by Tim Lebbon
Everyone he had ever known and loved would be long dead, and he would have gone down expecting to be woken only if his ship found a habitable planet. He was the bravest of the brave, and Mains could only look at him in awe.
“What’s that?” Durante asked. He was pointing below the man at a shriveled, wrinkled mass beneath his body. It was like shed skin.
“Don’t know,” Mains said. “Can’t quite…” He moved to another pod, this one containing a woman, young and looking fit despite her probable age. She also shared the pod with a shriveled object. He looked closer.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
“Xenomorphs,” Lieder said from behind Mains. “That’s a Xeno egg layer. She’s been impregnated.”
“Check the others,” Durante said, but Mains already had a sick feeling in his chest.
“Nurseries,” he said.
“These too, boss,” Moran said, drifting from pod to pod and pushing himself higher up the branch. “And these.”
“And look up there,” Mains said. “Up on the thicker trunks.” Xenomorph eggs. He could see them now, hunched shapes, all of them empty and slumped down over time.
“Get back down here,” Durante said.
“How many are there?” Mains asked. “There must be thousands.”
“I can’t see the end of them,” Lieder said. She was close to Mains but looking into the distance, and he could see her visor deflecting slightly as she instructed it to magnify. “It’s unbelievable.”
“Spike’s done a quick sensor sweep,” Hari said. “He estimates forty thousand pods in this hold.”
Mains swallowed.
“This hold?” Durante asked.
“There are five others in the ship,” Hari said.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Lieder said. “If this is a nursery, where are the nurses?”
“We can’t just leave them,” Hari said.
“We can’t do anything for them,” Lieder said.
“We can’t just—”
“They’re finished!”
“There is something we can do for them,” Durante said, and the coolness to his voice froze them all.
“Boss,” Moran said. “Movement behind us, coming closer. Six readings.”
“Get ready,” Mains said. He held his com-rifle and stroked the trigger, eager to see the Xenomorphs, keen to blast them apart and watch their acid splash the walls. He wanted to kill them, just as they and their masters had assuredly killed these tens of thousands of people.
No human had ever been saved after being impregnated by a Xenomorph.
“Form up,” Durante said. “This side of the entrance, we’ll take them in the doorway.”
Mains and Lieder drifted back a little, resting against one of the structures with pods to either side.
“Bekovich, we’ve got incoming,” Durante said, talking to one of the ship’s crew. “Keep an eye on life sign movement for us.”
“We got it, boss. See you, six bogies moving toward you, that’s it for now.”
They waited, eyes on the doorway and their visor displays, ready to open fire. Mains feared that once the shooting began, a lot more Xenomorphs would make themselves known, and somewhere on this massive, monstrous ship he was sure they’d find one of those bastard androids. He wondered what name he or she would have been given.
“Five yards,” Moran said.
A shadow fell across the doorway.
Mains touched the trigger, a plasma pulse programmed to melt the doorway around their ears.
“Hold!” Hari shouted.
Mains almost fired in shock, then he saw the woman in the doorway. Short, terrified, she was dressed in a torn space suit of a design he’d never seen, and carrying a long metal bar. Even the gravity boots she wore were worn and tattered. A couple more faces appeared behind her, one man with burns across one side of his head and face, a woman behind him with no hair and one arm amputated at the elbow.
The burned man pushed past her and aimed a laser pistol at the marines. His hand was shaking, but he had defiance in his eyes.
Then confusion.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Seems to me we should be asking questions and you should be answering,” Durante said. “This your ship?”
“Of course,” the man said. “Who… who are you?”
“Colonial Marines,” Mains said.
The man’s eyes went wider, and perhaps he even smiled.
“You come from outside? From beyond?”
“Is this a Fiennes ship?” Lieder asked.
“No. No. No.”
The man lowered his gun. The woman stepped forward and held him, and Mains was shocked to see that he had started to cry.
“We’re shipborn,” the woman said. “We were once of the Rage.”
“What the hell is this?” Durante asked.
“This is the Othello,” the woman said, “and we are Founders once again.”
The one-armed woman behind her started to cry.
“Hurry. Hurry! They’re coming!”
11
LILIYA
Space Station Hell
November 2692 AD
“I think maybe you need to hide,” Liliya said. The Yautja language still felt strange in her mouth, and she wondered how quickly she could adapt again to the standard tongue. Hashori had never shown any eagerness to learn or speak anything other than Yautja.
“Yautja don’t hide,” Hashori said. “Weaklings hide. Criminals and cowards hide. I am a warrior, and I—”
“Just for a while!” Liliya shouted. “Seriously, do you want to march out there and start killing again?”
“I hadn’t intended that,” Hashori said.
“Well, that’s what will happen. Look. They’re already here.” She nodded at the viewing screen that had emerged from the control panel, and contained within was a 360-degree view of their surroundings. They had docked at one of the space station’s more remote docking bays, and already there were soldiers swarming around the hangar, drifting across the wide space and bringing a range of weaponry to bear on the Yautja craft. There were many hand weapons, but also a few heavier-looking laser cannons magnetically affixed to floor, walls, and ceilings.
