The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 3

by Sandy Schofield

  She had climbed to her feet and greeted the Marines like the heroes they were, same as the rest of the rebels. After only a few seconds of cheering, Green had quickly pointed to three of his men and sent them back on guard duty down three of the five separate tunnels.

  Then Green had asked for quiet and said, “We have a problem.” He pointed after one of the guards. “Those three men are the only ones with live ammunition and that’s because we ambushed three of Larson’s men two levels down an hour ago. Anyone know where we might get some bullets?”

  Joyce had been the first one to break the stunned silence with a hearty laugh. The others joined in and after a moment she moved up beside Sergeant Green and said, “It would be our pleasure to help.”

  Sergeant Green actually bowed in thanks and for doing that got a rounding cheer and applause from everyone.

  She, Kent, Green, Robinsen, and Young all gathered against one wall. Joyce sat with her hands tucked in the bands of her pants hoping against hope to keep them warm as all their breaths froze into crystal cloud.

  Other groups formed around the room with so many lanterns working that the high-ceiling stone corridor almost took on a comfortable feel.

  They had just started talking about where to attack first and where to get more weapons and ammunition when, from the black mouth of one tunnel, Hank emerged, his hands in the air and a Marine right behind him.

  Joyce felt her stomach ease another notch.

  “Hank,” she said, as she rose from where she had been sitting and ran toward him. A few others, including Kent, surrounded him as she gave him a large hug that felt damn good. Then she stepped back and looked at him. His face was red and he seemed out of breath.

  Green nodded to the Marine behind Hank who turned and disappeared back into the tunnel.

  “You all right?” Joyce asked.

  Hank nodded and moved over to the wall where he dropped down on the floor with his back against the stone. He took a few shuddering breaths, then looked up at Joyce and Sergeant Green.

  “Just been running. And that Marine gave me a start, let me tell you. A good one, though.” He laughed, then tried to take another few deep breaths.

  Suddenly he seemed very serious. He looked first at Joyce who knelt beside him, then at Sergeant Green. “Did you hear the Red Alert a few minutes ago?”

  “No,” Joyce said.

  “Red Alert?” Green asked, his voice almost choking.

  Joyce glanced up at him. He had suddenly gone pale and he wasn’t taking his eyes off of Hank.

  “Red Alert, I’m afraid,” Hank said. “A huge alien, obviously one of the Professor’s experiments, broke down a wall from the lab and disappeared in the direction of the alien sector.”

  “Broke down a wall?” Green said. “How big was this bug?”

  Hank shrugged. “Big. How tall is the corridor outside the main labs? Ten, maybe fifteen meters?”

  Green nodded. “About that.”

  “The damn thing had to duck in there. Trust me, he tore a rock and concrete wall down like it was paper.”

  “Holy shit!” one of the Marines said behind Green.

  Green kept staring directly at Hank. “And you say it was heading toward the alien sector? Did it seem like it knew what it was doing?”

  “Now you have to understand, I was looking up at this thing through clouds of dust from a floor vent with two of Larson’s goons in the shaft behind me, but I’d say it did.”

  Joyce turned to Green. “What does this mean? You’ve fought bugs before? Do they get that big?”

  Green nodded. “Yeah, the queens do. But I can’t imagine how the Professor had a queen trapped in his lab.”

  “It’s a male,” Hank said and again all eyes turned to him.

  “Let’s hope to God that’s not possible,” Green said.

  “Well, when the Professor countermanded Grace’s orders, I heard him say over the speakers that he didn’t want him hurt. Clear as a bell.”

  “An alien’s loose and he countermanded the orders? I don’t—”

  “It’s a male all right,” a voice said from behind the main group around Hank. Everyone turned and Joyce could see Cray, his face a pasty white in the lamplight. He seemed to be breathing fast and shallow and he was sweating even in the intense cold of the stone corridor.

  “How do you know?” Green asked.

  Cray took a deep, shuddering breath. “I was supposed to be its breakfast, but since the Professor had me strapped to a chair, it only looked me over. Real, real close.” Clay opened his shirt and pointed to the huge red and scab-covered cut that ran across his chest. “It barely touched me with only one claw. It’s as big as Hank was saying. Maybe bigger.”

  “And Kleist stopped the Red Alert?” Green shook his head. “That son of a bitch has totally lost it.”

  The silence in the tunnel echoed for a moment before Joyce turned to Green and asked, “Why did you want to know if it looked like it knew where it was heading?”

  Green sighed. “Because if it really is that big, chances are the queen has called it. So the big male would head for the queen in the heart of the alien sector and it sure ain’t going to use an airlock. Instead it’s going to tear a hole all the way from the labs right into and through the side of the alien section. Those bugs are going to be everywhere in the human sector faster than Larson’s goons can stop them.”

  Hank stood. “From the size of the hole in the lab, there won’t be any plugging it ever. Actually, considering how long it took me to get down here, it’s probably already open.”

  Green turned to Joyce. “I doubt the supplies we left in our old barracks are still there. We need weapons fast, the heavier the better.”

  “What about your guns?” Hank asked.

  “Empty,” Joyce said. “Except for the three on guard duty.”

