The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 3

by Sandy Schofield

  And maybe it wasn’t, but the least they could do was try to save Joyce. Hank turned to Ray. “You know where they’re keeping Captain Palmer?”

  Ray nodded. “Cell Block Sixteen. I don’t have a clue how she is, though.”

  “Is there a ventilation duct near there?”

  Kent, who worked in maintenance, knelt and unrolled a bunch of large maps on the dusty floor. He thumbed through about ten before pulling one to the top and holding it flat. “Here and here,” he said after a moment of study, pointing to marks on the maps. “In the halls outside the cells. They’re not secured as far as I know.”

  “And we can get there from here?”

  Kent nodded. “Sure can. Hell, you can get damn near anywhere in this base from these old tunnels and ventilation shafts that run through the base walls. What do you have in mind?”

  Hank knelt and indicated that the others join him closer to the maps. “I think it’s time we started a revolution,” he said, studying the floor plan where Kent had pointed and at the square labeled cell block sixteen. “And since we’re outnumbered, I think Captain Joyce Palmer would be a great addition to this side of the fight.”

  Hank looked around at his five friends. All were nodding. It seemed the loss of the Marines had got to them all. This time there was no arguing about waiting, no thought of just sitting and hoping the Professor would screw up somehow. Now they were ready to act.

  And since he seemed to have a plan, they were ready to follow him.

  “Here’s my idea,” Hank said.

  Five men leaned in closer as Hank’s frosty breath misted the air above the maps.

  * * *

  The Professor stood in front of a huge, reinforced window staring into the blackness of a very special cage. Somewhere in that blackness was his success, an alien like no other alien.

  His baby.

  A human body with its arms, legs, and head cut off and a gaping hole in its chest where a young alien had once emerged had been tossed in on the floor as food for his creation. He knew the creature was in there, back in the shadows, waiting. The Professor knew without a doubt how huge it was. He knew it was as big as any queen, because he had watched it grow.

  But now, finally, it had reached maturity. Now he would finally know just how much his success meant.

  The sound of the door opening behind him broke his thoughts and he turned to nod to Larson before returning his attention to the blackness beyond the glass.

  When Larson halted behind him, the Professor spoke without turning. “Did our guest have anything further of interest to offer?”

  “No. I’m pretty sure we’ve got everything. The prospect of a kiss from that face-hugger loosened his tongue real well, you might say.”

  The Professor gave Larson a sharp glance. “Spare me your pathetic attempts at humor.” There was a moment of silence as the Professor continued to stare into the blackness.

  Finally Larson spoke again. “The pilot, Captain Palmer? She’s clean. Cray’s mission was apparently solo. Palmer just got in the way because of the death of her friend, Jerry.”

  “Jerry?”

  “A tech guy we used up about two months ago. No one special.”

  Kleist nodded. “And the copy of the film she had?”

  “Still working on where that came from. Might have been one of the techs or maybe a doctor. I’ll find him.”

  “Or her,” the Professor said. “Don’t overlook the women. As for Captain Palmer, she’s more trouble now than she’s worth. Give her to the aliens. The livestock could use some boosting. That will be all.”

  After a moment Kleist heard the door close behind him and he was once again alone with his creation.

  “Come to Papa,” he said into the blackness as he pressed against the glass. “I’ve got some nice meat for you. Aren’t you hungry?”

  But for the moment nothing moved in the blackness beyond the glass.

  9

  The memory of the first day her kids went snow skiing had been keeping Joyce contented for the past few hours. The biting cold of the dark stone cell had brought on the memory and she had gone with it, lying on the small bunk bed in the cell focusing on how the kids had looked in their brightly colored suits, how they had laughed with every fall, and the feelings she enjoyed when she had been with them. Her memory was strong enough that she could even pull up the smells of the fresh air and the pine trees. If she ever made it out of here alive she would take the kids back to that same resort for a vacation.

  She was about to start the day over, replaying it one more time in her mind like a favorite movie, when the door to the cell snapped open with a bang.

  “Don’t you ever knock?” Joyce said, swinging her feet off her bunk so she could face whoever was coming in.

  “Let’s go,” a rough voice said as light flooded the small room forcing Joyce to cover her eyes for a moment. Before her vision could completely adjust rough hands pulled her from the bunk and half shoved her toward the door. She couldn’t see the guy, but he smelled like he needed a shower and had been eating too much garlic, a stiff combination.

  “I can walk,” she said, twisting from his grip and stepping away from him.

  She moved toward the open door, keeping her pace slow ahead of the guard to give her eyes enough time to adjust.

  There looked to be only two of them: the smelly one who had come into the cell and another who stood just outside in the corridor, automatic rifle cocked and aimed right at her stomach. Both men were slightly taller than she was and dressed in the standard green uniform of Larson’s goons.

  When she reached the corridor she got a better look at both of them. The one in the hall had slicked-back black hair and blue eyes, enhanced, it appeared, by contact lenses. The one who smelled bad had greasy brown hair, a scar on his right cheek, and a potbelly. He looked downright mean through and through.

  “Where we heading?” she asked as she stepped into the corridor and the black-haired guard indicated with his gun that she turn left.

