The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume 3

by Sandy Schofield

  She glanced at her open sleep chamber and then she went on.

  “As I have logged, we maintained orbit over Charon Base looking and hoping for more survivors, but we found none, with nothing but static on all frequencies from the base. Sergeant Green thinks the explosion that broke the base containment and collapsed many of the tunnels, at least from what we could scan, was caused by a Sound Cannon going critical in the heart of the alien section. Check his report for more.”

  She stopped recording and slowly walked back through the ship to the control area.

  She always hesitated going into cold sleep with every trip, but this time it seemed even worse. She just couldn’t fully understand that the nightmare was over. Every night since their escape into orbit she had had nightmares of bugs crawling out of an airlock or out of a sleep chamber.

  But Green and his men had thoroughly scanned both the insides and the outside of the ship and no bugs were with them. Green even put all of them, including himself, through a full body scan to make sure none were implanted.

  So she had to believe that for now this fight in this small out-of-the-way section of space, this nightmare, was over.

  The aliens had won.

  She sat for a moment in her captain’s chair staring out at the tiny flecks of stars in front of the ship.

  She supposed that the failure had been inevitable. Mankind’s prized intellect, in this case, had become its greatest conceit. Out here, in the huge emptiness of space, humans dressed themselves in technology and then thought it made them omnipotent.

  Out here the aliens’ only function was to reproduce and survive.

  Humans called them evil, yet placed men like Professor Kleist in power.

  What was truly evil? She didn’t know. She just knew a lot of people had died.

  With one final glance to make sure all lights on the boards were showing green, she ambled back to the sleep chambers and stood over Hank’s for a moment.

  Fourteen hundred people dead, yet she and Hank had lived. She hoped that meant good things for their future. She was going to do everything in her power to make sure it did.

  It was time to get to sleep and dream about the green of the park and the warmth of the bright sunshine and making love to Hank until she was sweating so hard that the sheets were soaked.

  Those were good dreams.

  And she could dream about their future. It would be a warm dream, too.

  When she and Hank got back to Earth the first thing she would do was take the kids to that park again, no matter how big they had grown since she left.

  And she would sit in the warm sunshine.

  And she would make love to Hank.

  “Good dreams,” she said, patting his chamber.

  Then she reached down and flipped on the report button.

  “This is Captain Joyce Palmer of the transport vessel Caliban signing off.”

  To my talented and creative Dad, for the work, and the introduction to a

  career that lets me sleep late; and to Mÿk, the man who’s gonna marry

  me—you’re loopy as a goose, dearheart, and I can’t wait.

  I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

  I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

  Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

  I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

  —Francis Thompson, 1893

  PROLOGUE

  There was a darkness gathered, a dull measure of black even in the murky half-light that shadowed the nest. Movement, measured and animal, there in the unclean chamber. An unfolding of form, a sound like bone against bone—and then the low, feral hiss… inhuman. Alien.

  The others, the lucky ones—they were surely dead. Or beyond knowing what life was, it was the same; insanity had smiled down at them, lent its fevered, mindless touch to the last vestiges of their souls. His family, his friends. He had heard, felt it deep inside, had known it as his heart died and his reason cried for release, echoing the distant, demented screams of his loved ones.

  The midnight creature moved closer, followed by another. He felt a glimmer of something like hope, a delicate glow in his mind’s eye. Could it be death, then? Were there miracles in hell?

  There was nothing left to fight for, no reason to try. The demons reached out for him, hard and black, and he offered no resistance, nothing but a twitch at the corners of his mouth, a strange lifting that came unbidden and unanticipated—

  A grin. When all of your senses have been brutally raped in the dark, all you’ve cherished taken away… death was redundant.

  And he was so startled by the revelation that he started to laugh, not even hearing the hoarse and awful croaks that spilled from his shredded throat and reverberated down through the labyrinth of his pain.

