by Steve Perry
Still…
Another sigh. It was sand, nice patterns but not even a rock or tree to break the monotony. Twilight was settling, a cool purple light bathing the bland garden, at least giving it a color. He’d have to treat himself afterward, perhaps a nice dinner at the seafood place near the suites, they grew catfish there, killed to order and fried with cornmeal; heavy, but he deserved some reward—
The bleat of his ’com was a welcome distraction. Briggs slipped the handset from his breast pocket and hit the receive.
“Mr. Briggs, this is Nirasawa,” the bodyguard’s smooth voice rumbled. “You have a call from Mr. Terrence Roth, on behalf of Ms. Julia Russ, Tri-Sec Communications Coordinator for—”
“Yes, put him through,” Briggs snapped. Nirasawa was more efficient than Keene, but only physically. He seemed determined to fit as much formality as possible into each and every sentence.
There was a short pause, enough time for Briggs to remember that Roth was the name of Julia’s field scout, before a low, tentative voice sounded in his ear.
“Mr. Briggs? Ah, Ms. Russ asked me to call you if I, if we picked up anything on that possible fugitive situation. She said you could contact her if you wanted any more help. Information,” he amended hastily. “Anything besides what I picked up. What we picked up.”
He was rattled. Some low level, undoubtedly aware of the animosity between Julia and himself. Briggs smoothed his tone; if she wasn’t actually listening in, she’d certainly be recording the conversation. “I appreciate your call, Mr. Roth. And excellent work… you say you’ve found something?”
“Yeah,” Roth said, obviously relieved that he wasn’t going to be skewered by his boss’s nemesis. “Sir. We caught the distress signal for, uh, ETTC-C Nemesis, shuttle six-oh-nine-one-oh, far edge of Sector 955.”
Got you!
Briggs forced a calm he didn’t feel, grinning out at the field of sand. “Really? That’s wonderful. Do you know their status?”
“They’re out of fuel… and unless someone on Nemesis stocked the shuttle up with extra oxy filters, they’ve gotta be low on air. I’d say they were out, but Ms. Russ told me that there might be a couple of techs on board, they could’ve stacked the screens…”
Briggs gritted his teeth, reminding himself that Irwin could have the ship ready to go in five minutes as Roth droned on for another few seconds about the mechanics of air filtration. They could be on their way in ten.
Far edge of 955, there’s that survey outpost on—Buddha? Bandy? Thirty, thirty-five hours, tops. Have Keene look up the head there, probably some bio geek, make sure they read the goddamn memo—
“…and then the cross weave’d give ’em another ten, maybe twelve hours. Anyway. Ms. Russ said that you’d want to be informed before any decisions were made—”
“—and I thank you for your promptness, Mr. Roth,” Briggs said. “Please tell Julia that I’ll handle things from here. And that I’ll contact her just as soon as I need her input.” He accented need, grinning again.
Perhaps I can call to get her opinion on what to wear, my first week on the Board…
Roth quickly signed off and Briggs stood as he punched Nirasawa’s number, turning away from the ridiculously dull garden and talking as he walked. He was in his element, now that there was something solid to work with; over the koi pond and past the authentically shabby tearoom, motioning to Keene who stood stiffly by the front entrance and giving instruction to Nirasawa, Briggs felt full of anticipation, of excitement for things to come. No more waiting, hoping, if-ing…
Someone from the MAX team had survived. And if they knew anything about the download from the Trader, he was going to get it.
8
She was trapped in the dark with an alien queen.
The panic lasted less than a second and then Noguchi’s skills took over, natural and learned, honed from her year with the predatory race. Without a misstep, Noguchi veered away from the closed hatch, as sharply as she could without losing speed, ignoring the circle of watching masks outside. Some part of her saw that Shorty was at the center of the window, a part that apparently assumed she’d survive and might at some point care, but that awareness was gone a split second later; her animal brain was more concerned with saving her skin than with her need to save face.
