by Tim Lebbon
Perhaps her most celebrated series had been a session of first-contacts, in which she and her production crew traveled to distant worlds to attempt communication with diverse, non-sentient species. Serious scientists had claimed the missions as tasteless and shallow, with no real scientific merit. Her audience had quadrupled over the space of a year.
All of these accounts were gathered and broadcast in the most popular quantum fold in history.
At last count, her fold had received over a trillion visits from around five billion distinct individuals. She might have been one of the most famous and celebrated folders in history, but she rarely let that go to her head. She’d started Out There for the purest of reasons, after all. To honor her dead husband.
Garth Grizz had been killed sixteen years before while surfing a sand geyser on a small planet sixty light years from the edge of the Human Sphere. He’d been one of history’s greatest adrenalin junkies, traveling light years through a dozen dropholes to experience each new, incredible rush. He’d attempted a thousand mile freefall into a gas giant, ridden the Takogo Rapids that spanned between two dwarf planets, and had even attempted to make contact with the Rheldi Crabs of Glenfoul Prime when he heard that their central community lived in a cave system that led deep into the core of their dead world.
She had loved Garth, and sometimes she had gone with him on his crazy adventures, but Maria had always preferred observing rather than taking part. Garth had lived for the rush, and now that he’d gone, Maria continued to thrive on the knowledge.
Watching now, she was already contacting Out There and opening a new room, her eye camera taking images, embedded chip extracting information from the AI of the ship on which she traveled.
Three seconds after seeing the first thing land, she felt a flutter of fear in her stomach.
Ten seconds later, she knew that she would soon be joining her husband.
The Xenomorphs had been fired at them as they approached drophole Gamma 43. Only a dozen light years from the Outer Rim, this was as far from home as Maria had ever been, and something about that thought had made her more uncertain about space travel than ever before. “We’re frontier people,” the ship’s captain had told her, and she knew that he meant it. There were stories about Captain Homme. He viewed the law as something that applied to other people, “Closer people,” as he put it—those who lived nearer to home, and closer to the generally accepted idea of how things should be.
Out here, Homme was the law.
They should have fled as soon as they saw the big ship orbiting Gamma 43. All that was left of the space station was a debris field.
The Xenomorphs crossed the void. She was the only passenger, and she and the rest of the crew watched on the flight deck. The shapes glittered and glimmered in starlight, and they must already have been dead.
Mustn’t they?
Impacting the vessel, the very-much-alive Xenomorphs immediately began to scratch at the hull with their heavily spiked limbs, flexing long fingers into creases between hull plates, scoring solid metal with their tails.
“They should be dead,” Homme said. “Nothing lives in space. Nothing!” It was true. In over six hundred years of human exploration, no organism had been found able to withstand the cold vacuum of the airless void, other than certain hardy viruses.
“What’s that?” Maria asked. “Homme, get your AI to zoom in on their backs.”
The ship’s computer heard and did so without the captain’s command, apparently as eager as the rest of them to discover what might be happening. It chose a creature clinging to one of the ship’s booster sheaths, and moments later they could all see it in shocking, unbelievable detail. There were six silvery globes on its back, each the size of a human fist and fixed using thin, clear straps.
“What are those?” Homme asked. “Are they…?”
“Breathing apparatus,” Maria confirmed. She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see any more.
Homme and his crew shouted and argued, refuting what they’d seen, swearing at the ship’s AI as it offered opinions, but it was Maria who realized what was going on. Perhaps it was her willingness to believe the unbelievable, or her deeply buried hope that she would one day rejoin Garth—beyond where life ended and death began—to embark on their most incredible adventure of all.
“They want the ship,” she said. “Whatever controls them, whoever they are, they want us gone and the ship as intact as possible.”
“Captain,” one of the crew said. “They’ve started trying to smash their way inside.”
“Impossible,” Homme said. “They’re animals! Get us out of here.”
“Powering up,” the ship’s navigator said. “We’ll be ready to leave in…” She trailed off, and frantically checked her instruments. “I’ve lost all power to flight control. Computer’s down.”
“Computer?” Homme shouted.
There was no response.
“Hull breach!” another crew member said. “Deck two. Another on deck four.”
The ship vibrated. A roar broke through from outside. From elsewhere, something or someone screamed.
Maria Grizz took a final deep breath and hoped that she would die before the Xenomorphs reached the bridge.
* * *
Private Moore watched as the Marine ship ahead of his own was taken into the belly of the beast.
The battle had been short and sharp. The enemy had won, blasting two Colonial Marine frigates to atoms and succeeding in boarding the space station that controlled the drophole. News from the station—before all communication ceased—brought the word that they had all feared.
Xenomorphs.
Soon after that, laser fire from the big ship knocked out their engines. He’d heard someone saying it was a Fiennes ship, though he didn’t understand how that could be possible. Immediately they were adrift, floating through the debris fields from the destroyed frigates. Somewhere in that debris were people he had known, marines he had fought with, and the woman he had loved.
Melinda died quick, Moore thought. That was his sole comfort. As his own death approached, he only hoped that he would be so blessed.
