The Complete Aliens Omnibus

by Michael Jan Friedman

  Dad? she couldn’t help thinking.

  She had all but seen him die, and Ripley had said there wasn’t any hope for him. But until Angie saw the evidence with her own eyes, she couldn’t rule out the possibility that he had survived.

  I’m coming, she thought. Please let it be you.

  Abruptly, Ripley stopped and looked around, as if she had lost the scent. Then she seemed to get it back and went forward again, taking Angie through a part of the jungle so dense it seemed there was no air to breathe.

  On her own, the botanist wouldn’t have been able to get through it. But Ripley broke the trail ahead of her, making it possible.

  Finally, they came to a place where the jungle seemed to open up a little. Ripley pointed again with her rifle—and said, “There.”

  Angie followed the woman’s gesture to a cinnamon tree. It stood amid others of its kind, displaying its riotous yellow flowers and its pointed black fruit.

  There was something on it, obscuring its smooth brown bark—something that didn’t belong there. And as Angie stared at it in the graying light, trying to figure out what it was, part of it moved.

  Oh my god, she thought.

  It’s Seigo. And he’s alive.

  But the aliens had affixed him to the tree trunk with long, thick strands of something pale and sticky-looking. And strong, if he hasn’t freed himself before this.

  “It’s all right,” Angie told him, drawn inexorably to his plight. “We’re to help.”

  Seigo looked down on them, his eyes brimming with misery. “Please,” he said, “before it comes back … ”

  “We’ve got to get him down,” Angie told Ripley. Taking hold of the highest strand she could reach, she started to pull.

  “There’s an embryo inside him,” said Ripley.

  “No,” said Seigo, shaking his head. “They just left me here. Get me down, I beg you … ”

  “He’s got an embryo,” Ripley insisted, “just like Pandor. Which means one of the aliens is a queen.”

  “Please,” Seigo cried, tears flowing down his cheeks.

  Angie looked to her companion. “For godsakes, Ripley.”

  Ripley frowned. Then she moved closer to the tree, sending a wave of gratitude and relief over Angie. There were so few of them still alive. If they could save Seigo, it would at least be a small victory.

  “Thank you,” he groaned as Ripley stopped in front of him. “From the bottom of my heart.”

  The words had barely left his mouth when Ripley turned her rifle around in her hands, pulled it back, and—with blinding speed—swung its stock at the side of Seigo’s head.

  There was a tearing sound that made Angie want to retch, and then Seigo’s head was lying at an impossible angle on his shoulder, his skull a mess of blood, bone, and gray custard.

  “Nooo!” she screamed, unable to stop herself, unable to keep all the fear and horror from spilling over.

  Abruptly, she felt a hand clamp over her mouth, silencing her, and another grab the back of her neck. For a moment, she thought Ripley would kill her too.

  Under the right circumstances, she probably would have. But as Angie’s surge of hysteria subsided, she felt Ripley’s grip relax a bit, and finally ease off altogether.

  “He was lying,” Ripley said, her gaze fierce and unyielding. “He had an embryo in him.”

  Her breath coming in helpless gasps, Angie nodded. “All right,” she said. “I believe you.”

  But then, she had no choice.

  * * *

  It’s coming, Hendricks thought.

  Given an adrenaline boost by her fear, she ran faster than she had ever run before—so fast her feet barely touched the ground. It was hard to imagine anything running fast enough to keep up with her, much less catch her.

  But the alien was doing just that.

  She could hear it moving through the jungle, rustling the foliage. It didn’t seem to be in a hurry, but it was steadily getting closer. A whimper escaped her.

  She would never outrun it. Never.

  There had to be another way. And as a broad old kapok loomed in front of her, looking ghostly in the twilight, she believed she had found it.

  There was a crotch in the tree not much more than a meter from the ground, and its lowest branches were only a little higher. If she could grab a branch and drag herself up to the crotch, there were other limbs within reach.