  “Nowhere without these tied,” the other guard said. He grabbed her hands and yanked them behind her back, pulling a cord around them and yanking it tight.

  “Take it easy,” she said as the cord cut into her wrists and her shoulders strained backward. “I’m not a piece of meat.”

  “You are to us,” Garlic-breath said and laughed. He let his hands run over her ass, then up her sides toward her breasts.

  “Shit, Carl. Cut it out. You don’t want Larson pissed, do you?”

  “Just having a little fun is all,” Garlic-breath said and pushed her roughly to the left. They flanked her, forcing her to move between them toward a cross corridor to the left of her cell. It took her just a moment to realize that the only thing in that direction was the alien sector. She had no doubt she was going to be meeting bugs in very short order and that thought scared the hell out of her.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said, trying to slow down, give herself some time to think.

  “Keep moving,” the black-haired guard said and, with a firm grip on her arm, pushed her slightly ahead.

  “Kleist’s insane,” she said, focusing her attention on the guard on the left. He seemed to be the most likely to listen to reason. “You know that. If we work together we can stop him. No more killing.”

  “Shut up,” Garlic-breath said and squeezed her arm even harder. “Just shut up before I shut you up.”

  “Wow, that’s original,” Joyce said.

  The intersection of two corridors was coming up and no one else was in sight, at least as far as she could see. There was no doubt she was running out of time. She had to act now.

  “You’re sure,” she asked, again slowing down her pace, “that you want to kill me? I’m a nice person, honest.”

  With no answer from either of them except to push her forward again, it was time. Move now or she’d be facing bugs and even facing Garlic-breath here was a giant step above that option.

  “You know,”
she said, turning slightly to face Garlic-breath, “didn’t anyone ever tell you that you needed a bath?”

  With a sudden twist she broke the grip of Garlic-breath and knocked him hard into the stone wall. His gun clattered to the floor. With a quick movement she landed a direct kick on the black-haired guard’s chest pounding him back into the opposite wall.

  She spun on Garlic-breath. Before he could even climb to his feet she kicked him as hard as she could directly in the crotch. She could feel her foot sink in deep.

  He screamed and fell to the floor. She doubted if he’d be walking anytime soon. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

  With five quick running strides, her hands tied and flopping behind her back, she was down the hall and around the corner, but she knew this wasn’t going to work. She could already hear the black-haired guard climbing to his feet and starting after her. With her hands tied she couldn’t even quickly open a goddamned door.

  “Joyce!”

  The voice sounded familiar, but she didn’t know from where and she didn’t want to stop at the moment to chat.

  “Joyce, damn it! Duck!”

  Now she knew the voice. It was Hank’s. She flung herself sideways and down as shots cut the air where she had been a moment before. She tumbled head over heels and ended up on her stomach, facing back in the direction she had just come.

  Behind her both guards twisted in the air as red holes appeared on their green uniforms. Blood splattered the walls around them as they tumbled to the floor.

  Joyce lay on her stomach on the cold stone, breathing hard, watching the life drain out of the two men who had been taking her to her death only a moment before. Her only thought was that she must not have kicked Garlic-breath as hard as she thought she had. Either that or he had nuts of stone.

  Then someone was kneeling beside her, working quickly to untie her hands.

  “You all right?” Hank said as he finished with the bonds and helped her to her feet.

  “I am now,” she said. She gave him a hard hug, then nodded to the other red-haired man who stood beside them.

  “Kent,” Hank said, smiling, “this is Joyce. Joyce. Kent.”

  “My pleasure, Kent,” Joyce said, grabbing the red-haired man’s hand and shaking it. “And thanks.”

  “No, my pleasure,” he said, laughing at the craziness of the situation. “Anytime.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not too often,” Joyce said.

  “Well,” Hank said, glancing quickly around the hall and then pointing to the obvious camera near the ceiling. “It seems we have started the revolution and won the first battle. Shall we retreat?”

  “With pleasure,” Joyce said. “But first I need a little firepower.” She moved quickly to the two dead guards, took both ammunition belts and then picked up both automatic rifles. She slung one over her shoulder and the other she cradled in her arm after quickly checking to make sure it was loaded and ready.

  Then she kicked the very dead body of Garlic-breath as hard as she could in the crotch. “That’ll teach you to stay down when I kick you the first time.”

  Hank laughed. “See what I mean, Kent?”

  Kent’s laugh was hard and long as he ducked through an open ventilation grate in the corridor wall. Hank was right behind him, still laughing.

  “Hang on there a minute,” Joyce said as she followed them into the dark, narrow ventilation tunnel. “Just what did you mean by that? And what’s so funny?”

  In the dark in front of her both men laughed even harder.

  * * *

  The Professor watched the huge alien finish devouring the human torso he had just supplied and felt like a proud parent watching his child take its first steps. But this was no normal child. This alien seemed to fill the entire area behind the reinforced window. One clawed hand was bigger than the Professor’s entire body, and the jet-black head and huge carapace were larger than some cars. Saliva ran from its huge jaws. With two bites the man’s torso was devoured, leaving only a few bloody specks in the pools of alien saliva on the floor. The Professor could hear the faint cracks as the human bones were broken and swallowed.

