The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 3

by Sandy Schofield

  Deegan glanced at Joyce and smiled, the glint in his eyes letting her know that he knew what had happened between Hank and her on the last run here. Or at least he thought he knew. Knowing the lack of privacy on Charon Base, he probably did. Every damn detail.

  She ignored her copilot. “So far so good,” she said. “Over.”

  “We’re in the tube,” Deegan said. “Normal to profile. Cutting thrusters.” He was still smiling at her.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s tuck her in. And, Deegan—”

  “Yes, boss?”

  “Watch those corners this time.”

  Deegan laughed. “I missed that door by a good ten meters last time. This is a walk in the park.”

  She snorted. “When did you last see someone take eighty thousand tons of ugly metal for a stroll?”

  He again laughed, but didn’t take his eyes off his instruments. She sat back and watched as Deegan, one of the best solo pilots working, took them in. Within thirty minutes he had the transport sitting snugly in the middle of the docking bay.

  “Hangar deck secure. Outer doors closed. Deck pressurized,” Hank’s voice announced a moment after Deegan cut thrusters. “Crew and passengers please report to decontamination.”

  “Will do,” Joyce said and cut the link. She had to admit she was looking forward to seeing Hank again. It seemed like it had been a long time, even though for her it had only been a little over a month real-time. But for Hank it actually had been a long time, a little over a year and a month. Maybe he was married by now or more likely no longer interested in her. She let the thought drop. No point in worrying about it. She’d find out soon enough.

  She let Deegan, now wearing a cloth jacket over his tattered shirt, lead her and Cray out of the ship and down the ramp. They strode across the hangar deck in silence as service technicians swarmed around the transport.

  The decontamination chamber was nothing more than a narrow spot in the main passage leading from the deck. As the three of them stepped inside, big metal doors ahead and behind them slid shut with a loud bang. She thought it would be much easier on the nerves to not have such loud doors. But at every base the decontamination doors slammed shut, a very annoying design feature.

  A fine mist and bluish light filled the area. Joyce always thought the decontamination chamber smelled like apples, but Deegan said it was more like floor polish. They had argued about it a number of times. Again she smelled apples.

  She turned slightly as they stood for the required thirty seconds so that she could see Cray better. He seemed to be used to the process. No trace of emotion crossed that cold face—at least none that she could see.

  She, on the other hand, hated the procedure. She always felt naked in these chambers. Not only were they killing the unwanted microscopic bugs that might be hitching rides, but somewhere, behind some monitors, people she didn’t know were looking her insides over very carefully for bigger bugs. Alien-type bugs. She was glad they did, but it still made her feel very exposed knowing someone—maybe even Hank—was looking at her every private part.

  She again shook off the thought and turned to Cray. “So, what brings you to scenic Charon?”

  “Apart from us, that is,” Deegan said.

  “Excuse me, Deegan, but I’m trying to have a conversation with a real human.”

  Cray smiled slightly and Joyce immediately liked him better. “Thanks for the interest, but it’s classified.” He turned and actually looked at her. “Need to know and all that.”

  “And we don’t need to know?”

  “Got it in one,” Cray said, but his eyes told her it was nothing personal.

  “Figures,” Deegan said as the chamber doors banged open and they entered the carpeted area of the base. “Kleist has this place sewn up tighter than a frog’s butt.”

  “Mr. Cray,” Professor Kleist said as he rounded the corner ten meters in front of them, and Joyce instantly tightened. The Professor gave her the creeps. His cheeks seemed to always be flushed and his eyes felt more like animal eyes than human ones.

  Two others followed the Professor and Joyce shuddered again as they came into sight. One was the Professor’s main henchman, Larson, a tall, wiry man who was by far the nastiest human she had ever met. The other was the Professor’s android secretary, Grace. Grace had short blond hair, a body only science could manufacture, and a smile that could freeze a waterfall. Joyce regarded all three with equal loathing. She’d never had a run-in with any of them, but she had heard enough stories.

