The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 3

by Sandy Schofield

  Green reached Choi a second too late to stop him. “Hold your fire, God damn it!” He slapped Choi’s gun aside.

  “Boone…” Choi said, and started toward her acid-soaked remains.

  Green held his arm. “She’s gone and now you might have killed us all.” Green held on as Choi fought to pull away and go to Boone.

  “Sarge!” Dillon shouted. “I got signals! Readings coming in all over. From three sides—”

  There was a high-pitched, panicked sound to Dillon’s voice and McPhillips said, “Shit!” loud enough to echo in Green’s head gear.

  “Damn it!” Green shook Choi hard, snapping him around and away from the sight of Boone’s body. “We just gave them all a wake-up call, and now they’re coming down for breakfast. Get your ass ready to fight.”

  He glanced quickly around at McPhillips and Dillon, then shouted, “Combat spacing front and rear. Hustle! Dillon, the Sound Cannon?”

  “Prepared and ready, sir. Max. frequency, wide field focus.”

  “Let’s hope the damn thing works this time,” Green said under his breath. Louder he said, “Taser Webs, stand by.”

  It seemed like only a second before the corridor, the walls around them, the tunnels to the sides of them, came alive with wave after wave of ugly, mad bugs. Every one of them five to six times their size. Green could hear the rustling of their movements even through his armor’s shell. He’d always heard the old saying that if the aliens’ rustlings and clickings were loud enough to penetrate armor, you were as good as dead because there were so many of them.

  This time seemed like it wasn’t going to be an exception to the rule. Green couldn’t remember seeing so many bugs in one fight. Straight on, without the Sound Cannon, the four of them would never stand a chance.

  “Dillon, fire!”

  The long metal Sound Cannon looked more like an old bazooka from the Earth wars than anything else. It seemed to jump slightly in Dillon’s hand, but there was no sound. No explosion from its end. And for what seemed like an eternity, nothing happened.

  Green watched as Dillon focused on the dial on the top of the weapon, nodding, ignoring the certain death around him.

  The gun seemed to be aimed at nothing in particular. Around them the air in the tight rock chamber seemed to be shimmering, as if waves of heat were coming off hot pavement. The alien saliva formations wavered in Green’s eyes, but he knew it was nothing more than the surface effects of the Sound Cannon. It was working. He almost wanted to scream with joy.

  Every bug in the corridor froze, saliva dripping from wide mouths.

  “God, I love that thing,” Green said, letting out the breath he was holding. “Damned if I know how it works, but when it does, it gets them every time.”

  Somehow Professor Kleist had discovered a weapon that got to the creatures’ nervous systems and froze them like so many ugly statues in an alien park. The problem was that it couldn’t always be counted on and very seldom worked for longer than sixty seconds. The Professor kept promising he was working on making it better, more reliable, but in the meantime Green had lost more than half his platoon. But this time it looked like the Sound Cannon, as they all called it, had saved their lives.

  At least all but Boone’s.

  He pointed to the biggest and closest warrior on the corridor wall. “Web that one and let’s get out of here.”

  Dillon’s and McPhillips’s two Taser Webs fired at the same moment, pulling the huge, stunned warrior off the wall with a loud, smacking thump. Surrounded in nets that not even the acid blood of the aliens or their super strength could eat through, it lay on the corridor floor, drooling.

  Beep! Beep! Beep!

  “Shit!” Dillon said as the sound echoed through the rock chamber like the timer of a bomb.

  Green knew that sound. It was the sound of their funeral if they didn’t move damn fast.

  “Sarge,” Dillon managed to choke out, his voice trembling more than Green had ever heard it before. “This damn thing is malfunctioning. We’ve got about thirty seconds before it blows and sends us and this entire station into space.”

  “Choi,” Green shouted at where the Marine stood over his lover’s body. “Help with that bug. Now!”

  Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

  The sound echoed off the stone walls and the frozen aliens around them, increasing in tempo and matching Green’s racing heart. He knew it was the sound of the clock ticking away their final seconds of life.

  Faster and faster with each beep.

  With a final look at Boone, Choi did as he was ordered. He turned and was beside McPhillips almost instantly, yanking on the webs around the bug.

  Dillon backed slowly toward the airlock holding the Sound Cannon.

  Green kept both his Taser Web in his right hand and his Kramer automatic rifle in his left covering the frozen aliens as Choi and McPhillips dragged the stunned warrior down the corridor as fast as they could go.

  Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

  “Fifteen seconds,” Dillon said. “I got to shut it down or it’ll blow.”

  “Hold on as long as you can,” Green said. “Then run!”

  Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

  “You’re telling me,” Dillon shouted back. Quickly he was backing toward the entrance and Green was matching him step for step.

  Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!

  “Shit! Not much longer—”

  “Hold it!” Green shouted.

  “Eight, seven, six—”

  “Hold it!”

  The beeps had almost become one long scream echoing off the slime formations and the stone walls. Another few seconds and the explosion would destroy the entire base.

  “I’m shutting it down!”

  Green, still backing up beside Dillon, glanced around.

  Choi and McPhillips had the warrior to the airlock. Another few seconds and they would be through and to safety.

  He and Dillon had backed to within twenty meters of the lock, but that might be twenty meters too far if the bugs around and in front of them reacted very fast.

  Dillon clicked off the cannon, stuffed the long tube under his arm, turned, and ran.

  The silence in the corridor seemed almost as loud as the beeping.

  Green waited for just a moment as the bugs started to move, slowly at first, then angry as hell, before he also turned and ran behind Dillon, keeping right with him every step.

  Choi and McPhillips had the captured warrior through the airlock and had come back to the lock with Taser Webs aimed over the two running Marines.

  Green sucked in lungful after lungful of air and did his best to run as fast as he could, his body armor pounding every joint in his body. These suits just weren’t meant for exercise.

  Ahead, Choi and McPhillips pointed Tasers at him. He trusted them to be good shots, but he still didn’t much like how they were aiming straight at him.

  Dillon cleared the airlock as McPhillips fired, barely missing Green and connecting with a bug that was too damn close behind him.

  Green figured at that moment he was dead. His heart was pounding so hard that he felt like it might explode—that is if a bug didn’t grab him first.

  Choi punched the airlock close command and the doors started to grind together.

  Green dove headfirst through the closing airlock, tumbling like a white ball of armor as Choi fired another Taser at the closest bug. Green stopped his tumble and lay on the carpeted floor, face-to-face with the captured warrior, trying to catch his breath.

  Saliva dripped off the bug’s open jaws and Green caught a glimpse of its interior jaw in that black hole of a throat. It was aimed right at his head.

  He quickly scrambled to his feet and moved a few meters away, where he did his best to suck as much air as he could get into his lungs.

  Too close.

  Just too goddamned close.

  2

  Professor Kleist leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him, his brig
ht blue eyes focused intently on the wall of monitors in front of his glass desk. Fifty-meter-square screens filled the huge wall, all following one activity or another around the base. If the Professor wanted, he could divide each screen by four or eight or even sixteen, all showing different scenes. It was the most sophisticated security system available in the corporation and since the system’s installment he had upgraded it considerably. It was one of his most prized tools and he spent many hours in front of it, just watching the fifteen hundred people under his command.

  With his system, no one on Charon Base sneezed, whispered, or made love without him knowing about it.

  As with many things on Charon Base, the Professor had seen to every detail of the construction of his office. On Earth the almost gymnasium-size room would have been considered excessive. The oak walls and shelves a frivolity, the thick carpet almost too plush.

  In one corner was a full kitchen, always stocked with fresh food and drink. Shelves of real books—research, reference, and fiction—filled two walls. Those books were his personal collection and it had taken most of one transport ship’s capacity just to get them here. But it had been a small expense in exchange for his needs and what he had accomplished for the corporation so far.