  Sturdy limbs. The kind that could hold a woman’s weight indefinitely if they had to.

  But Hendricks would get only one shot. If she took too long climbing into the crotch, or reaching the one above it, the alien would get her.

  And she couldn’t imagine what that would be like. Didn’t want to imagine it.

  Do it right the first time! she insisted.

  Then the tree was right in front of her and she had to leap. But when she sprang she did it off the wrong foot and her jump was awkward, and it looked like she would fall short of the branch she needed.

  No! she thought. Please God no!

  Somehow, Hendricks managed to grab a different branch—one lower than the branch she had hoped for. It didn’t give her much leverage, but she was able to plant her foot against the trunk and wrestle herself into the crotch.

  Moaning with fear, she reached for another branch to haul herself higher. That was when she realized she had gotten her foot wedged in the narrowest part of her perch. And when she looked back, the alien was coming— shambling loose-limbed like a dog, except no dog was ever so driven to kill.

  It was coming and she was stuck, and if she stayed that way it would rip her apart and eat her brains from her bloody, cracked skull. So she had to move. She had to pull her foot free.

  But the alien was getting closer, so close she could see the slick, dark obscenity of its cranium, and the juices dripping from its mouth, and the glint of its big, deadly teeth.

  With a cry of anguish, Hendricks twisted her foot free of its prison. Then she began to climb again, her arms and legs trembling, sure that she was moving too slowly and that the alien would take her down from behind.

  But it didn’t.

  She was able to keep going, higher and higher and farther out from the trunk, until she reached the slimmer and suppler limbs above. She embraced the fact that she was still alive, but she didn’t dare think beyond that. She just climbed.

  Finally, Hendricks found the courage to look down. The alien was standing on the grass below, its neck craned so its eyeless head could look up at her.

  But it wasn’t following. Her instinct to take to the tree had been a good one. It’s not a climber, she thought giddily.

  Suddenly, the thing coiled. And before Hendricks could react, it sprang upward, finding purchase in the kapok.

  No, she thought wildly, her throat constricting so much it hurt to breathe. It can’t get me. I’m safe, goddamnit.

  The alien chose that moment to spring a second time. It was almost close enough to grab her ankle now. Its mouth opened hungrily, revealing the smaller set of teeth within.

  Shrieking at the top of her lungs, Hendricks scurried up the tree again. But it was harder than before, the limbs she encountered less sturdy, less dependable.

  Her own limbs were all but useless, ravaged by the uncommon demands she had made on them. She felt fear squeezing like a fist around her heart, harder and more insistent than before.

  I can still do it, she told herself.

  But at the same time, she felt something close around her calf—something sharp enough and strong enough to puncture her skin. Crying out, she pulled her leg away from it as hard as she could.

  And freed herself. However, her freedom came with a price.

  She found herself falling, lashed by branches as she swept past them too quickly to grab any of them. She barely had time to imagine how hard she would hit the ground before it rushed up and bludgeoned her, pounding the air out of her.

  As Hendricks lay gasping, her lungs heaving like a bellows, she could see she was still
alive—if just barely. She couldn’t feel one of her legs and the other was lying at too awkward an angle not to be broken.

  But that wasn’t the worst of her problems, because she could see the alien slithering down from the tree again …

  17

  Ripley waited until Angie was inside the hatchway, then backed in herself. But the door remained open.

  “Something’s wrong,” said the botanist.

  “No,” said Ripley. “Nothing’s wrong. The door won’t close if someone’s approaching it.”

  Right on cue, Krakke emerged from the jungle and joined Ripley in the hatchway. Angie stared at him, open-mouthed.

  “He’s been watching our backs,” Ripley explained. “And I’ve been watching his. It works better that way.”

  “If you say so,” said Angie.

  Still training her burner on the jungle beyond the hatch, Ripley waited for the doors to slide closed. A moment later, they began to cooperate.

