[AVP] - Aliens vs. Predator

by Marc Cerasini - (ebook by Undead)

  One of the creatures tested the mechanism. With a simple jerk of its sinewy arm, a long, curved, razor-sharp telescopic blade deployed with a soft snick. The formidable hunter examined the honed edge of the blade, then grunted in satisfaction.

  Next came a ridged metal backpack attached to shoulder armor, with a built-in mount and power cables for a plasma cannon. Then the flat, heavy face masks were donned. Each mask was different, yet every one obscured its wearer’s full face—except the burning eyes and the dangling, metal-tipped dreadlocks.

  Finally, a computer was linked to each Predator’s left wrist. Upon activation an LED display flickered, and, with a sudden hiss, the armored joints sealed to become airtight. Warm, humid air flooded the interior of the body armor, an atmosphere that mimicked the conditions of the Predators’ home world.

  With this body armor in place, the hunters collected their weapons—long collapsible spears with serrated tips and curved double-edged blades with ivory grips. Clamps on their gleaming body shields held folded shuriken that, when thrown, would deploy wicked, retractable blades. Strangely, they left the plasma cannons on their racks, selecting only the less-advanced, almost primitive weaponry instead.

  Only one creature chose a high-tech weapon—a wrist-mounted net gun—though he counterbalanced that choice with a more basic, long, curved blade fashioned from a diamond-hard, bony substance.

  After they had all completed their preparations for the hunt, the Predators filed into a small ritual chamber and knelt in supplication before a mammoth, intricately carved stone effigy of a fierce warrior god, a deity who hurled thunderbolts as weapons like some mighty, extraterrestrial Odin.

  As the Predators prostrated themselves before their savage god, a static-streaked image appeared on the bridge’s main computer screen. It was the real-time image of a parade of vehicles lumbering across a vast, frozen expanse.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Antarctic Ice Pack,

  Seven Miles North of Bouvetoya Whaling Station

  Five tracked Hagglunds, followed by the two large mobile drilling platforms, plodded in a long procession across the rugged ice pack. Lex rode in the lead vehicle, a gaudy orange Hagglund branded with the ubiquitous Weyland logo. Little more than a cabin mounted on tank tracks, the Norwegian-built all-weather people mover was the most effective mode of transportation at the South Pole, and its huge windows afforded passengers an excellent view.

  Gazing at the pristine beauty of the harsh, moonlit landscape, Lex pressed her cheek against the cold Plexiglas and allowed the polar chill to seep into her. This was Lex’s way of acclimating her mind and body to the harsh climatic conditions she was about to face.

  “A wasteland,” Sven declared. At his side, Verheiden nodded in agreement.

  Lex shook her head, disappointed by their powers of observation. All you had to do was open your eyes to see that Antarctica possessed as rich an ecology as any other continent on Earth. This harsh, seemingly hostile environment actually teemed with a variety of flora and fauna—much of it easy to see if one only took the time to look.

  Less than five miles from this spot, humpback, minke, and fin whales cavorted in the ocean. A dozen different species of penguin thrived along the coastline, mingling with fur and elephant seals. Albatross, petrel, gulls and skuas wheeled across the sky and snatched krill and fish from the breakers.

  The mercenaries—along with men like Charles Weyland, or even that bandit Quinn—all thought of the natural world as something to be explored, tamed or exploited, not cherished or preserved.

  “We’re about seven miles from the station,” Max Stafford announced from behind the wheel, interrupting Lex’s thoughts. Next to him, Charles Weyland huddled in his coat.

  Sebastian directed Lex’s attention to the full moon, which hung so low in the sky that you could practically bump your head against it.

  “When I was a kid, growing up in Sicily, you know what they’d call a moon that big?”

  Lex shook her head.

  “Hunter’s Moon.”

  Twenty minutes later the lead Hagglunds rolled to the pinnacle of a snow rise and halted on the edge of the whaling station. One by one, the other vehicles pulled around it, engines idling. Weyland opened the door, filling the cab with a blast of frigid air. Max shut down the engine and followed. As the rest disembarked, a steady snow began to fall.

