by Tim Lebbon
His crew knew that. Faulkner’s quip had revealed his fear, but Mains knew them all better than his own family. They were his family.
He accessed his suit’s holo view. They were four hundred yards from the end of the habitat, and beneath them the narrowing cylinder of the vessel was a solid mass. Above them, past twenty yards of solid structure, the unidentified ship was parked.
“Let’s get to the surface,” Mains said. “All weapons online. Cloaking active. Combat systems hot.”
“I could do with a drink,” Faulkner said.
“I could do with getting this suit off,” Lieder said. “Four weeks without washing, and I smell like a farmyard.”
“You smell like that all the time,” Faulkner replied.
Mains laughed softly and started leading the remnants of his crew up to find an opening out onto the surface.
“L-T!” Lieder said.
“I got it!” His suit’s holo view had suddenly speckled red, indicating some distance ahead of them. He turned left and right, one eye on the screen, to see if it was some sort of interference.
“What have you all got?” he asked his crew.
“Movement,” Faulkner said. “Lots of movement. I count thirty distinct traces.”
Fuck.
“Same here,” Snowdon said. “We’ve gotta fall back, L-T.”
Mains closed his eyes briefly, considering what waited for them back the way they had come. More time hiding, scurrying through shadows, just waiting to be found again by another rogue Yautja. If they retreated now—
“Johnny, those aren’t Yautja,” Snowdon said.
“How do you know?”
“The readings are all wrong. The way they move, and there’s something about them…” She trailed off, and as he waited for her to continue, he saw it himself.
“They’re advancing in waves,” he said. The red specks on his screen were closing in on them, the first line of a dozen less than a hundred yards away. “Too late to run. Dig in.”
They darted left and right, Lieder and Mains close together, Faulkner and Snowdon a few yards to the left. The tunnel here was wide and low, rough, offering many places to hide. It was a good place to defend. They had a clear field of fire. He shoved aside the shattering certainty that they would all be dead within minutes, and rested his com-rifle on the rock before him.
From the shadows far ahead something screeched, a loud, sickening sound like fingernails drawn across a smooth surface.
“Oh my God,” Faulkner said. “Oh, no. Oh…”
“What?” Mains demanded.
“L-T, I’ve heard that sound before,” he said. “Xenomorphs.”
The shadows ahead of them erupted into life, and Johnny Mains and his VoidLarks opened fire.
21
ISA PALANT
Love Grove Base, Research Station, LV-1529
September 2692 AD
Over the twelve days since the alien ship landed, and they killed Connors and Sharp, Palant and the other survivors had seen the two Yautja several times, circling the storage hangars, standing motionless in the storms, sometimes passing back and forth as if lost.
They had even given them names.
The big one they called Shamana, after a famous sportsman from the previous century renowned for his size, strength, speed, and the length of his dreadlocks. The other Yautja—the mad one, the screamer, the one that Palant knew for sure would eventually come for them—McIlveen had named Wendigo. His love of myth and legend almost a thousand years old surprised Palant, but then plenty about McIlveen was surprising her.
The Yautja knew they were there. That was for certain, but it was also a mystery, because the predators had done little to trouble them. Palant had given all the survivors, especially the indies, everything she knew about the Yautja species. How they lived, fought, interacted, and died. Their technology and capabilities. The few facts known for sure, and the many more aspects of their existence only guessed at.
She made certain that weapons were within reach, but left untouched. It was a constant trial, preventing the indies from trying to retaliate, but she’d impressed on them that it was the best way to keep safe. Whether the Yautja could see or scan inside the storage buildings she didn’t know for sure, but it was a chance they couldn’t take.
The station staff had arranged a schedule for sleeping and working. Most of the work consisted of collecting and purifying water from the drip points around the hangar, preparing what meager food they had, administering medicine, and trying to keep each other’s spirits up. Several bodies were hidden away in a small room at the hangar’s rear, wrapped in tarpaulin and with the door blocked shut.
No one approached that room.
The indies had also arranged a schedule, built around patrolling and sleeping. They did little else. The storm raged outside as it had for ten days, rain pouring down in sheets. She and McIlveen had immersed themselves in their research once again, and only a part of that was to offer distraction from the pressing dangers surrounding them. Not only from the aliens, but from the dwindling food supplies, and the growing risk of radiation poisoning from the damaged reactor.
A small part of her that she could never reveal to anyone, not even McIlveen, could begin to know how excited she was at what was happening. She had never dreamed that she would one day be this close to a living, breathing Yautja, and she could never have fantasized that she might one day be able to listen to them talking.
“Another one, there,” McIlveen said, pointing. They were hunkered on the ground around an old receiver, its wiry guts spewed over the floor, clever repairs and adaptations made, a small speaker connected. It had taken three days of minute tweaking until they had found the Yautja frequency, and since then one of them had always been by the receiver’s side. Usually both of them.
Palant knew that many of the survivors viewed them with distrust, perhaps even recognizing some of the sick excitement they felt at the precarious circumstance they found themselves in, but right then she didn’t care. The pressure of history hung on every moment, and she could feel its deep resonance.
