by Tim Lebbon
“Don’t you fucking dare let go of me,” he said.
“Johnny, what the hell’s happening?”
An alien blocked out the light. Its shadow was sharp and vicious, teeth dripping, limbs reaching for them as it hissed in victory.
“Durante is happening,” he said.
The second explosion was much larger than the first. The floor bucked beneath them, light bloomed and flashed, and then the whole world was screaming. Mains kept his eyes open, though his suit had shaded its visor to protect his eyes from the glare. Something tugged at him and Lieder and he squeezed her tight, locking his limbs around her, determined that if she went, he would go too.
It’ll tear us apart, he thought, pull off our limbs, open us up and—
It wasn’t the Xenomorph pulling them.
Atmosphere was venting. A hole had been blown in the ship’s hull, somewhere out of sight, and air was being expelled into the vacuum, screaming across the bridge and carrying with it anything that wasn’t screwed down. That included the dead aliens and Yautja, tumbling and colliding as they went, as well as the living Xenomorphs that had been coming at them across the wide space.
His suit’s wire and grapple strained tight, but held fast.
He only hoped it would last.
As Mains’s visor cleared he adjusted position, turning onto his side so that he and Lieder could see beneath the control panel and across the room. The hole was small, the size of a normal door, but constantly expanded as heavy objects smashed through. Two Xenomorphs flew straight out, then a third grabbed hold of the hole’s edge, spidery fingers digging into the damaged superstructure. Detritus struck it several times. It held on, pulling, actually hauling itself against the flow.
A human corpse crashed into the alien and they both disappeared into the void. Faulkner had been Mains’s friend. He’d died bravely, and now he was out there forever, tumbling into infinity.
The flow of venting air lessened. Somewhere in the strange ship blast doors must have been closing. Sound retreated, and a few seconds later they found themselves subsumed within a haunting, threatening silence.
Lieder stood first, helping Mains to his feet. They now carried only a sidearm each, and Mains knew that his laser pistol’s charge was down to just one or two swift shots.
The android, Patton, was dead at last. Whatever he had been attempting had failed, when the blast had driven a fist-sized chunk of metal into his face. His head was a bloody mess of flesh, titanium skull, and ruined insides, his unimaginably complex computing power destroyed in an instant. Artificial he might have been, but in reality the android was as frail as any human.
“Johnny!” Lieder said. She slapped his shoulder, reaching for her sidearm with her other hand. He spun and peered in the direction she was facing.
There was movement at the ragged hole in the ship’s hull. As he saw what it was, he thought for a moment he might be dreaming.
Maybe he was already dead.
“Wait,” he said, holding her arm.
“Holy shit,” Lieder said.
Two shapes entered through the hole, safety lines extending behind them and out into space. They were heavily armed.
“Oxygen levels critical,” his suit said. He might have ten minutes of air remaining.
“What the hell sort of trouble have you been kicking up?” a voice asked.
“Durante,” Mains said. “Eddie… really?”
The man who stepped forward must have been almost seven feet tall, broad and powerful, his combat suit straining at the seams even though it would have been specially made for him.
“Always said you’d need rescuing one day,” the huge figure replied. He grinned at Lieder. “And who are you?”
“Hitting on her already?” Mains asked.
Durante shrugged.
Mains laughed. “She’d have your balls for dinner.”
Durante looked around the smashed ship’s bridge as another shape dropped through the hole behind him from above.
“Seen some action, Johnny.”
“It’s been a tough few weeks.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What does that mean?” Mains asked.
Durante looked at him strangely.
“We’ve been cut off here. No communications in or out, other than a signal we sent a few minutes ago.”
“So you don’t know anything that’s been happening?”
“No. Why?”
“I’ll tell you on board the Navarro. You all that’s left?”
“Yeah. How did you know about us?”
“Picked up a distress signal from the Ochse. Where is it?”
The Ochse had exploded minutes after crash-landing them safely on the habitat, following a tough contact with some Yautja ships departing UMF 12. Frodo, the ship’s computer, must have broadcast a distress signal seconds before being blasted into memory.