  “There she is,” Weyland declared.

  To Sebastian De Rosa, the abandoned nineteenth-century whaling station looked like one of the Wild West ghost towns he’d visited while digging in the Southwest. The spare, functional wooden buildings were made out of the same tarred, rough-hewn timber. There were hitching posts, a main street fronted by several large buildings, and smaller shacks in various states of disrepair.

  The difference was that here ice and snow replaced sand and tumbleweeds. Wood-shingled roofs sagged under decades of accumulated snow, and drifts as high as ten feet collected between the buildings and almost completely buried some of the smaller, heavily damaged structures.

  Most eerie was the dark pall that hung over the place. Bouvetoya Whaling Station was built at the foot of the mountain, and at this time of year a permanent shadow fell over the desolate ghost town. Sebastian and Miller were tempted to use their flashlights to illuminate the main street as they moved through town.

  “This place looks like a theme park,” said Miller.

  “Yes,” Thomas replied. “Moby-Dick World.”

  As the others looked around, Thomas spied Adele Rousseau. The woman lit a cigarette and took a long drag.

  “Hi,” said Thomas.

  The mercenary took another puff and said nothing.

  “Be honest,” Thomas teased. “You’re a little disappointed that you didn’t get the yellow jacket, aren’t you?”

  Adele turned and faced him. She was not smiling.

  “They give the newbies the yellow jackets so that when you fall down a crevice and die, it’s easier for us to spot your corpse.”

  Thomas swallowed, nodded, and moved on.

  “Spread out,” Max cried over the howl of the wind. “Locate the structures that are most intact. We’ll use this place as a base camp—our tents won’t last long if this wind keeps up.”

  Then Stafford faced the roughnecks. “Mr. Quinn. You’ll begin drilling operations as soon as possible.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Lex walked past Quinn and continued along the shadowy main street. Miller and Sebastian caught up with her at the deserted harbor. There was a ramshackle wharf and a long dock that stretched far out into the bay, but the bay itself was frozen solid.

  A giant black cauldron dominated the harbor from a high cliff. Forged of iron fifteen feet high and thirty feet across, it stood tilted at a crazy angle. The wooden legs under the vat had long since collapsed. Only ice and snow and a single wooden leg prevented the heavy iron pot from rolling over the cliff and tumbling into the harbor below.

  Sebastian wondered about the vat. “Witch’s cauldron?”

  “The Separator,” Lex replied. “Throw whale blubber into it, heat it, separate out the fat. Whale oil was big business back then. Almost as big as petroleum is now.”

  While Miller pushed open a door and wandered inside one of the buildings, Sebastian walked carefully to the edge of the partially shattered wharf, checked the thickness of the ice, and asked, “How did they get ships in here?”

  “The station only operated in the summer, when the pack ice melted. It was abandoned in 1904,” Lex replied.

  “Why?”

  She frowned. “Nothing left to hunt, I guess.”

  She found a harpoon leaning against a dock post and tried to lift it, but the object wouldn’t budge. It remained frozen to the ground.

  Meanwhile, inside one of the largest buildings, Miller discovered a frozen mess hall. Long wooden tables and rough-hewn benches were sheathed with thick, blue-gray ice. Metal cups and plates, whalebone forks and spoons, even a coffeepot were frozen to the
spot where they had been abandoned one hundred years ago.

  Miller tried hard to lift one of the cups. With a metallic clink the handle came away in his hand, the cup still stuck to the tabletop. Grinning, he stepped back and raised his camera. “One for National Geographic.”

  When the flash exploded, the sudden light disturbed something in the far corner of the room. For a split second Miller spied a shiny black shape. There was movement, and he heard a weird, scraping sound, like the pincers of some improbably large insect scurrying along the plank floor.

  “Hello,” Miller called into the shadows.

  The movement ceased, but Miller could sense that he was not alone—that something was in here with him.

  “Hello!”

  Louder this time, Miller’s voice reverberated inside the mess hall. He strained his ears but heard nothing. He turned to go when the scrabbling sound returned. This time the noise seemed closer.

  Feeling a little anxious, Miller puffed out his chest and thumped it with his fist.