“Wendigo again,” Palant said. She had rigged a small datapad to the receiver’s speaker, loaded with a program she had been working on for some time. She stopped short of calling it a translation matrix, but after a day spent combining it with some of his own research, McIlveen had given it just that name. So far it seemed to be recognizing about sixty percent of what the Yautja were saying, even though they were speaking very little. When they did, the translation scrolled across a small screen, and was recorded on the ancient datapad device.
“Sounds more pissed off than ever,” McIlveen said. “Think we should tell them?”
Palant glanced across the hangar at where McMahon was sitting with another indie. She’d taken command since Sharp had been slaughtered, and everything about her impressed Palant—but she was still a soldier. Even after everything Palant had told them, McMahon’s natural instinct was to fight.
“Not yet,” Palant said. “Not unless we have to. A couple of them are twitchy as hell. One of them initiates a weapon, the Yautja see, and…”
“Nothing will keep them out.”
She nodded. They’d already talked about this. One blast from a Yautja shoulder weapon and the hangar’s wall would be breached. It was a miracle it hadn’t happened already, but the longer they listened in on the aliens’ sporadic communications, the more Palant was beginning to understand.
These Yautja weren’t on a hunt. They were there because they were the prey.
Hateful demons… fire lizards from… find my own… and blood.
“I wouldn’t like to be inside her head,” McIlveen said, reading the translation.
“I don’t want to be anywhere near her,” Palant said. She hadn’t expected fluffy banter, but this gave her the chills. Wendigo’s ranting seemed to comprise the outline of a nightmare.
“I think she’s insane,” McIlveen offered. In truth, neither of them could a
ccurately discern the Yautja’s sex.
“Whereas Shamana is quiet, controlled,” Isa said, and McIlveen nodded. It had been almost a day since Shamana had responded to a Wendigo scream. “Be calm… and prepare,” he had said, yet the calmness applied to only one of them. It was what they were preparing for that concerned Isa the most.
Wendigo spoke again, that strange percussion of clicks, clacks, and guttural croaks that comprised what they knew of the Yautja language. It was a complex tongue, barely understood even by those most interested in the Yautja species. Despite the software they had created, she couldn’t tell whether the translations were at all accurate. Much of what they spoke was discarded by the program and dumped in a “futures” folder.
… clan… know loss… hate hate HATE!
“She’s getting worse,” McIlveen said.
“Maybe,” Palant said. “Or maybe she’s firing herself up.”
“What are the ‘fire lizards,’ do you think? It’s not the first time she’s mentioned them. Shamana doesn’t seem to acknowledge them, though.”
“I think it’s what’s chasing them,” she replied.
“If they’d come here purely to hunt, they’d have forced our hand by now. They know there are soldiers in here, and weapons. And… I think Shamana is confused. He seems aloof and distant, perhaps even in control, but I think it’s just a mask.”
“Maybe,” McIlveen said, sounding dubious. “I can’t imagine anything that could hunt those things. Whatever the case, though, I think it’s time to bring in McMahon. Wendigo might come at us at any moment, and then it’ll be time for the guns.”
“Yeah… time for the guns.” Palant waited a while longer, though, listening to the soft crackle and hiss of atmospheric interference. The Yautja had stopped talking. Their silence was haunting.
“Everything we do here will help the Company,” McIlveen muttered. That surprised her. Though he was a Weyland-Yutani man through and through, she’d started to convince herself that he had come for the love of discovery. For a moment she felt back at square one, as if she didn’t know him at all.
“We’ll be dead before we can tell them,” she said, although she wasn’t sure why. She still held out hope—so maybe she’d said it out of spite. She saw his shock and glanced away, barely holding back a smile.
Hugging her knees to her chest against the cold, Palant remembered her parents and how they had always instilled in her a sense of responsibility. As Weyland-Yutani employees, they’d revealed to her some of the Company’s darker workings. Her mother had borne witness, while her father had taken part in actions he believed were immoral, even criminal. Through it all they had retained their own sense of pride, and the dark deeds had weighed heavy.
They’d told her that their desire for scientific discovery drove them harder and farther than the Corporation for which they worked. If they could keep themselves apart from that—physically if possible, psychologically if not—then they would succeed. As far as Palant was aware, they always had.
She rarely dwelled on the darker episodes in their lives, instead remembering them for the love they had shared, and their passion for learning. She retained that love, that passion. Even now, listening to the words of the Yautja was opening doorways and creating a knowledge base for future generations. Isa couldn’t influence how the Company would use this knowledge… but she could determine whether or not they ever received it.
Not… fault, Shamana said. Leave… alone… wait and… for now.
Palant sat up, and McIlveen’s eyes went wide.
“You think he’s talking about us?” McIlveen asked.
Palant looked around, standing and catching McMahon’s attention. Milt was right. It was time to bring her in.
The woman soldier stood, stretching.
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“They’re talking,” Palant replied. “A lot.” A few people turned her way.
“What are they saying?” McMahon asked.
“It’s confusing,” Palant replied. “One of them seems to be urging calm. The other…”
“The other?” another soldier prompted.
