Alien--Invasion

by Tim Lebbon

  Whatever was happening, they were rapidly running out of time… and luck.

  At the top of the staircase Hari signed that they should halt. They paused, breath held.

  What’s up there? Durante asked.

  Large lobby, dark, several routes in and out. Elevators, Hari replied.

  Sara looked back and forth between them, eyes wide. Lieder reached out and touched her shoulder, and Sara seemed to relax a little, taking comfort.

  Hari gave the thumbs up and stepped out into the lobby. They followed close together, all keeping an eye on their visor displays.

  Sara froze. Sniffed the air.

  “Oh, no,” she said.

  Mains’s suit visor came alive. Movement exploded all around, and several warnings vied for attention at the same time.

  Hari screamed and started firing, her laser blasts spraying wild as something dropped on her and smashed through her suit, bursting from her chest in a spray of blood. The Xenomorph lifted her up on its tail and she screamed some more, swinging her rifle around and firing directly into the creature’s mouth. It collapsed, she fell on top of it, and as it burst apart she rolled to the side. Its tail still impaled her, and it came apart as the Xenomorph melted down.

  Hari tried one more scream as the acid blood flushed inside her, but she had no more breath.

  Durante darted to Sara, holding her tight with one arm while he opened up with his com-rifle.

  Lieder and Mains were shooting, too, back to back, their vision clouded by alerts and movement, their suits lining up target after target, so many overlaid that they simply turned a slow circle, firing laser and nano-shot all around the large lobby. It was all they could do to keep track of Durante.

  Mains aimed upward at the ceiling as panels fell aside and dark shapes plunged down toward them.

  Comms on! he thought, and his comms flickered into life again in time for him to hear General Jones’s laughter one more time.

  “Too many!” he shouted.

  Lieder did not reply. He could feel her pressed against his back, and see the reflections of her gunfire.

  The lobby was a chaos of darting and floating Xenomorphs of all sizes, from infant to fully grown. Laser blasts slashed across the space, nano-shot exploded far too close to the marines for comfort. Mains felt his suit holed in a dozen places by one blast, the hardening of the shell preventing fatal damage, but he and Lieder were flung sideways. Seconds later a plasma grenade exploded a few yards from them.

  Durante screamed. It was pain, and rage, but outright defiance, as well. He and Sara were aflame, floating around the lobby and sharing the blazing plasma with Xenomorphs, laser shots still blasting out from the conflagration, and soon he could scream no more. Part of the fire fell aside, spitting and sparkling as Sara’s unprotected flesh melted down and she joined the rest of her crew at last.

  Durante lasted a little while longer.

  Mains knew that this was the end. He staggered to his feet and shot Durante, just to make sure. Then he programmed his com-rifle to launch every last plasma charge, aimed—

  Lieder grabbed his arm and pulled.

  “With me, Johnny!”

  He stumbled backward, not questioning what she was doing. As he felt the floor disappear from beneath his feet he pulled the trigger.

  The opening before him lit up like a sun as five plasma charges erupted in the lobby. The explosion shoved against him, sending both of them tumbling down the elevator shaft.

  Johnny Mains closed his eyes.

  18

  ISA PALANT

  Deep Space, Gamma Quadrant

  November 2692 AD

  Their surroundings had changed. Gone were the metal decking and walls, replaced by uneven surfaces, slick and solid. Their magnetic boots ceased to work and they started to drift, pulling and nudging themselves along.

  The marines were much more used to working in zero-G, and Palant couldn’t help being impressed by their almost balletic movements. She and McIlveen bumped and spun clumsily, sometimes holding onto each other, sometimes pushing away. It was tiring. On top of the constant fear, it made their hearts hammer. Her suit even issued a warning, and she took several deep, slow breaths to try and calm down.

  The lights threw shadows everywhere, and every shadow might have been danger. Palant saw spiked, cruel tails swishing out of hidden corners, sharp limbs protruding from walls, teeth punching across light beams. She heard the hiss of charging creatures as her suit whispered along any surface, and the stamping of feet when McIlveen tripped and twisted, his sudden movement arrested by Sprenkel. As they moved further along the corridor the atmosphere grew heavier, skeins of mist absorbing light and exuding a soft, ghostly glow.

