The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 3

by Sandy Schofield

  “And the other?” the Professor asked, already knowing the answer.

  “From there,” Grace said, and pointed at the rogue.

  “A challenge,” the Professor said softly, and then smiled.

  His rogue was challenging the queen.

  This might turn out much better than he had ever dreamed. Much better, indeed.

  12

  With a small map in one hand and a penlight in the other, Joyce led Cray up a series of dark, narrow ventilation shafts cut through solid stone. It seemed like it had been an eternity since Hank and Kent had rescued her. She was starting to memorize the maze of ventilation shafts and tunnels that surrounded the main corridors of the human sector. She had a natural sense of direction, and almost instinctively knew which tunnel would take them where. She had a sneaking feeling that sense was going to come in real handy before all this was over.

  Cray, on the other hand, still seemed in shock. Whatever the Professor and Larson had done to him had affected him at a very deep level. He wasn’t the same man who had arrived here such a short number of days before. Instead of cocky and sure of himself, a man walking tall and confident into any situation, he now moved like he was afraid of every shadow, hunched slightly forward, almost cowering.

  And when he glanced at her, his eyes didn’t seem to actually see her, but instead some vision he didn’t want to witness again but couldn’t shake. She had seen that look in people’s eyes a number of times during the war and she would never get used to it.

  At one intersection she stopped and turned to Cray. “How you doing?” she whispered.

  “Besides feeling like a lost gopher?” he said. “Fine.”

  She patted his leg and motioned for them to keep moving.

  Twice in the next few minutes they found themselves crawling, on their stomachs, the weight of meters of rock pressing down on their backs, their rifles pushed ahead of them in the dust.

  A few minutes later at one intersection of larger ventilation ducts they were almost surprised by two of Larson’s guards crouched in the dark. If one of the guards hadn’t tapped his gun against the floor as they approached they might have been dead. Instead of getting into a fight in such close quarters, Cray and Joyce had silently worked their way back and around another way, climbing up two levels to avoid that area.

  Finally, after almost an hour of silent and steady movement, they were at their destination. Or at least Joyce hoped it was Deegan’s room vent. She motioned for Cray to be quiet and guard her back, then she handed him her rifle and got down on her hands and knees. In this area the vents were near the ceilings of the rooms, but on the floors of the tunnels.

  The vent itself was small, not more than a meter wide, two thirds of a meter tall and two meters long. And it was far from smooth rock on the four surfaces. She could feel rough edges scrape against her back as she eased forward to the grate and air filter into the room.

  Through it she could see some of the room including Deegan’s favorite jacket and his hat tossed on the dresser. This was his room all right.

  She could also hear some low moaning, like someone was hurt or had been beaten. Her stomach twisted. Maybe Larson had already been here and had tortured Deegan looking for her. She wouldn’t put that past Larson or the Professor.

  She backed silently out of the tunnel with only a slight scrape on one elbow and stood to face Cray. “He might be hurt in there, or there may be someone with him. Can’t tell, but I’m going in.”

  She didn’t wait for Cray to respond. She turned and glanced at the small vent again. If she worked it right she could get the surprise on whoever was holding Deegan. But it would have to be a timed and very fast movement. Otherwise she was dead and in that tight a space there would be very little Cray could do to help her.

  She turned back and again whispered in his ear, “I’m going in feetfirst. You come in behind me headfirst and cover me from the vent. If I’m captured or killed, make a run for it.”

  He nodded that he understood what she was planning. She could see him taking deep breaths, fighting to push back whatever demons were plaguing him. She appreciated that. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

  She handed her rifle to him again and then laid down on the floor scooting silently into the tunnel feetfirst. She could feel the dust and dirt bunching up under her shirt and vest. The sharp edges of rock scraped lines in her skin. She refused to focus on the rock walls of the small vent. It had already flashed through her mind once too many times how this looked and felt very much like a coffin.

  When she was in position Cray handed her back her rifle.

  With a quick nod she indicated to him that she was ready.

  She took a deep, silent breath, and then with a violent kick sent the screen flying into the room.

  The crash of her foot kicking the grate sounded like a bomb going off. But almost before the screen could hit the floor in Deegan’s room, she had slid forward and dropped to the ground, crouched, ready to fire. Behind and above her Cray came through the tunnel face-first, rifle also ready.

  In the bed a very surprised and very nude Deegan sat up, his eyes round and his hands above his head. An equally nude blond woman sat up beside him, her hands also shooting above her head in the traditional sign of surrender. Her eyes were bigger around than Deegan’s, but Deegan looked more like he was going to choke.

  Joyce glanced quickly around the small room to make sure no one was hiding anywhere, then went quickly to the door to make sure it was locked.

  In the vent above her head Cray chuckled. Finally Deegan swallowed hard, and with a glance up at Cray sticking out of the vent, he looked back at Joyce. “Jesus, boss. You could at least knock.”

  Cray snorted and Joyce laughed, some of the tension easing from her shoulders and back. It was good to be back with Deegan. She hadn’t realized just how much she had been worrying about him.