  Ripley remained alert, her eyes on the deepest pockets of shadow, until the doors had closed completely. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, she turned and headed for the set on the far end of the hatchway.

  The Betty wasn’t in the next habitat, but the one after that. They still had a way to go.

  However, they had left a dome where the aliens were engaged in a feeding frenzy. With some luck, they would remain there—hunting for prey they had already exhausted —long enough for Ripley and her companions to reach their objective.

  And when was luck ever not on our side? she thought ironically, taking out her comm unit to contact Call.

  But there was no answer. That meant Call either had her hands full or had already been destroyed. Ripley chose to believe the latter.

  Replacing her comm unit in her pocket, she got a fresh grip on her shock rifle. Then she headed for the far set of doors and the dome beyond them.

  * * *

  As Vriess sat by the Betty’s open bay door and peered down into the dome, he cursed himself for what had to be the thirtieth time—not that what had happened was any of his fault.

  Rama was supposed to have been standing watch in the cargo bay. But when Vriess came to take his place, Rama was nowhere to be seen—nowhere on the ship, in fact, which meant he had gone down the chain for some reason.

  Before long, it became apparent that Simoni was gone as well. More than likely, it seemed to Vriess, one of the two had fallen or descended into the colony dome and the other one had followed. But there was no way of knowing who went first, or that it had happened that way at all.

  Vriess, being chairbound, was hardly in a position to go down after them. And Bolero, the only real pilot in the group, was too essential to the rescue plan to put at risk.

  So all they had been able to do was wait and worry. That is, until two of the colonists—Cody and Gogolac—crawled into the bay, exhausted from their climb but otherwise whole. Apparently, Call had taken them in a ground vehicle to the backup supply bay, only to discover it had been sabotaged since Ripley and Johner checked it out.

  So instead, Call had driven the colonists back to the punctured dome, deposited them at the bottom of the chain, and waited till they were up. Then she had gone off to find Ripley and Krakke—as well as any of the other colonists who might have survived.

  Of course, if Cody’s account of their encounter with the aliens was accurate, there wouldn’t be many survivors. But Vriess would stay there anyway, waiting for a sign that someone was coming back.

  So when he got one, he would be ready.

  Behind him, the door to the cargo bay opened and Gogolac appeared. “Mind if I join you?” she asked.

  Vriess shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Standing beside him with her arms folded across her chest, the botanist gazed at the habitat below. “I’ve never seen it from up here. It looks so … peaceful.”

  “Looks that way,” Vriess agreed.

  Gogolac turned to him. “If not for you people, we would all have been killed.”

  Or worse, he noted silently.

  “That’s my way of saying thank you,” she told him. “But what I can’t figure out is … why you do this.”

  Vriess smiled a grim smile, maintaining his scrutiny of the dome. “For her,” he said.

  “For Ripley, you mean?”

  “Uh huh. And also the perks. You haven’t lived till you’ve had a swig of Johner’s moonshine.”

  “I’m serious,” said Gogolac.

  “So am I,” said Vriess.

  * * *

  Ripley had led Krakke and Angie halfway across Dome Two when she caught a whiff of something—or more accurately, someone. Nearby. But where?

  A few meters to her left. Under a tangle of raised roots. In the encroaching darkness, she had to concentrate to see it shifting, turning …

  “Krakke,” she said softly.

  The blond man’s eyes slid in her direction.

  “To my left. Be ready.”

  He didn’t say anything, but she knew she could count on him. Dropping her hand to the trigger of her shock rifle, she made sure he wasn’t the only one.

  Come on, she thought. Make a move. I dare you.

  It accepted her dare. But instead of coming for her, it bolted in the opposite direction—something she would never have expected of an alien.

  Ripley wasn’t accustomed to this breed. She didn’t know how they behaved in a given set of circumstances. But if they were at all related to the aliens she knew, it would go against their grain to run from an encounter.

  Following her instincts, Ripley gave pursuit. Without looking, she knew Krakke would be right behind her.