  Kleist clapped his hands together like he was applauding a great stage play. He had done it. He had created the greatest creature in the galaxy. A male alien the size of a queen, maybe even bigger.

  And, he hoped, totally tame.

  His experiments should have removed all desire to breed or mate from the huge creature. With all matriarchal ties removed and the overwhelming desire to breed removed, the innate ferocity becomes redundant and therefore should also be gone. That was the theory, his theory. He had been right about its size, but was it truly tame?

  “Time for the first test,” the Professor said. He turned to a control board in front of the window and punched a key. “Is our guest ready?”

  Larson’s voice came back through the speaker. “Yes, sir.”

  “Then stand clear,” the Professor said, then waited for a moment before punching up a quick sequence of key strokes.

  Bright lights filled the area around the huge alien while huge doors clamped down blocking the alien’s retreat into the back areas of the alien’s pen. The alien reared, startled, its tail swishing back and forth on the floor as it glanced around. It was clearly agitated. Good. That would make this an even better test.

  Almost simultaneously with the large doors closing a small, human-sized door slid open in the far wall. A large chair with a human form strapped to it slid on smooth tracks into the very center of the room, jerking to a stop almost quicker than the alien could react.

  The Professor noted that the alien hovered over the chair but didn’t attack it. Good.

  He keyed the microphone for the pen and spoke into it “Greetings, Mr. Cray. I’d like you to meet my pride and joy.”

  The alien leaned its huge head down directly in front of Cray’s eyes.

  All Cray could do was stare in terror as, behind the protective glass, the Professor applauded.

  * * *

  “Sarge,” Lynch whispered as he knelt down beside where Green was sitting on the stone plug. The ventilation tunnels flickered in the faint light from Marine lanterns, and distant whispers of men talking filled the air.

  Green took a moment to finish planning their next moves after they made it through the blocked passage. Their first chore was to get live ammunition, then slowly but surely start taking out the Professor’s guards in a guerrilla action, hitting and pulling back and then hitting again. With Larson having over a hundred men and there only being twenty of them, it would be the only type of fight they could win. Eventually they would reach the Professor. Green didn’t know exactly how they would manage that, but he had a few ideas. He sighed and then glanced at Lynch with a nod that he should go ahead.

  “Robinsen has an idea that I think might work, if we’re lucky.” Lynch held his ammunition belt away from his chest. “We dumped the blanks from the rifles, but our belts are still full. These blanks have a good supply of power in them. We should be able to fashion a few quick bombs, at least one that would be big enough to knock the cork out of this.” Lynch tapped the huge stone plug that Green was sitting on.

  “And how do we slow the bugs down,” Green asked, pointing below, “when they follow us right on down there?”

  “That’s the tricky part,” Lynch said, sitting back on his heels and taking a deep breath. “After we’ve blown open this hole and we’re through it, we should be able to cram stuff in the open hole behind us, at least enough to make the blockage solid enough to hold some falling rock from above.” Lynch pointed overhead. “We set off two more explosives that will cave in that roof up there and the debris will fill the hole we make with the first blast. No hole, no aliens.”

  Green glanced up at the ceiling where Lynch had pointed. That might work if they set the bombs right. He could see some structural cracks in the rocks that, with enough explosive, would cave in this entire area.

  “The trick,” Lynch said,
“will be after the first explosion opens the hole. We’ve got to get down there fast, get the hole blocked with some sort of support, then set off the other two explosions to cave in the roof before the bugs swarm the place.”

  “How long will it take to pull off?” Green asked.

  “Fifteen minutes to fashion and place the bombs. We’ll use canteens for the bombs, but the time comes in opening enough of these blank shells for the powder. Then three minutes between explosions, tops.”

  Green looked around at the men and then down at the sealed passage. He nodded. “Make an extra explosive charge in case the first one doesn’t punch through. If we don’t use it, we can always toss it at some bugs or maybe some of the Professor’s men.”

  “Will do.” Lynch started to move, but Green touched his arm.

  “Quietly,” Green said. “And fast. We may not have fifteen minutes.”

  10

  The choking smell of the huge alien almost blacked Cray out, but the sheer terror of having something that big, that ugly, that nightmarish, within a few feet of him kept his eyes riveted open and his muscles frozen.

  He was still tied to the chair and could barely remember the grilling Larson had given him after threatening him with the face-hugger. The stupid politics of the corporations seemed to carry little weight when faced with wearing one of those. He’d seen pictures of alien births and had prayed many nights that it hadn’t happened to Linda, that she had died before implantation.

  The huge alien leaned in closer to Cray, as if studying him. The alien’s head was far bigger than Cray’s entire body. It extended its interior jaw slowly toward him, like a giant tongue wanting to taste him. The sharp, glistening teeth on the end were all Cray could see. The razor teeth of the small jaw and the huge arm-length teeth of the main jaw became his total world as that huge mouth loomed over him.

  Saliva dripped on Cray’s left arm, burning the skin. Cray could smell his own sizzling flesh mixed with the overwhelming stink of the alien.

  But total paralyzing fear kept Cray perfectly still.