by Tim Lebbon
They reached a circular room with seven round doors, each leading directly into a pod dock. Access was designed to be quick and easy in an emergency.
“Shit,” Roberts whispered.
“Only one left!” Dearing said, and Liliya wondered whether he knew what that meant. She turned around. He was already stepping back from them, lifting the gun, not quite aiming it at her but ready to swing it up at a moment’s notice.
“You don’t need that,” she said, staring him in the eye. He paused, just for a moment. Then he backed away three more steps until he was pressed against the soft bulkhead beside the access to the remaining escape pod. Here in the officers’ compartment, they even dressed the walls of the emergency bay.
The ship’s engines pulsed again through Liliya’s feet, and she wondered if the others sensed it as well. Probably not. There was a lot she could perceive that would escape them. Dearing’s increased heartbeat, the dribble of sweat at his temple, and the whitening of his knuckles around the pulse rifle’s trigger.
“Dearing…” she said.
“They’re only designed for one person,” he said. He looked back and forth between Liliya and Roberts, as if trying to decide who might come at him first.
“There are a dozen other ships in this system at any one time,” Roberts said. “We’ll be picked up in a matter of days. It’ll be cozy, but all three of us can get in there.”
Yet that’s not what I want, Liliya thought. I don’t want to be picked up—not by anyone but the Founders. She should have known better than to bring them along.
Dearing lifted the rifle.
She was fast, but probably not fast enough.
“Roberts is right,” Liliya said. “It’ll be tight, the launch will be rough, but three of us can last in there for days. You think they wouldn’t give the officers enough food and water? You think they don’t consider a bit of comfort?”
Dearing glanced to the side and touched a panel on the wall. His eyes were wide with the excitement of imminent escape.
“You can’t leave us here to die!” Roberts said.
“There are more lifeboats aft,” he said.
“That’s half a mile away!” she shouted.
“Quiet,” Liliya said firmly, but it had already gone too far. There was a dynamic here that she hadn’t perceived, and Roberts’ next statement exposed it all.
“Don’t I mean anything to you?” she asked.
Liliya took a step forward as Dearing’s face dropped. He saw her, and drifted the gun barrel in her direction.
She heard the scattering, scampering sound as one of the things came at them. It had been following their trail, perhaps homing in on the sound of their voices. She didn’t think Dearing had heard it yet. She had moments to react, and in that time everything rushed in at her.
The risks she had taken to be posted on the Evelyn-Tew, the favors that had been called in, the machinations behind the scenes by Wordsworth and the other Founders.
The responsibility she bore, the importance of the information she now carried on her person.
The disaster and deaths she had caused by effectively releasing the creatures.
The implications if she didn’t succeed.
Every part of her fought against what she did next. But her commitment to Wordsworth was greater than her own strength, instinct, or the moral code she had developed through her life. His dedication to his cause was absolute.
Liliya stepped behind Roberts, grabbed her beneath the arms, and shoved her at Dearing.
The pulse rifle boomed. The woman jerked once, hard, and slammed back against her. Liliya kept her footing, threw Roberts again, and followed. Dearing staggered back against the wall with the bloodied, dying woman splayed against him. As she slid to the floor, one hand grasping at his clothing and leaving a bloody trail across his chest, he freed the rifle from between them and lifted it at Liliya.
She slapped it aside. Something broke in her hand, and the rifle clattered to the floor, sliding across the bay and coming to rest beside the door through which they entered.
A shadow danced beyond, hard limbs and dark hisses.
“What the fuck?” Dearing shouted. He wasn’t looking at Liliya’s face. His eyes were wide, staring at her torso, and as she glanced down the pain signals hit her at last.
She cried out, more in desperation than agony.
It couldn’t end like this.
It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair!
Pressing a hand to her wound did nothing to prevent the white fluid from spewing across the floor.
“Jesus Christ!” Dearing said.
Liliya took advantage of his confusion. She dragged him aside with her free hand, exerting all her strength. He tripped over the body of his lover and sprawled on the floor, just as a shape filled the doorway.
She didn’t look. She knew she didn’t have time, and if she was to survive she had to execute every movement, every moment, with complete efficiency. She stepped over the dead woman’s leg, pressed the panel on the wall, waited an agonizing eternity as the escape-pod hatch spiraled open, grasped at its edges and—
Dearing screamed.
She looked—she had to look—and saw the Xenomorph standing astride the fallen man, one limb piercing his shoulder, the other pressing down on the small of his back. It crouched low, curved head sloping down at its struggling prey, and as he screamed again its teeth lashed out and smashed his skull apart.
Liliya hauled herself into the pod and slammed the execute button on the wall beside the door. The hatch slammed shut. Something struck the other side, hard, and then a roar shattered her hearing and became everything as the escape pod’s mooring bolts blasted loose and its propellant ignited.
She should have been strapped into the single seat, protected against the immense acceleration. Smashed back against the closed hatch, Liliya let herself give in to the white-hot pain at last.
As unconsciousness fell, she welcomed the release into blessed darkness.