  “Life signs ahead,” Sprenkel whispered.

  “Got it,” Halley said. “No major movement, though.”

  “Any movement at all?” Palant asked. She was thinking of Xenomorphs, but also of the two Yautja who might even now be aboard the Cooper-Jordan. She wouldn’t be the only one entertaining the idea that they had chosen this fraught time and dangerous location for a hunt. She didn’t think it likely, but could not be sure.

  “Some,” Sprenkel said, “but very small. I’d guess it’s debris in the next hold.”

  “Which is close,” Halley said. “Come on, let’s hustle.”

  They moved ahead, fast but cautious, and soon an opening appeared on the right. They ducked through the opening into the deep, wide space of another darkened hold. No larger than the burnt-out one they had just left, this one was in a better state.

  But there was still something very wrong.

  Lines of cryo-pods circled the tubular chamber all the way around, leaving an open space in the center. Shards of glass floated everywhere. That explained the signs of movement on their sensors, but on closer inspection, it wasn’t only glass.

  It was blood. Congealed, hardened, clots of old, dried blood drifted all across that strange space, in a constant weightless dance with the smashed glass.

  “Oh, no,” McIlveen said. “Every one. Every single one.”

  “There must be over two thousand in here,” Bestwick said. “We’re dead. We’re fucking dead. They’ve let us come this far and—”

  “Shut up, Private!” Halley said. “You two, you’re the scientists, is this what we think it is?”

  Palant and McIlveen pushed themselves from the doorway to the first line of cryo-pods. Palant did not want to look inside, but McIlveen beat her to a pod and checked, and she couldn’t let him face it alone.

  The man probably never even woke up. Naked, he was still strapped down for his centuries-long journey, his skin wrinkled and withered from sudden exposure to an atmosphere. The pod’s clear cover was smashed and splattered with blood from the inside. His chest was a mess—ribs protruding, chest cavity open and exposed to the elements. The sight reminded Palant of the gutted ship floating in space, the dead fish on the beach.

  “And the next one?” Palant asked. They pushed off together and checked the next pod. Then the next. Every one was the same. Occupant dead, their chest burst open from the inside. Pod cover smashed. Blood splashed.

  Xenomorph vanished.

  “We need to leave,” Palant said. McIlveen nodded, and she knew that the marines had heard her, even though they did not answer. She turned around and launched herself back toward Halley. It was a clumsy maneuver and she struck the Major, both of them drifting into the wall beside the door opening. “We have to leave, now,” she said urgently.

  “Maybe they’re dead,” Halley said.

  “Can you even see how many people there are in here?” Palant asked. Her voice was rising, panic growing.

  “We need to find something!” Halley said.

  “Forget what Marshall said,” Palant urged. “He’s not out here.”

  “I’m not doing this for Marshall.” Halley seemed surprised at the very concept. “I don’t give a shit about him. I’m doing this to try and end the war. You’ve seen those things first
-hand, seen how powerful they are. Imagine them getting further into the Sphere. Imagine them landing on one of the inhabited planets. Weaver’s World or Addison Prime. Millions of people.”

  “Or Earth,” McIlveen said. “Billions.”

  Halley blinked in shock, glancing past Palant at McIlveen then back at her again. “I know you’re scared,” she said. “I know we’re in danger here, but it doesn’t matter.”

  Palant let her go and shoved softly, drifting back from the Major.

  “I know you’re scared,” Halley said again, this time to all of them. “So am I.”

  From somewhere out of sight came a long, low hiss, and then a thudding explosion shuddered through the ship.

  “What the hell—?”

  “Movement!” Bestwick said. She was out in the strange corridor, glancing both ways as her suit projected the sensor readings onto her visor. “Both directions.”

  “It’s like the walls have come alive out there,” Sprenkel said, joining Bestwick at the opening. Another blast followed, and something screeched in pain.