  “Speak of the devil,” Joyce said softly as they continued toward the Professor.

  “And he shall appear,” Cray said, just as softly. A moment later he was smiling and shaking the Professor’s hand as introductions were made.

  “I trust you had a comfortable flight?” Kleist asked Cray.

  “Yes,” Cray said, glancing at Joyce. “It was most enlightening.”

  “Good, good. Glad to hear it.” Kleist patted Cray on the back, then steered him away from the pilots and down the hall. “We must get to our business.”

  Joyce and Deegan stood and watched the Professor’s party walk away. When they were far enough away Joyce said softly, “Hmm… he could be interesting.”

  “Who?” Deegan asked. “Kleist? Or the corporation suit?”

  “None of your damn business,” she said.

  “Ha, you have a heart under all that ice after all.”

  “Yeah,” Joyce said, “I do. It belonged to my last wise-ass copilot.”

  Deegan laughed as they followed the Professor and his group at a safe and sane distance into the human sections of the station.

  * * *

  In the silent quarters of the Marines, Sergeant Green slowly picked through Boone’s locker. Choi was nowhere to be found and the others were at dinner. It was as good a time as any to finish up his most dreaded chore.

  He glanced down the row of single, tightly made beds and green lockers. When they had arrived this room had been full. Full of life and energy. Full of his men.

  Now only half of them were left. He had cleaned out over half his troop’s personal effects and shipped them back to families on Earth. Half dead. How could that be?

  And now he was doing another.

  This was wrong. This was different than losing good men and women fighting an enemy. Here his soldiers had died at the hands of alien prisoners, solely for the benefits of Professor Kleist and Z.C.T. Corporation’s research.

  This wasn’t war, this wasn’t honorable death. This was just profit.

  He picked up a photo Boone had of her friends. It was taken on a green lawn on Earth, with the Earth-orbit shuttle in the background, right before their departure on this mission. Boone’s arm was around Choi and they were both beaming like the world was the nicest, safest place to be. Green supposed that together it had seemed that way then.

  But now Boone was dead, rammed through by an alien and covered in acid blood. And Choi was alone.

  Green shook his head. As they always said, the corps took everything you’ve got to give.

  And then more.

  Green dropped the photo on top of the few belongings Boone had left and closed the box. He picked it up and tucked it under his arm. Such a small box, so few things for a human to leave behind. He glanced around the room at the freshly made beds, the perfect order of the lockers. Alive or dead, he was proud of his men and of the Marines. It was all he knew.

  It was his life and his soul.

  Maybe the corps did take everything you had to give, but it was never in vain.

  Never.

  As long as someone remembered.

  3

  The Professor escorted Cray to the living quarters and left him to get settled in, taking with him the transmission disk Cray had brought from the Z.C.T. Corporation headquarters. The disk he had said was the only reason for his long trip. A very strange reason, indeed, to eat up fifteen months of a man’s life.

  Back in his office, behind breach-proo
f doors, the Professor gave only a slight glance at the screens in front of him, then settled into his chair and keyed the transmission disk with his thumb-print. A red light blinked for a moment, then reset to green on the disk cover.

  The Professor nodded and inserted the disk in the play slot of the decoding imager. If nothing else, this was going to be interesting. He knew a great deal about Mr. Cray. A black belt in karate and a spy with no equal. The list went on. Much more information than Cray would want him to know, he was sure. And everything that involved Cray was always interesting.

  The Professor leaned back, his fingers steepled in front of his chin as the hologram shimmered into place over the front edge of his desk. The image first relayed the standard corporation gold and black logo, Z.C.T., with the “Z” and the “T” overlaid over the “C.” Following the logo after a few seconds were the blocklike words

  EYES ONLY:

  PROFESSOR ERNST KLEIST FROM G. D. SQUAZA,

  CONTROLLER, RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT.

