Aliens - The Truth is Coming (Book of Aliens 1)

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

  “Well, that’s the thing chief. I can access the main Control Comp System from here. There’s a secondary interface in engineering as a backup. I requested a head count.”

  Each person aboard a colony ship had a tiny sub dermal implant, which allowed the CCS to track their location as well as the individuals’ bio readings. It would also constantly monitor how many people were aboard.

  “I may regret asking this. How many are there?”

  “Zero chief. There are no crewmen currently registered.”

  “But you said that the alignment was done manually.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Hmm. Okay, thanks Finn.”

  The implants were inserted into the gluteus maximus of all newborns. This was protocol; everyone had one. If there were people aboard that did not have the bio tracker, then that could only mean one thing. He turned to his team. “There may be a break in the social structure. It could be they had a mutiny. Keep on your toes.”

  The group nodded in response. They continued along the corridor, coming upon more of the hapless crew that had died suddenly, killed by a flash radiation burst, most likely from the ship’s own reactor.

  When they reached the junction to the Control Centre Pod, the most forward part of the ship, Jensen felt a sense of relief. He opened the connecting portal. It was an airlock, since the control pod was effectively a separate system to the rest of the ship. Although cramped, the Bitter Sea personnel squeezed into the small chamber. They cycled through and as the adjoining portal opened, they got their first glimpse of the ship’s control centre, the bridge.

  A dozen of the Argoss crew were arrayed around the room, some still at their workstations, others haphazardly fallen, or sitting slumped against a bulkhead. The blast of radiation that had killed them had been over in a second. They probably hadn’t even felt a thing.

  But the gen-pop sphere would have better shielding. Sure, it was closer to the reaction core, but its hull was meters thick. Still, if there had been any survivors, the engineers would have reported it by now.

  Jensen went to the nearest computer terminal and punched a few keys at random. Nothing.

  “Let’s get to work. We need these systems up and running.”

  His team spread out, carefully moving the bags of bones that had once been people. They stacked them in a corner of the control room, then began to pull apart the panelling to get at the computer’s inner systems, looking for the fault that had put the control centre offline.

  Engineer first class Markus Han was first to get his terminal running. He turned to his partner. “Li, look at this.” He pointed to a digital readout that displayed a set of numbers. Li narrowed his eyes.

  “It looks like the containment field was taken offline.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “But . . . that would kill everyone. Why would they do that?”

  “No idea. But it looks like someone wanted to pull the plug on the whole crew.”

  “Sir! Over here, please.”

  Jensen hurried over to the techs, who were still staring in shock at the data on the screen.

  “It was sabotage, Sir. The drive failure. Someone did it deliberately.”

  Jensen swore, shaking his head. “What in hell would possess someone to do that?”

  Markus Han peered closer at the data, and he visibly paled. “Sir . . . it was here. They did it from here.” He pointed to a section of the screen displaying an array of numbers. “They overrode the safety protocols. That’s the captain’s own authorisation code.”

  “What?” Jensen stared in puzzlement at the data on the screen. Drive tech was not his field, and he could not comprehend the lines of scrolling data. “The command crew caused a deliberate drive containment field failure? Why the hell would they do that? It would kill everyone on the whole ship!”

  Markus nodded. “Yeah. Everyone. And everything.”

  Jensen activated his comm unit. “Finn, report in please.”

  There was no answer.

  “Lieutenant Cho, please respond.”

  The technicians in the control room looked to their leader, whose hand had automatically gone to the holstered weapon on his right hip.

  ***

  Lieutenant Cho levered the panel away from the wall, exposing an intricate array of wires and tubes. He reached in and pulled a breaker from its panel, examining it carefully before reinserting it. Then he keyed the reset and pulled his arm out. Immediately there was a hum, and lights on instrument panels around the room illuminated.

  “Nice,” said Finn. “Just a tripped breaker. Good call.”

  “Not my first rodeo,” Cho replied.

  “Your first what?”

  “I dunno. I saw it in one of the movie archives,” Cho said. “Seemed appropriate.”

  They both laughed. Movies were a major source of entertainment for the crew of the Bitter Sea and Endurance, however no new films had been made in the hundreds of years since leaving Earth, so they were stuck with re-watching films from a time and place that hardly made sense.

  With the computer systems running, they began preliminary checks. It was not long before they discovered the recent maintenance performed on the drive, which they related to Jensen, along with the fact that there were no registered crew remaining.

  “Somebody must have done the alignment though,” said Cho thoughtfully. “Or maybe they died after completing it? Can we run a filter and find out when the last crew died?”

  Finn typed rapidly, feeding instructions into the computer. The answer was quick in coming.

  “Says here that the last crew registered was 2192. That was when the ship went silent.”

  “So everyone was killed two hundred and eighty years ago?”

  “Looks like.”

  “Okay. Then who realigned the coil?”

  Both their comm units chirped and Jensen’s voice sounded as the door to the control room hissed open. Cho and Finn whirled around. It was not one of the other salvage team members. What came through the door may have been distantly related to humanity, but it wasn’t human.