  “Come out of there or you’ll be wearing your ass for a hat!” Miller shouted in a fair imitation of Verheiden’s booming voice.

  The noise stopped.

  Swallowing hard, Miller’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

  Suddenly one of the tables was knocked aside by something below eye level. Miller stepped backwards—to collide with someone behind him as a hand grabbed his shoulder.

  “Jesus!” Miller squealed, throwing his hands up.

  “What’s the problem?” Lex cried.

  “There’s something in here!”

  Lex looked doubtful. “Like what?”

  “Over there—” Miller pointed to the spot where the table fell.

  Lex stared into the gloom, her flashlight beam probing the darkest recesses of the mess hall.

  “Listen,” Miller hissed.

  Lex heard it. A scratching sound, like claws on a blackboard. Something was crawling across the ice-covered floor, something small enough to move unseen under tables and between benches.

  And it was coming closer….

  “Watch out, Lex!” Miller cried.

  Suddenly a black shape scrambled out from under a table accompanied by the now familiar scrabbling sound. Lex shone her light on the creature.

  “For God’s sake, Lex!” Miller cried, shrinking back.

  “It’s a penguin!” said Lex, stifling a laugh.

  “I can see it’s a penguin,” he replied sheepishly. “I thought it might be—”

  The penguin waddled right up to Miller and cocked its head to stare at the shaken engineer with one beady eye.

  “Careful,” Lex warned. “They do bite.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Bouvetoya Whaling Station, Bouvetoya Island

  Lex and Miller heard shouts as they emerged from the frozen mess hall.

  “Over here! You’re not going to believe this.”

  It was Sebastian calling. Hearing him, Quinn and his partner Connors dropped what they were doing. Weyland hurried forward, too, with Max Stafford at his side.

  Lex’s gaze followed the billionaire as he moved across the snow-covered ice. He was moving with some difficulty, she noted. He seemed breathless and was leaning heavily on his ice pole. Yet when he spoke, his voice had lost none of its forcefulness. “What is this, Dr. De Rosa?”

  Sebastian led all of them around the corner of a dilapidated processing factory and pointed. There, in the ice, was a gaping hole ten feet across. The pit was perfectly round, and if there was a bottom, it was lost in the shadows far below.

  Perplexed, Weyland looked at Quinn, then at the mobile drilling platforms that were still being unpacked and assembled.

  “How the hell did this get here?”

  Quinn crouched on one knee and examined the pit. “It’s drilled at a perfect fifty-five-degree angle.” He pulled off his bulky glove and ran his hand along the sides of the shaft. The icy walls were perfectly smooth—almost slick to the touch.

  Lex peered over Quinn’s shoulder. “How far down does it go?”

  Sven ignited a flare and tossed it into the pit. They watched it bounce off the smooth walls and fall for many seconds, until the flare’s phosphorescent brilliance was swallowed by the dark.

  “My God,” Weyland said softly.

  Max Stafford looked at Dr. De Rosa. “Are we expected?”

  Weyland dismissed that notion with a wave of his hand. “It must be another team. I’m not the only one with a satellite over Antarctica. Maybe the Chinese… the Russians…”

  “I’m not so sure,” said Lex, staring into the abyss.

  “What other explanation could there be?” Weyland insisted.

  Lex looked around at the ghost town and the barren glacial ice fields all around it. “Where is their base camp? Their equipment? And where are they?”

  Max Stafford shrugged. “Maybe they are already down there.”

  Once again Quinn crouched down to examine the mouth of the shaft. “Look at the ice. There are no ridges, no bore marks. The walls are perfectly smooth—this wasn’t drilled.”

  “How was it done?” asked Lex.

  Quinn looked up at Lex. “Thermal equipment of some kind.”

  Weyland nodded. “Like yours.”

  “More advanced,” Quinn replied. “Incredibly powerful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Quinn activated his flashlight and turned its beam on a building close to the pit. A large circular hole had been cut into the structure, vaporizing the stout wooden walls and melting the metal machinery inside the building. It was clear from the trajectory that whatever had cut through the ice had also sliced through the structure.