  “That’s a Xenomorph,” McIlveen said.

  “Stay close!” Halley said, pointing at Palant and McIlveen. She looked around the hold, appearing to assess whether it was a place they could defend. It was too large and filled with shadows, and every pod would provide a hiding place for a beast with sharp edges and teeth.

  “Okay, Palant,” she said finally, “it sounds like your Yautja friends are on a hunt. We break left and head back the way we came. Bestwick, you’ve got point.”

  “Oh, super,” Bestwick said, but she headed off.

  Imbued with a new sense of restrained panic and urgency, the others quickly followed.

  Palant pushed off from the wall and struck the doorway, gloved hands slipping on the slick surface. The dark material felt like contoured plastic, yet she couldn’t help feeling that there was something softer underneath. It was like a carapace surrounding a huge insect’s moist insides. She pushed. There was no give, but condensation settled on the dark veneer, moisture that burst outward in slow-motion splashes each time she hit a surface, shoved again, and moved on.

  Huyck brought up the rear, expertly moving backward so his suit lights illuminated their retreat.

  More hissing came from ahead. Then, from around a slow bend, a flickering red laser shimmered across the walls before winking out again.

  “Yautja targeting laser,” McIlveen said.

  Three loud blasts followed, shaking their surroundings. Something screamed, a sound cut off by a heavy, swishing impact.

  “I think—” Palant began, but Sprenkel’s voice silenced her.

  “Above!” he shouted, kicking back into Palant, splashing the ceiling with his light, showing the Xenomorph uncurling from the uneven, shadowed surface and lashing out with its cruelly barbed tail. Someone shouted in pain as Sprenkel opened up with his com-rifle, sparkling laser shot lashing across the corridor and ceiling.

  The Xenomorph split in two, then erupted into a spreading haze of body parts and acidic blood.

  Palant’s suit immediately encircled her head again, face mask enlarging into an all-over helmet just as droplets of acid speckled her chest and shoulders. It sizzled, but did not penetrate the suit.

  More gunfire came from behind her. Huyck fired laser, then unleashed a hail of nano-shot back along the corridor. The explosions were loud in the confined space, shrapnel winging past them all. Palant felt impacts all across her back and only hoped none of them had penetrated.

  How do we get back to the Pixie if our suits are holed? she wondered, but that was a worry for later. They had more immediate concerns.

  “Plasma,” Huyck called. Palant felt her suit hardening, her visor darkening as the marine fired three plasma shots back along the corridor, melting the strange black surfaces with loud popping, crackling sounds.

  Ahead of them, the shadows came alive as three Xenomorphs charged. It was a terrifying sight, but the confined space was perfect for a burst of nano-shot. The marines opened up, and then so did the creatures, spilling insides, splashing acidic blood, bodies melting down under their own strange self-destruct mechanism.

  Then they were running as they splashed through drifting remnants, and Palant’s suit buzzed an unknown warning.

  “Can’t take much more of this acid,” Sprenkel said.

  “Just run!” Halley shouted.

  Palant saw the red flicker of a targeting laser again, then they turned a corner and the Yautja stood before them, battle lance held across its chest, blaster aiming right at them.

  Halley kicked into the wall to stop, one hand reaching out and grabbing Palant.

  “No,” Palant said. She shrugged off the Major’s hold and shoved, drifting slowly forward.

  The ceiling was low enough that the Yautja had to stoop. It was wearing full battle gear, and in a score of places acid bubbled and spat. A smear of bright green blood was splashed across its chest plate. Its helmet was scarred with evidence of older battles, and a trophy belt hung across one shoulder and the opposite hip. It held skulls, scraps, and other gruesome mementos.

  The Yautja tilted its head at Palant. Then it turned and kicked off, back through the corridor and into the open space beyond.

  “Come on,” Palant said.

  “We’re following that?” Sprenkel asked.

  From behind them came the haunting sound of many limbs clattering across the black surface.