  “I’ll guard the passage,” Cray said. “Be quick. They know we’re here by now.”

  “Thirty seconds,” Joyce said to Deegan, “and then we leave you to Larson’s goons.”

  “What the…” Deegan started to say.

  Joyce grabbed Deegan’s old shirt off the floor and tossed it his way. “Twenty-nine. And I’m not kidding.”

  Joyce turned to the blonde who, from the look in her green eyes, was about to go into total shock. “If you know how to fire one of these”—Joyce held up her automatic Kramer—“you can come along. Otherwise you might want to get dressed very quickly. I suspect you will be having some company from Larson and his goons very, very shortly. And from my experience they don’t treat women very well.”

  The woman choked and jumped from her side of the bed at the same time as Deegan was out the other. Without a glance back she bolted for the door. But Joyce beat her to it, holding it closed. “You forgot your clothes,” she pointed out. “Besides, we need to be out of here”—Joyce pointed to the open vent—“before you go out there. Understood?”

  The woman nodded, her face so pale she almost looked like a ghost.

  “Get dressed,” Joyce told her, then turned to see that Deegan was finishing with the buckle on his pants and had already tossed his boots through the vent.

  “Give me a boost,” he said.

  Joyce moved quickly into position, cupped her hands, and then lifted, watching as Deegan forced his overweight body through the narrow vent. It must have really hurt. Next trip she’d force him to lose a little of that weight.

  If there was a next trip.

  “Nice meeting you,” she said to the stunned woman who stood with a gold blouse in one hand not even attempting to cover her chest or thick blond pubic hair. Joyce made a second mental note to talk to Deegan about his choice of women.

  As she heard running outside in the hall, she turned and pulled herself up and through the duct.

  They were already to the first cross vent and going up a level when she heard Deegan’s door crash open.

  That poor blond woman was not h
aving a very good day.

  * * *

  With the upcoming fight with the Professor and Larson’s men, Sergeant Green could see no other option but to leave Lynch’s body near where he died. They had found an area where fifty bunks were dug into the side of the wall of one tunnel. Two bodies of prisoners, mummified by the dry, cold air, rested in two of the upper bunks. Green had the men put Lynch into a middle bunk about chest high off the floor.

  Green had arranged him so that he looked peaceful, his gun gripped in his hands in front of his chest along with the picture of his dead wife, Karen, that he had always carried in his wallet. Just like Green’s wife, Marybeth, she’d been taken by the aliens in the invasion of Earth. He and Lynch had killed a lot of bugs over the years to make up for those two human deaths.

  Green put a light over the bunk and then, without words, all the men filed silently past and moved off down the tunnel toward the human section. Some touched Lynch lightly on the arm to say good-bye.

  A few saluted.

  Young left a small gold pin on his chest.

  Green was the last to pass and he stopped for a moment. He patted his old friend’s arm. “I’ll try to come back for you,” he said, “when we finish the mission. You’ll be safe here.”

  He glanced around at the dark tunnel and then back at his friend. “If I don’t make it, I suppose we’ll both know about it together, upstairs, huh?”

  He took a deep, almost shuddering breath. “Going to miss you. Say hi to Karen for me. And to Marybeth, if you see her.”

  He stood for a moment, not knowing what else to say. Neither he nor Lynch had a religious bone in their bodies so even a short prayer seemed just plain wrong.

  He adjusted his rifle on his shoulder, shifting the weight. “See you, old friend.”

  He picked up the light and moved off quickly down the dark tunnel after his men. They had a fight to fight.

  One they were going to damn well win.

  * * *

  The Professor’s office was deadly silent as Larson and Grace stood behind Kleist and all three watched the four center screens on the wall play the same event from four different angles.

  Finally Larson said, after rerunning the recording of what occurred in Captain Palmer’s copilot’s quarters, “They’re using the damn ventilation system like a highway.”

  The Professor turned to Larson. He was getting angrier by the minute. Not so much because of the escape of Cray and Palmer and the small insurrection by a few malcontents. That actually didn’t bother him beyond annoyance. It was something he had been expecting and now wasn’t in the slightest surprised that Captain Palmer had triggered it.

  No, what bothered him the most was Larson’s apparent inability to handle the situation. The Professor had put up with a lot from his chief of security, but he had thought he had the man fully trained and ready for this. But now the idiot was letting them all down.

  And Kleist hated it when people let him down.

  “So what have you done about it?” the Professor asked. “At the moment I have much more important matters to attend to. Do you realize that I have just made a breakthrough of unparalleled importance in the lab?” The Professor glanced at Larson’s blank face. “No, of course you don’t But I have. For your information, I have just created the ultimate fighting machine. And what is my reward for such an achievement?” He gestured at the screens in front of him in disgust. “I find myself dealing with your petty problems.”

  He looked Larson directly in the eye. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Larson swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Fine,” the Professor said. He swung back and faced the wall of monitors, his fingers steepled in front of him. “Now show me what you are doing to remedy the situation. And be quick about it.”