  “I told you I’m not the only one with a satellite. It must be another team,” said Weyland. He glanced at Quinn. “Whoever it is, they clearly have better equipment than we do.”

  “Listen,” Quinn replied, standing up to the billionaire. “Whoever cut this, sliced through pack ice, the building, the beams and the solid metal machinery. We should find out what cut this before we proceed.”

  Max Stafford locked eyes with Quinn. “And I thought you were the best.”

  Quinn bristled. He rose, squarely challenging Stafford.

  “I am the best,” he said.

  Weyland stepped past Quinn and stared into the pit. “They must be down there.”

  Lex examined the ice at the mouth of the hole. “No. Look at the ice. There’s no ridges… nobody’s been down there.”

  Weyland frowned. “When does the Big Bird satellite pass over again?”

  Max Stafford checked his watch. “Eleven minutes ago.”

  “Get on the horn to New Mexico. Get me that data.”

  While Max downloaded the satellite reports, Quinn moved one of the Hagglunds forward, directing its spotlights into the pit.

  Miller and some of the roughnecks gathered to peer into the hole, but Connors waved them away.

  “Don’t want nobody fallin’ in. Gettin’ them out again would be a goddamn waste of time.”

  Weyland was leaning against the vehicle when Max Stafford appeared, computer printouts and satellite images in hand. He spread the papers across the hood of the Hagglunds as Quinn, Sebastian, Lex, Miller, and Verheiden gathered around.

  “There it is, clear as day,” said Weyland. His fingers traced the red line all the way across the map, right down to the interconnecting squares.

  “And this time yesterday?”

  Max unfolded a second printout. Weyland studied it. “Nothing.”

  Sebastian squinted at the map. “So whoever cut this shaft did it in the last twenty-four hours.”

  “That’s just not possible,” said Quinn.

  “Well, possible or not, it’s here. It’s done,” said Sebastian.

  Sebastian and Quinn locked eyes, and a vein appeared on Quinn’s tanned forehead.

  “I’m telling you there’s no team and no machine in the world that could cut to this depth in twenty-four hours.”

  Charles
Weyland stepped between them. “The only way we’re going to know for sure is to get down there and find out.”

  Then Weyland turned to face the rest of the party. “Well, gentlemen,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “It seems we may be engaged in a race. If it’s a competition, it’s one I don’t intend to lose—”

  Weyland coughed. Suddenly he doubled over, spasms wracking his body. Max held his shoulders as Weyland choked back the urge and regained control of his breathing.

  “Okay, let’s get to work. I want to know what’s down there and I want to know in the next few hours.” Weyland’s voice was weaker, but his eyes had lost none of their spark.

  As Weyland trudged to the door of the Hagglunds, he reached out and squeezed Max Stafford’s arm. “There are no prizes for coming in second,” Weyland rasped. “Do you understand, Max?”

  Max nodded once. “My men are ready, sir.”

  The area around the pit swarmed with activity. More Hagglunds had been moved up, and their spotlights turned the never-ending dark into day. Teams of roughnecks unloaded coils of rope, and a multiple winch-and-pulley system mounted on a metal tripod had been assembled directly over the mouth of the pit.

  Lex was hammering pitons into the ice when Miller arrived, dragging a pallet packed with his chemical analysis gear.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Safety lines,” Lex replied. “It’s a long way down… don’t want to lose any of you.”

  As Miller unpacked his gear, he took off his wool cap and scratched his head.

  “Put your hat back on.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your hat,” Lex said. “Put it back on.”

  “It itches.”

  Lex paused, lowering her hammer. “I saw a man lose both his ears from frostbite,” she said matter-of-factly. “With the ear canal exposed, you can see a full inch inside your head… all the way to the eardrum.”

  Lex smiled sweetly, tucked the hammer into her tool belt, and strolled away. Miller pulled his hat over his ears.

  Dodging roughnecks, Lex crossed the lighted area to the lead Hagglunds. She opened the door to find Charles Weyland inside. He was alone, gulping oxygen from a portable tank. He lowered the clear plastic mask when Lex entered the vehicle.