  1

  For a time there was nothing, the blankness of absolute space with no stars, no movement. Void. And then at the end of eternity, a single pinpoint of flashing green, sudden and beautiful in the darkness, a chime of motion and light, a birdsong—followed closely by a bitter, sticky taste like ancient sour sweat.

  Crespi raised his eyebrows and then slowly blinked, squinting at the dim lights overhead. The pulse of green reappeared, a blinking cursor on the comp screen at his feet, joined by a distinctly annoying chirp. Much uglier in reality. His eyelids drifted down, back to the sweet abyss—

  Beep!

  “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, and sat up slowly. Felt that unfocused hatred for being forced awake. He glared blearily at a spot on the floor for a time, fully aware of every ache in every muscle; he itched but didn’t have the energy to scratch and his mouth tasted like an old boot. Almost a year older, and he felt every minute of it.

  The few… the proud… the fatigued…

  The comp bleated again and Crespi scowled in its direction, then peered closer at the focusing words.

  //Wake up, Tony, I’m six months older than you were. O Death, where is Thy stinger? Ouch! 2467He//

  Crespi smiled in spite of himself. Heller. “Uh huh. Not funny, honey.” He yawned widely and reached for the code slates racked up beneath the screen, then tapped at transmit.

  His voice was uneven, his throat dry, but he did his best to sound official. Heller was a wit, good for morale, but tended to be a bit too casual with his superiors. On the other hand, he was a pilot; seemed to be some kind of requisite…

  “This is Colonel Doctor Crespi. How are we?” He raised his arms over his head and stretched, yawning again.

  “This is Lieutenant Colonel Heller. We’re fine, sir. Arkham is due to dock with Innominata at 0900—” There was a pause, and Crespi could hear the grin in the pilot’s voice. “How did you sleep, sir?”

  Crespi scruffed at his stubbled cheeks. “Like plastic. Anything to release?”

  Yes, sir. Coming through now.”

  Crespi shook his head and nocked his slate into the comp’s drive as the screen flickered up codes. Eyes only.

  “Thank you, uh, Lieutenant Colonel. I’ll see you on the bridge in twenty.”

  “Sir.”

  Heller went out in a screech of static that probably wasn’t accidental. Crespi rapped at the discom, frowning. Eyes only? That’ll give the crew something to chew on, as if there wasn’t enough already.

  He sat on the edge of his sleep chamber and printed the screen, grimacing at the low ache in his abdominal muscles. Not enough time to work out, not if he wanted a shower…

  The message glowed to life and Crespi forgot about exercise for the moment. Coded NP117, top priority.

  //Tony—CVL says SEO NNJB907H gives you full discretion. You are authorized to assume at will by force if necessary emergency command of Innominata, for probable cause by NNJB907H.//

  Cited and verified, holy hell, and straight from the horse’s ass—Admiral D. U. Pickman, head of ETops. The man was a fanatic for the drone plague, had personally been responsible for at least a hundred covert wipe
s—including the Waller disaster on Myna 8. Fifty civilians and over a dozen Marines dead, even the spindocs had been fucked on that one.

  Probable cause? The admiral screamed “nest” at every shadow, so that was unlikely—but if even half of what he’d heard about Innominata was true.

  “Good morning,” he rasped, and went to take a shower.

  * * *

  Eighteen minutes later Crespi tabbed his boots and then stood for inspection. The face in the mirror looked haggard, old, in spite of the shave and shower. He was in good (hell, very good) shape for forty-one TS, but the lines on his face told their own tales.

  He sighed and reached for his cap, wondering vaguely why he wasn’t more excited. The chance to work with Paul Church, even as an assistant, was an honor; Doctor Church had broken ground some ten years back with a series of biological tests on a space-borne virus that had wiped out three colonies of terraformers on two different worlds. Church had discovered it, classified it, and formulated a serum while the Earth’s top scientists were still unpacking their test tubes.

  There had been times in his grunt days when the dream of doing such prestigious research was all that had kept him going, and he had worked hard to get here, he had earned it.