“If they open fire my ship will—”
“Please, Hashori. Try to think about this not as another battle, but as a potential place of peace.”
“They appear eager to start a fight,” the Yautja said.
“No, no. They’re being cautious. They probably recognize the ship as Yautja—and what does that tell you?”
“That they respect our warrior prowess.”
Liliya sighed and closed her eyes. I can’t have come this far to be blown to pieces here and now.
“Please, let me go out first,” she said.
“I will not hide,” Hashori said, and Liliya tried to understand the situation from her point of view. The Yautja was a proud beast, still troubled at fleeing from the Zeere Za even though the ship’s fate had been sealed. They had run from Alexander and his army instead of remaining behind to fight, and that must have burned, too.
The Yautja did not flee a fight, and Hashori was right—they certainly did not hide.
“I understand,” Liliya said. “Really, I do, but if you step out there before me, they won’t ask questions first. Right now, I’m the best chance anyone has of turning this war around.”
Hashori considered for a while, and Liliya could almost feel her internal conflict. Her people had been decimated, losing ships, habitats, and even a couple of planets to the Rage. All she wanted to do was to fight, but sometimes a good fight needed a long preparation.
“You can leave the ship first,” Hashori said finally.
“Thank you.” Liliya felt exhausted, but also a tingle of excitement at exiting this confined space she had shared with Hashori for so long. She had fled the Rage, been taken by the Yautja, and then run from them again, this time with Hashori. They already had a history together, but
so long spent so close together had left Liliya’s nerves frayed.
Sometimes, she had to remind herself that she was an android, and that helped, but she was also very, very old, and in many ways she considered herself more human than many of the Rage. With them, age had hardened them, stripping away empathy and concentrating the twisted desire for some sort of revenge against the humanity who had apparently persecuted them, and the Founders before them. With her, age had made her more human than she could have ever hoped. It was an irony that she held onto, and the main reason she had finally left them.
“You will explain why we’re here together?” Hashori asked.
Because I went to you for help, Liliya thought. Because you tortured me, keeping me on the edge of death for so long. But that was in the past, and Hashori had not been obliged to save her. Liliya saw past the bad to the good, and she knew that she would not have survived if it were not for this proud, furious Yautja.
“I will,” Liliya said, “and then you can leave the ship, too.”
She hoped.
Liliya readied herself. While Hashori made a show of taking the ship’s weapons offline, the android stood close to the airlock, trying to make herself presentable. There was no need for a space suit—the docking bay doors had closed behind them, trapping them inside, and sensors indicated that atmosphere had been leveled. There was no artificial gravity, though. Perhaps that was reserved for the station’s central core, not these outlying docking bays.
This was it. Her first contact in centuries with the humanity that Liliya had returned to save. It should have been a great moment, but this space station was called Hell. It seemed run down in places, and the soldiers outside were not wearing matching uniforms. They certainly were not Colonial Marines, at least not as she remembered them from almost three centuries ago.
She had to make the best of things. But as the hull became fluid and an outer door appeared, she could not help thinking that she had made a huge mistake.
* * *
“Hold it right there!” The woman’s voice was strong, but also worried. Liliya could hardly blame her—a Yautja ship had landed on her space station.
Liliya held up her hands in the universal gesture of supplication and compliance.
“That’s a Yautja ship!” the woman said. She stood at the controls of a laser cannon.
“It is,” Liliya said, “but we have not come here for a fight. I’ve returned with something that—”
“You’re flying it? You’ve stolen it?”
“No.”
“Is there a Yautja inside?”
“There is,” Liliya said. All around the bay, soldiers hunkered down closer to their weapons, and the air almost sparkled with violent potential.
“Step away,” the soldier said.
“First will you hear me?”
“Step away from the ship!”
“No!” Liliya said. She looked from face to face. They all wore combat suits of some sort, but many did not match. Neither did their weapons. These were mercenaries. That did not make them any more or less dangerous than Colonial Marines, but it did mean that their orders could be diverse. They might run Hell as a military council, or perhaps they were merely employed to protect it.
Either way, Liliya could not let this meeting descend into violence. She had come all this way to end the violence. This was an important, loaded moment, and so much depended on how it played out.
She only wished she could convey that importance to them.
“Let me tell you who I am,” she said, looking directly at the soldier who seemed to be in charge. The woman stared back along the barrel of the heavy cannon. She could end Liliya’s long life without her even knowing, send her into darkness at the speed of light. The idea of such oblivion had never worried Liliya, but now she found it terrifying. So many lives might depend on her staying alive.
“Please.”
“Who are you?” the woman demanded.
“My name is Liliya. I’ve come in peace, accompanied by a Yautja who has suffered terribly at the hands of the Rage.”
“What’s the Rage?”
“You’ve heard of the attacks across the Outer Rim?”
“We keep to ourselves here, but yes, we’ve heard.”