“It’s toast,” Mains said. He’d grown close to Frodo. The ship’s computer had developed a personality, and they’d all thought of it as another member of the crew.
Durante grunted, then gestured for them to follow.
“Unless you’ve grown to like this place…”
“Get us the fuck out of here,” Lieder said, “and have your ship prep a channel to Tyszka Star.”
“Sounds like we’ve both got plenty of news to share,” Durante said as they prepared to leave.
Mains and Lieder held onto each other as they crossed the bridge under the watchful gaze of Eddie Durante and his fellow members of the HellSparks.
Mains hadn’t seen the big man in over six years. A fellow Excursionist, he’d been in command of one of the other Arrow-class ships tasked with patrolling beyond the Outer Rim. They’d done some training together at Tyszka Star, and years before that they’d shared time in the same Colonial Marine regiment. They hadn’t been close friends back then, but when they’d both been selected for Excursionist training, they’d grown to like each other. Still, Mains had never expected to see Durante again. Such was the life of an Excursionist.
“Thanks for coming by,” he said as they approached the smoking hole in the hull.
“Wasn’t busy,” Durante said. He and Mains stared out over the huge, curved surface of the Yautja habitat, and into the impersonal void of space surrounding them.
Mains did not believe in God, but as he and Lieder were helped over to the Navarro, he gave thanks to Eddie Durante.
* * *
Like all Arrow-class ships, the Navarro had been customized on the inside by its HellSpark crew. It maintained a similar layout to the Ochse, but it still felt like a strange ship.
As they passed through the airlock and their combat suits cycled down, Mains and Lieder pulled themselves into flight seats while Durante’s medic gave them the once-over.
A small, elfish woman, Radcliffe accessed their suits’ CSUs to assess current physical condition and medical needs.
“Hell, what have you guys been doing down there?” she asked. Checking the readouts on a floating holo frame, she glanced at Lieder with what might have been awe.
“Relaxing,” Lieder said. “Few drinks in the evening, game of backgammon, nice slow screw before bed.”
“Right,” Radcliffe said. “Well, I’ll concoct a stew of shit to pump into you both, might make you feel a bit better.”
“Worse wouldn’t be possible,” Mains said. “Thanks.”
“Not a problem.” Radcliffe called over a medical unit and connected it to the holo frame, stroking controls and watching as a selection of medicines were selected. While she worked, Durante slouched down in a seat across from them.
“We’re getting outta here,” he said. “Sensors indicate that weird ship’s still got nasties roaming beyond the blast doors.”
“They’ll break through and come at the ship, if they can,” Mains said.
“Into vacuum?” Durante asked.
“They were controlled,” Lieder said. “The android you saw, dead now, but he call
ed himself Patton—and somehow he was giving them orders.”
“Weaponized Xenomorphs?” Durante’s eyes widened.
Mains nodded. His head swam, and he felt sickness rising. He swallowed it down. Now was not the time.
“Patton… Patton…” Durante said, frowning.
“Twentieth-century general,” Lieder said.
“Just what the hell?” Durante said. “How can this have anything to do with the Yautja incursion?”
“The what?”
Durante told them. About the contacts across the Outer Rim, battles, and Yautja incursions deeper into the Human Sphere, as well as the various instances of sabotage against Weyland-Yutani and Colonial Marine bases. Death tolls were huge. Excursionists were being called back in from beyond the Rim to patrol the borders, and even though some sort of ceasefire had apparently been established, they were still on a war footing.
“Yautja don’t invade,” Lieder said.
“That’s what makes it so worrying,” Durante said.
“It’s not that.” Mains shook his head. The sickness rose again, and this time he had to lean to the side and bring it all up. Feeling dreadful, he heaved several times, spattering the floor and the seat’s legs. He was only thankful that the Navarro’s artificial gravity had been engaged. He wished he could expunge every awful memory of the past few weeks, of all his friends he had seen die.
