Aliens Omnibus 4

by Yvonne Navarro

To the Company, maybe. But not to me, not anymore. Never again, never…

  “Hold on, Max,” he whispered, and he wasn’t surprised that much of the fear was gone; stay calm, Lara had said. He and Max would wait there for orders to come; he would trust that the people he worked with wouldn’t forget him, and when they got out of here, he’d find a way to break his contract with the Company, whatever it cost him. Max deserved as much… and so did he.

  Ellis tapped his headset and started hailing again.

  * * *

  Lara felt a trickle of sweat slide down the back of her neck as the seconds ticked past, her whole being focused on the keyboard in front of her as she worked to rig up a bypass.

  “…do you copy? Ground leader, respond, over!” Pop was still trying, his voice tight with frustration.

  Over four minutes since last contact, and nothing she had done was working; there wasn’t anything open to bypass through, the whole system was down—

  —it’s a short and you know it, one of the cables has burnt through and rewired the amplifier so get off your ass and GO—

  She stood up, unable to sit through one more futile attempt at Company procedure. “Recall the shuttle, I have to go aboard.”

  Pop broke off his unanswered calls and looked up at her with something like panic. “No—! I mean—”

  He took a breath and brought himself under control, visibly forcing himself into a halfhearted composure. “Try again, you haven’t—give it another shot, Lara, you can do this…”

  Lara shook her head. She didn’t have time for this, none of them did and she had to make him hear her before it was too late.

  “Pop, listen to me. I thought everything was shot to shit in communications, but the main amplifier still has power; it’s sending out a kind of”—she searched for words he would understand—“a white noise, and it’s blocking their signals. I noticed it before, I thought it was harmless, but the amplitude has increased somehow, a short or a surge— someone has to shut it down or they’re all dead, and this mission is over.”

  She stared into his eyes and saw it get through, saw the pain and fear and finally resignation in his searching gaze.

  “Go then, but for God’s sake, be careful. Remain in the command center at all times, I—”

  He faltered and looked down at the hissing screens, his voice low and throaty. “I don’t want to lose you, Kat.”

  Lara was glad he had turned away, knowing that he’d see impatience and furious disgust on her face. That’s great, just wonderful—how selfless of you to allow me to do my fucking job when lives are on the line—

  “You won’t,” she said, and hurried to the door of the chilled room, praying that she wasn’t already too late.

  She ran through the tight, cold corridors of the Nemesis, hearing Pop’s voice over the shipwide; he must have left it on, and now it seemed like he was haunting her, his rough voice chasing her through the dim and dusty halls.

  “Team leader to all units! We have a communications breakdown; if you are receiving me, maintain present position! Communications officer is coming aboard!”

  She couldn’t shake the anger, couldn’t stop the contemptuous thoughts from rising up as she turned through the winding corridors to the lower bay. Less than two hundred years ago, sexism and chauvinism had been rampant on Earth, as well as many other bigotries. Was this how those women had felt? Resentful and frustrated, treated like children simply because they had vaginas? She was a marine, for chrissake, an adult with a mind of her own—

  —and a job to do that needs your full goddamn concentration! The shuttle will be here in three minutes or less. Get your suit, lock and load, and let it go, or it’ll be your problem, not his!

  She ran faster, swearing to herself that if they got out of this alive, she’d keep her legs crossed from now on against men like Eric Izzard.

  * * *

  The drones kept coming, and Teape was tired, so tired that it all seemed like some kind of crazy dream. The corridor was awash in violently hissing smoke, the scent of burning chemicals hot and sharp, the bodies falling and falling and screaming—and still there were more, running at the three men, talons outstretched and shrieking murder.

  “Fall back!” Jess shouted again, and Teape managed another half step. With each backward movement, it seemed that the long, black bodies gained on them, closing the distance. They were being forced to hold their position, unable to stop firing long enough to get away.

  —doesn’t matter, all gonna die—

  He believed it, knew it, but he wasn’t going to go down without taking out as many as he could first; he owed that much to Jess and the Candyman. The bugs themselves, too—abominations, clattering tails and drooling jaws that rushed mindlessly to protect their bitch-mother queen. He owed them for a seeming eternity of nightmares; if he was going to die, why should they live? He only hoped that the Company would nuke the site once they were declared MIA.

  He took another step backward, rifle vibrating in his hands as the endless bursts of smoke and fire brought down another howling dark form in a spray of acid.

  Each time it looked as though there might be a break in the onslaught, a pause in the relentless stream, more of the grinning, capering creatures appeared. The queen had sent an impressive squad of her slavering minions to take out the threat to her nest; there had to be over fifty dusky bodies piled in front of them, lining the corridor, melting through the ravaged deck.

  “Don’t take long for word about us to get around!” the Candyman yelled, sweeping the smart gun back and forth with tight precision.

  Teape smiled in spite of himself, explosive ammo from his rifle dropping another of the screaming black abortions. The drone sprawled to the sizzling floor in midleap, limbs askew. Pulaski may have been an embarrassment to his family, but he would’ve make the Vikings proud.