  They had barely enough time to scream.

  ***

  With no answer from the drive technicians, Jensen was clearly worried. “Get the systems online. We need to find out what the hell we’re dealing with.”

  Markus looked up from the computer terminal he was working on. “No response from Cho or Finn?”

  “No.”

  “Want me to check on their vitals?”

  “You can get their bio data?”

  “I think so. Shouldn’t be a problem to use the system to check on our chips. Just need to change the scanning frequency.”

  He typed several commands into his terminal, then input the frequency range of their own bio sensor implants. Each ship used a different frequency, and it was easily updated with the new data. He keyed a final command. The number on the screen showing current crew headcount made him visibly pale.

  Jensen looked over his shoulder and swore. There were five signals, all in the CC. “Okay, that’s it. We’re leaving. Get your gear. Something is clearly wrong and we are not equipped to deal with it. We’re going back to the shuttle.”

  He tapped his comm device. “Shuttle Heimdal, this is First Officer Jensen. Do you copy?”

  “This is Chu. We hear you. Everything okay?”

  “No. We’re coming back. Something killed two of my team, and we are not prepared for this contingency. Recommend immediate evac.”

  “Roger that, we’re ready to go. Just get back here safe.”

  Jensen pulled the gun from his holster. Only one other member of his team carried a sidearm, and she quickly pulled her weapon. Jensen looked at her. “Heat it up, Leoni.”

  Leoni Hansen thumbed the safety off, and the power quickly starting to build with an audible hum. Within seconds it was ready to fire a charge powerful enough to kill a man.

  “I�
�ll take point, you take the rear. Everyone else in the middle and move quick. Whatever killed Finn and Cho may well be coming for us.”

  Markus had been typing into the data console and finished the input with a final decisive tap. He shook his head in wonder. Jensen moved over to stare at the screen.

  “What is that?”

  “I reconfigured the internal sensors to pick up any bio readings, regardless if they were chipped.”

  “I didn’t know it could do that.”

  “Yeah. Well, we had to figure out how to reduce the rat population a few years back, so we worked out a method to use the sensors to track heat signatures.”

  Jensen nodded. There was a number on the screen. His eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “So, there are currently over a dozen bio organisms on the ship.”

  Markus swallowed. “No. Those are the ones in the passages between us and the central pod.” He tapped a few keys, and entered a new command. The screen showed a different value now. “This is for the entire ship.”

  Nine hundred and eighty-five bio signatures.

  “Are they human?” Jensen asked, as he thumbed the safety off his pistol.

  “No. Their core temperature is too hot. If they were human, they’d be dead.”

  “Then what the hell are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Markus replied. “But we’re gonna find out.”

  The screen clearly indicated that several of the bio signatures were converging on the command centre.

  ***

  Captain Pål Knutsen flipped a series of switches, engaging the drive initiation sequence. Stephanie Chu floated horizontally behind him. He punched a series of commands on the terminal to his side. Internal cameras and sensors were now recording everything.

  “I have to go in, Pål,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Fuck careful. Be lethal.”

  She nodded, then pulled herself towards him. She wrapped arms around him in a brief hug before jack-knifing and pushing off his chair towards the hatch. She went through, barely touching the sides, and at the last second she grabbed a handle and pulled herself into a vertical standing position, relative to the floor. She opened a locker, and removed a heavy multigun. Designed to be used in any situation, the multigun could be configured for lethal and non-lethal bursts. She flicked off the safety and set the weapon to rapid fire, heavy charge. It whined as the power started to climb.

  Turning to the airlock, she punched in the code. The door opened and she stepped through.

  ***

  First Officer Jensen tensed as the airlock doors opened. He moved cautiously into the corridor, expecting …. he did not know what. The six members of his team followed close behind him.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  He moved briskly, each foot carefully placed. It was still a zero G environment, which meant that an attack could come from literally any direction. He eyed the ceiling and was reassured by the fact that there appeared to be no ducts, or other access points. At least here.

  They had been making quick progress for almost ten minutes when they entered a dark section, and even though they all used their light beams, there were too many dancing shadows.

  They didn’t see the attack.

  A muffled yell broke the silence, which quickly changed to a gurgle, and the salvage team instinctively clumped together. Eyes wide with fear, their light beams randomly illumined each other’s faces, trying to see who was missing. Li, the Chinese kid. Markus let out a groan.

  “Goddamn and to hell,” he said, his voice a trembling whisper.

  “Keep moving,” Jensen commanded, and the group moved forward again, this time noticeably closer to each other. Not that that would matter - Li had been in the middle of the pack.

  They passed a junction, where tubes led out to service points on the central pod. That was when they lost Leoni.

  She had time enough to scream and fire her weapon. A blue flash lit up the service duct, but if she hit whatever had attacked her it made no difference. Their light beams revealed no sign of her.

  “We’re moving too slowly,” said Jensen. “Run!”

