River of Pain

by Christopher Golden

  “There is only one way to do this,” Dr. Reese said. “The marines have to kill all of the aliens. One of the idiots suggested that they try to overload the processor core and hope that it will explode, just like in the accident involving the Finch brothers… the explosion that destroyed Processor Six.”

  Dr. Mori gaped at him. “But the entire colony would be destroyed.”

  “Precisely,” Reese sneered.

  Dr. Hidalgo nodded. “That’s why Al Simpson volunteered to go along. They need a tech—someone who can guide them, and let them know what’s safe and what isn’t. He’s gambling with his life, in the hope that he can help save the rest of these people.” She peered at them intently. “I’m willing to do the same.”

  Dr. Mori gripped her arm roughly, fingers digging in as he came close to her, whispering intently.

  “Are you dense, woman?” the silver-haired scientist asked. “We’re taking our data and samples, and we are leaving Acheron.”

  But she shook her head.

  “I can help them,” she said. “I know enough about medicine to treat injuries, and I can advise them regarding the alien.”

  “Theresa,” Dr. Reese said curtly, “if the marines seem unable to do the job, we are leaving, with you or without you.”

  Dr. Hidalgo hated even to blink. Every time she did, she saw the aliens murdering people in the med lab, then dragging others off to be used for incubation.

  “Do what you have to do, Dr. Reese,” she said, and then turned to Mori. “I’d tell you to look after yourself, but really, it’s what the two of you have always been best at.”

  24

  ALL FALL DOWN

  DATE: 26 JUNE, 2179

  TIME: 1332

  Breathe, Julisa, she told herself. You’re armed and dangerous. Even attempting to walk quietly, Lt. Paris thought her footfalls sounded like thunderclaps in the abandoned corridor.

  Normally the thought would have made her smile, but smiles were in short supply this afternoon. So, for that matter, were marines. She wore MX4 body armor and a ballistic helmet. A VP78 pistol hung in the holster on her hip and she carried an M41A pulse rifle in her hands, with a battle rifle slung over her shoulder as a backup, all of them loaded with high-velocity rounds. She had enough firepower to take on an army by herself, but none of it would do a damn bit of good if one of those aliens got to her before she could kill it.

  And that acid blood… she didn’t even want to think about it.

  Capt. Brackett had taken Draper, Pettigrew, and ten other marines off to hunt down the aliens in their hive, or whatever the hell it was, leaving her in charge of safeguarding the colonists in the sealed-off wing of D-Block. She’d stationed the rest of the squad around the inside of the perimeter, not just at every potential entrance into the storage area, but at every junction leading that way.

  She herself had been patrolling the inside of the perimeter for the past hour, checking welds and barricades and the guards who were covering the two unwelded doors. She’d passed the door to the storage area a couple of turns back—left it guarded by three marines armed even more thoroughly than she was—but overall, they simply didn’t have enough bodies to effectively guard the colonists if the aliens showed up en masse.

  Her skin crawled every time she passed a doorway or approached a turn. As she approached the next corner, she whistled the signal she’d arranged. From around the turn came the reply, the same two notes, and she exhaled and quickened her pace. She rounded the corner to find Aldo Crowley leaning against the wall with his weapon cradled in his arms.

  “Damn, Aldo,” she said, “you look way too relaxed.”

  Crowley straightened to attention, but only for a moment before he chuckled and leaned back against the wall.

  “Lieutenant, I’m one grunt with a gun. Those things come after us in force and I’m in the way, the best way for me to serve you is screaming like a little girl. Give the rest of y’all some warning.”

  She would have argued with him, but he wasn’t wrong.

  “Suit yourself,” she said. “I’m not going to make you march in place out here. But I’ll tell you this… these things can die. You just stand there with your thumb up your ass, you’re liable to end up pregnant with one of their babies, or whatever the fuck that’s about. Me? I’d rather be dead.”

  Lt. Paris walked on, but she noticed Aldo wasn’t leaning against the wall anymore. He had his weapon in both hands, watching the corners and the shadows of the corridor ahead that branched off toward the command block.