“Is mad,” McIlveen said. “Insane, and if she—”
Another series of clicks and grunts issued from the speaker behind Palant, and she crouched to view the screen again. That sounded bad, she thought, but she waited for the translation to appear, not yet trusting that task to herself.
… fire lizards took… me alone… need blood! Need blood!
“Oh, no,” McIlveen said.
Palant stood.
“I think she’s coming,” she said.
McMahon and the other indies rushed to the doors. Even then they glanced back at Palant, uncertain, hands clasping by their sides as if in memory of what had once been there.
More clicking. More fury.
“Isa, she’s coming,” McIlveen shouted. “She’s charging!”
“Yes,” Palant said to McMahon, nodding down at the laser rifle propped against the wall beside the soldier.
“Everyone hide!” McIlveen shouted.
From the far end of the hangar a blast erupted, a wall panel shattered inward in a shower of metal shards, wind and rain, and a man screamed long and loud.
“Everyone hide!” Palant screamed, echoing McIlveen’s words even as he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the back of the structure. She tripped and shrugged him off, almost falling, finding her feet again, running, and then skidding to a halt and turning back.
The datapad! Everything they’d heard the Yautja saying, every translation, was recorded on that small, antiquated device. Svenlap’s attack had meant there was no cloud storage and no quantum fold, only a hard disc—and she could not lose what she knew.
From her left came a shout and then a bright, sparkling burst of laser fire. Voices called out in panic, then harsh whispers as survivors hunkered down behind old, rusted equipment.
“Isa!” McIlveen hissed.
She ran. Another fusillade of fire, and the building’s structure screamed and rattled where it was holed. As she reached the small bench where they’d been working there was a pause in the furious action.
Grabbing the device and ripping wires from it, Palant looked around.
McMahon and several other indies were crouching with their weapons ready, turning slow circles. She caught McMahon’s eye and the woman nodded once, hard, indicating that she should hide.
Across the hangar she saw a dead soldier rise into the air, lifted by something she could not see, but was starting to know so well.
“There!” she said, pointing.
McMahon saw. She braced her legs and let off a sustained burst of laser fire. The dead soldier was ripped in two, viscera splashing across the wall as his torso was flung aside. The whole corner of the hangar was lit up as the rest of the indies opened fire.
A heavy thump sounded from somewhere and a plasma burst shone bright, the glare too harsh to look at. As Palant ran toward an old loader the shine faded, and she looked to her right to see a huge hole where the hangar’s front and side walls met.
The ceiling slumped down, molten metal edges drooping, harsh steam clouds erupting where the heavy rain was blown in by the storm. Superheated metal creaked and clanged where water splashed across it.
Palant skidded to a halt behind the loader. She was alone, but twenty yards away she could see a couple of others from the station, including McIlveen. He stared at her wide-eyed, and she held up the datapad. He shook his head in disbelief.
Wendigo made herself heard.
The roar was loud and long, an ululation of rage and exultation, and if she had been injured she voiced no hint of pain. Other screams accompanied her, cries of fear from the survivors as they awaited their doom. Footsteps pounded around the hangar, thumping on the rough concrete floor, then there was clanging against the already damaged walls.
The storm howled through rents in the metal cladding. Rain lanced in, sheets of dashing light slicing ac
ross the space. Lights flickered and then died as cables were torn and smashed, until the hangar was lit only by a few low-level lamps and the stark flashing of laser bursts. Palant saw an indie close to her flip an eyepiece down from his helmet as they switched to infrared.
A moment later that same indie fell, his head parted from his body and bouncing toward Palant’s hiding place.
She clapped her free hand over her mouth and used her feet to push herself closer to the loader, wishing she could crawl into the narrow gap beneath it, bury her face in her hands, and unsee every terrible thing she had seen.
The indie’s severed neck gushed blood as his head came to rest against her left boot. The infrared sight was still lowered over his right eye, and she wondered whether he saw anything, just for another second.
To Palant’s left, looming over her, Wendigo glittered like the star-speckled depths of space as rain was blown across her cloaked body. Her eyes were visible, piercing points of light staring down at this weak, pitiful human.
“I know what you said,” Palant whispered. For that moment everything else pulled away from her, to an impossible distance that made space seem like home. McIlveen, McMahon, the survivors, the ruined base, every moment in her history and everyone she had ever known, they all became nothing in the face of her first encounter with a living creature from another world.
“I… know… what…” Wendigo growled in sickening mimicry… and then the world exploded.
Laser blasts streaked in, screaming from the loader’s chassis, knocking the Yautja back and down and peppering the wall ten yards away. The alien’s shoulder blaster fired, missing Palant by inches where she had huddled down against the old vehicle’s tracks. She felt the heat singe her hair and stretch the skin on her hands and cheek, and the loader’s cab disintegrated in a shower of shards and molten metal.
The Yautja leapt to its feet and ran, its damaged cloaking device throwing strange sparks that seemed to reflect its whole body in motion, scattering a thousand tiny images of itself behind as it sought cover.