  Hank glanced at Green, then unstrapped his rifle and ammunition belt and tossed it to Robinsen.

  Green nodded to Robinsen and he took off at a quick pace down another tunnel to stand guard duty.

  Joyce glanced at the rifle in her hands, then handed it to Green, who immediately tossed it to a private standing nearby and pointed to the other unguarded tunnel. “No heroics,” he said.

  “Now,” Joyce said, facing Hank and Green. “We need a plan.”

  “And quick,” Cray said, dropping down against the stone wall. “Trust me, you don’t ever want to see that thing close-up.”

  Green laughed. “It’s not the big male I’m worried about. It’s the three hundred or so little ones that scare me.”

  Joyce shivered, and not just from the cold.

  * * *

  The screens on the Professor’s wall showed the progress of the rogue as it tore its way toward the alien sector. The bodies of a blond-haired mother and her young daughter lay smashed against one wall on one screen, seemingly tossed aside like another small obstacle in the rogue’s way.

  The Professor watched for a moment, then, smiling and whistling, turned to finish putting on his armor. This was going to be the happiest day of his entire life. He had victory. His name would be listed with the great heroes of all time. He had solved the problems of the aliens.

  Grace, already in her armor, scanned the station ahead of the rogue trying to warn people away with the address system. She was only partially successful.

  The rogue was mostly through the human section and had now reached the corridor that ran along the extra thick barricade walls between the human and the alien sectors.

  With a motion almost faster than the Professor could follow Grace focused every screen in the office on the areas up and down that hall and on the corridors and halls directly on the other side of the wall in the alien sector.

  “They’re massing, Professor,” she said, pointing at the three screens that showed hundreds of alien males filling the corridors and walls and ceilings on the other side of the divide like a living coat of black paint.

  “The queen sent them to defend her,” he sa
id, adjusting his microphone so it was against his mouth. Then he picked up the big Sound Cannon and cradled it under his arm. It felt good there, and he felt safer with it for some reason.

  “I don’t think so,” Grace said. “They’re not lining up in a defensive way. They seem to be mostly staying slightly back from the wall, out of the way, just waiting.”

  At that moment, on the human side, the rogue stopped, seeming to study a large airlock directly in front of it. Tilting its head from side to side it scanned the airlock. Then, in a mad and lightning-quick run, it darted forward, crashing headfirst into the airlock.

  Stone shattered as the airlock was crushed outward, spinning down the corridor into the alien sector.

  Thrashing like a wild beast the rogue proceeded to rip a huge hole in the rock and concrete barrier between the human sector and the alien side, sending up a huge storm of dust and rock.

  In less than ten seconds the hole was a good twenty meters across and as high as the ceiling. A four-lane freeway could be built through that hole.

  The Professor watched in total fascination as the massed aliens hesitated for a few moments, waiting for the rogue to get out of the way, then, as if on signal, they swarmed toward the new opening.

  A few got in the way of the rogue and were crushed as it entered the alien section, acid blood splattering everywhere as if the rogue had stepped on a tomato. Without a glance back, it headed off into the depths toward the queen.

  Ten of Larson’s men were in the human corridor outside the breach as the aliens swarmed through, coming in on the floor, walls, and ceiling, faster than any human could follow. It was like ugly black water pouring from a huge spout. There was no stopping it.

  A security-breach alarm screeched throughout the station as the men fired at the aliens, then broke ranks and tried to retreat. Most didn’t make it ten meters. The mass of aliens crushed them, ripping the men’s arms and legs off, biting through their heads, smashing them flat like so much red waste.

  “Who initiated the security alarm?” the Professor demanded.

  Grace just shrugged.

  “I won’t have my authority countermanded by some gung-ho grunt! Put them all on report in that area.”

  Grace just looked at him for a moment as he stared at the monitors. Finally she said, “Professor, I must express my concern for your present mental state.”

  “Excuse me?” he asked without looking at her.

  “Your manner seems somewhat irrational, sir. I am programmed to be concerned and to point such matters out to you. Remember?”

  Kleist turned to Grace, smiling. “My dear, no matter how thoroughly you are programmed, you will never remotely understand how I feel at this moment.”

  He laughed and waved his arm at the monitors where the black stream of aliens was still pouring through the hole. “You think this is irrational? This is nothing more than war.” He faced her. “What is important is that we shall soon witness the validation of all I believe. In this godless universe there is man and the alien. Only one can be the dominant species.”

  He turned back to the monitors and continued, “Don’t you understand what the rogue means? No, I guess you don’t, do you? Well, let me explain. You see, I have taken the brute clay of creation and reshaped it into a superior image. You must understand that point somewhat, being a creation of man yourself.”

  She said nothing so he went on.

  “The rogue is our weapon. The alien empire will be destroyed at the hands of its own kind. The killing stroke? Bio-programming by human cunning and human intellect.”

  He raised his hands to the screens like they were an altar. “It begins here today.”

  Grace was silent for a moment, then she said in her normal voice, “We might want to proceed, sir.”

  He nodded, still staring at the monitors.