The echo of the queen’s closing scream blasted through the heated dark, stealing the usual calm certainty Noguchi had so often achieved in battle—that she would survive and her enemy would not. She was scared, but a veteran of many scary places; her mind fed her what she needed to know as she sprinted, arms pumping, her face flushed with her own terrified breath reflected as heat by her mask. The suit’s shoulder burner was too small to do more than scratch the queen, there were no weapons to run for, hand-to-hand was less than possible. She had to get out, fast, and there was only the hatch—
—hatch and nothing hatch and where she’s supposed to be tied up—
The restraints. Near the back of the nest, the lowest dangling two meters off the floor—two chains and a rope, hanging just beneath the air shaft that blew humid heat across the nesting wall. They’d be looped around the queen’s comb and throat once the queen got hungry enough to investigate the carrion pile underneath, maneuvered by controls from outside.
It had taken her less than a half dozen running steps away from the front hatch to consider all of her options and decide. Only five or six meters to climb and a metal grate to burn through at the shaft’s opening, only seconds to do it—but with nearly a thousand kilos of screaming alien death bearing down on her from behind, even a stupid plan was better than no plan at all.
Noguchi didn’t look but could hear her over her own hot, sharp gasps and the rapid fire of her heart. The queen had turned to give chase, the floor trembling in time to the demonic echoes of pursuit that surrounded them.
Sweating but somehow cold, Noguchi struck out for the northeast corner of the chamber; she’d have to outmaneuver the queen again, feint right and go left before the mammoth creature could stop herself from slamming into the wall.
Her feelings of fear, of pain and of death, had no hold. Noguchi saw the heavy shadows of the corner, pounding closer, felt her muscles flex and pump, calculated distances and times. Behind her, the thunder of steps grew louder.
Another leap, another, the sharp lines of darkness a meter away, Noguchi shifted her weight and pivoted at once. For one sideways, running step, her left foot was on the ground, her right angled against the back wall—
—and she’d sprinted only two steps when the crash came. The queen hit the wall close enough for a spatter of her flinging drool to hit the back of Noguchi’s neck. She found her second wind as the sliver of hot, viscous foam crawled down her spine, as close to panic as she could allow.
Fasterfaster!
To her right now, the seamless stretch of dark metal wall, ahead and to her right a shade of empty blackness, broken by slashes of filtered light from observation slits. Hunter masks had infrared capability although they rarely used it, the bugs didn’t radiate heat—but she’d long ago disabled hers, confused by the yautja symbols that flashed across the field of view; now, she wished she hadn’t, running blind. No more than twenty meters, surely, she had to be getting close—
—there! The dull glint of metal, motionless and slender, two meters up. Noguchi stretched her arms up and out, tensed as she took her final leaping step—
—and fuck that hurts, pulled, swinging herself around the thick and leaden chain by one aching arm, the other hand already reaching for the next hold. The heavy links barely swayed, Noguchi’s feet in the air, and the bam, bam of the queen’s pursuit too close.
Hand over hand, Noguchi flew up the chain, climbing so fast that she barely felt the rough metal brushing against her legs or the sheath of sweat that dripped beneath her armor. She could already feel the blast of moist air coming from the rounded tunnel to her left and above, running parallel to the ceiling. Two meters, one, and Noguchi was facing the mesh grate tha
t blocked her escape.
Gripping the chain with her right hand, she leaned back and hooked her left arm, aiming for the center of the screen. The stream of brilliant blue light from the small shoulder weapon smashed through the holed metal, twigs of the heated mesh hissing to the wet floor of the shaft. She was so close, both hands on the tunnel—
—and when the queen’s skeletal fingers slid into her hair, she didn’t hesitate, didn’t think about extending her right hand’s blades and reaching over her own shoulder to cut. The thin, impossibly hard knives that shot out from the forearm mechanism worked as claws, slicing as easily through braided, beaded hair as through the bony dusk of the queen’s talons—
—and even as the enraged, agonized shriek assaulted Noguchi’s ears, she had boosted herself into the tunnel before she realized that she was free. As quickly as it had begun, it was over. Below, the queen screamed on as Noguchi scrambled forward, elbowing through the warm, humid dark back toward the landing dock, the awareness of what had happened seeping in.
