by Steve Perry
“Wait here a sec, okay?” He said, finally having shamed himself into heading for the door. Irwin ignored him, following one step behind; he decided that he didn’t mind.
Snap out of it, you’re too old for this…
Windy paused at the door, searching for movement, and saw nothing. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d become until he relaxed, the perfectly normal, ordinary sight of nothing at all confirming how paranoid he was. He walked toward the railing, grinning at himself.
“Nothing but me and thee and a shitload of trees,” he said, and heard Irwin actually giggle behind him. Yeah, tonight was looking good, he couldn’t remember having ever heard Kelly Irwin giggle—
“Hey, what’s this?” he said absently, moving toward the rail. There was a metal claw hanging off of the top bar, like a grappling hook, a taut rope disappearing down into the leafy dark. Was someone actually trying to climb the station? Bullshit. It was possible, the ground was only ten meters down, but who’d want to scale an ME when there was a lift? And even if one of the techs wanted to climb something, the area they’d picked was incredibly dangerous; if they happened to snag one of the stabilizers, they could do some serious damage—
Suddenly, the air in front of his eyes shifted, blurring, and a bitter, oily scent flooded his nostrils, and there was a sound like metal again—
—and then a scream, a howling, feral shriek that was so close Windy could feel its stinking heat across his face, and then heat on his throat, wet and sharp and complete, and then he couldn’t stand up anymore.
* * *
The sudden scream was terrible, a bestial, animal cry that seemed to come from thin air, and then Windy fell backwards, and all Irwin could see was blood. A pumping; solid sheath of red that was dressing him, enveloping him from the neck down.
“Oh!” It was all she could think, confused and shocked. He was just standing there and now, now he’s—
There was a distortion in front of her, in the very air; part of the railing seemed closer for just a second, as if it had been magnified, and Irwin heard a trilling sound coming from the distortion, a sound like a choking bird, and she’d seen and heard enough.
She turned, sprinting back into the control room, screaming at the sleeping man in the corner, slamming her hand down on a panel of buttons that might close the door. “Sound the alarm, man down! Man down, something got him, sound the fuckin’ alarm!”
Behind her, the door dropped shut—and at the same time, the floor shifted violently underfoot, tilting at a fifteen-degree slant before swinging back down. The flask on the console hit the floor, the air filling with the sharp smell of liquor, and from outside, another scream. A clicking, rattling shriek of fury, not human and not alone, another cry rising to join it, and a third.
Irwin spun, desperately searching the thin air for that blurred strangeness, and saw nothing. The sleeper, Evans, was on his feet, stumbling for a control board and asking what had happened, what was happening.
Irwin didn’t know, and Windy was surely dead. Shivering, she stumbled to a cabinet in the control room’s corner to try and find some kind of a weapon.
* * *
The convict was only half-conscious, and Lara had started to insist that there was no download; the psych projections had suggested as much, and also that beating Jess down was the surest path to her eventual submission. Briggs let Keene continue, hoping that she’d give it up before the guard battered him to death; Briggs was a civilized man, and while violence was a valuable and often necessary tool, he didn’t particularly enjoy watching it.
Their young teammate only seemed half-conscious himself, staring at the exo suit, lips trembling, as Lara screamed for Keene to stop. It really was fairly brutal. Briggs was starting to think that he’d have to drag the whole lot to the nearest Company lab for an expensive chemical flush when the station suddenly moved. Violently.
Briggs wheeled his arms, grabbing one of the handholds on the wall as the floor settled back down, but at a slight list. Nirasawa still had Lara and Ellis in hand, although Keene had joined Jess on the floor. Vincent was clutching the pilot seat, an expression of alarm replacing the queasy look he’d worn for the last ten minutes.
“Vincent, what’s going on?” Briggs demanded, his heart fluttering from the unexpected jolt. Keene was on his feet again, looking to him for instruction, his knuckles red and swollen.
Vincent shook his head, his eyes wide. “I—I don’t know, the whole platform like that, it has to be someone at the main controls.”
Wonderful.