  “We can go in from above,” Grace said. “Considering the circumstances in the main areas, it might be a safer route.”

  He took his gaze off the monitors and the hundreds of aliens pouring into the human sector. The rogue was heading for the queen and she was sending her males at the same time against the humans who had imprisoned her. He laughed to himself. Never, ever underestimate the enemy, especially an alien queen.

  But when his creation got through with her, there would be nothing left of this hive. Man may have a few casualties in this battle, but his creation was destined to win the war for humankind. And on that scale, what did a few meaningless lives matter?

  He turned and headed for the door. “You’re right, Grace. Quickly. I don’t want to miss any of this. History is being made.”

  He smiled at her as she opened the hidden passageway and went through ahead of him.

  16

  Joyce glanced around at the group of very cold humans as Sergeant Green pulled the guards in from the tunnels and snapped a few orders. Nineteen Marines and twenty civilians with twenty-four rifles and two pistols among them. Not much of a force against over a hundred of Larson’s goons plus the aliens. She was doubting that she would ever make it off this station alive. She just wished she could leave a message for her kids somewhere that it might be found. If she got the chance she would try to do just that.

  In the quick meetings after Hank’s arrival, they had decided that the best course of action was to get some real firepower, and the best way to do that was to break directly into Larson’s armory. It was located on the main human level, so it wasn’t going to be easy to get to, but it was possible.

  They would have to assume that the alien sector had been opened and Larson’s men were going to have their hands full trying to stop the bugs, so very few men would be on guard there. Actually, both Clay and Kent argued that they should be more worried about the aliens, but Green had convinced them first things first.

  Hank had insisted that Larson would never expect the Marines to be alive in the first place and thus would think that the civilians would have no reason to attack the armory, so no men at all would be there. But Sergeant Green made a very clear point that when it came to the Professor and, to a lesser degree, Larson, they should never be underestimated. He had done just that and had ended up dumped in the far side of the alien sector.

  Hank and Sergeant Green both knew the location of the armory, which turned out, much to Joyce’s relief, to be on the opposite side of the human sector from the alien hive. Kent knew how to get them there through the lower-level tunnels and straight up a mostly blocked vertical shaft. He’d gone that way a few hours earlier and stumbled on the shaft by accident when looking for a way around a few of Larson’s guards.

  In the dust Kent drew them all a map to find what he described as an old elevator shaft that had totally been covered over when they built the human sector and the labs. He said the ladders in the shaft were mostly wood and fairly rotten, but if used carefully, they would hold enough for them to make the climb.

  Sergeant Green made sure that Hank, Joyce, Cray, and his second in command, Robinsen, were all clear on the location of the opening of the abandoned elevator shaft, then assigned everyone into one of five groups with equal firepower and sent each off at top speed to meet as quickly as possible at the shaft.

  Joyce found herself without a gun but in command of two Marines, Kent, and three other civilians. She was to take her group south for three tunnel intersections, a total of about two hundred meters. She was then to use that intersection’s vertical shaft to go down three levels, then cross in a southeast direction under the human section to the elevator shaft.

  Green’s and the other two groups had just left leaving only hers and Hank’s.

  She reached out and gave Hank’s hand a light squeeze.

  “See you,” he said, “in a few minutes.”

  She smiled. “Don’t get lost.” She wanted to say more, but didn’t. She couldn’t let worrying about him get in the way. It was like Danny and Jerry used to tell her during the war. If they made it, they made it. Worrying wasn’t going to change a damned thin
g.

  With one last quick smile at him, she turned and at a half run, with a light in her hand, led her group into her assigned tunnel. She stationed a blond-headed Marine named Private Rule to stay right near her with his rifle.

  Another armed Marine named Warner she assigned to be last and guard their flank. Kent and the others were to stay in the middle and be damn quiet.

  She was deep down tired from the day already, but the excitement of moving again with a real plan had the energy flowing through her system. She could barely hold her pace to a steady jog.

  Being as silent as they could they made it through the first intersection and were approaching the second when the sound of shots echoed through the tunnels.

  Joyce motioned for everyone to stop and they all listened. It seemed the shots had come from down at least a level and to the south. She turned to the Marine named Rule and pointed down at the vertical shaft in the intersection.

  He nodded and she led the way to the shaft.

  She was about to start down when Rule touched her shoulder and held up the gun. Then he indicated that he should go first and she agreed. With his rifle gripped in one hand, he quietly moved down the cut stone ladder. Joyce followed him closely until they reached the next level. No sign of any movement or even footprints in the dust, so she signaled for the others to join them.

  More shots echoed through the tunnels as the last of her group were coming down. The shots seemed loud and very close. Joyce figured they were from one intersection over.

  Another shot and a bullet bounced off stone and then scattered dust against a wall in a nearby tunnel.

  She had everyone kill their lights and she let her eyes adjust in the pitch-black. Faintly, down the corridor to the right, she could see some sort of light.

  She clicked her light on her own face, put her finger to her lips to indicate quiet, then pointed that Private Warner and one of the men should go down the right tunnel and swing around. She and Kent would go down the middle, directly at the light. The other two should circle around the other way led by Private Rule.