She had me. She touched me.
And yet Noguchi was alive, unharmed, while the alien breeder bled acid, at least three of her long digits slashed away. The rush of light and energy that swept through her as she crawled the last few meters of shaft was as exhilarating and beautiful as only victory could be.
Victory, narrow but true and well deserved. And with all of them watching…
With the alien’s hollow howls fading behind, she could consider the others. With only a few exceptions, everyone on Shell would have seen the incident, Blooded and novice alike, an infrared show of her prowess. They couldn’t continue to ignore her, the training group would have to cease their blatantly derisive treatment of her—they’d probably never like her, but there would at last be some bare minimum of respect.
Noguchi saw the curve ahead in the close air shaft, muted light shining up in thin lines around a floor hatch. She grinned, high from being alive and capable, hearing the Hunters shifting restlessly below as she popped the edge of the hatch.
She touched me, you impassive bastards, you can’t pretend that there’s no honor in walking away from that. Can’t.
The drop was only four meters, the hatch directly over a high, sloping storage rack. Noguchi landed in a crouch, then hopped lightly to the floor, not ten meters from the front hatch of the nest chamber. Topknot and Minikui and Tress and Shorty, the wounded Scar, all of them stood and looked at her, silent, masks still in place. For a moment, there was no movement at all.
Noguchi grinned again, reaching up to pop the line that connected her mask to her armor. A tiny hiss of escaping air and the normal heat of the ship seemed like a cool breeze across the sweat on her skin, the dull light too bright for a few blinks.
The line of masks watched her, not speaking, Topknot in front. The others would look to their Leader for an appropriate response, and he couldn’t punish her after such a competent display…
Topknot didn’t. Noguchi gritted her teeth as he turned away instead, reaching up to take off his own mask as he growled an order to one of the unBlooded, to see to Slats. Randomly, one by one, the Hunters all turned away. They removed masks, moved to store them, shelved burners, and clattered to one another about those lost and how many they’d killed, their crablike faces shiny with musk, their beaded tresses slick with it. No one spoke to her and there was nothing spoken about her.
Noguchi didn’t, wouldn’t care. The mission was complete, she was alive, and they had all seen what she’d done, whether or not it was acknowledged. It wasn’t hard to feel nothing; she’d had so much practice, for so long…
…but it was a queen, she thought, a small and pitiful thought that she immediately buried. Instead, she hung her mask and peeled her gloves, her head high and shoulders back, wondering how much longer she could stand to live this way.
* * *
He’d been talking for a long time, the repeated message forming a kind of circle in his mind; it had gone past hope, past despair, and now was a meditation, a soothing message of possibility in a voice that he no longer recognized as his.
…this is the Weyland/Yutani ship Nemesis request emergency assistance from any ships or outposts receiving this message…
Lara and Jess had both wandered up, sat for a while, wandered away. Ellis kept talking, pausing, talking, and had become so lulled by his vocal loop that he was annoyed when a crackle of harsh static interrupted him. But only for the fraction of a second it took him to realize that someone was answering.
“Nemesis shuttle, this is Bunda survey, we read you four-by-four. Please state the nature of your emergency and adjust your BD signal to channel eleven-oh-one-dash-one, over.”
A man’s voice, mild but tight with a barely hidden excitement. A person, a young-sounding man with the clipped tones of a Company-trained channel checker. Ellis stared at the mike pad on the console in front of him, at the speaker filter next to it, astounded by how suddenly things had changed.
We’re not lost anymore.
“Repeat, this is Bunda survey, Nemesis shuttle, do you read?”
“Jesus, keep ’im talking, Ellis!” Jess said, suddenly floating next to him, looking as shocked as Ellis felt. Lara was right behind him, her eyes wide and fixed.
“Ah, we read you, Bunda,” he stammered, “we’re—we’re going to be out of oxy in, less than ten hours. And we’re out of fuel already—oh, shit—”
Ellis started to laugh, turning to see the same dawning expressions on both of their faces. They weren’t going to die, they had been lost and now some man from Bunda was asking them questions.