  And yet he felt like shit. The aftermath of the deep sleep, sure, but he felt—uncertain. Anxious, really, and it wasn’t just nerves, he knew it. Anyone would be skitchy on their way to meet Church, but he was good at what he did and he didn’t have much patience with idol worship. Besides, they shared the same rank…

  He looked in the mirror again and shook his head. No time for this free-floating angst. He was a theoretical analyst, a man of science, over fifteen years in his field. Relying on gut feelings had kept him alive in the days of his warrior youth, but those days were long gone. The Innominata was a research station; he’d be using his instincts to figure out whether to have the soypro chicken or the soypro beef for lunch. And yet—

  Yet nothing. He was going to be late.

  Crespi straightened his shoulders and headed out for the bridge. The dimly lit corridor was empty and the ship had a deserted feel to it; except for the low hum of the air recycler, there was no sound, and the canned oxy was cold and dry, like the air in a tomb. Most of the crew would be in the mess hall, gulping coffee and trying to shake off the sleep, but for a few seconds, Crespi felt like he was the only living being on the transport, the last man in the universe. A fleeting trace of that anxiety again, monophobia perhaps…

  He blinked, frowned. What’s this sole survivor shit? Next thing you’re gonna want a night-light. It’s those damn rumors, they’re getting to you, too, just admit it.

  Maybe that was it, although someone would have to put a rifle to his head to make him say it out loud. Rumors were generally so much puffed air, and he had discredited the “vine” on the Innominata without hesitation. How many times had he heard phrases like “clandestine experiments” and “unreported deaths” in the past? In his line of work? Every year or so there was a rumble about some renegade scientist or top brasser who had gone mental and set up some bizarre operation, like the one about Doctor Reuf with the DNA pushing, or Spears’s drone army. Pull the other one, it has bells.

  On the other hand, he had never been assigned to any of those places. And Church’s current setup was so hushed that Admiral Stevens didn’t even know what he was up to, undoubtedly one of the reasons he had sent ol’ by-the-book Crespi—to find out what skeletons Church had hiding up here and report back like a good little soldier…

  Fuck it, he was going to find out soon enough. He rounded the curve in the passageway and stepped onto the bridge, the door sliding shut behind him.

  The room was warm and smelled like boiled coffee. Heller and Shannon were at the com, in front of the window. Blake stood behind them, his arms resting on Shannon’s chair, and they were all talking softly, their gazes focused on the station outside.

  “Greetings, all,” said Crespi, moving forward.

  “Greetings, sir.” That from Lieutenant Blake. The conversation between the three men died as Crespi joined them.

  He studied the Innominata for a moment. Standard military research station, 700 series, a big one. He’d been on half a dozen just like it; multilab, could fit two hundred people, easy, although there were less than a hundred on board according to the reports. It loomed in front of them like a dark beacon, the dull glow from the landers barely illuminating the docking pad.

  “So, that’s she who cannot be named,” he said quietly. He bent closer to the window to see past the large, fuzzy dice that someone (surely Heller) had hung above the console.

  “Haven’t you been before, sir?” Lieutenant Colonel Shannon glanced up at him, the lines of fatigue still clear around his eyes.

  Crespi looked back at the station. “Nope, nope…” His new home, dark, cold—

  Behind them, Blake cleared his throat in a contrived manner. Heller turned in his seat to face Crespi.

  “Um, sir, I know we’re not supposed to know what goes on there, but I was wondering if you could debunk some ugly rumors—”

  Crespi stayed carefully neutral. “Rumors?”

  Heller shot a glance at Blake and continued. “Well, sir…” and the rest, all in a rush, “well, we’ve heard that there are some kind of strange experiments going on, and that crew members are expendable there, that they’re used in these tests—”

  “That’s enough, Heller. I wouldn’t concern myself with rumors, if I were you. A man doesn’t want to be known as a gossip.”