* * *
Between blinks Liliya snapped awake and reality rushed in. A low whine issued from her, an uncomfortable moan with every breath. Pain brought her back. She was alone, and Roberts and Dearing were dead.
“No,” she said.
She had caused their deaths, even if she hadn’t pulled the trigger on Roberts or smashed Dearing’s skull apart with her own teeth.
“No!” She shouted this time, voice deadened by the small pod’s soft interior, and she knew that she was right. There was nothing she could have done.
Not if her mission was to survive.
The escape pod shook for a few more seconds before its thrusters cut out. Weightless, Liliya shoved herself slightly away from the hatch and held onto the seat, swinging herself around, pulling herself down, fixing the strap around her waist and the restraint over her shoulders. Her blood misted the air and formed into droplets, milk-like bubbles that drifted in the disturbed atmosphere.
Her stomach hurt, but what hurt more was the idea that it all might have been for nothing. Once secured in the seat she settled her frantic thoughts, running a calming program that leveled the peaks and troughs of her human personality. It was a process she disliked intensely—Liliya was over fifty years old, and thought of herself as human. Initiating support protocols pulled her out of that pleasant fantasy. Yet it was a necessary evil so that she could assess damage—both to herself and, more importantly, the information she had stolen.
Launching internal diagnostics, she quickly focused attention on the area of her wound and the associated components. It took less than a second to reassure herself that her internal hard disc was undamaged. A fragment of bone had been blasted from Roberts’ ribs by the pulse rifle charge. It had entered her stomach and passed out through her side, missing vital internal systems and barely skimming the porcelain surround that protected her hard disc.
Though breathing wasn’t essential, Liliya still gasped a sigh of relief.
Everything was on the
re. Not only what Wordsworth had asked for, but everything for which the Evelyn-Tew had been designed. All that research. All those hours, days and years of analysis, experimentation, trial and error… and the errors had almost ended it all.
The Company had come far. Their research into the Xenomorph samples from LV-178 had advanced further than anyone could have imagined, or hoped for. Though the strange species was still an enigma, the information now contained in Liliya’s hard disc shed more light than anything that humans had ever discovered before.
Soon, the Evelyn-Tew would crash into Alpha Centurai. If they weren’t already dead, everyone on board who still retained an inkling of the research would be destroyed.
Liliya had already confirmed that in their desperation to escape, anyone who might survive in the jettisoned escape pods had not had a chance to take any of the precious research with them. She possessed the last known copy, and she was taking it to Wordsworth.
Confident now that treating her wound could come later, she examined the escape pod’s computer and assessed its limited flight capabilities. In such a catastrophic situation it was pre-programmed to take her to the nearest planet, moon, or asteroid, but she initiated a manual override. There was still seventy-three percent of an engine burn left, and she estimated that it could get her up to point-oh-four light speed. That was enough. By the time any rescue ships arrived, she would be gone from their scanners. Lost to the void.
She composed a short, coded message for the Founders, then set it broadcasting on a twenty-hourly loop.
When she blinked she saw Roberts blasted back against her, Dearing’s head taken apart by the beast. The human part of her—the strongest part, and the side she had been promoting for as long as she could remember—hated what she had done. However human she felt, though, she knew that she had been built to last a long, long while.
As long as was necessary.
After repairing the damage in her stomach and sealing the wound, Liliya initiated the burn, then settled down to pass some time.
1
JOHNNY MAINS
Southgate Station 12, Outer Rim research facility
March 2692 AD
Lieutenant Johnny Mains never got used to seeing them close-up. Alive or dead, a Yautja was a weird-looking creature. Ostensibly humanoid, yet there was so much about them that was so inhuman that traditional classification systems just didn’t seem adequate.
Freaky bastard, he thought. That described it well enough.
“L-T,” Cotronis said. The corporal stood beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch. She was still breathing hard. He saw the splash of blood across her bald head. Human blood. He never really got used to seeing that, either.
Mains raised an eyebrow, but he could see the truth in her eyes.
“Willis didn’t make it,” she said. She blinked quickly, sweat running into her eyes and tears running out.
“Probably a good thing,” he said softly. “Messed up like that, Brian wouldn’t have wanted to go on.”
“You can’t say that,” Cotronis said. In private, with only other VoidLarks in earshot, none of them used formal military speak, and no one pulled rank. They’d been out here together too long to require false monikers to display deep respect.
“I can,” Mains said. “I’ve known him for a long time. Longer even than you.”
“And Lizzie?”
He’d seen Private Lizzie Reynolds go down fighting when she’d taken on the first of the two Yautja. She’d been protecting a man and two young kids, and she’d got a few good shots in with her nano-rifle before the alien took her head.
“She died well,” Mains said. “She died fighting.”
“So what now?”
Mains sighed, then turned away from the dead Yautja. They’d have to put it on ice and send it back with what was left of the station’s crew. The Company rarely got its hands on such a complete specimen, and there was still so little known about this enigmatic species. He couldn’t help admiring their martial abilities. He couldn’t help hating them, either. Willis and Reynolds weren’t the first troops he’d lost to them, but they were the first of the VoidLarks to be killed in action.