“Show me,” Briggs said, monumentally irritated by the rude interruption—and a little uncomfortable with the naked fear on Vincent’s mousy face.
“Nirasawa, come with me. Keene, stay here. Let our… prisoners have a moment to think about how they want this to end.”
Keene stepped up to take Nirasawa’s place, holding Lara and Ellis. It was a setback as far as keeping the pressure on, but Briggs wanted to be here when the woman finally broke. After all the effort he’d put in, he didn’t want to miss the moment of triumph.
An alarm was sounding from somewhere lower on the station, an annoying bleat like some small animal being stepped on repeatedly. It bled up into the night sky, making Briggs even more uncomfortable.
What the hell’s going on here?
Vincent stepped out onto the platform, Briggs and Nirasawa right behind—and it occurred to him that perhaps he wasn’t the only one on Bunda aware of the information on that log. Aware that there were billions to be made for anyone—any corporation—with access to hard stats on infestation.
No, he’d been careful, the Company had it all locked down—
—but there are enemies within.
Someone like Julia Russ, maybe. Or any one of a dozen competitors he could think of, desperate for that spot on the Board. Weyland/Yutani wanted results, they didn’t necessarily care who handed them in.
Briggs turned, leaning back into the stale shuttle air. “Watch for strangers,” he said.
Keene, towering over his two charges, Jess at his feet, nodded briskly. It would have to do.
Briggs turned back to Vincent, motioning impatiently for him to lead the way—and deciding, quite firmly, that it was the monotonous scream of the station’s alarm that was making him feel so anxious.
* * *
When the ME shook, Tom Cabot was hiding out in the rec room, watching a sci-fi holovid in near dark with a few of the researchers—Cindy and Di, both paleo women, and John C., one of the maintenance guys. The sudden up and down wasn’t too bad where they were, all of them managed to keep their seats, but Cabot knew that parts of the station would have been harder hit.
The second it stopped, all of them were on their feet, moving toward the open door that led out onto the rec platform. The floor was slanted just a bit, Cabot could feel it, and when he heard the stabilizer alarm start up, he felt real fear. MEs weren’t supposed to quake like that, and something had to be seriously wrong if the nav computers couldn’t keep the alarm from sounding.
Either someone entered a drift code or we got caught on something big, something heavy, and it just had to happen with a suit on board, didn’t it? First time ever and Vincent’ll be having a shit fit…
They reached the door, moving out onto the platform littered with bolted tables and chairs, Cabot stepping up to the railing. John C. and the two scientists joined him, identical expressions of nervous concern on their faces. The rec deck overlooked control directly, maybe they’d be able to see something—
“What’s that?” Cindy said, pointing to the deck below. The outside lights were low, it was hard to tell, a sprawl of something wet, shining darkly…
“Oh, shit,” Di said weakly. “It’s Windy, that’s Windy.”
They stared down at what was left of the channel watcher, no chance that he was alive with all of that blood—
—and behind them, something shrieked. A gurgling, unbridled howl, a scream of murder about to happen
.
Cabot spun and saw nothing at all, but the horrible sound went on, erupting out of thin air, and then they were all stumbling away from the rail, running for the tunnel that opened out onto the deck, that would take them away from the invisible screamer—
—and Cindy, closest to the corridor, let out a strangled cry and stopped cold, her head whipping back as if she’d run into something, her limbs flailing wildly. All of them pulled to a stop only a couple of meters behind her, clutching at each other like frightened children.
“What is it, what’s happening?” John C. screamed, and no one answered, watching in shocked terror as metal claws appeared in front of Cindy, from nowhere, a sharp sliding sound, and then they were swooping down from above, raking her open from throat to belly. Blood gushed out and hit the platform with a wet slap, and Cindy collapsed, crashing facefirst into the sudden lake of red.
