Aliens

by Jonathan Maberry

  Ogambe was cursing. Callaghan just stared.

  Pho. Damn everything. His body had burned right along with that armor. No two ways about the fact that he’d just murdered his friend.

  As he was staring, the thing he’d ruined changed. It split open and pulled itself into three separate parts. Each had more mechanical limbs, and each separate piece changed shape. As easily as a master sculptor might rearrange clay, the sections smoothed out and sculpted themselves. The limbs were all toward the front now and most of them wavered in the air like bug arms as the separate, smaller parts came hammering toward all three of the men.

  Past the glare of the lights Callaghan could see thick chords behind the main bodies, and mechanical pistons and gears that moved nearly too fast for him to identify.

  There was no time to dwell on Pho. It was fight or die and he wasn’t planning on dying.

  The plasma rounds burned what they hit, but the damned thing seemed to be learning. It moved the main body of shifting parts out of his way until he had to readjust. Metal burned and a few of those insane limbs were melted out of shape but then Callaghan had to retreat as the entire thing came for him, a half ton of metal aiming to shred body and armor alike.

  Ogambe opened fire again and blew the main body of the thing coming for him into fragments. It came forward anyway and what was left of it, mostly jagged blades of shattered steel, caught the captain in the chest and smashed him into the closest wall. The wall gave out. So did Ogambe’s armor. The com-link picked up his grunt and the sound of his ribs collapsing in perfect detail.

  Bendez did better. He was carrying a plasma torch instead of a pulse rifle. The cutters were designed to burn through hulls and he used his to cut the thing coming for him nearly in half. The force of the attack sent him spinning away, but the attacking module stopped, apparently incapacitated.

  That just left two of the things to come at Callaghan.

  “Back away! I’m throwing down!” Without another word he pulled the pin on his single grenade and hurled it down the corridor at the lights.

  “Callaghan! Wait!” Bendez’s words came too late.

  Zero gravity made it look easy as the metal ball of the grenade rolled far further than he could have thrown in a gravity field. It made it all the way to the glowing lights that made his eyes feel like they were bleeding and then the glare changed nature. The light was just as bright but in the spectrum that his eyes could see. Everything down at the collision point was painted a bright white by that glare and parts he had not seen materialized just in time to melt under the intense heat. All three of the limbs that had telescoped from the main body were melted away for over half of their length and the remaining parts deactivated, floating in the zero-g of the ship.

  “The fuck are you doing?” the screams came through the com-link. “Are you trying to burn us alive?”

  Bendez said, “The other corridor, Callaghan. They were coming down the other corridor. Status check! You guys alive?”

  “We’re here, but I’m kicking somebody’s ass when this is over!” That was Rollins. She meant it, too.

  “Just hit this fucker!” He couldn’t make out that voice but the result was immediate: Down where he’d melted half of the thing that was exposed and in view, a hail of plasma fire ripped into the alien machinery.

  In a perfect universe the juggernaut they were blasting would take a hint and burn away. Whatever the damned thing was, however, it was designed to survive in the extremes of outer space. Some of it melted, true enough, some of it withered and slagged in the extreme heat. The rest of it reacted as if it had just been burned, and the whole of the thing spilled more of the lights that could only be partially seen and then it gave birth to something entirely different. A wave of thick fluids bled out from the thing, coating the walls of the corridor and running toward them.

  Callaghan reached for Ogambe and hauled him along, heading back to the airlock and the corridor that led to their ship. The hairs on his scalp were up and his body felt a chill of gooseflesh. Whatever the hell was coming for them, it couldn’t be good.

  Ogambe was alive, but he was whimpering in pain. Ribs had been broken and there was a real chance he was bleeding internally.

  Bendez was right behind him.

  There is a time to fight and a time to run and when a tidal wave of shit is coming your way, it’s time to retreat.

  They made it to a point where the stuff had not reached and Bendez looked at his legs. “Shit got all over me.”

  Callaghan looked, too. “It’s doing something to your armor. Get back to the ship and get out of that suit, Bendez. Take Ogambe with you.” What had hit him was translucent, but there were fine fibers running through it. Where the goop was touching Bendez’s armor, it was breaking down and being absorbed by the stuff. The armor wasn’t melting exactly, but it wasn’t going to hold air for much longer if Callaghan was right.

  Bendez nodded and slid the torch off his arm. “Take that. Might help.”

  Callaghan nodded and pulled the torch along with him. Bendez moved.

  Du Mariste spoke to him. The ops had been silent for so long he’d forgotten about him. “Whatever you just did, it pissed that thing off. It’s spilling something all over the exterior of the ship. Whatever it is, it’s doing heavy damage to the hull.”

  “It’s eating the ship.” Callaghan spoke softly, horrified.

  “What?”

  “That stuff. I saw it on Bennie’s armor. It was changing the surface. I think that shit is eating the ship. Eating whatever it touches.”

  He looked carefully at the surfaces that had been touched.

  Du Mariste spoke again, “What the hell is it going to do with it?”

  “It’s making repairs. I think it wants to rebuild itself.”

