“I’m not risking the lives of my unit for another second. We’re out of here, Misra. Everyone’s dead, and the facility is already toast. That’s the story we tell.”
“You’re stupid!”
“And you’re a Colonial Marine! You’ve served in the DevilDogs for five years! You’d really throw all that away for–”
“For a million credits, yeah,” Misra said, nodding hard. “Yes. I’m the boss now, boss.”
“No,” Halley said.
Misra frowned.
Halley turned her head slightly to look past Misra, and the marine’s reaction was inbuilt, instinctive. He glanced back.
Halley, Durand and Bestwick all fired at the same time. Two laser blasts took him in the gut, the third sheared off the top third of his head, spilling him back onto the fire spite-spattered floor and splashing his scheming brains into the bubbling mess.
Silence fell, interrupted only by Durand’s heavy breathing. She felt no remorse. Misra wasn’t the first person she’d killed, but it could be that he was the most deserving.
“That didn’t happen,” Halley said, glancing back at the rest of her unit.
“What didn’t happen?” Nassise asked.
“Let’s move out.”
* * *
They almost made it back to the ship.
Rushing back along the east wing, passing rooms and spaces already checked and cleared, Durand and the rest of the team were looking for danger from behind.
It came from all around.
The fire spites must have circled the facility and broken in from outside, drifting through empty rooms and waiting at closed doors for the marines to close in. Spitting fire, melting through doors, and dropping from the service-filled ceiling space above, their movement became apparent only moments before they attacked.
Durand was covering their retreat. She turned and faced back the way they’d come as the shooting began once again, com-rifle bucking in her hand, targeting grid guiding her aim. Her companions worked silently, so tight as a unit that they almost acted as one entity, instinctively dividing target zones and ensuring all angles were covered.
“Seventy meters!” a voice shouted, and Durand had never been so pleased to hear Huyck. “Follow my signal, out through a store room and exterior door!”
“Let’s move it,” Halley said. Even under fire she was cool. Sometimes, Durand wished she was just like the major.
Someone screamed. Durand turned and saw a fire spite circling Sprenkel’s leg, unleashing its flaming emissions against his limb. He fired at it but kept missing as it came in close. His suit was protecting him for now, but––
The floor bucked. Durand stumbled and fell, striking the floor on her side. Winded, she rolled onto her back and took out a creature dropping directly towards her head. Its wet, blazing hot innards spattered down across her face, visor darkening and blinding her to what came next.
The superheated floor dipped, then fell away completely, taking her with it. She shouted. She heard the others calling her name, but darkness swallowed her, even though the suit visor had cleared again. Twisting as she fell, she struck bottom on her right side… and kept on falling.
All sound was sucked away. Light flared and faded, flared and faded, as fire and laser bursts played above her.
Just like being in space, she thought, because she was floating and weightless.
Her suit glitched again, systems flickering, before all input fell to nothing. Darkness welcomed her down.
* * *
She couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes. When she came to, she was bobbing against a floor in the flooded basement level. Her com-rifle held her down. It was the last thing she’d ever let go of, even in death. Her hand was locked around the grasp, and she used it to anchor her as she looked around.
Her suit systems were dead. Perhaps an impact had taken out the CSU, or maybe she’d sustained some damage that allowed water to flood in and short the whole suit. It was only pure luck that had maintained her oxygen supplies to her face mask. Without that, she’d have drowned.
The ship! she thought. I have to hurry!
She pushed herself up, standing so that the water came up to her neck and looking around. The hole she’d tumbled through was three meters up, and illuminated by flickering flames. No more gunfire.
“Boss,” she said. “Bestwick. Sprenkel. Nassise?” There was no reply, and she could not hear the tell-tale hum of an open channel. Her comms were as dead as the rest of her suit’s systems.
“Fucking great,” she said.
Cautiously, she waded towards the wall and started climbing, using metal rungs cast into the structure.
A heavy vibration shook the ground. She paused, then started climbing faster, heart sinking as she pulled herself up into the battle-scarred corridor. She emerged from the hole just in time to hear the dropship’s distinctive launch rockets blasting it up and away from the base.