Cabot didn’t waste time wondering. He grabbed at John C. and Di, giving them a jerk before spinning around and sprinting for the door back into the rec room. He didn’t turn back to see if they were following, didn’t care, all he wanted was to get the fuck away from whatever had clawed Cindy open, oh, please God, Buddha, Jesus don’t let me die—
Behind him, an alien howl, a caterwaul of triumph, and he was going to make it, the door was right there—
—and the crazy hope that crashed through him as he burst into the dimly lit room was the last thing he felt, except for the unseen arm that clamped down across his throat, except for the slick, hot sensation of being drained as something cold slipped through his abdomen.
18
Noguchi was dozing, a light, restless sleep that seemed to be taking her in and out of unpleasant dreams, when the aging wave scanner started spitting out static and words.
Startled out of her doze, Noguchi rolled over to switch it off, wondering why she’d bothered to put the damned thing on in the first place. She touched the controls, then paused, her attention caught by the sound of the speaker’s voice. A woman, and she sounded scared.
“…Bunda survey, we are… tack… lizers malfunctioning…”
It was clearer than Noguchi was used to, the words sharper. She hit the tuner rather than the power switch and upped the volume a notch, then lay back down on her bunk, listening. With the channel reestablished, the connection cleared up a little.
“…peat, this is Bunda survey… are under attack, send help! The station… ucked up, I can… people screaming… ey’re invisible, can’t see them and…”
Noguchi sat up, staring at the scanner.
“…killing everyone…”
Invisible. Attack.
Hunters.
Even through her shocked disbelief, it only took a second for everything to fall into place. The truth was so simple.
Wouldn’t want me along on a Hunt where the grand finale involves killing humans, would you?
“…can hear me, I’m gonna try to see… can get to… ships, evacuate…”
She barely heard it, the thoughts too sudden and overwhelming, blocking out everything else. The warrior with the wrist banner, Topknot’s decision for her to fight a novice on the morning of the Hunt, the consistent and all-consuming hatred that they’d held for her, from the beginning. What Hunter befriends their prey? Sharpening their skills on bugs, ranting on and on about the Hunter’s code and the Blooding ritual, and maybe some of that was true—but the big Hunt, the one that brought Leaders and their veteran comrades in from throughout their universe…
…humans. They went down there to slaughter people.
For a moment, Noguchi couldn’t move, her body stiff with the desperate need to do something, every muscle locked because she didn’t know what that thing was. The transports were all gone, there was no way for her to get to the surface—but she couldn’t do nothing, listening to some terrified woman screaming for help while she sat and waited for the Hunters to return…
Topknot, her Leader. She’d respected him, and the pain of that thought turned to an anger deeper than mere emotion; her very soul had been betrayed, she’d suffered a year of hell adhering to a code created by hypocrites. By human killers.
Noguchi stood up and walked to the shelf in the corner of the little room before she knew what she was going to do, pulling down things that had been given to her by the Hunters. There was the blade with the shortened handle, the knee and shoulder pads that had been a child yautja’s, a dull erose knife that she’d spent hours sharpening and polishing, honing to a sparkling sharpness. Throwaways from the Clan that she’d been proud to own…
She didn’t have a plan as she started to dress, slipping into her armor, feeling stronger with each layer of splash suit and weaponry, the aches and pains of her body falling away. By the time she was finished, enough of an idea had formed that she was ready to act.
Noguchi was going to make her break with the Hunters in a way that they would never forget, and she was going to make peace with herself while she was doing it. When it was over, she would truly be free.
* * *
At last, Briggs and the others were gone and there was only Keene, watching them, holding Ellis’s numb shoulder with a grip like a steel vise. Lara’s, too, her lovely face lined with pain.
Ellis felt dizzy and sick and ashamed. Jess had been badly hurt and now Briggs didn’t believe that there was no ship’s log. Through all of it, the only thing that seemed clear—figuratively and literally—was Max. Max stood giant and invulnerable, watching it all, its hydraulic body almost glowing with energy at rest. Max had been the answer, and Ellis had ignored it.
I was afraid of pain, of dying, and I failed to act. If we were together, none of this would have happened, we could have stopped this before anyone was hurt. He’d been weak, he’d already forgotten what Max had taught him…
On the floor, Jess moaned. Ellis looked away from Max, feeling a physical ache in his stomach at the sight of his friend. Jess was on his back, his swollen eyes closed.