But he was beginning to doubt that.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Troll asked beside him. He was hunkered down and staring through the same window. They watched the big ship maneuver around so that the other sleek, disabled Marine ship was sucked into its open belly. They were so close that they could see everything that happened.
Steadying arms protruded across the large hold and clasped the attack ship. Dark shapes drifted across the hold to land on the ship, crawling across its hull and spreading themselves, turning the silvery hull black.
“What the hell…?” Moore muttered.
“Xenomorphs,” Troll said. “Seen ’em before. Heard about them. This is all them I reckon. They’ve learned to build ships and fly, and—”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Moore said, but he had to wonder.
The others were gathered at the windows now, watching, because they were also looking at their own doom. They, too, were drifting, helpless and powerless to resist what might come next. The big ship was coming their way.
By the time its door was blown and its atmosphere vented, they were close enough to see shapes moving inside.
The dark shapes hugging its hull streamed toward the open doorway. Laser blasts burst out, shattering several Xenomorphs, their remains floating aside while others crowded in. More weapons discharged. More creatures died, splitting apart and bursting outward.
Then weight of numbers forced them inside.
Against one of the small viewing ports, something splashed red.
“That’s us,” Moore said. “Five minutes from now, maybe ten. That’s us.”
“They want the ships,” Troll said. “That’s why they haven’t blown us to nothing. Kill us, take the ship—”
“Computer!” Moore asked, but it was still offline. Everything was offline, and they were as helpless as a fin
less fish drifting in front of a shark.
“We’ll fight,” Troll said. The others agreed.
“To the last,” Moore said.
They assessed their weapons, loaded, suited up, and then the cabin grew dark as they were swallowed into the huge enemy ship’s open hold.
Less than a hundred yards away from them, the other Marine ship was held in place by fluid-like clamps. Its scars were obvious. Its crew members were dead. Xenomorphs exited and drifted toward them.
“Never go without a fight,” Moore said.
“We’ve got grenades,” Troll said.
“Let’s wait until they’re inside. Take plenty of the bastards with us.”
Then Moore turned to face the door. Something scratched outside. Not everyone dies quick, he thought, and he instructed his com-rifle to prepare a plasma shot.
He closed his eyes, ready to open them again when the door burst out.
4
ISA PALANT
LV-1657, Drophole Gamma 116
October 2692 AD
The huge Yautja kneels to come down to her level. Isa can smell him. They all have a scent, like cinnamon and fresh meat, but Kalakta’s is richer and deeper, as if age makes it so. Milt McIlveen is behind her, the Company man who has also become a friend. Akoko Halley is there too, the major of the 39th Spaceborne who rescued them all from the ruins of Love Grove Base. Both of these people trusted her before when she insisted that the message of understanding and peace needed to be sent to the Yautja. She needs them to trust her now.
She has never been this close to a living Yautja before. Dead, they are intimidating. Alive he is magnificent, exuding power and strength, and she feels sick to the stomach with terror.
He’s come here for this, she thinks. He wants to end it as much as we do. This is not our war. Someone else is waging it against us. Someone using Xenomorphs as weapons.
Kalakta holds her around the back of the neck and leans in close, so close that she can feel the heavy moisture of his breath and see the sharpness of his well-used, time-chipped tusks. She gags. To puke into the face of this highest-ranking Yautja elder, just at the moment when an accord is being reached between them, might not be the best idea.
She almost laughs at that thought.
She almost cries.
Kalakta makes a noise. It sounds like motors deep in his body beginning to turn, bones grinding together. She frowns, glancing sidelong at McIlveen to see whether their jointly written program is translating his words. McIlveen is looking at the small datapad in front of him, frowning, and he glances across at her just as Kalakta’s laughter begins to grow.
No, Isa thinks. No, not like this, we came here for peace, don’t do this to us—don’t do this to yourselves!
“No!” she shouts, but it’s too late.
The four Yautja accompanying Kalakta act as if on a silent signal. For ceremonial reasons, and as a sign of trust and respect, they have been allowed to bring their weapons into the vast hold of the Tracey-Jane. That was a terrible mistake. They disperse, sweeping their spears around to bear, sighting lasers for their shoulder blasters sending jagged beams dancing across the shadowy space.
“No!” Isa Palant screams again. She tries to stand, but Kalakta is holding her tighter now. There’s no sign of effort in his eyes—he could crush her neck with one clasp of his hand, and will probably do so soon—but there is something else. She cannot tell what it is. Isa has allowed herself to believe that she knows something of the Yautja, but the terrible truth hits home along with the first blasting explosion.
She knows nothing at all.
McIlveen’s head erupts in a shower of vaporized brain and skull. He remains standing for a moment, then takes one step back before leaning sideways and hitting the deck.
Halley barks an order and her crew start shooting, trying to track the Yautja across the big chamber, firing, missing, shooting again. Two of the aliens have initiated their invisibility cloaks, and now they are little more than shadows within shadows. The only thing that reveals their positions is the shots from their blasters.