“You puked on my ship,” Durante said.
“Yeah.” Mains wiped his mouth. “Sorry ’bout that. But Eddie, I need to send a message back to Tyszka Star. It’s not where the Yautja are going we’ve got to worry about. It’s what they’re running from.”
* * *
Mains knew it would take General Wendy Hetfield, the leader of the Excursionists, some time to receive his broadcast and send a response. He also knew that Durante was getting edgy, eager to leave UMF 12 behind and continue his journey back to the Outer Rim.
Nevertheless, he persuaded his friend to maintain a steady orbit around the habitat while he sent the brief signal. It was important, he said. It might be the most important message he’d ever send. When Durante asked him what it was about, Mains invited him to sit in and listen.
In fact, he invited all the crew. They came and watched, all eight HellSparks, him, and Lieder cramped onto a bridge designed for eight. Durante took up enough space for two of them.
Mains and Lieder were feeling better, systems awash with a cocktail of drugs courtesy of Radcliffe. Their various injuries would be treated, and soon, but the effects of several weeks of constant combat, dehydration, and borderline starvation would take longer to recover from. The drugs could only act as a buffer.
He sat silently for a moment as he composed the message. As he did so, he had the feeling he might be defining all of their futures. Then he began.
“This is Lieutenant Johnny Mains of the 5th Excursionists, VoidLarks. After thirty days aboard the Yautja habitat designated UMF 12, we’ve been picked up by Lieutenant Eddie Durante and his 19th Excursionists. Six of my eight crew are dead, myself and Private Lieder the only survivors. Our ship the Ochse is gone. During our time on UMF 12 we’ve discovered some troubling information.
“Initially we were fighting the Yautja. As usual with their species, more often than not they attacked individually, and we made several attempts to board Yautja vessels with the intention of stealing one to escape, but we couldn’t fly any of them. Then we discovered a strange ship docked at one end of the habitat. We started finding Yautja corpses that looked as though they’d been ripped apart. We suspected some sort of internal feud, but we were proved wrong.
“Xenomorphs were present on the habitat. They had arrived on the strange ship, which although largely mysterious to us was almost certainly of human origin. There was an android on board calling itself Patton, named after a twentieth-century general, and it seems that Patton was in control of the Xenomorphs. Someone, somewhere, has weaponized the species.
“When mortally wounded the Xenomorphs self-destruct, sometimes exploding, sometimes melting down. Parts of their exoskeletons can survive, and in several instances we found Patton’s name stamped on them, on the carapace at the back of the head. It was a mark of ownership.”
Mains looked around at the Navarro’s crew. Some seemed shocked, while a couple looked at him as though he were mad. He could understand their skepticism. Thin, weak, battered, he’d obviously been through a lot. Perhaps they suspected him of space sickness.
Yet Lieder sat beside him, silently supportive, and no two people could suffer the same delusions.
“There’s more,” he said. “We reached the ship’s bridge, and moments before the Xenomorphs launched a final attack, and Lieutenant Durante and his HellSparks came to our rescue, Private Lieder detected some strange signals registering on one of the ship’s deep space scanners. I’d do best to let Lieder tell you what she saw.”
Mains nodded at Lieder. She leaned forward and spoke into the holo frame, her image and words being stored ready to be sent across light years of space. Mains knew that they would have great effect.
He still found it difficult to believe them himself.
“I detected traces of ships approaching the Outer Rim, way beyond even where UMF 12 is drifting. My combat suit has… modifications. I’ve got access to certain forbidden quantum folds that the Company might not… anyway, that doesn’t matter. What matters is that at least seven of these traces indicated that they were human. Fiennes ships.”
A murmur passed through the crew. Durante raised his eyebrow at Mains. Mains nodded.