“Jess? Are you—can you hear me?” Lara asked, and let out a small cry as Keene gave her a rough shake. Jess cracked his eyes open, rolling slowly onto his side, breathing shallowly.
“Yeah,” he said, wincing. “Yeah, I hear you…”
“Stay on the floor,” Keene ordered, his Nordic face still flushed from beating Jess, from exertion or pleasure or both. “Get up and I’ll kill you.”
Ellis looked at Max again, feeling as though his heart would break. They’d been getting closer since their joining, their thoughts running through his mind now and he’d been a fool, Max still had multiple—
—11.52, one hundred M309 rounds each—
—cartridges for the pulse rifle, at least twenty HEAP grenades left, and most of its secondary M210 tank was still full of napthal. Worst of all, Ellis knew that feeling sorry for what he hadn’t done didn’t matter at all, it didn’t help and they were still going to be killed by Briggs for information that they didn’t even have—
“Ellis, what’s wrong?” Lara said sharply, a thread of terror in her voice.
Ellis turned his head, confused, saw that both Keene and Lara were looking at him—
—and then Lara was moving, bending her knees and slipping out from beneath Keene’s hand, coming up from her crouch with her arm straight, her hand flat—
—and Ellis felt Keene’s fingers clench and relax on his shoulder as Lara chopped the side of her hand into his throat, a sound like some crisp vegetable being snapped erupting from the blond’s quivering lips. He grabbed at his neck with both hands, his eyes wide, his face purpling in seconds.
Lara was in a fighting stance, her hands up, ready to hit again—but Keene was no longer a threat. He crumpled to the floor still clutching at his throat, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. A few seconds later, he wasn’t moving at all.
Ellis crouched next to him, putting a shaky hand over Keene’s mouth. He wasn’t breathing.
“You killed him,” Ellis said wonderingly.
Lara w
as already moving toward Jess, rubbing at her shoulder. “I used to be a Marine,” she said. “People seem to keep forgetting that.”
Together, they knelt next to Jess, Lara helping him to sit up. Jess groaned again but managed to stay upright, holding his head in his. hands. He squinted at Lara from red eyes, the welts on his face already darkening to black.
“Jesus. Remind me not to fuck with you,” he said softly.
Lara smiled a little. “Yeah, well. I was tired of waiting for you to make your move.”
The floor of the shuttle trembled, the platform beneath seeming to tilt a little more: The distant alarm continued to blare. Jess finally raised his head and sat up straight, gritting his teeth against his pain.
“We gotta get out of here,” he said. “Can we take off?”
Lara shook her head. “We wouldn’t make it more than a few klicks, we need to refuel. And we don’t have VTOL, I have to program some kind of a flight plan.”
Jess looked at Ellis, studying his face. “Kid, you with us?”
Ellis nodded, not sure what Jess was asking, knowing only that he had to make up for his failure. “Yeah. Of course.”
With help from both of them, Jess crawled to his feet, swaying for a moment—
—.37—
—before he found his balance. Lara crouched next to Keene and rifled through his suit, pulling out the semiautomatic that had been taken earlier.
“Get on the program,” Jess said. “Ellis, I’m going to need your help. Come on.”
Ellis nodded, wondering why so much of this felt like a dream, why the numbers in his mind wouldn’t stay, wouldn’t take the place of the turbulent and unpleasant emotions that continued to plague him. He felt confused and unsure of himself—but as he followed Jess out into the strange night, he swore that he wouldn’t give in to his feelings, and that whatever it took, he wouldn’t screw up again.
* * *
Johnathon Callistori, aka John C., made it to control without going outside again, using one of the maintenance stairwells and coming in from the corridor that led to the central lift. The door had been blocked, but he was let in once he’d screamed his name a few times, babbling his story out to the scared young archaeologist who opened the door. He’d had to jump over Cabot’s body, dragging Di along with him, and before they made it to the tunnel she had been grabbed away, hot blood from her cut throat splashing against the backs of his legs as he crawled into the dark.