  ***

  Stephanie stood waiting for whatever was coming. She tried to will herself into a calm mental state. She had never been in combat before; none of them had. And yet they had trained. Simulations of all kinds, in case the planet they arrived at had hostile fauna, or intelligent and unfriendly natives. No one had believed in the latter possibility, but here she was, standing outside the airlock on the Argoss, waiting to engage an unknown enemy with unknown capabilities.

  She took a deep breath, then dropped into combat stance, going to one knee, steadying the heavy weapon, using her arm as a support, braced against her thigh. She aimed down the corridor, her finger lightly touching the firing stud.

  Markus Han appeared first, running with the clumsy, almost comical look that people had in zero G. He was followed by a man she did not recognise, then came Jensen, firing behind him as he ran.

  The three made their way towards her, and then she saw it, a glimpse of something fast, dark. Her breath came in a gasp, but her hands moved of their own accord, tracking the thing, aiming, firing. Her first blast missed. The tech-engs lumbered past, and she took aim again, her eyes going wide as black claws reached for her. She fired, hitting the creature in the torso. It flew back, a tumbled mass of red ruin with stick like arms and legs.

  More followed and Stephanie tracked them quickly, firing in rapid succession, laying down an enfilade that came dangerously close to overloading the multigun.

  The creatures were oddly angular. Neither bipedal nor quadruped. Their limbs seemed to work in any direction, allowing them to move with erratic, quick turns. They had short bodies, with small heads. They got close enough that Stephanie could see the colour of their eyes as she fired blast after blast. They were human, intelligent and filled with hate.

  Markus Han reached the airlock and started to open the chamber. The others piled in and she followed, after laying down an intense barrage to discourage any of the creatures from getting too close.

  Stephanie initiated the airlock cycle. No one spoke, only their harsh breathing disturbed the silence. Jensen holstered his pistol, his hand visibly shaking.

  Stephanie examined the survivors. They seemed dazed, as if they did not understand what had happened. Then something thudded against the airlock door. She span around, hitting the control on the view panel. The outer camera mounted above the door relayed the carnage in the corridor. Blood, bodies and twisted limbs filled her vision. Stephanie looked away, almost retching. Just then the cycle finished, and the door to the shuttle’s cargo bay slid open. They stumbled as one from the airlock.

  Stephanie put the multigun back into its cabinet and slammed shut the door before she returned to the cockpit.

  “Welcome back,” said Pål. “Things got hot, I see.”

  She almost laughed with the release of tension as she thrust herself into her co-pilot’s seat.

  “What the hell were those things?” Pål continued.

  “They were us, I think. If we lived in an unshielded environment for centuries.”

  “Human? You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “I wish I was.”

  Pål eyed the control panel. A red light blinked. “Everyone is back then. No one left behind?”

  “Everyone that is coming back is here,” said a voice behind them. Stephanie swivelled around as Jensen floated slowly through the hatch.

  “Then who the hell just cycled through the airlock?” said Knutsen.

  Screams from the two men in the cargo hold ended abruptly. Pål cursed and punched the main drive at the same time as the attitude jets. The Heimdal surged forward, attempting to rip itself away from the great bulk of the Argoss. The sound of rending metal reverberated through the ship as it wrenched free.

  Jensen pulled his gun, aimi
ng along the length of his own body. Then his disappeared, pulled into the hold. Stephanie launched herself out of her chair, and went through the hatch, slower than usual, but faster than she wanted. There was a blue flash as Jensen’s gun fired, then again and again. Another scream, this one inhuman.

  Inside the cargo hold, she bumped up against Markus. His throat had been torn open and blood bubbled out, floating in a long red stream towards a suction vent as the automatic maintenance systems kicked in. The other engineer was also clearly dead, one side of his head stoved in. Stephanie felt a momentary shame that she did not even know his name. Jensen was alive, holding his hand over a cut on his upper left arm. The thing had slashed at him with razor-like claws.

  She got a good look at it this time. It was floating, with impossibly long and sticklike limbs moving in odd directions. If this thing had once been human, it had been a very long time ago. It was hairless and smooth and dark skinned, but it wore clothing made from the same material as used by the crew on all the ships. But this only covered its groin, like a loincloth. There were no tools, or weapons. Its head was small, its mouth wide with a bank of needle like teeth.

  “Is it dead?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Yeah. I put enough of a charge into it to kill a dozen men. It’s dead, alright.”

  “We need to get it back to the Bitter Sea. They need to know what happened.”

  Jensen nodded. One look at their ‘cargo’ and no explanations would be necessary.

  “Did you radio them?” he asked. “Let them know what the hell happened?”

  Stephanie shook her head. “No. The ship’s on the other side of the planet, and the Endurance is still exploring the gas giant. We don’t have line of sight for another thirty minutes or so.”

  The thrust of the engines kicking in pushed the creature up against a bulkhead. Stephanie secured it with webbing, then started forward to the cockpit. “Get yourself strapped in, Jensen. We’re not gonna hang around.”

  He nodded, then secured himself in much the same way that Stephanie had tied down the creature.

  She propelled herself through the hatch and pivoted, swinging down into her seat. She strapped in as Pål banked the Heimdal sharply to avoid a support strut on the Argoss.