“Let’s do a full sweep of the station,” he said. “Take Faulkner and Lieder and make a few circuits outside, secure a perimeter. I’ll get Snowdon and McVicar to tie down the base’s interior.”
“Right.” Cotronis sounded uncertain, even fragile.
“Sara?” Mains said.
She looked at him sidelong.
“You fought well. We all did. We lost two, we took down two. You know that’s a good result against these bastards.”
“I didn’t realize we were keeping score.”
He reached out and grasped her upper arm, squeezing through the combat suit. She smiled. Then Cotronis left to muster the troops, leaving Mains standing beside the Yautja’s corpse.
Its left leg flickered in and out of focus. The third blast from his laser rifle had severed its hand at the wrist, and the control panel it wore on its forearm was sparking and spitting. He knew well enough to disable its weapons systems—Snowdon, more knowledgeable than any of them in Yautja tech, had done that—but the dead alien’s stealth field was still cycling, as if to take it away from death.
Mains shoved it with his boot and its head lolled, tusks clacking against the floor.
The 5th Excursionists, nicknamed the VoidLarks by Mains on their first day out from an Outer Rim drophole, had been patrolling space beyond the Outer Rim for a little over three standard years. In that time they had only interacted with other people on three occasions. This was the third, and the most traumatic.
The death toll among Southgate Station 12’s scientists and support staff was still being ascertained, but initial reports suggested the pair of Yautja had stalked, hunted, and killed at least seventeen in their two days on the ground. Ten of those were indies, mercenaries hired by the station commander to provide protection. Mains knew there were more bodies yet to be found. They hadn’t yet discovered either of the Yautja’s nests.
When they did, there would be trophies.
It could have been so many more. The research station maintained a permanent population of over a hundred, and almost eighty people were gathered in the canteen, being looked after by the commander and the remaining few indies. Shocked, traumatized, still not really understanding what had happened, or why, they were preparing to be sent back deeper into the Human Sphere. Where, Mains didn’t know, nor did he care. Away from here was all that mattered. This place was tainted now, and though it wasn’t like Weyland-Yutani to waste anything, Southgate Station 12 would likely remain unoccupied for a good while.
Mains checked his combat suit’s status. There was no damage. Laser charge on his sidearm was low. His com-rifle ammo and charge were at eighty percent, and his shotgun was a reassuring weight on his back. It was a fully restored antique, but it had saved his skin ten years before on Addison Prime when his unit was sent in against a rogue Marines outfit. He’d been a corporal then, and it had been his first firefight against other trained soldiers. He’d held his own, and when his suit’s CSU went down and all his weapons went offline, it was the shotgun that had saved his life.
“L-T?” The voice buzzed from the comm implant in his ear.
“Yeah, Snowdon.”
“Sir, the base commander wants to talk to you. He’s demanding to know what happens next. Sir.”
Mains smiled. He could hear the nervous tension and humor in Snowdon’s voice. She was a good fighter and an experienced soldier, but she didn’t take any shit. Especially from people they’d just lost two friends fighting to protect.
“Tell him what happens next is, he sucks my dick.”
Snowdon snorted laughter. “So, shut down the base?”
“Yeah, that’ll do. Tell him to commence shutdown. Whatever it is they do here, it needs to be closed up ready for them to leave, say, a day from now.”
“Yes, Sir. So we’ll be le
aving soon after that?”
Mains turned away from the Yautja corpse, the blast holes in the walls, the stark laser scars across the ceiling, and looked around. It was a large dormitory, set up for a single family with sleeping area, a dining compartment, and a recreation corner with holo-stage gaming consoles that rivaled some of the hardware they had on the ship, complete with comfortable seating.
The atmosphere controls leveled the temperature comfortably, and low-level lighting made it feel almost like home. Someone else’s home, sure, but that was good enough.
The dormitory was almost as big as the whole rec room on their ship, the Ochse, and the rest of the base was just as expansive, with freshly grown food from a green dome and a leisure complex that included pool and gym. He could see the allure of staying here for a while. He could feel it, and he hated that. Mains’s concentration was already slipping, his alertness relaxing, and the temptation to slip into some undefined period of rest and relaxation was strong.
“You know we will,” he said to Snowdon. “This is an unusual attack, and I want to get back on-station as quickly as possible. That Yautja habitat might be gearing up for something more. Something bigger.”
“They’ve never launched anything bigger than this,” Snowdon said. She lowered her voice. He could hear conversation in the background, the scared survivors. “Come on, L-T. A day here after the civvies have fucked off, swimming and eating and relaxing.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Snowdon? Seeing me skinny-dipping.”
“You know it, L-T.”
“Tell the Commander to stay there. I’m coming down to speak to him. You and McVicar tie down the rest of the base, post lookout drones, make sure we’re safe and sound.”
“Yes, Sir! Right away, Sir!”
“And if you’re there when I arrive, I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
“You and whose army? Sir.”
Mains grinned. He liked Snowdon. He liked all of his VoidLarks—they were a family, friends, and that was why they were so good at what they did. Few other people could remain so isolated from human contact for such long periods of time. All Excursionists were the same, but Mains naturally thought the 5th, his VoidLarks, were the best.