  But the central feature of the office was the huge oak desk and high-backed chair facing the wall of monitors—a wall that curved slightly such that there was nothing else in view, like a surround vision movie, only those screens weren’t showing a film.

  The surface of the desk was larger than most king-size beds, measuring two meters deep by four meters long. From that desk and the control board that occupied the left third of the top, he could access the thousands of miniature video relay systems and microphones hidden throughout the base.

  Larson, the chief of security, stood slightly behind the Professor and to his left From there he could work the monitor control board on the desk when the Professor asked him to.

  Unlike Kleist who was built solidly, with broad shoulders and thick arms, Larson was tall, skinny, and deceptively strong. He had short black hair and deep black eyes. It seemed like he never blinked, which unnerved many around him.

  Like the Professor, Larson now stared at the center four monitors, all presently showing different scenes from Sergeant Green’s recent mission into the alien sector. The monitors above the center four were focused on the Marine’s current activities.

  Kleist pointed at the bloody picture of Boone, deserted in the alien section. With a few key strokes on the inside right of the control board, he focused the camera in close and sat forward in his chair. Boone lay sprawled on the stone floor, the head and upper chest of the alien warrior slightly across her legs. Her hair hung out of the hole in the back of her helmet and one alien arm and claw still clung to her waist. There were no other bugs in sight and nothing had disturbed the scene since the retreat of the Marines. “Can we save the body?”

  Larson stared at the scene for a moment before answering. “I’ll have some of my men check, but I doubt it. The idiot who killed the alien managed to cover the woman’s body in acid blood. I doubt the armor could hold it all back.”

  Kleist nodded. “I hope you’re not right, but I suspect you might be. Check anyway. If the burns are only superficial we could use it.”

  Larson turned away from the Professor and softly gave instructions into his personal mike.

  The Professor nodded in satisfaction, leaving one screen on the woman’s body so he could watch when Larson’s men got there.

  His hand did a quick dance on the control board, then he leaned back in his chair and ran both hands through his thinning hair, his gaze again intent on the four Marines as they half carried, half dragged the alien warrior toward the labs. He watched, following their progress through the corridors as the system automatically switched from hidden camera to camera until the four Marines had the warrior delivered to the dissection vat.

  Then he leaned forward and punched another key, sending his voice into the lab. “Nice work, Sergeant Green. It looks like a fine specimen.” He paused for a moment until all four Marines were looking up at the one obvious camera in the corner of the lab above them. Then he said, “But I am distressed that you slaughtered the other one, however.”

  “He’s distressed,” Private Choi shouted. The Professor could see the private shaking and he smiled. Good. He had gotten to the kid.

  The private pulled off his helmet, his red hair falling long over the back of his suit. “Kleist, you son of a bitch! I should—”

  Green grabbed the private’s arm and yanked him almost off his feet. Green was twice the size of Choi and just one arm was as big around as Choi’s waist.

  Heist sat back in his chair watching, smiling. Sergeant Green was not one to be underestimated. Not only was he a big brute of a man, he understood very well the ruling systems here on Charon Base.

  “Sir, I can explain,” Sergeant Green started, but Choi yanked his arm away and stepped closer to the one obvious camera.

  “Kleist,” Choi said, “we could have all been killed in that ant farm of yours. Boone is dead. You understand? Dead!”

  He yelled the words though the meaning of them started to choke him up. But he went on, “And all you can be distressed about is that we killed one of your bugs. I don’t think you’re playing with a full deck.”

  Kleist smiled and turned to Larson, who was also grinning.

  “Sir,” Sergeant Green started to say, stepping up beside Choi and shoving him roughly aside.

  “Sergeant Green,” Kleist said softly, but with enough force to make the sergeant stop. “I can appreciate the private’s feelings, but I suggest he restrain himself before he says something he will regret. It was a successful mission. That will be all for the day.”