Lara pushed forward, grinning, taking over. “What was that channel again, Bunda?”
Leaning in front of Ellis she tapped keys and Jess gripped his shoulder firmly, laughing with him.
“You did it, Ellis, go fuckin’ figure. First the Max, now this—they’re gonna have to promote you, kid.” Jess shook his shoulder gently, trying to keep his voice low as Lara called up Bunda’s stats and info and spoke to their savior.
Savior—as Ellis had been when he and Max had joined at the station. As he was now, having found that voice from out of the dark.
Ellis laughed harder, warm and giddy, feeling the positive waves that radiated from Lara and Jess. From their team.
Twice. Twice, and it’s not a fluke if it happens more than once.
Because of him, everything had changed. Again. It was a feeling he could get used to. Maybe he wasn’t destined to be a tech geek, working his life away in some sterile hydraulics lab. And really, wasn’t it a career he’d chosen out of fear? His scrawny build, his lack of self-confidence, and feelings of inadequacy had led him to choose a quiet, stable, boring line of work. Even signing up with a volunteer team had seemed wildly dangerous, and the job description was watching monitors and pushing buttons…
…and look where I’ve ended up. Everything has changed, is changing, will change and all because of me and Max, 72.43 minutes eradicated 122 adult species dot 47 embryonic—
Ellis had a headache suddenly.
“Hey, kid, you okay?”
He looked up into Jess’s smiling, slightly worried face and forced a grin. “Fine, yeah. We’re outa here, right?”
Jess clapped him on the shoulder again, turning his attention back to Lara—and leaving Ellis to wonder why he hadn’t told the truth. Being with Max had done something to him, clouded his thinking, Lara and Jess both knew it…
…and maybe I’m ready for them to see me as a man, now, strong, not whining about my little aches and pains…
On some level, he knew better. The dual prongs of the Max’s interface had gone into his brain, far from a little wound. If they were going to work together, shouldn’t he tell them that he was still having flashes of, of altered thinking?
Ellis considered it for only 6.6 seconds, until Lara glanced back at him from the console. The warm look she gave him decided it; he wasn’t going to be pitied, ever, again. He could control himself, he c
ould bear the pain—and whatever else there was to bear.
Besides, they were safe now. A survey station, scientists and biotechs probably; no aliens, no Company, no death.
For some unfathomable reason, that thought gave him no comfort at all.
9
One of the few advantages to being different was that she had been given private quarters, a luxury that was only afforded to the strongest and most aggressive of the older Hunters. The un-Blooded slept on mats in a giant chamber Noguchi thought of as “the pit,” their every spare moment spent watching fights or participating in them. Most training ships only carried a dozen or so novices, but Shell housed up to forty young males, making the pit an exercise in arrogant posturing.
Noguchi sat on the edge of her makeshift bed and took off her boots, feeling wrung out and depressed, not wanting to think about what had happened in the dock. The small, dark room that she called home was the only place she really felt at ease anymore, the few mementos from her past giving her some small measure of peace. A medkit, a few toiletries, an aging wave scanner. There was a photo of Creep tacked to one wall, the dog that had stayed with her on Ryushi after the colonists had left. Before she’d gone with the Hunters, she’d sent a signal to the closest outpost, requesting a pickup. She wondered where the friendly mutt was now, if he’d ever been reunited with his previous owner…
The thought made her feel like crying and she looked away from the hard-copy picture, looked up at the mammoth crowned skull that dominated the room from its place over her bed. The queen that she and Broken Tusk had killed, together. It was her first trophy, and she’d kept it with her on Ryushi, spent long, silent hours gazing at it, dreaming of the spiritual trek that awaited her when the Hunters finally came. She’d imagined living among a people that found enlightenment in pushing beyond their own physical limits, a race that found life and self-awareness in the honorable death of a parasitic breed. Two years she’d waited, alone on the hot and barren world except for Creep and a few head of rhynth; she knew that one day they’d appear, looking for their missing ship. And when they came, she’d go with them, embarking on a journey unlike any other…