  Ignoring the branches that whipped her as she went by, she closed the gap between her and the thing running from her. And before long, she caught up to it.

  But it wasn’t an alien. It was neither big enough nor dark enough, and it smelled wrong. Like a human—but not one of the colonists.

  Finally, exhausted, it slumped against a tree. Then it turned to her, revealing itself.

  Simoni, she thought.

  He was dirty and pale and scared-looking, and he had urinated in his pants. “My god,” he said, his voice hoarse and strained, “it’s you. I thought it was one of the … the … ” He couldn’t even bring himself to name them.

  “Who is he?” Angie asked.

  Ripley didn’t answer. She was too busy adjusting to the fact of Simoni’s presence there, and what it might mean.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked the reporter.

  “I wanted to see you,” he said. “In action, I mean. I thought … ” He looked as if he were going to cry. “I thought it would make for a better story.”

  His eyes told her there was more. “You saw something. What?”

  Simoni looked down at the ground. “Rama … ”

  “What about him?”

  “He followed me.” The reporter’s voice was little more than a whisper. “But before he could get to the ground, one of the aliens … ” Finally, tears fell. “One of them jumped him.”

  Ripley’s teeth ground together. Rama … “He died going after you? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Simoni looked miserable. “I didn’t expect him to follow me down. I thought I’d gotten away without anyone seeing me.”

  Feeling a surge of dark, sliding anger, Ripley leaned closer to him until her face was a centimeter from his. “Johner was right,” she said between clenched teeth. “I should have let him shove you out the waste hole. Hell, I should have done it myself.”

  Simoni stared at her, wide-eyed. “I—”

  Ripley didn’t wait to hear what he had to say.

  Turning away from him, she resumed her passage through the swiftly darkening jungle. If she was going to get ambushed by one of the aliens, it wouldn’t be because of a distraction as insignificant as Simoni.

  She had taken him in, protected him, because he gave her a link, however tenuous, to Amanda. She had allowed the guilt she felt, passe
d down from the original Ripley, to cloud her judgment. And Rama had paid the price.

  But she wouldn’t be weak anymore.

  As the others fell in line behind her, Simoni last of all, Ripley focused on getting them to the Betty. For now, that was all she would allow herself to think about.

  * * *

  As Simoni trailed Ripley through the benighted environs of Dome Three, he kept feeling the scrutiny of the little botanist. But every time he turned to her, her attention was focused elsewhere.

  Well, he thought, screw her. If she’d been through what I’ve been through, she would’ve pissed her pants too.

  He recalled the dark, angular shapes that had harried him, chasing him through the jungle. He remembered the way they had brushed against the roots of his hiding place, their teeth clicking with anticipation. He recalled how his insides had frozen at the nearness of them.

  Just screw her. And screw Ripley too.

  Her words had bitten deeply, more deeply than Simoni cared to admit. I should have let him shove you out the waste hole. Hell, I should have done it myself.

  He would show her how it felt to be terrified. First chance he got, he would show her. Then she would be sorry for what she had said to him.

  Screw them all.

  * * *

  Seeing the first stars appear in the gaps above her, Ripley swore softly to herself. She had hoped to avoid traveling in the dark, but it wasn’t working out that way. Soon, starlight was the only light they would have.

  “It can’t be much farther,” Angie breathed.

  But then, she had never traversed the Domes at night. She wasn’t necessarily a reliable judge of such things.

  To Ripley, it felt as if they still had a considerable trek ahead of them before they reached the Betty. And with all the roots and rocks they had to avoid, it would probably take even longer than mere distance would suggest.

  Unfortunately, every moment they were out in the open was another chance for an alien to catch up with them.

  Just as Ripley thought that, she heard a sound off to her right. Swiveling her burner in that direction, she listened— but didn’t hear anything more.

  For just a moment, she relaxed—and that moment was her undoing, as something hard and immensely heavy dropped on her from above, driving her inexorably to the ground.