  Kleist punched the microphone off, then leaned back to observe what happened next. He could hear everything they were saying, even when whispered. This was going to be interesting.

  “Kiss his big ass, why don’t you?” Choi said, turning square on the sergeant. His face was almost as red as his hair and he was half crouched in an attack posture.

  “Private!” Sergeant Green said sharply. “Do yourself a favor and rein it in.”

  Choi seemed to deflate slightly. His shoulders slumped and his gaze dropped to the floor.

  The sergeant took a deep breath and let it out. “Look. I’m sorry about Boone, but there’s a time and a place for everything. Here and now is not it. Understand?”

  “Yeah, right,” Choi said. He threw his helmet across the room and it smashed into a wall, scattering files and making a lab table jump under the force of the impact.

  Green put a firm hand on his shoulder and said softly, “The bugs aren’t the only things you have to worry about around here. Now clam it up and hit the showers.”

  He waited until Choi had shrugged off his hand and started toward the door, then he turned to the other two members of the squad. “And that goes for both of you, too.”

  Professor Kleist laughed and leaned back in his chair. “How right you are, Sergeant. How right you are.” He spun to face Larson. “It seems the stock needs some new breeding material, and Private Choi there just volunteered.”

  “It seems that he did,” Larson said, smiling. The Professor stood and slipped into his white lab coat. “I have work to do. This new warrior just may be the one. I’m close, so very close.”

  * * *

  Captain Joyce Palmer pulled the yellow Harley-Davidson cap down firmly on her head and then strapped herself into the pilot’s chair, buckling first the lap belt and then both shoulder straps. Deegan was already strapped in beside her, running diagnostic checks and preparing for docking. In front of them was the main control board for the shuttle and two windows looking out into the blackness of space. In the center between the windows was a large monitor, at the moment black and not in use.

  Their passenger, Mr. Cray, looked tired and somewhat ruffled. He was strapped into one of two passenger seats alon
g the wall behind Deegan. He wore pressed cloth pants, a dress shirt unbuttoned at the neck, and a brown leather jacket. She had nodded hello as she passed him in the small cockpit area of the shuttle and he had nodded back without a smile.

  In the entire trip he hadn’t said more than two sentences to her. Deegan had talked his ear off over the one dinner before cold sleep, but she doubted if Cray had even said three words back. Of course, Deegan didn’t usually need much more than three words to keep him going for hours.

  “Nice shirt,” she said to Deegan as she finished her adjustments and slipped the headset over her cap. It was a ritual they always went through right before landing. Deegan always wore his lucky Budweiser T-shirt with a faded picture of an ugly dog on it. He said it had been his dad’s. It had been patched more times than she wanted to think about and it still had holes all over it. But it was his lucky T-shirt and he always wore it for landings.

  “I’m glad you like it,” he said, smiling.

  Behind them she heard Cray give a snort of disgust. That was good. At least he had some taste. Her lucky landing clothes were far less obvious. She just had on a white T-shirt, brown cloth slacks, and a brown open vest. In the pocket of the vest she had a picture of Cass and Drake. That picture always rode against her chest and her heart every takeoff or landing. It wasn’t as obvious a good-luck charm as Deegan’s shirt, but it was her private one.

  She adjusted the mike so it was just below her lower lip, then nodded to Deegan and punched up the transmit code. “Charon Base Flight Control. This is the transport vessel Caliban requesting landing clearance. Sending identification codes now.” She punched in two more sequences on the console in front of her, then said, “Over.”

  Deegan pointed through the viewport at the bright light growing quickly in front of them. “There she is. Hell in space, our soon to be home away from home.”

  “Roger, Caliban.” The deep voice of Hank, the flight controller, filled the control cabin. “Hangar twelve is clear and ready to receive you. Hope you had a safe trip, Joyce. Over.”