by Tim Lebbon
If their first shot did not kill Hashori, there would be a bloodbath.
“Please,” she said. “Hashori. These people want what we want.”
Hashori lowered her spear slowly, staring at the guards until they, too, backed down. She consulted the device on her wrist, breathing slowly and deeply.
“Perhaps a brief wait is a good idea,” she said, uttering what might have been a chuckle.
“Come with us,” Tann said. “We’ll get you to the Satan’s Saviour and leave as soon as we can. The crew is almost ready, and as soon as the ship is prepped—”
“If it’s nothing vital, we should leave right away,” Liliya said.
Tann sighed, then nodded.
“What’s wrong?” Liliya asked.
“This place,” he said. “It’s become my home, and now it’s under threat.”
“All the more reason to hurry.”
Still under guard, they left the room and set out for the main docking arm.
* * *
Two hours later they were seated in the Satan’s Saviour. It was a large ship, sleek, built for speed and war. The crew eyed them curiously, but Liliya sensed only a little fear when they looked at Hashori. Maybe they had encountered Yautja before. Perhaps they had fought one.
Jiango and Yvette Tann were there, also, grim and silent. She felt very sorry for them. Soon she might ask more about what had brought them to Hell, and why they were so sad to leave—but their story would not affect events either way, and these events were larger than all of them.
Ware, the ship’s captain, had arranged seating for them in the open space behind the flight deck. As she was going through pre-flight checks with her crew Millard, the tall man, brought an image up on the main screen before them.
“Captain, something’s happening,” he said. Liliya suspected he was a man prone to understatement.
The screen showed a holo of a space battle. Nuclear blooms grew, expanded, and faded. Laser blasts seared across the darkness, splitting reality itself before darkening to black once again.
“How far away?” Tann asked, shocked.
“About ten billion miles,” Millard said.
“We have to leave!” Yvette said, looking at Liliya and Hashori. “However they’re following you, we can’t let them come to Hell. It’s a good place. They’re good people! They don’t deserve this.”
“Something else,” Millard said, and this time he seemed more animated. “Captain, five ships just dropped out of warp a million miles from the station.”
“Oh, no,” Tann said.
“They’re broadcasting,” Millard said, and Liliya had not expected that. Even she was amazed at how quickly Alexander had arrived from the drophole, but she was convinced that he was beyond instructing her to stop. This was search and destroy.
Hashori said something. It was too quiet to hear, and Liliya had to ask her to repeat it.
“What did that thing say?” Captain Ware asked. Others turned her way, waiting for Liliya to translate.
Maybe this isn’t the end, she thought.
“She said, her comrades have arrived. Those new ships are Yautja, and they’re here to help.”
Hashori stood. “I will join them.”
“We’ve left it too late to run,” Tann said. “Hell will have to fight.”
20
ISA PALANT
Gamma Quadrant
November/December 2692
They blasted McIlveen’s body into space. It was a disposal, not a funeral, and no one offered to say any words over the dead man. Isa Palant considered it, but then she realized that she hadn’t really known him at all. She didn’t know whether Milt McIlveen held any religious beliefs, where his family lived, not even if he was or ever had been married.
He had been a friendly face and a wise voice to her, and he had come at a time when she was facing what had been the biggest and most exciting challenge of her life. She’d been grateful for his help examining the Yautja corpses on Love Grove Base, and after the explosion there the two of them had something in common. They had both been survivors.
Not any more. McIlveen had shown his true colors, and his foolish move had resulted in his own death.
Palant wished she could unsee what she’d seen, but McIlveen had brought on that violent death himself. If Akoko Halley had trusted him as Palant had, McIlveen would have killed one or more of them, and held a gun to any he left alive.
As it was, now Palant was still in good, strong hands. Akoko Halley and her surviving DevilDogs—Sprenkel, Bestwick, and Sergeant Major Huyck—were on the right side. She had no doubt about that, and she’d trust them with her life.
In fact she already had, many times.
“Goodbye to bad stuff,” Sprenkel muttered as they watched from the Pixie’s rec room. The airlock closed and re-pressurized, and McIlveen drifted away from them forever.
“So what now?” Halley asked.
“You’re asking me?” Palant responded.
“Isa, you’re the one who said you can experiment on that.” The Major nodded down at the remains of the android, vacuum-sealed in a clear wrapping, and now strapped to the foot of the wall in the rec room.
“I can.”
“So where do we need to go?”
“I…” I don’t know, she wanted to say, and that was the truth. Palant had spent so long at Love Grove Base that her knowledge of other destinations was sparse.
“You need a lab,” Halley said. “We’re all in agreement that it can’t be a Company lab.”
“Well, not now,” Palant said.
“You think what we did was wrong?”
“No, not at all. In fact, it… it was brave of you.”
“Brave?” Halley asked.
“You’ve gone rogue,” she said. “AWOL. For all the right reasons.”
“Yeah,” Halley said, breathing out slowly. “Yeah, there goes my promotion.”