  Sixty feet further on she came to Pvt. Yousseff and a man called Virgil, who wore a face mask as he used a hand-welder to melt and seal the bolts on the stairwell door. That would leave only one door still unwelded—one way for Brackett and the others to get in and out.

  Virgil had started from the bottom, liquid metal sparks flying out in all directions. The metal turned white-hot where the flame struck it.

  “Anything?” Lt. Paris called over the noise of the welder.

  Yousseff shook her head. Virgil didn’t even look up.

  Paris rose on her toes and peered through the small square windows set into the stairwell doors. Shadows and light played across the steps on the other side, but she saw nothing moving.

  “You think they’re going to be able to pull it off, Lieutenant?” Yousseff asked.

  “I hope so,” Paris said, then she grinned. “The new CO is easy on the eyes. I’d rather he not get his face bitten off.”

  Yousseff laughed and nodded.

  “I’m right there with you.”

  Lt. Paris walked on, continuing her circuit of the perimeter, surprised that after serving with Yousseff for nearly two years, they’d finally found something they had in common. She thought about Brackett, off with that asshole Draper, and hoped they both came back alive. They’d already lost too many marines, like Coughlin, and she didn’t want to lose any more.

  Approaching the next corner, she whistled the signal.

  Three more steps and she halted, frowning deeply. Breathing in and out, listening to her own heartbeat. She lifted the pulse rifle and took two steps nearer the turn. Then she whistled again.

  The sound that came back was a wet gurgle, followed by the slap of flesh on floor.

  Fuck.

  Quiet and swift, she hurried to the corner. Back to the wall, she peered around the edge, leading with the rifle barrel.

  The alien crouched above Chenovski, who lay on the floor, alive but somehow paralyzed. His face and body armor were covered with a thick layer of fluid, some kind of mucous, but his eyes were wide and aware as the alien dragged him toward another branching corridor.

  Paralysis, she thought. But he’ll know it when they put him in front of one of those eggs and let a damn facehugger implant a parasite in his chest.

  She had kissed Chenovski once, drunk and maudlin because she was alone on her birthday. Mostly their friendship was based on her cheating at cards and him letting her get away with it.

  Paris stepped out from the corner.

  “Hey, shithead!” she barked.

  The alien snapped its head up. If it had eyes, they stared at her.

  “Lieutenant?” Yousseff called from off to her left, back the way she’d come.

  Paris shot the alien twice in the chest. It staggered back, acid blood spilling to the ground, hissing as it ate through the floor. The acid spray hit Chenovski’s legs and he moaned, but it could’ve been so much worse.

  “Back off!” she shouted, taking a step forward, trying to scare it away from Chenovski while he was still alive.

  It didn’t look scared.

  Instead, it advanced on her as if daring her to fire again—daring her to spill more acid onto her friend. Paris felt a nauseous twist in her gut.

  How smart are these things?

  She fired several times into the wall just beside the thing. From her left she heard Yousseff shouting… running her way… and then Aldo Crowley, coming as well, all the way from his
post at the next corner, seventy yards away.

  The alien didn’t flinch. Its mouth opened and its jaws slid out, thick rivulets of drool spilling from its lips. Paris wanted to scream. Wanted to throw up. But mostly she wanted to kill it.

  She pulled the trigger, a single shot aimed right at the center of its head. It twitched to the left so that the bullet punched through the carapace and struck its skull. It rose up as if in righteous fury, coiled its tail behind it, and Lt. Paris readied herself for it to charge, thinking that if she could open up with a full salvo from the pulse rifle, she could kill it before it reached her and maybe—just maybe—its blood would fall nearer to her, and Chenovski would live.

  The alien drove the knifepoint of its tail through Chenovski’s skull with a wet crunch.

  Paris screamed and opened fire as the alien charged toward her. It took a dozen rounds as it lunged, and she backpedaled, slammed into the wall, and kept shooting until she blew its body apart. Its blood flew and she dove aside as it spattered and burned into the wall.