  Somebody screamed on the com-link. Rollins spoke up over the sound. “It’s definitely doing something. We tried to clean it off of Moretti and it’s too damned late.” Her voice was inordinately soft.

  The lights came back brighter and the thing that had already hammered at Callaghan came down the corridor again. There were alterations. It was adapting, to the environment. Instead of multiple limbs it had restructured much of the same material—he could see the burn marks from previous encounters—into a heavy carapace. Thick plates of armor came front and center as it barreled down the way, and it had armed itself. Parts of Pho were stuck in there too, melted and ruined. The only thing that wasn’t hurt was the pulse rifle his friend had been holding. For one sick second Callaghan was afraid that damned thing might aim and fire at him. He had to suppress a laugh that was utterly humorless and bordered on insane.

  From behind the mass that was coming toward him Callaghan saw the familiar flare of plasma fire. Half of the squad had to be firing to make that much light but he couldn’t see them, only the end results of their assault. The burnt, broken and repaired thing coming to slaughter him shuddered and stopped.

  Callaghan opened his mouth to speak but Rollins beat him to it. “It’s stopping, but not for long. What the hell are we going to do with this thing?”

  Du Mariste asked, “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Callaghan was right. It’s eating the ship to repair itself. There are tubes sucking in whatever gets melted by the crap it puked up and those tubes are feeding right into parts that are being built. I don’t know what the fuck we’re dealing with but we need to get way from it.”

  “Callaghan?”

  “I’m not seeing as much but I think we need to break away the main freight and let this thing either have the rest of the ship or blow it into dust! There is no way in hell we’re going to stop it with the ordnance we have.”

  Rollins said, “Yeah, we already saw what a grenade did. It pissed this fucker off.”

  Ogambe responded, his voice strained and sounding winded. “Make it happen. Rollins, your team needs to meet with Callaghan and seal the locks. Make the separation clean.”

  “On it. Coming from the port side, Ca
llaghan. Don’t shoot us.” Oh yes, she was going to kick his ass when this was over.

  “Just fucking get here! I’m going to try to suppress this thing in the meantime.”

  A new clip of ammo got locked in place, but he kept the plasma cutter at the ready in case the thing got too close.

  He saw the lights from the squad’s helmets coming his way on his left. On the right, he saw the thing shudder and start waking up again. Whatever damage they had done it was quickly repairing itself.

  Callaghan thought about whether or not he could get to it with the plasma cutter before it grew active again, but he didn’t like his chances.

  Rollins led the pack. She looked his way and he saw the rage, she was locking inside. “Why the hell are you standing there? You’ve got a torch. Burn the locks. We don’t have time to set charges.” She pointed at the connecting umbilicals that locked the Shiname Maru to the freight and the remaining crew of the ship. If they were severed security protocols would lock down the supplies and after that it was a matter of using the thrusters from either side to push ship and cargo in different directions. Even as they were speaking Patel was taking over the port where Perkins had been working earlier. The light off the screen hid Patel’s face behind a reflection.

  Callaghan nodded and moved for the starboard umbilical. The heavily insulated locks that held ship and cargo together would each take a minute or so to burn through. The torch’s glare was enough to make him squint. The insulation melted quickly enough and, once he started the actual cutting, metal and rubber pooled and rippled into freeform statues as they were burned away from the whole and frozen in the zero-g environment.

  “Get the fuck down!” Rollins was screaming, and Callaghan had to look. The same thing that had stopped before was coming for them and the squad was braced and firing.

  No time. He looked away and kept cutting.

  Du Mariste spoke up. “The Company would rather have the remaining ship left intact.”

  Ogambe came through. He hissed his words for a moment. “The company can have it, long as we get away.” He grunted. “That thing comes for us, we’re going to frag it.”

  Callaghan looked down at his handiwork and nodded as the final connections in the first umbilical were severed. “Half way there.”

  The lights from the attacking unit flared brightly enough to leave blue phantoms in front of his eyes, but he moved anyway, clunking his way over to the port side, away from the main conflict.

  So he got to see the machinery coming their way from the other side. “Got more coming on the left!” This one was different, more fluid in design. It rolled quickly and smoothly and had some sort of array at the top.

  The array looked like it might involve actual weapons. Ranged attacks.

  Rollins was already barking orders.

  Patel said, “On it,” and a moment later a wall smoothly slid down to shut off the corridor. It was thick and hermetically sealed.

  Callaghan breathed a little easier and started cutting away at the second umbilical, flinching automatically each time molten fragments hit his suit. Nothing had burned through yet, but you never knew.

  The port side’s new wall shuddered.

  The starboard side was bathed in unholy light and more flares of plasma fire cast long shadows his way that were devoured by the torch. He wasn’t a tech guy. He just cut through everything as quickly as he could.

  “Go faster, Callaghan! We need to get back to the drop ship and fast.”

  “I’m working as fast as I can, Rollins.”

  “Work faster anyway!”

  Walleston screamed out in pain and then cursed. At least the man was still alive.

  “Got it!” The last wire burned through and he pulled back.

  Patel said, “Let’s go. I’m ready to blow the docking locks.”