  A moment later the words were replaced by the image of the Professor’s old friend, Gordy Squaza, the second most powerful man in Z.C.T. Corporation, sitting behind his glass and chrome desk. Behind him a window overlooked the parklike setting of the corporation headquarters. The Professor had looked out that window a number of times while visiting Squaza and planning this base and the Chimera Project. Even though the image was smaller than life, the feeling of being at the headquarters was very real and for just a moment it gave the Professor a sinking feeling of home. He shook the feeling, slightly angry at himself. This was his home; this work was his life. He didn’t have time for wondering about Earth, or anyplace else for that matter.

  The Professor leaned toward the holographic image of his old friend. “This is going to be fascinating.”

  “Hello, Ernst,” Squaza said, then the image seemed to hold and flicker in repeat mode.

  The Professor sat back and watched it, recognizing the standard coding for corporation holographic messages. If the wrong response or the wrong voiceprint was heard next, the disk would destroy itself.

  “Hello yourself, Gordy,” the Professor said carefully. His voice and words triggered a recognition sequence and the holographic image continued and sharpened. Again the Professor said softly, “I knew this was going to be good.”

  “Sorry about all the cloak-and-dagger business,” Squaza said, his smile not totally hiding the seriousness in his brown eyes. “We have something of a situation here. Actually, ‘situation’ is a mild way of putting it. We have a mess here, plain and simple. And I thought you should be brought up to speed on the current events, even if this takes six months to reach you.”

  Actually, the Professor noted that the message had taken two days over seven months to get to him, but he didn’t say a word, just listened and waited.

  The image of Squaza grew until only his face filled the holographic image hovering over the Professor’s desk.

  Squaza took a deep breath and went on. “Ernst, your work on the Chimera Project is garnering unhealthy attention from certain quarters, including the Grant Corporation, B.M.I. Affairs, and a new Asian-Chinese consortium that’s attempted to infiltrate Z.C.T. on a number of occasions. All have been fruitless efforts. Fruitless, that is, until now.”

  The image of Squaza pulled away and after a moment Squaza stood and moved toward the window, obviously contemplating what to say next. The Professor just sat at his desk, his fingers again steepled in front of his chin, his gaze never leaving the image.

  Finally Squaza turned and faced into the recorder directly. “Ernst, your last project update had problems. When we received the transmission, it had been intercepted and decoded.”

  “Really,” the Professor said softly, without moving.

  “It was a tidy job,” Squaza said. “But close investigation showed that the data had not only been intercepted and decoded, but had been altered and infested with viral time bombs. Nasty things to say the least. They’ve cost us more time and energy than you can imagine. I’m not blaming you at all, so don’t take what I am saying that way.”

  Squaza took a deep breath and then sat back down at his desk. “The point is that we can’t be certain that this was the first time they have cracked our transmissions or the hundredth. We’re having to deep-clean all our systems, which is a nightmare as you can imagine. And we don’t know who or, for that matter, how they managed to crack our codes.”

  Again the camera focused in close on Squaza’s face. “Ernst, we don’t know if the problem is on our side or yours, but you must be extra careful. Your project is our corporation’s highest priority, and until we discover the leak you are to cease transmissions to Earth until further notice. Security code Alpha C fifty-one.”

  The Professor smiled and sat back in his chair. Now he was starting to understand. He watched as Squaza shuffled some papers on his desk, then looked back into the camera. “I know this will be hard on you and your fine staff, but it must be done. You can trust no one. Understand?”

  “Oh, I understand all right,” the Professor said softly. He didn’t say out loud that that had been his belief from the start. He had never trusted anyone and had no plans to start now.

  “We can’t rely on our existing data because of the changes, so I have sent Cray to collect disk copies of everything you have for personal delivery to our labs.”

  The holo image suddenly switched from Squaza to a photo of Cray. Squaza’s voice continued over the picture. “Ernst, I know what you are thinking, but relax. He’s the best operative we’ve got. You have him to thank for that gel that reduces alien blood to the pH of water. He took that out from under the noses of the Grant Corporation. He also won for us the specs on the Taser Web launchers our troops use. There is no one else I’d trust on this mission, and I’m sure you’ll give him the respect he deserves under the security code Alpha C fifty-one.”

