doing.” He signaled to them all, pointing ahead. They continued jogging along the corridor, checking sensors. Perhaps the android general knew exactly where they were, perhaps not, but every yard they made would count.
There was a pause, then that deep laughter once again. Mains thought it sounded on the verge of madness.
“General Janicile Jones was one of the bravest women the British Paratroop Regiment ever produced,” the android said. “She led her army on an assault of Mount Erebus on Mars, during the Martian uprising at the end of the twenty-first century. The battle lasted for three months. The rebels lost almost half a million soldiers, while General Jones’s losses were substantially less. Her tactical forethought meant that every assault on the rebel stronghold was conducted in a different manner. The enemy could not learn her habits because she had none.
“Seven times she was pressed to take out the rebels in an aerial assault, and seven times she refused. Not only were they holding more than a thousand prisoners from the Mount Erebus deep-set bases, but their stronghold also contained all nine of the Martian cubes. Back then, they were the only alien artifacts in human possession. General Jones was not prepared to risk either the prisoners or the cubes, so she launched her final assault across the allegedly impassable Kotto Plains.
“During the attack her battle truck was destroyed. She alone survived, and badly injured, she led an assault on the bunker that had taken them out. Clothing burnt from her body, skin blistered, breathing apparatus down to the last three percent of air, she used her Samurai sword to kill all twelve bunker defenders. In the base of the bunker they discovered the entrance to a network of caves and tunnels. General Jones lived long enough to see Mount Erebus retaken, and the hostages and cubes saved.
“She died a hero’s death.”
“Very fucking profound,” Hari said, “but that general was a woman.”
“I’m an android. I have no
gender.”
“You sound like a guy to me,” Lieder said. “One eager to big himself up. You must have been manufactured with a really small prick.”
They laughed. It couldn’t be helped, and Mains doubted it would aid their situation at all, but it gave them a boost in the direst of circumstances.
“I’ll bet you’re really modeled on General Nath Jones of the 9th Terrestrials,” Durante said. “Screwing one of his privates, caught with his pants down during an attack, fled across a battlefield naked, stepped on a mine. They found his balls hanging from a tree.”
More laughter. Mains joined in, keeping his eye on the movement tracker on his visor, trying to figure out if the general was smarter than they thought.
“Enjoy your final few moments of humor,” the android said, then the transmission ended.
“Well, he sounded nice,” Hari said.
“If he’s listening in on everything, we can use that,” Durante said. “Just follow my lead.”
“Which way?” Durante asked Sara. She pointed to the right. A few yards along the corridor there was a staircase leading up. Their suit lights cast strange shadows there that shimmered and danced.
“Okay,” Durante said, “switch to secure channel seven.”
They switched channels. Mains knew that channel seven was no more secure than the open channel they’d been using, but Durante was relying on that.
“Mains, you and Lieder take the right tunnel, but double back after two minutes. We’re going left. Join us at the next junction.”
“Roger that,” Mains said.
Durante signaled that they should start using hand signals. The Colonial Marines were taught a complex system of signals and signs for use where comms units gave out, or for close-quarters situations where silence was of the essence. Mains only hoped he remembered the language now.
Durante pointed at Hari and Sara, signaled right, then he, Mains, and Lieder followed.
At the staircase Hari went first. All clear, she signaled. They followed, pausing at a switchback, checking, moving on again.
Mains and Lieder shared a glance, and smiled.
We’re getting closer, Mains thought, but it wasn’t a comfortable idea. Strangely enough, it seemed as if the Xenomorphs had stopped chasing them, and he couldn’t figure out why. He must know where we’re heading.