  Sliding onto her belly, combat rifle clacking against her helmet and pistol jamming into her hip, she found herself on the floor as Yousseff reached her.

  “Get up, Loot,” Yousseff snapped. “There may be more.”

  As if Paris didn’t know that. She scrambled to her feet and swung her plasma rifle up again.

  “I don’t know how it got in past the sealed-off door down that way, but it had to have come from that side corridor,” Yousseff said, gesturing with her weapon. “No chance it got the drop on Chenovski approaching any other way.”

  Thirty feet along, the opening to that side corridor yawned wide. The two marines exchanged a glance. Neither of them wanted to go down there, but they had no choice. There seemed no question that the aliens knew exactly where the colonists were holed up, and were attempting to take out those who were guarding them.

  Or they don’t care, Lt. Paris thought with a shiver. Maybe they just look at our storage area as their storage area now… And however that one got in, they figure they can come and get us a few at a time, whenever it’s convenient.

  “With me,” she told Yousseff, and she took a single step.

  A crash reverberated along the corridor.

  Aldo Crowley shouted filthy profanities to his God.

  Paris and Yousseff whipped around to see Virgil on his ass with the welder in his hand, his face mask still down, almost obscenely impersonal. Another crash and the stairwell doors began to buckle on the top. The weld on the bottom, though still warm, held as the upper parts of the doors began to bow inward.

  An alien slammed its head into the widening gap.

  “Shoot it, Aldo!” Lt. Paris shouted as she and Yousseff raced back along the hallway. “Open fire, damn it!”

  Aldo pulled the trigger, spraying the doors with plasma rounds that blew out the windows and stitched holes into the metal. The alien crashed into the doors again and the hinges shrieked, then began to give way.

  Virgil sat up, scrambled forward, thrust his welder through the opening and let loose a stream of concentrated blue flame.

  Lt. Paris heard the alien scream. She liked the sound.

  Then the alien crashed through the doors. One tore completely free and fell on top of Virgil, knocking the welder from his hand. Its flame cut across his body as the door blocked their view of him, but Paris and Yousseff could hear him roaring in pain.

  The alien ripped the gun from Aldo’s grip and hurled the weapon aside, even as it punched its extended jaw through his forehead.

  As Aldo slid down the wall, dead, Paris and Yousseff opened fire, blowing the alien apart with dozens of rounds.

  When they let up, the echo of gunfire ringing in their ears, Paris held her breath. They stared at the open maw of the ruined stairwell doors. After a few seconds they hurried past, not looking at Aldo, stopping only a moment to check on Virgil, who’d ended his own life with his welding torch.

  They aimed into the darkened stairwell, lights flickering inside, and then hurried on to the corner that had until moments ago been Aldo Crowley’s post.

  Together, the two marines stood guard, watching the carnage-strewn corridor for sign of any further attack.

  For the moment, the hallway was quiet.

  “We are so screwed,” Yousseff breathed.

  Lt. Paris said nothing. Instead, she prayed that Brackett and Draper could get the job done. She had known the risks when she joined the Corps, but she had decided that she was firmly opposed to dying on Acheron.

  * * *

  DATE: 26 JUNE, 2179

  TIME: 1339

  The enormous structure was labeled Atmosphere Processor One. The place was the size of an old-time sports stadium, at least fifteen stories high and several levels deep. Its inner workings included not only the most significant atmospheric processing units, but an energy reactor providing power to the entire colony.

  A wide service tunnel ran from the main floor of the colony complex at an angle that led underground and connected up with sub-level one of the massive processing station. Walking through that tunnel, Brackett and his team saw clear evidence that the aliens had been using it to travel back and forth to the complex. The sticky, hardening resin that the demons secreted was everywhere, and they found streaks and puddles of human blood along the way.