  It came out harsh, but he was suddenly annoyed by all of it, angry with his own anxiety. This wasn’t a haunted house and they weren’t kids; it was a goddamn science lab where Church was probably running an angle on plant intelligence or something as banal, some innocuous series of proofs on something distinctly boring.

  Heller flushed and shot another look at Blake. It was silent for a few seconds, and then Shannon piped up helpfully.

  “Coffee, sir?” He motioned toward the steaming dispenser to one side of the com. Crespi shook his head and turned back toward the door. “No, thank you. See you at the landing, men.”

  “Yes, sir,” they answered in unison, Heller’s sullen voice lower than the rest. Crespi stopped at the exit and turned for one final look at the Innominata, hanging alone in the emptiness. It was an ordinary research station, and that was all.

  He walked out, repeating it firmly in his mind.

  That’s all.

  2

  In her late teens, Sharon McGuinness had tried most of the synth drugs that her peers were into and had been unimpressed. They’d been fun for an experimentation stint, and she still didn’t regret knowing what she’d been missing, but for the most part, being separated from organized thought for days at a time had gotten old real fast. Not to mention a few of her less stable acquaintances had developed actual habits and just faded away into unwashed cluelessness, a fate much worse than reality.

  What she had hated even more than the loss of coherency had been the mornings after; crawling out of bed in the late afternoon with sticky teeth and a vague nausea, combined with a definite sense of brain death—it was, all in all, not a particularly attractive package…

  And look at me now! All of the aftermath and none of the fun, ’cause I’m a grown-up!

  Whee. McGuinness sat hunched over her thermos and waited for the scent of crappy instant coffee to do something for her brain. Six or seven of the guys milled around, grunting and shuffling in a postsleep trance. Like her, they had made their way to the mess hall ASAP, hoping that nourishment of some kind would help and knowing that it never did. Even the tepid shower had hardly been worth the effort, the recycled spray barely penetrating the numb fogginess.

  “…fuckin’ age of neotechnology and nobody has come up with a decent cupa instant…” That from fellow Lieutenant Corey, said to no one in particular. The young officer stood by the dispenser looking like a rumpled zombie, eyes deeply circled by shadow. />
  Grunts from the grunts, and McGuinness smiled weakly in his direction. He had a point; she’d give her left tit for a double espresso.

  Well, maybe.

  Corey suddenly straightened up and managed a half-assed salute. “Sir!”

  McGuinness turned her bleary gaze to the door and then started to stand, officer on the deck—

  “At ease, all. As you were.”

  McGuinness slouched back down, wondering how the colonel did it. Crespi had been up as long as they had, but he looked crisp and wide awake, his deep voice strong and clear—like he’d just woken from a restful sleep. And then gone jogging.

  Bastard.

  The doctor studied their bleary faces as they settled back into their respective stupors. She didn’t know Crespi well except by reputation; cold, precise, not a creative genius but relentless in his attention to detail—in other words, the perfect scientist. Not to mention as by-the-book Marine as they came. He had maybe ten TS on her, although it didn’t show much—except for the lines of his face, he had the physique of a much younger man. His dark eyes were bright and sharp, set into his craggy features like hawk’s eyes, missing nothing…

  McGuinness snapped out of her weary musing as she realized that he was watching her in turn, a couple of meters in front of her table. He raised one eyebrow quizzically.

  She cleared her throat. “Uh, I don’t feel well, sir.”

  The colonel sat down in one of the molded chairs across from her. “Neither do I, McGuinness. In fact, I think I must feel as bad as you look.”

  A few raspy chuckles around the room. Great. Crespi wore the barest hint of a smirk.

  “I—” She closed her mouth before it could get her into trouble and rolled her head back, stared at the plastiform ceiling. “Yes, sir. I’m feeling fine now, and I hope you soon will be, too.”

  This time, the snickers were disguised as minor coughing fits. McGuinness straightened her shoulders and looked at the colonel, who smiled openly now.

  “No question, Lieutenant. Your recovery has been an inspiration to us all.”