“There are certain things I’ll need,” Palant said. She stared at the android, wondering at the incredible technology it carried, wondering also how she could extract it. I have to know exactly what it is before I even go looking, she thought. But if I can’t go looking properly, how will I ever find it?
“What things?”
“Basic lab equipment, but other things, too. Let me…” She squatted beside the battered, torn android. The clear wrapping was pulled tight across its body in every place, but its one good eye still moved and bulged.
“We’re heading toward the nearest drophole,” Halley said. “You think about what you need. If you can, maybe you can tell us what facilities might have it, and we can perform a location search. Meantime, I need to speak to my crew.”
“Of course,” Palant said. They’d all just signed their own death warrants with the Colonial Marines and Weyland-Yutani. Of course she needed to speak to her crew.
Major Akoko Halley went through to the bridge, leaving Palant alone with the android.
It was wet, shifting even beneath the pressure of the wrapping. Trapped fluid formed bubbles against the surface, and its exposed innards looked like fresh meat waiting to be cooked. She didn’t like its eye. She reached out to turn the bound being around, but the eye seemed to open just that little bit wider, pupil dilating in excitement. Maybe it wanted her to touch it.
Instead, Palant stood and turned her back on the android. It made her uneasy. All the things that eye might have seen… they haunted her, and the idea of working on it, alone, was daunting.
But she had to do her best. A huge responsibility sat with her, made larger by their reluctance to take this thing to the Company. She had to discover everything about the android, and she was confident that she could. She’d spent much of her adult life alone while examining the physiology of the Yautja, and she would translate that knowledge onto this. She had to face the responsibility head-on.
There was still blood on the floor from where McIlveen’s throat had been cut.
* * *
“There’s not
hing safe this side of the nearest drophole,” Halley said. “Couple of research stations orbiting planets, a bigger space station with medical research facilities, but they’re all linked to subsidiaries of Weyland-Yutani.”
“We could still go there,” Palant said. “They don’t need to know who we are, or what happened.”
“I can’t risk it,” Halley said.
“Pride?”
“Partly.” The Major looked put out, and Palant was instantly sorry for offending her. Of course she had pride. “Mostly because I don’t want to be forced to kill other marines. If we get to one of these places and they’ve been assigned Colonial Marines protection, we might be faced with a tense situation.”
“And if that happened, you and your crew wouldn’t fight.”
“I didn’t say that. I said I don’t want to be faced with the choice—but look, these places we’ve found are all on the chart, all listed in deep-space manifests. They have histories, sponsors, company details, even contact information.”
“We want something more off the grid,” Palant said.
“That’s what I thought.”
They were drinking whiskey. It was false stuff manufactured on the Pixie, a chemical concoction that resembled the original only in strength and increased harshness, but it gave them a buzz. Palant was surprised at seeing Major Halley loosen up a little beneath its influence.
Huyck was still flying the ship, while Sprenkel attempted repairs to the damaged auto-control systems. It wasn’t essential, but it kept him busy. Bestwick was sleeping in her bunk. They all needed rest, but Bestwick was the only one who’d managed to close her eyes and drift away. Everyone else was too troubled by what they had seen, what they had done.
From the mumbles and occasional shouts coming from the sleeping quarters, Bestwick was also haunted.
“Those two Yautja back there,” Halley said. “That was weird.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised to find they were still with us,” Palant said.
“No trace of them on our scanners.”
“If they don’t want us to know, there won’t be.” Palant had been trying to assess the Yautja’s motives in helping them on the Fiennes ship, and she could find none other than simply wanting to help. The Rage had launched massive attacks against Yautja interests—habitats, as well as planets—and it would probably always remain unknown just how badly the Yautja society had been affected. As a species they were an enigma, and to even pretend to understand their reasoning was a mistake. But she could conceive of no other reason why the Yautja had aided them against the Xenomorphs and handed over the android.
“We need to decide where to go once we hit the drophole,” Halley said. “That’s if we’re not reported AWOL by the time we get there.”
“Marshall,” Palant said.
“Yes. He’ll probably try to contact us before we reach the drophole. We could tell him McIlveen was killed by Xenomorphs, we could even lie about having the android. Tell him there was nothing useful on board.”
“But he won’t believe us.”
“I don’t think so, no. We boarded an enemy ship. We must have something of value.”
“So?”
“So he’ll direct us to the nearest Company facility for debriefing.”
“And when we don’t show…”
Halley nodded, turning her glass slowly on the table. The fluid inside reflected amber and gold, almost like real whiskey.
“If he tries to contact us, we don’t answer,” Palant said. “He’s hundreds of light years away. It’s not as if he can reach across space and grab us.”
“Gerard Marshall has a very long reach,” Halley said. She swigged her whiskey, hissing at the harshness and the burn.
“Major!” Huyck was calling from the flight deck. “Get up here, now. You too, Yautja Woman.”
Palant was on her feet with Major Halley and through to the flight deck in seconds. In a way, she already knew what to expect.