  Lydecker’s staff had tracked the PDTs to a place under the primary heating stations, down in the guts of Processor One—sub-level three. The aliens were building their hive in the hot, humming belly of the place. As the captain led his team into the massive structure, he tried not to wonder how many of the monsters would be waiting.

  Sub-level three was accessible via two elevators and long, narrow stairs. Brackett and Draper stood guard as Cpl. Pettigrew took Stamovich, Hauer, and seven other marines into the huge freight elevator. He didn’t like splitting their numbers, but the speed of the elevator provided made it the best option. Taking the stairs all the way down offered too many dark corners from which the aliens could come for them.

  Too many doors, as well, whereas the elevator only had one.

  “Pettigrew, when you reach the bottom you sit tight unless you are under attack,” Brackett said. “You read me? No one goes exploring. Just secure the area around the elevator and wait for us. We’ll be right behind you.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cpl. Pettigrew said. With the helmet hiding his blond hair he looked older. Or perhaps it was fear that had aged him.

  “If you see any nasties, run faster than the other guys,” Draper suggested, a mischievous glint in his eye. “The ones at the derelict.”

  Stamovich barked laughter, but then his face darkened.

  “Hey. I’m one of those guys.”

  “Yeah,” Draper said. “I know.”

  Brackett scowled. “All right, move along. We’ll see you down there.”

  He stepped away from the elevator as the doors slid shut. As it descended, he glanced over to Al Simpson, who stood with Dr. Hidalgo by the other elevator. Simpson held a scanning device tied into the command block’s systems. It showed a schematic of the sub-levels, pinpointing the location where sensors had picked up the cluster of PDTs.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Simpson,” he said.

  Simpson hit the call button for the second elevator, and they heard the rattle and hum of its ascension. Dr. Hidalgo peered through the cage that formed the shaft, and watched the empty lift rising toward them.

  When the elevator arrived, the cage and the inner doors slid open and they all stepped inside. The elevator rumbled and clattered as the doors closed and it began to descend. It occurred to Brackett to wonder just how smart the aliens might be. Were they capable of separating the sound of the elevator from the other industrial noises that filled this subterranean heart of the colony?

  He thought they probably were.

  When they reached the bottom—Brackett’s thoughts drifting to Paradise Lost and the ninth circle of Hell—Pettigrew and the others had secured the area. Brackett
was the first to step off the elevator, with Al Simpson a quick second. The administrator didn’t so much as glance up, despite the danger they all expected to face. Brackett found himself developing a grudging respect for the man.

  “That way,” Simpson said, pointing across an open space toward a broad corridor that led between two massive generators. The lights were high up on the ceiling and provided little illumination, such that shadows were far more plentiful than the splashes of light.

  “Can’t we just let them have the place, and get our asses off-planet?” Hauer asked, a hint of seriousness in his voice. “Dust-off is my middle name.”

  “I thought your middle name was pussy,” Stamovich muttered.

  Several of the marines laughed.

  Brackett swung his weapon up and aimed it toward the place Simpson had pointed.

  “Maybe you assholes want to keep it down?” he suggested. “Y’know, on the off chance they don’t already know we’re coming?” That shut them up. Several of them took aim at the shadowy space between the generators, the way the captain had.

  “Look, this is pretty simple,” Draper said, glaring at Brackett. “We kill these things, or they kill us and everyone upstairs.”

  Brackett nodded. “For once we agree on something.” He turned to Pettigrew. “Corporal, keep that elevator on this level, doors open. Dr. Hidalgo’s going to stay here with you—”

  “Oh no I’m not,” the woman said, chin raised defiantly.

  “You want to help anyone who’s wounded,” Brackett said. “Best way to do that is to stay here, because when we’re done, this is our exit. Anyone gets hurt, we’ll bring them to you on the way out.”

  Dr. Hidalgo turned and put a comforting hand on Pettigrew’s arm.

  “No offense to the corporal, but he’s just one marine. You may not want to take me into their hive, but realistically, I’m safer with a dozen marines than I am with one.” She peered levelly at Brackett. “I’m coming with you, Captain. Like it or not.”