  “Break coming, get ready—!” Jess’s words were almost lost over the endless blasts of the weaponry.

  Teape looked up and saw with dull surprise that it was true. There were maybe another half dozen of the hissing, trumpeting creatures flying down the long corridor toward them, but past that, nothing.

  They had reached one of the offshoots to the long and terrible killing corridor, the smaller hallway directly to Teape’s right. The sudden opening of space startled him; he had forgotten, and it loomed wide and empty like a sneak attack. Another dark place to cover, another direction from which death could come at any moment. The trackers meant nothing, telling them only that nothing, had moved in the seconds they watched…

  Teape risked a glance at the others, saw the fierce pleasure on Pulaski’s homely face and the controlled concern on Jess’s. The Candyman had paused, the last few drones mowed down smoothly by his tracking weapon.

  “Come on, move,” said Jess, and the next few seconds blurred and ran together as they backed up quickly, boots shuffling sideways, cutting through the thick smoke—

  —as Pulaski laughed, and Teape heard and saw the hearty chuckles cut short. The giant man’s expression changed, became puzzled as a low grunt was forced from him—

  There was a shadow over him, descending, drooling, and a long and spined and bloody rod suddenly shot out of Pulaski’s abdomen. A tail, the tail of the drone that dropped down from a jagged opening in the ceiling, now towering behind the impaled man. The liquid that spurted out of the Candyman looked strange and dark in the red light, pulsing down over the M56 that dropped from his huge hands and hung. His expression of shock and pain was instantly replaced by rage, his teeth gritted and snarling.

  It happened in only a second, maybe two, but time had stretched and slowed. Teape watched in numb disbelief as Pulaski’s arm dropped to his boot, jerked a long combat knife from its sheath. Brought it up, and in a strength borne of fury and pain, shoved it into the black skull of the drone—pushed it through the monstrous head, the hissing blood of the creature splashing down to mix with Pulaski’s.

  The drone shrieked, pulled its horrible
tail out and away from the giant’s sagging body.

  “Candyman—!”

  Teape screamed as the dying drone fell away, the long blade in its pierced brain already melting.

  Pulaski took a step forward and coughed once, his horsey teeth stained dark in the crimson light. “Fucker, showed that fucker,” he said clearly.

  Then he collapsed to his knees and vomited blood onto the floor.

  19

  Lara ran through the station corridor, heart pounding, hoping that the path to the command center was still secure; she didn’t have time to proceed with caution. The flight to the DS terminal had only taken moments, but she’d felt each and every second as she’d struggled into her armor and waited for the air lock to seal—aware that every one of those passing seconds increased the chances that the team and Ellis were already dead.

  She ran to the stairs that would lead her to the command center, past the stinking corpse and the elevator where she’d almost been impregnated. The M41’s tracker ticked to life as she passed the gouged and blasted elevator shaft, warning her of the spidery horde that still boiled behind the panels; she shuddered inwardly but didn’t slow her running sprint toward operations. The motion sensor quickly fell silent.

  —get to communications, pull the wires, shut it down—

  Her breath came in long, easy pulls, her muscles loose and her lungs in good shape thanks to the treadmill on Nemesis. She hit the stairs smoothly, watched her boots come down squarely on every third step as she made the first flight.

  Her breathing seemed incredibly loud inside her helmet and against the dead silence of the station. The fight between the team and the bugs, if there still was one, was high over her head—thousands of tons of plasticrete and metal between her and the men she meant to help. She could almost feel that weight pressing down as she bounded over the dead drone on the steps, watched the acid-eroded stairs pass beneath her in a tangle of black limbs and red light.

  The lounge of the center was as she remembered, but she only knew it in a moving, horrible blur now—the orange of the couches, the smell of dead flesh, the yawning holes in the floor where melted bodies lay. The door that led to the task at hand was the only thing clear, all she really saw or cared to see.

  —main computer, pull the panel, cut the wires—

  She stopped just inside the next corridor, just long enough to point the M41 at the communications room.

  “Come on, come on,” she whispered breathlessly, but the small tracker remained silent. She counted to five, desperate to get inside but also remembering the face-hugger that they’d left alive; she was desperate but not insane.

  Nothing; it must have crawled back into the air shaft. Lara slapped at the entry control and squeezed in as the panels slid open, already running for the main console as the door clicked to a stop.

  The cool air was thicker than she remembered, the scent of the decaying suicide corpse heavy and sour. The station’s internal monitor screens were open fields of static. She noted it absently, sliding into a crouch in front of the giant computer console that dominated the room. There was probably a manual shut down somewhere in the room, but she didn’t want to waste time trying to find it; DS stations each had their own unique setup and codes, as individual and varied as was possible to avoid exactly what she was about to do. Only those trained in Company machines with high clearance ratings would know what to look for in the main console itself—

  —and C2 is high enough, thank you, God—

  She dropped the rifle next to her and pulled the first of the six panels that lined the base of the machine, ducking her head underneath. The complicated circuit boards identified themselves by the color of wiring and plexi, red and green; condenser slates.