“Oh, no,” she muttered. With her suit dead, her vitals would show that she was the same.
Hefting the com-rifle, she looked back and forth along the corridor. For now it was silent and still, but for the glow of flaming dead things and drifting smoke.
I’ll message them! she thought. Get back to a central control room, get comms working, let them know I’m still here! The Colonial Marines never left anyone behind.
Yet here she was.
And there they were. Drifting closer from along the corridor, maybe fifty of them. She spun around and they were coming from the other direction, too. They seemed slower than before, more contemplative. Maybe they were afraid after she and her companions had unleashed such destruction on their blazing hot bodies.
Or perhaps they were more intelligent than that.
They know I’m stranded, she thought. They’re going to play with me.
“Fuck that,” Durand said. Checking her com-rifle’s charge, finding it sufficient, she hefted the weapon, and braced her legs into the familiar firing stance.
“Come on then, you bastards!” she shouted. “Let’s get busy!”
Her finger stroked the trigger, and the world caught on fire.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
PAUL KUPPERBERG is a writer of novels, short stories, comic books, and nonfiction, including The Same Old Story and In My Shorts: Hitler’s Bellhop and Other Stories (both from Crazy 8 Press). He has written over 1,000 comic books, ranging from Superman to Scooby Doo, and is the author of the GLAAD Media Award nominated and 2014 IAMTW Scribe Award-winning young adult novel Kevin (Grosset & Dunlap), as well as the Harvey and Eisner Awards nominated Life With Archie series (including the controversial “Death of Archie” story line) for Archie Comics. Paul is the executive editor and a writer for Charlton Neo Comics (http://morttodd.com/charlton.html) and you can follow him on Facebook, Twitter (@PaulKupperberg), and at PaulKupperberg.com.
DAN ABNETT is a seven-times New York Times bestselling author and an award-winning comic book writer. He has written over fifty novels, including the acclaimed Gaunt’s Ghosts series, the Eisenhorn and Ravenor trilogies, volumes of the million-selling Horus Heresy series, The Silent Stars Go By (Doctor Who), Rocket Raccoon and Groot: Steal the Galaxy, The Avengers: Everybody Wants To Rule The World, Triumff: Her Majesty’s Hero, and Embedded, and with Nik Vincent, Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals and Fiefdom. In comics, he is known for his work for Marvel, DC, Boom!, Dark Horse and 2000AD. His 2008 run on The Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel formed the inspiration for the blockbuster movie. He has also written extensively for the games industry, including Shadow of Mordor and Alien: Isolation. Dan lives and works in the UK with his wife Nik Vincent-Abnett, an editor and writer of fiction. Follow him on Twitter: @VincentAbnett.
RACHEL CAINE is a New York Times, USA Today, and #1 international bestselling author of science fiction, young adult, fantasy and suspense. Her works include the Morganville Vampires series (YA), Weather Warden series (Fantasy), Stillhouse Lake (thriller), and the Great Library series (YA). She’
s written more than fifty books and a hundred short stories so far. Find her at rachelcaine.com, Facebook at rachelcainefanpage, and Twitter at @rachelcaine.
YVONNE NAVARRO lives in southern Arizona and is the author of more than twenty published novels and well over a hundred short stories. Back in 1996, Aliens: Music of the Spears was her fourth published novel. Her writing has won the HWA’s Bram Stoker Award plus a number of other writing awards. She also draws and paints, and is married to author Weston Ochse. They dote on their three Great Danes, Ghoulie, The Grimmy Beast, and I Am Groot, and a talking, people-loving parakeet named BirdZilla. She admits to having a framed, signed photograph of a young Michael Biehn in her art studio. Visit her at www.yvonnenavarro.com or on Facebook.
CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN is the New York Times bestselling author of Ararat, Snowblind, and Tin Men, among many other novels. With Mike Mignola, he co-created two cult favorite comic book series, Baltimore and Joe Golem: Occult Detective. As editor, his anthologies include Seize the Night, The New Dead, and Dark Cities. His first trip into the Alien franchise was the novel Alien: River of Pain. Golden lives in Massachusetts. Please visit him at www.christophergolden.com.