  The wall on the port side was glowing and starting to melt near the top. It bubbled in their direction.

  Callaghan didn’t have to be told twice to vacate. He moved toward the sealed airlock. On the starboard side he saw how bad things had gotten. Two of his companions were injured. One was missing and two weren’t moving. The other five were still firing and retreating.

  Patel shoved past him and tapped the controls on the airlock. “Come on, people. Let’s go! Let’s go!”

  Callaghan readied his weapons and looked at the port wall. Everyone needed to get away.

  Rollins and the rest were coming, and dragging the wounded with them. Someone, he thought it was Murneau, had lost a leg. The environment suit had sealed the wound nice and neat, but that didn’t mean much. The leg was floating near the battered and currently unmoving monstrosity that had already done so much damage.

  Even as he watched, more of the thick liquids spilled from the walls around the broken machinery. The walls obligingly blistered and started to bubble out into whatever sort of building materials that fucking thing ate.

  Patel thumped him on the shoulder. “Go!”

  Callaghan listened.

  They made their way through the airlocks and onto their own jump ship as quickly as they could. When they were all in place. Patel hit the keypad on the jump side and then sagged against the wall in his thick armored suit.

  “We’re ready, Du Mariste.”

  Patel spoke softly. The response was immediate. The ship moved, surging away from the interlocking umbilical.

  As soon as they were far enough away, Patel blew the charges and the vast store of supplies meant to build another colony slid away from the Shiname Maru. Despite himself, Callaghan looked over at the company ship. Over half of the hull was blistering as whatever the hell was stuck to the ship continued to feast.

  “We need to blow that thing up.”

  Patel looked his way. “Why?”

  “It gets strong enough, if it rebuilds itself, it might try to follow us.”

  “The company wants it intact.”

  “They’re bugshit crazy.”

  Bendez had all that stuff on his armor. Callaghan wondered what was left of the environment suit and what had been done with the liquid that had been absorbing it.

  “Besides. I think they already got their samples.”

  Rollins was the one who answered him. “Yeah? Well, we all love incentives.” She sounded as tired as he felt.

  DANGEROUS PREY

  BY SCOTT SIGLER

  The protector hides in the shadows.

  It is damaged.

  It waits.

  It listens.

  Its cadre is gone, killed by the dangerous prey. The protector feels no familiar taps, hears no identifying sounds. The protector smells the scents of the cadre, but the individual signatures are hidden beneath the mostly uniform death-scent.

  The protector hears and feels the presence of only a single being—one of the dangerous prey.

  A host…

  The craving to strike, almost overpowering, suffusing the protector. The undeniable longing to collect the host, carry it back to the colony. Drives so strong they threaten to push out everything else.

  This is what the protector was made for.

  And yet, the protector feels the twang of a simultaneous and equally powerful need, one that fights against the impulse to collect—two storms lashing against each other, each trying to devour the other. That second need: the compulsion to warn the colony.

  The protector waits.

  From the vibrations in the ground, the protector can tell the dangerous prey is also damaged. It makes bleating noises. The prey is crawling.

  The protector listens for loud-stings. It hears none. It listens for the heavy, clomping steps of the dangerous prey. It hears none.

  And still it waits, simple-yet-efficient mind processing this war of urges.

  The protector is the sole survivor of its cadre. Instinct tells it to behave one way if in a group, another way if alone. When alone, the protector must be more cautious. If the protector is too aggressive, if it strikes and dies, the colony might not learn of the
threat.

  The protector stays crouched in the shadows. Hidden. Motionless.

  The protector waits.

  The dangerous prey is two things: a host, and a threat. A threat to other protectors, to the colony, to the Queen. A threat so serious none of its kind could be left alive. That was why the cadre pressed the attack.

  This was the second time the protector responded to a call against this species. The first time, the prey/hosts had soft skins of different colors. The hosts were different sizes, too. Some were big, some were small. Some could loud-sting. Most could not. When the fighting was done, though, all of the surviving hosts made those bleating sounds of weakness, of fear. Those that survived were collected and taken to the colony.

  This time, though, the hosts—this dangerous prey—they looked the same. All of a similar size. All had mottled green skin, with hard areas not that different from the protector’s own rigid carapace.

  The first time the protector faced this species, the prey scattered easily. They were then collected one or two at a time and taken back to the colony. The protector did not collect one—a primitive drive left unfulfilled.

  The second time, though, the dangerous prey operated like a cadre themselves. They remained coordinated throughout the battle. This alone made them a kill-or-be-killed threat, even before the use of the loud-stingers that proved so deadly.

  To defend the colony, the Queen, the cadre struck.

  Early in the battle, the protector’s arm took damage. Two loud-stings rendered it unusable. By the time the protector recovered enough to rejoin the fight, the rest of the cadre was dead, as were most of the dangerous prey.

  All but one.

  A damaged one that can only crawl.

  The colony must know. A trail must be laid. Carrying the warning back home is all there is, the thing that must be done above all others—but there is also that basic, primal need…

  …the all-consuming biological demand to expand the colony.

  The protector waits.

  The protector listens.

  The protector feels.