  Larson leaned over the board and punched a few keys. The center four screens of the huge wall displayed a large map of the main level of the human sector. Larson punched another key and blue lines appeared lacing the map through the walls and thick areas around rooms. It was a view the Professor had never seen before and it shocked him.

  “This shows the ventilation system that we have mapped from the very poor records left us when they redid this place. There are many more ventilation and service tunnels than this, but at the moment we are working off this layout.”

  Damn. He should have had those tunnels mapped in the first year. He had no idea there were so many of them. How, with his work with the aliens, was he supposed to think of things like this? He nodded to Larson to continue.

  “I’ve got men stationed at all the major ventilation tunnel intersections on this level, as well as the ones above and below it. They’ve heard movement, but so far no contact.”

  “Double the normal guard on the lab areas.”

  “Already done,” Larson said. “And I have men on every person we have suspected in the past of anticorporation activities. At least the ones we can find. At this point we have about twenty missing.”

  The Professor nodded. “All right. And you figure all of them have joined Cray and Captain Palmer?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Larson said. “If we don’t flush them from the ventilation shafts pretty soon, I’ll take a force down into the lower tunnels with motion and heat sensors. These ventilation shafts all empty directly into the tunnels below, so they won’t be able to hide for long.”

  The Professor studied the map of ventilation tunnels for a moment, then said, “A good plan. Check with me before you start the operation in the tunnels.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Now,” the Professor asked. He’d been looking forward to this next question. “Show me what happened to our friendly Marines?”

  Again Larson’s fingers tapped over the control board beside the Professor and the center four screens changed to a map of the main level of the alien sector.

  “Looks like the aliens took the first group of them here.” Larson indicated the dots on the map of the tracers in the helmets and on the armor. “They haven’t moved, so I assume they’re dead.”

  The Professor shuddered. No! This couldn’t be happening. Larson could not really be this stupid. But he didn’t say anything. He just waited for Larson to continue, the sinking feeling in his stomach growing by the second. It was a feeling that this was going to take a great deal more of his attention than he had hoped it would.

  Larson punched another two keys and the map was replaced by another, two levels down. “They lost a few more here.”

  He brought up a third and a fourth map of the next levels down. “And the last ones here and here, including Green. Your plan worked, sir. They’re all dead and accounted for.”

  The Professor stared at the map for a moment, then slowly swung around to face Larson. He couldn’t believe what he had seen on those screens or the stupidity of his second in command. This total incompetence was going to drive him crazy. As soon as this entire event was calmed down and Cray recovered and killed, he would find a replacement for Larson. The man was just too stupid to let live.

  “Nice job, sir,” Larson said, still looking up at the screen. Then he looked down at his boss and his eyes widened.

  The Professor smiled at the sudden look of fear flashing in Larson’s eyes. He enjoyed that look in the people around him. He could trust people who feared him.

  “How long has it been since those bodies were supposedly killed?”

  Larson glanced nervously up at the screen, still not understanding what the Professor was talking about. That was the problem with Larson. He just hadn’t spent enough time with the aliens. The Professor would soon fix that. Very soon.

  “About three hours,” Larson said.

  “And, Mr. Larson, in your limited knowledge of the aliens, what do they do with humans they capture? Why are we always giving them live humans?”

  Larson swallowed and kept his gaze locked on the board. “They, uh… they implant them and hang them on the wall in the chambers around the queen
?”

  “Very good,” the Professor said in his best schoolteacher voice. “And do they ever just hang them any old place, such as where they find them?”

  “No, they usually—” Larson turned suddenly white as he realized his mistake. “The Marines spotted the tracers and dumped them?”

  “Now you’ve got it.” The Professor applauded and Larson’s face turned even whiter. “But one more question. If you were Sergeant Green, unarmed and stranded on that side of the alien sector, how would you try to escape? Now granted, I’m not saying you’re as smart as Green, but just this once try to think like him.”

  Larson looked at the screens full of maps for a moment, then reached over and punched up a cross section of the alien section. There were at least ten levels of tunnels below the sealed-off alien section. “I’d try to get down into there,” Larson said. Then he looked at the Professor, a real look of panic now crossing his face. “The explosions? You think they made it through?”

  The Professor nodded, staring back at the cross section of the alien sector. “I’d say, Mr. Larson, that you might want to prepare your men for a Marine invasion.”

  Then the Professor laughed. “And if I know Sergeant Green, he’s going to be as mad as that rogue I have in the other room.”

  13

  It took Joyce, Deegan, and Cray a full hour from leaving Deegan’s room to make the arranged meeting place six levels below the human section. They had been forced by Larson’s goons to double back twice and at one point had climbed three levels up to go over a guard station.

  Now Joyce was leading, light gripped in her teeth as she climbed down a narrow stone shaft. The ladder hadn’t been used by anyone in years and the dust on the steps was making it slippery.

  She could feel her fingers growing tender from all the climbing and scraping on the stone and she had long since lost the feeling in her feet from the cold. She had thought about stopping in her room to grab some heavier clothes, but then figured the risk just wasn’t worth it. She’d go down into the cold again, but it wouldn’t be that long until they were back up in the human levels fighting. She figured she could stand the cold for that long.