MATT FORBECK is an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author and game designer with over thirty novels and countless games published to date. His latest work includes the novel Halo: New Blood, the Magic: The Gathering comics, Captain America: The Ultimate Guide to the First Avenger, the Monster Academy YA fantasy novels, and the upcoming Shotguns & Sorcery roleplaying game based on his novels. He lives in Beloit, WI, with his wife and five children, including a set of quadruplets. For more about him and his work, visit Forbeck.com.
RAY GARTON has been writing novels, novellas, and short stories for more than thirty years. His work spans the genres of horror, crime, suspense, and even comedy. His titles include the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Live Girls, Ravenous, The Loveliest Dead, Meds, Vortex, and many others. His short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies and have been collected in books like Methods of Madness, Pieces of Hate, and Slivers of Bone. He received the Grand Master of Horror Award in 2006. He lives in northern California with his wife and is currently working on several projects. Visit his website at RayGartonOnline.com.
WESTON OCHSE is a former intelligence officer and special operations soldier who has engaged enemy combatants, terrorists, narco smugglers, and human traffickers. His personal war stories include performing humanitarian operations over Bangladesh, being deployed to Afghanistan, and a near miss being cannibalized in Papua New Guinea. His fiction and non-fiction has been praised by USA Today, The Atlantic, The New York Post, The Financial Times of London, and Publishers Weekly. The American Library Association labeled him one of the Major Horror Authors of the twenty-first century. His work has also won the Bram Stoker Award, been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and won multiple New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards. A writer of more than twenty-six books in multiple genres, his military supernatural series SEAL Team 666 has been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci-fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war.
LARRY CORREIA: Monster Hunter International, despite being self-published, reached the Entertainment Weekly bestseller list in April 2008, after which he received a publishing contract with Baen Books. Monster Hunter International was re-released in 2009 and was on the Locus bestseller list in November 2009. The sequel, Monster Hunter Vendetta, was a New York Times bestseller. The third book in the series, Monster Hunter Alpha, was released in July 2011 and was also a New York Times bestseller. Correia was a finalist for the John W. Campbell award for best new science fiction/fantasy writer of 2011. Warbound, the third book in Correia’s The Grimnoir Chronicles series, received a nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2014. The Dead Six series started as an online action fiction collaboration with Mike Kupari (Nightcrawler) at the online gun forum “The High Road” as the “Welcome Back Mr Nightcrawler” series of posts. These works predated the publishing of Monster Hunter.
KEITH R.A. DeCANDIDO has written novels, short fiction, and comic books in a variety of media universes over a career that spans more than two decades, as well as original fiction in his own universes. Recent and upcoming work includes the Marvel’s Tales of Asgard trilogy (featuring Thor, Sif, and the Warriors Three); the Stargate SG-1 novel Kali’s Wrath; the Heroes Reborn novella Save the Cheerleader, Destroy the World; the urban fantasy novel A Furnace Sealed; the high fantasy police procedural Mermaid Precinct; three serialized Super City Police Department novellas; and short fiction in the anthologies Nights of the Living Dead, The X-Files: Trust No One, V-Wars: Night Terrors, Baker Street Irregulars, TV Gods: Summer Programming, Altered States of the Union, A Baker’s Dozen of Magic, and Limbus Inc. Book 3. Find out more at his cheerfully retro website at DeCandido.net, which is the gateway to his entire online footprint.
BRIAN KEENE writes novels, comic books, short fiction, and occasional journalism for money. He is the author of over forty books, mostly in the horror, crime, and dark fantasy genres, including The Complex, Pressure, Ghoul, and The Rising. He has won numerous awards and honors, including the 2014 World Horror Grandmaster Award, 2001 Bram Stoker Award for Nonfiction, 2003 Bram Stoker Award for First Novel, 2004 Shocker Award for Book of the Year, and Honors from United States Army International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan and Whiteman A.F.B. (home of the B-2 Stealth Bomber) 509th Logistics Fuels Flight. He also hosts the popular podcast, The Horror Show with Brian Keene.