  The Professor laughed softly and then said, “You can bet I will give him the best of everything. Just for you, Gordy.”

  For a moment longer the picture of Cray remained on the image, then Squaza’s face reappeared. “Ernst, everyone around here is walking scared. Security is working on the problem of who broke the codes and how they just walked into our computers like they did. But as far as we can tell it has to be an inside job.”

  Squaza looked directly into the camera “It’s going to be a bad time, Ernst. As an old friend, I’m warning you to protect yourself as best you can and watch your back at all times.”

  “Always have, old friend,” the Professor said softly. “And I hear you this time, too. Loud and clear.”

  The image panned back to show Squaza sitting at his desk again with the parklike corporation grounds through the window. “I envy you, Ernst, out there on your island in space. We could all do with a little extra security and isolation around here. Good luck.”

  The words “MESSAGE ENDS” filled the air above the desk and a moment later the disk popped out of the holo player.

  Professor Kleist leaned back in his chair and stared at the empty air in front of him.

  Then, after a long time, he laughed. Not loudly. Just a soft laugh at something that seemed really, really funny.

  * * *

  Private Choi was giving much more than he was taking in punishment from three of the Professor’s elite security force. “Larson’s goons” as most people called them. They always wore dark slacks, green shirts, and sneakers. Usually they carried small arms like pistols, but lately they had taken to wearing full shoulder belts full of ammunition and carrying Kramers, the newest in high-speed automatic rifles. Twenty-six shots in a clip and ten clips on a belt. On fully automatic fire setting, twenty-six shots from a Kramer could drill a hole through a half meter of solid concrete in a fraction of a second.

  They were nasty weapons.

  In the fight with Choi, however, the guards hadn’t considered him dangerous enough to bring rifles and it had taken him only a moment to disarm all three o
f their handguns. Now Choi’s white T-shirt was stained red with the blood of the three men who had jumped him. If Choi hadn’t already been looking for some way to avenge Boone’s death, he might have been caught by surprise.

  But he wasn’t and now he stood panting, his back to the corridor wall, his fists clenched in readiness. His right eye was quickly swelling shut and blood trickled down from his right ear, almost matching the color of his bright red hair. He could feel that he had broken some bones in his right hand, but he didn’t really care. It felt good to be fighting humans again, not stupid bugs. And since it was the Professor who had ordered Boone to her death, he would certainly take it out on the Professor’s security force with pleasure.

  One blond-headed security man lay on his back in the center of the corridor, his head cracked and bleeding, his brown uniform rumpled and torn in two places. Choi doubted if he was still breathing and didn’t care much one way or the other.

  The other two remained standing, weaponless, one on each side of the hall from Choi. The one to Choi’s right had blood streaming from a crushed nose making the front of his brown uniform appear almost black. The guy was looking pale and would be slow moving.

  “Give it up, Choi,” the other guy said, but didn’t make a move. Choi laughed to himself. The guy was smarter than he looked.

  “Screw you,” Choi said, his voice low and mean. “And your asshole Professor, too.” With a quick feint toward the one who had spoken, Choi spun and connected with a hard left-footed kick to the already smashed nose of the guy on the right as he started forward.

  He caught him with his arms at his sides and a surprised look on his face. Choi could hear the bones in the guy’s face crack and splinter as his head snapped back. Blood spattered the walls and ceiling and with a loud scream the guard tumbled backward, ending up facedown against the wall. A pool of dark blood quickly formed under his head. He wasn’t moving and Choi doubted he ever would again. No great loss.

  Choi spun to face his last attacker. “Your turn.”

  The guy shook his head and was slowly backing away when two more security guards entered the narrow hall from a side corridor and moved in beside the last remaining goon. Choi recognized Bergren, Larson’s second in command. In his hands he carried a Taser Web gun used to take down aliens.