“They were traveling at incredibly high speeds,” Lieder said. “Certainly faster than any Fiennes ships were ever designed to travel, and perhaps even faster than Arrow ships. My suit CSU identified two of these ships as the Susco-Foley and the Aaron-Percival, both of which left the Sol System centuries ago. None of these ships were ever meant to return, and each of them carried tens of thousands of colonists in cryo-suspension. With Xenomorphs involved, our fears are…” She trailed off.
“Nurseries,” Mains said, leaning in again. “We’re afraid that whoever the android is working with, or for, has weaponized the Xenomorphs, and is about to launch an assault on the Human Sphere using old Fiennes ships as nurseries for their new weapons.”
The bridge fell silent. Mains knew that this was pure speculation, and that he and Lieder had gone beyond fact and into the arena of supposition, but the facts spoke for themselves.
“Awaiting orders,” he said, then he nodded at Durante’s comms officer, who turned off the holo frame.
“Fuck,” someone said.
“You good to send?” Mains asked. The comms officer nodded, then looked to Durante for confirmation.
“Let it fly,” Durante said. “Then we’ll fill in our friends here on what’s been happening while they’ve been on vacation with the Yautja. Seems to me our lives are about to get interesting.”
2
ROMMEL
Drophole Gamma 123, Outer Rim
October 2692 AD
Mistress Maloney:
They have designated it drophole Gamma 123. For the honor of the Rage, once it is taken I will pronounce it as Drophole One. We’re closing in, mere hours away from our target, and now our war truly begins.
All my troops are ready. More than two thousand are hatched, with ten times that many in reserve. They’re vicious and fearless, deadly and expendable, and that’s why we are unbeatable and unstoppable. No one has ever had an army like this.
Today we make history.
Tomorrow we begin to rewrite it.
Your General,
Rommel
Another one completed.
Captain Nathan McBrain was a record breaker. At seventy-seven years old, he was at an age when most people might consider easing back on their work and taking on other ventures. Some might choose exploring.
One such group was called the one-wayers, elderly space travelers who cashed in all their credits and sold any p
ossessions to purchase a ship of their own and blast off into the void. A class of ship had been manufactured especially for these people. They were cheap and flimsy, not necessarily built to last, but liable to outlast their new owners. Much of the cheapness came from their drives, solid-fuel boosters lacking any real control systems.
Choose a target area in the sky, aim, burn the fuel until it failed—which usually took less than a standard day—and then cruise at that speed forever. Many saw it as a form of suicide, but for those one-wayers who chose this life, it was the bravest form of space exploration, because there was no way back. A true voyage of discovery.
Others settled somewhere out in the Sphere, buying an apartment on a commercial station or settlement, often spending time writing of their adventures or staring at the stars and dreaming of new ones. It was a way of slowing their pace, almost shutting down, settling at last and letting death catch up with them.
A few might decide to return to the place of their birth, but McBrain hadn’t been back to Earth in over sixty years, and he had no intention of returning there now. If anything, and if the Company sanctioned it, he’d be keen to travel another five years beyond the Rim to build, commission, and activate drophole Gamma 124.
As captain of the Titan ship Gagarin, he was responsible for Gamma 113 to 123, eleven dropholes constructed across a forty-year career. Dedication to his mission meant that he’d never married or had children, though there had been relationships with members of the crews who came and went. He’d spent his whole life working to expand the Outer Rim and further the human desire to explore. He hadn’t done it for fame or fortune. McBrain was simply a man who liked to explore, and a captain who loved his job and was proud of what he had achieved.
“Final checks should be complete in two days,” Clintock said. He was systems manager, a small, intense man who often surprised with his cutting humor. “But it’s looking good. All systems green. Containment fields at max, fuel pods secure, dark matter stable.”
“Good, good,” McBrain said. Clintock carried on talking, running through a series of checks and reports that McBrain had heard a thousand times before, so he let his attention drift. He allowed himself that, from time to time, and now more than ever he thought he deserved it. He’d built up a superb team around him over the past decade—this was the third drophole they’d completed together—and even though he knew that all of the checks were essential, he also knew that if there was something amiss, they’d have all been made aware of it by now.