A marine screams as she is lifted aloft on a spear, her blood and trailing guts hanging where it emerges from her back.
One Yautja is taken down by laser fire, its torn parts twitching and writhing as if it’s still fighting in death.
Kalakta pulls Isa in close to him, lifting his head and holding her face against his chest so that all she can do is hear.
Shooting, explosions, screams and roars, all of it echoing in the huge hold, the cacophony lessening as there are fewer soldiers left to fight, fewer Yautja to fight back.
Eventually the chaos subsides. Isa feels sick. She can hear something inside Kalakta’s chest that might be his heartbeat, but could also be the elder Yautja’s continuing laughter at the deception he has sprung.
He eases the pressure on her neck and allows her to see.
Two Yautja are still alive. One of them has lost an arm, green blood spattering from the wound. The second is carrying its heavy battle spear in one hand, and Akoko Halley’s head in the other, her eyes half-closed and still glistening behind her shattered visor.
They are already taking trophies.
Kalakta speaks, and it is as if she has the translation program in her mind, ready to filter and recite his words. His voice is deep, and filled with a promise of more pain to come.
“Foolish to believe you can understand,” he says. Then he pulls her close as his mouth opens wider, his sharp tusks scarred with age, his head tilting back as his breath washes over her—
* * *
“More nightmares,” a voice said, pulling her from a troubled sleep. “They’ll stop soon.”
Isa gasped and sat up in the cot. Dread and relief washed through her, a strange mix.
“You can cure nightmares?”
The sim-nurse in the holo frame beside her bed smiled. “We can do anything. Now relax, your medicine is on its way. You’re on the mend, and you’ll be ready for the drophole in two more days. You’ll sleep properly then.”
“I’m looking forward to it.”
The screen went blank. Isa caught her breath, glad for the familiar environment. The Colonial Marine base was everything she’d come to expect of a military installation—efficient, organized, well designed, but gray and sterile. She’d been moved from the medical bay ten days earlier, and her new quarters were small and functional. She had a shower room, a cot, a cupboard.
It was a long way from her complex of labs on Love Grove Base, but that place no longer existed. Svenlap had blown it up, in one of the many acts of sabotage across the Human Sphere that had seemed to precede the Yautja incursion. Despite the presence of an independent security team, many people had died in the explosion and the weeks following, struggling to survive in that inhospitable environment.
The arrival of two Yautja drawn by the explosion had made matters so much worse. The surviving indies had been itching for a fight.
Akoko Halley and her squad’s arrival had brought matters to a head. Sent by Gerard Marshall, one of the Thirteen, specifically to rescue Isa and McIlveen, Halley had arrived just in time. She had also listened when Isa tried to explain why the Yautja were doing this.
They weren’t invading the Human Sphere. They were fleeing into it.
Remembering, she sighed and rested back in her bed. An applicator rose from beside the bed and pumped her daily dose of medicines through the skin on her thigh. It tingled, warmed, then faded once more. She’d had many doses now, and every day they were changing where the chemicals were injected. She’d be left with smooth scars in several spots across her skin, but she didn’t mind.
Isa might have saved the Human Sphere from war.
McIlveen had mentioned this to her several times, but he lacked the humor and charisma of her old friend Keith Rogers. She’d seen Rogers die when Love Grove Base was blown up, and she missed him now. Sometimes it was his death—and her own personal loss—that helped her comprehend the en
ormity of what was happening.
Isa stood, dressed, and went to her small cupboard to gather her datapad. It was all that was left from Love Grove Base, and it contained some of her studies. Most of what she had learned over the past few years, however, was kept in her mind, especially now that the labs were gone. Knowledge and experience, postulation, experiment and theorizing—she had built a greater and more complex picture of the Yautja species than anyone else she knew. Isa and Milt McIlveen might have been the two humans most knowledgeable in Yautja habits and behavior.
That she did this for Weyland-Yutani troubled her, but she would have never come this far without them. Their resources were limitless.
Since her peace conference with Yautja Kalakta of the Elder Clan several weeks ago, she had been on the mend from her injuries. McIlveen had stayed at the base with her, and Halley and her crew had also remained. Halley told Isa that she’d been tasked by Gerard Marshall to protect her at all costs. As one of the Thirteen, the inner council of Weyland-Yutani, Marshall coveted her knowledge, wanting her back in the Sol System as soon as possible. That would necessitate many months of travel and at least thirty drops between dropholes, neither of which she was quite prepared for yet.
Immediately after the peace conference, her head injury had been noticed and diagnosed. She had a bleed on the brain. It was minor, and easily curable, but it meant that any drop might well prove fatal.
A drophole jaunt was risky at the best of times. Because of the almost indecipherable physics that was involved, each traveler had to be held in a suspension pod. Cryo-pods were used for deep space travel, but suspension pods were their smaller cousins, the thick gel contents essentially “freezing” a human’s physiology for a short time. Whereas cryo-suspension was like putting someone into a deep, timeless sleep, being immersed in a suspension pod was like holding a breath, or lengthening the period between heartbeats.