“The Rage is the group committing those attacks. I’ve come from them, I know their plans and capabilities, and I’ve stolen something that might help the Human Sphere defend itself.”
“Right,” the woman said. “Step aside.”
“No,” Liliya said. “You have to let me—”
“Step aside, or I’ll shoot through you!”
“Do that and you doom yourselves to die.” Liliya sensed a ripple pass through the bay, and she suspected the mercenaries were communicating. What happened in the next few moments would indicate what was being said.
“Why choose here?” the soldier asked.
“We’re being chased by a Rage army,” Liliya said. “They know the threat I present to them, and they want me captured or destroyed.”
“So you’re leading them to us?”
“No. We’ve shaken them.” Liliya’s lie was hard, but she saw no benefit in admitting the truth. She had to move past this stalemate and onward, seeking help, exposing herself to someone other than these soldiers who only had violence on their minds. In a way, perhaps it would benefit her if Hashori and they entered into combat—but she had seen too much death already. She had come bearing a message of hope, and she had to reflect that message in her actions.
“We want to see the Yautja,” the soldier said. “Tell it to come to the doorway.”
“I can’t tell Hashori to do anything,” Liliya said. She hoped that giving the Yautja a name might personalize it in these soldiers’ minds.
Then she sensed Hashori behind her, just out of sight. She could smell her, musky and warm, and she wondered whether that smell had always been present in the ship. Or it could have been a natural smell of excitement, as Hashori readied for a fight.
“The fate of the Human Sphere and its peace with your people rests here,” Liliya whispered to Hashori. Then she stepped from the ship and floated aside.
Hashori stood in the doorway. Resplendent and threatening in her warrior’s garb, shoulder blaster drooped and inactive, blades on her belt, her heavy trident in one hand, helmet held beneath her other arm, she remained tall and proud as several laser sights played across her chest and face. Part of Liliya wished she had worn her helmet and mask, but then to reveal herself like this showed that she was an individual being, not merely a creature of war.
Hashori spoke, and Liliya translated.
“She says… your space station smells of fear.”
The mercenary woman bristled, but then stood from behind her laser cannon. She took three steps forward, shoes clomping softly as they attached themselves to the deck. She seemed uncertain, glancing around at her troops as if to gauge their mood.
“Tell her, welcome to Hell,” the woman said.
Liliya translated. Hashori chuckled. The tension in the air wasn’t totally defused, but she noticed some of the soldiers relaxing, and the woman walked closer. She seemed fascinated with Hashori.
“I need to speak to someone in charge,” Liliya said. “Is this a Weyland-Yutani vessel?”
“Not at all,” the mercenary said, not taking her eyes from the Yautja. “We’re independent.”
“But you have a way to contact the Company?”
She frowned, looked at Liliya, and the mistrust in her gaze was palpable.
“Just who the fuck are you?”
Liliya smiled. Human curse words had not changed over three centuries and a thousand light years.
“I’ve already told you.”
“Well, you can tell me again—but not here. Come with me.” She glanced around, and at some silent signal most of the mercenaries lowered their weapons. Most, but not all. “We can’t stand around pointing guns at each other all day. I expect you’ve come a long way.”
&
nbsp; “You have no idea,” Liliya said.
The mercenary led the way, and Liliya and Hashori followed. Accompanied by ten other mercenaries, she took them from the docking bay and down in an elevator toward the main body of the space station. It was huge, and the closer they got to the main section, the more people they saw. The reaction to having a Yautja with them was one of fear, and shock, and Liliya was hardly surprised. But people were also fascinated, and soon they gathered a small crowd behind them.
The mercenaries formed a security ring around Liliya and Hashori, two deep and still heavily armed, and when they reached the vast main open space, artificial gravity asserted itself. Liliya’s stomach dropped and she slumped a little, but Hashori only grunted and stood straight. She looked around at the soldiers and dozens of people following them, and no human could hold the Yautja’s gaze. Even without overt antagonism, still Hashori exuded aggression. Hers was not a visage evolved for peace.
Liliya began to wonder whether they had come to the right place.
The Rage’s knowledge of the Human Sphere since leaving almost three centuries before was sparse. Liliya had gathered intelligence on the dropholes, but much of that had been from chatter and broadcasts across the Outer Rim between Titan ships and their escorts. Events deeper inside the Sphere, up to five hundred light years from the Outer Rim, remained more mysterious, more unknown.
They knew that Weyland-Yutani were still a power to be reckoned with, a corporate ruling entity that spread its influence across human space and beyond. Whether or not they had taken control of the Colonial Marines was uncertain, but it seemed likely that the Company acted more as a governmental power than simply a business enterprise. An organization so huge saw beyond profit and loss, and control became a greater motivator.
Liliya had long suspected that to ensure what she carried in her blood, and the knowledge she bore, got to the correct people to use it, she would have to submit herself to the Company. Now, in this first interaction with humanity within the Human Sphere, it seemed she was as far away as ever.