The main holo screen was operational, and it showed the two Yautja ships. One seemed to be on station ahead of the Pixie, the other was performing a distant orbit of both ships.
“Any threats?” Halley asked, slipping into her captain’s chair.
“No, but I’ve gone weapons hot.”
“Drop them,” Palant said. “Quickly.”
“Seriously?” Huyck was looking at Halley, not Palant. The Major nodded.
“Weapon systems cold,” Huyck said. A chime sounded through the ship and several combat screens folded back into the walls. “Hope you’re right.”
Moments later another sound filled the bridge.
“What’s that?” Palant asked.
“Contact request from the Yautja,” Huyck said. “Full holo.”
“Put them on,” Halley said. She turned to Palant. “You’re up.”
* * *
It took twelve days to follow the two Yautja ships to the asteroid. It was an unnamed, unnumbered chunk of rock drifting between systems, twenty light years in from the Outer Rim. The Yautja relayed coordinates to the Pixie in stages, disappearing, meeting them again a couple of days later, moving on in short jaunts. It made the crew jumpy, but as time went on Isa Palant was growing more and more excited.
The Yautja had promised a research facility. They knew what she needed, and Kalakta’s implication that the two species might work together now seemed to be bearing fruit. With little to do aboard the Pixie as they traveled from point to point, Palant started to imagine what might be waiting for them at the end of their journey.
* * *
The asteroid was large, its forty-mile diameter giving it more the dimensions of a dwarf planet. Yet this asteroid had no star. Some time in the distant past perhaps it had orbited a sun, but now it drifted in deep space, on an endless voyage across the void like an orphan who had never known its parents. It carried with it several insubstantial asteroids far too small to be called moons.
The Yautja contacted them again, and Palant used the research she and McIlveen had carried out to reply.
“We’re landing on the asteroid,” she said.
“Really?” Halley said. “There’s nothing there.”
“They told us to follow.”
They followed. Over the course of their journey here much discussion had been held about what they were doing, whether it was right, and what monstrous mistakes they might be making. But the Yautja had presented no threat or aggression, and Palant and Halley were both convinced enough to follow. They couldn’t find any ulterior motives in what the Yautja were doing.
The Yautja transmitted approach vectors, and Huyck checked them with the ship’s computer.
“Perfect landing vectors,” Billy said. “We’ll be approaching the asteroid’s widest point—its notional equator—and an area of ravines and mountains. I can’t detect anything artificial, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing there.”
“Thanks, Billy,” Halley said. “That’s a lot of help.”
“My pleasure.” Billy seemed not to be programmed for sarcasm.
Huyck steered them in, with the Yautja ships escorting them three miles off their port and starboard. It was only as they neared the asteroid that the first unusual readings started coming in.
“Boss, there’s something else down there,” Sprenkel said.
“Of course there is,” Palant whispered. She was in a seat once occupied by a dead member of the crew, unable to do anything but observe. Something was happening here, something amazing, and she couldn’t hold back her excitement. She knew that the others felt it, too, in different ways. While she viewed this as an amazing opportunity, they saw it as a challenge, perhaps even a threat.
She hoped that would change.
“There…” Halley said. But she didn’t need to say any more, because they all saw.
Down in the network of valleys and low mountains marking the asteroid’s equator there were unusual shapes. A few small surface structures became apparent, and then three large hangar doorways
opened in a valley bed, spilling bright light and mystery.
The Yautja ships angled down and headed toward the openings.
A message chimed through to the Pixie. Palant keyed it in for a translation.
Follow. You can do your research here. We will help.
Halley looked across at Palant, and Isa was pleased to see her excitement reflected in the Major’s eyes.
“A Yautja base, well within the Outer Rim,” Halley said. “We should report this.”
“But they’re showing us secrets,” Palant said.
“And making certain we can’t share them,” Sprenkel said, looking at the controls. “All transmissions are blocked.”
“After all this, we have to trust them,” Palant said. The crew remained silent. She could almost hear their thoughts churning, knowledge and experience fighting against orders and training.
“We will,” Halley said. “For now. Huyck, take us down.”
They drifted down through one of the open hangar doorways and the doors closed above them, enfolding them in light, hiding them away from the Human Sphere. As the Pixie settled, Palant could only wonder at what might come next.
She looked back toward the rec room where the android was held prisoner. It was time to learn his secrets.
21
JOHNNY MAINS
Othello, Outer Rim
November 2692 AD
“Johnny.”
Mains didn’t want to open his eyes. Everything was too calm, too relaxed, and he was floating in peace, arms and legs stretched out. He opened his mouth to breathe and cool, stale air rushed in.
“Johnny!”
He turned his head to either side, but did not open his eyes. When he turned, the light changed, darker to the left and right, brighter when he looked straight up. For some reason he couldn’t feel the sun on his face.
“Johnny…”
This time the voice was weaker. Mains frowned. Sounds came in from outside, disturbing the tranquility. A heavy, regular creaking. The roar of flames. The screams of dying things.