HEATHER GRAHAM is the international, New York Times, and USA Today bestselling author of over two hundred novels, novellas, and stories. The founder of Slushpile Productions, she hosts numerous venues with dinner theater and author rock bands for various children’s charities. Heather Graham and the Slushpile also have a number of recordings available on I-Tunes and other venues. Creepy-crawly-scary things have long intrigued her. She has written horror, suspense, romance, historical fiction, and Christmas family fare. Find her on Facebook or at theoriginalheathergraham.com. She sincerely hopes you enjoy her entry here as she is an avid X-Files fan!
Michael Diamond Resnick, better known by his published name MIKE RESNICK, is a popular and prolific American science fiction author. He is, according to Locus, the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short science fiction. He is the winner of five Hugos, a Nebula, and other major awards in the United States, France, Spain, Japan, Croatia, and Poland, and has been short-listed for major awards in England, Italy, and Australia. He is the author of sixty-eight novels, over two hundred and fifty stories, and two screenplays, and is the editor of forty-one anthologies. His work has been translated into twenty-five languages. He can be found online as @ResnickMike on Twitter or at www.mikeresnick.com.
MARINA J. LOSTETTER’s original short fiction has appeared in venues such as Lightspeed, InterGalactic Medicine Show, and Flash Fiction Online. Originally from Oregon, she now lives in Arkansas with her husband, Alex. Marina enjoys globetrotting, board games, and all things art-related. She tweets as @MarinaLostetter, and her official website can be found at www.lostetter.net.
JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times bestselling author, five-time Bram Stoker Award-winner and comic book writer. He writes in multiple genres including suspense, thriller, horror, science fiction, fantasy, action, and steampunk, for adults and teens. His works include the Joe Ledger thrillers, Roy & Ruin, Vault of Shadows, X-Files Origins: Devil’s Advocate, Mars One, Patient Zero, V-Wars, and many others. He writes comics for Marvel (Black Panther, Punisher, etc.), Dark Horse (Bad Blood) and IDW (Warrior Smart, V-Wars). And he is the editor of several high-profile anthologies including The X-Files, Nights of the Living Dead, and Scary Out There. Several of his works are in development for movies and TV. He is a popular workshop leader, keynote speaker and writing teacher. He lives in Del Mar, California. Find him online at www.jonathanmaberry.com.
JAMES A. MOO
RE is the bestselling author of more than forty novels, including the critically acclaimed Fireworks, Under The Overtree, Blood Red, the Serenity Falls trilogy (featuring his recurring anti-hero, Jonathan Crowley) and his most recent novels City of Wonders and The Last Sacrifice. He is the author of Alien: Sea of Sorrows, part of a trilogy written with Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon for Titan Books. He has twice been nominated for the Bram Stoker Award and spent three years as an officer in the Horror Writers Association, first as secretary and later as vice president.
SCOTT SIGLER is the New York Times bestselling author of seventeen novels, six novellas and dozens of short stories. His works are available from Crown Publishing and Del Rey Books, including his most recent Alone (Book III in the Generations Trilogy). He is also a co-founder of Empty Set Entertainment, which publishes his young-adult Galactic Football League series.
DAVID FARLAND is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author in both the science fiction and fantasy genres with more than fifty novels to his credit. He has written novels for both the Star Wars and the Mummy series, and this story, he says, “My fanboy dreams have almost all come true. Now if I can just write a Mad Max novel.”
TIM LEBBON is a New York Times bestselling horror and fantasy writer from South Wales. He’s had almost thirty novels published to date, as well as dozens of novellas and hundreds of short stories. His most recent releases include the apocalyptic Coldbrook, Alien: Out of the Shadows, Into the Void: Dawn of the Jedi (Star Wars), the Toxic City trilogy from Pyr in the USA, The Silence (Titan UK/USA), the thriller Endure, the Alien-Predator crossover “The Rage War,” and the forthcoming Relics trilogy. He has won four British Fantasy Awards, a Bram Stoker Award, and a Scribe Award, and has been a finalist for World Fantasy, International Horror Guild and Shirley Jackson Awards. Works for the screen include Pay the Ghost (starring Nicolas Cage), children’s spooky animated film My Haunted House, his script Playtime (written with Stephen Volk), and Exorcising Angels (with Simon Clark). Find out more about Tim at his website www.timlebbon.net.
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