  “We’re following that,” Sprenkel said. “Go!” He turned and lobbed a couple of plasma grenades. Weightless, they quickly disappeared in the dark corridor, and when they exploded a few seconds later Palant caught a brief image of a dozen Xenomorphs consumed in plasma fire, limbs thrashing, heads lashing left and right as the white-hot conflagration melted them down.

  They drifted across the wide space and followed the Yautja into a different corridor. It wasn’t the way they’d come, and a schematic flickered up onto Palant’s visor—an uncertain representation of the blasted ship, many areas left blank where the suit’s computers could not scan. It looked as if they were heading around the burnt-out hold in a different direction.

  She wondered at the Yautja’s motives in leading them on. If it and its comrade had come onto the ship to stalk and hunt the marines, the killing would have begun by now. It carried evidence that it already had encountered Xenomorphs, and it was in full combat dress—lance and blaster, knives at its belt, spikes along its forearms, armor sizzling with acid-blood. Whether it was leading them to safety or something else, she did not know, but they were going away from the nest and the thousands of dead people.

  Thousands…

  Though this ship was blasted, adrift, and dead, it might yet be home to monsters beyond counting.

  “Billy, we’ll be coming in fast,” Halley said.

  “Roger, Major.”

  “Okay, guys, we’re heading back.”

  “No prizes to take back to Mister Marshall?” Bestwick asked.

  “It’s too dangerous. Getting ourselves killed—”

  The Yautja swung into a doorway, bending down to grab something out of sight. As they reached it Palant surged ahead again, eager to be close. There was something intoxicating about this creature’s appearance and movement, its actions and hidden meanings. For her the Yautja represented all that was mysterious about space, and if she’d been told it would be her and a Yautja, alone on the ruined Cooper-Jordan forever, she would not have been sad.

  The alien heaved something into view, and as their lights converged on the shape, Palant gasped.

  It’s tearing them apart! she thought, but then she saw the splash of milky-white fluid arcing across the corridor to impact the far wall, and she understood.

  “Android!” she said. Even after what they’d witnessed on this ship, still it was a shock seeing a human-like body in such a state.

  The android was smashed, ripped, torn. One leg was missing below the knee, the other crushed into pulp. One side of its torso ha
d been torn open as if something huge had taken a bite from it, leaving trailing organs and internals hanging out. One arm was a mangled mess, and its head was almost detached from its body, held on only by a few opaque tubes and a silvery spine.

  Yet it was still blinking, damaged limbs twitching. Palant imagined every remaining facet of its computer brain struggling to detonate the nuke contained somewhere in its torso.

  Halley appeared beside her, weapon raised.

  “It’s as if it knows what we came for,” she said. “Ask it if—”

  “I don’t know Yautja,” Palant said. “It’s just a program.”

  “But I’d be willing to bet it knows about the self-destruct capabilities of that thing,” McIlveen said from just behind them.

  “Why would you bet that?” Halley asked.

  “It has one itself.”

  The Yautja shoved the android their way. Palant gasped and pulled aside, disgusted. Bestwick and Huyck caught the floating mess, shoving it to the floor and aiming their guns.

  It blinked up at them, mouth twisted in pain or a sneer. Its one good arm slapped on the floor like a dying fish, flopping on the ground. Milk-white blood flowed from its wounds and clouded the air.

  When Palant glanced back, the Yautja was just a shadow far along the corridor.

  “Move out,” Halley said. “Bring this thing with us.”

  “We have one,” Palant said.

  “Yeah, Marshall will be delighted.” Halley looked at her. Something silent passed between. A fear, a doubt. Then they moved on, and Palant knew there was more to be discussed.

  But not here.

  “Company!” Sprenkel said. He started firing behind them again, spraying the corridor with laser fire, slicing a Xenomorph in two, then firing a hail of nano-shot that embedded in the walls, ceiling, and floor before exploding.

  Bestwick and Huyck brought the battered android with them.

  “You think it’s trying to detonate?” McIlveen asked.

  “It would have done it by now,” Palant said.