  The second and third were decoding primaries, and she cursed under her breath as she yanked at the fourth, stuck stubbornly in its frame. She wished she could just shoot the fucking thing, but the shielded metals wouldn’t allow for it; she wasn’t so excited about losing an eye in her hurry to get at it.

  This better be the one, goddamn Company-pieced-together hunk of crap—

  A straining jerk with both hands and the panel popped. She ducked and squinted upward, and a wave of cool relief washed over her as she reached for the circuitry hand laser on her belt and clicked it to life. Blue and black, one of the few consistencies in the newer models. She rolled onto her back and pushed herself closer.

  Sweat ran across her forehead and dripped into her ears as she used the small precision tool to cut across the base of a blue-coated wire. The amplifier slate seemed undamaged, no evidence of burn, which meant the impairment was deeper in the machine. It didn’t matter. Whatever had shorted out and then rewired itself into their problem would be stopped with the few tiny cuts she made, the bright white line between the dual tips of the laser slicing cleanly through the colored threads.

  There! It was done, slide the panel back into place and let the system shut the amplifier off for them. If it worked the way it was supposed to, she’d be able to access the team helmet cams from here, too; full contact restored. She turned off the laser, reached up to push the hatch closed—

  —and froze. As tiny claws skittered up her legs and a thick tail coiled across her belly.

  * * *

  It was dark for maybe a long time, he wasn’t sure, and he woke up to a wash of red light and strong arms around him. His body was held gently but the pain was terrible, a beast that ate him from inside.

  Far away at first and then louder. “Teape, cover us! Aw, shit, Candyman—”

  Pulaski opened his eyes and a dark face swam into view. Sweaty and scared and smiling a sick smile. He knew that face.

  Jess—Good ol’ Jess, looking afraid and still smiling like that…

  “Gonna be okay, Candyman, we gonna get you outa here,” said the face that was Jess. The smile was awful, trembling, but the voice was sweet and cool and strong.

  Pulaski blinked and everything was clearer now, the sounds and smells sharper, familiar. He heard a weapon fire and Jess looked away, the smile suddenly gone. Pulaski closed his eyes, sleepy.

  “Talk to me, Teape!”

  A voice called back from somewhere very close. “We got more coming! The offshoot, they’re coming from somewhere down here!”

  That was Teepee, bugbait, he was smart. Vikings were right on…

  Suddenly he remembered everything, where he was and why. He opened his eyes and stared up into Jess’s dark and serious gaze, not wanting to believe any of it. The station, the running drones, the knife—he’d been hit, and hit hard. A fuckin’ bug, of all things. Sheila’d laugh her ass off that he’d been hit by a stupid bug.

  “Showed… that fucker,” he said, and it came out in a whisper that made him cough weakly.

  Jesus that hurt! Like his guts had been stuffed with broken glass, like—like a bug had speared him. He wanted to ask how bad, but could see it on Jess’s face.

  “You just hang on, baby, hang on,” said Jess. “We’re gettin’ you out, just lay easy, hang on…”

  There was more shooting, and Jess laid him down and rose into a crouch, firing his own rifle. Moved away to join Teape. Pulaski hoped they were kicking ass, and for some reason, it was okay that he was just lying here. Jess had told him to, it was cool. He’d been hit.

  A bug howled and there was more fire and Pulaski felt the vibrations in the side of his face, the sound and feel of pounding movement soft and steady through the cool floor. It reminded him of something and he closed his eyes again, the pain less now that he was still. He concentrated on the memory and found it, let the boys kick ass while he remembered, smiling.

  —Sheila and me in that cabin when the storm came, we fucked and ate fish we caught and the skies opened and beat against the roof in the dark. We went outside and had sex again and the rain on her skin was like music and I could feel her and smell, her and she laughed to be in the mud, hear the sound of the rain…

  He drifted into the dark, happy.<
br />
  * * *

  Jess fired again, brought down the screaming drone that leapt for him in a squeeze of the trigger. It shrieked and died, clattering to the smoking floor.

  It was too dark to see more than a few meters down the offshoot; the emergency lights were limited to main corridors. Teape yelled and fired at another drone, appearing suddenly from out of the inky shadows.

  Jess dropped to his knee next to Pulaski and glanced down, his heart hammering in his chest at the sight of the big man’s still form. He raised his rifle one-handed and fired again, pressing his free hand against the Candyman’s throat as another drone blew apart in a spray of hissing blood.

  A pulse, faint but there beneath his gloved fingers. Jess stood up and shouted to Teape, both of them firing at another black bug that lunged out of the dark.

  “It’s no good, Teape, too damn many of ’em! Fall back!”

  Jess reached down and grabbed at the splash suit at the back of Pulaski’s neck, pulling up a handful. He raised his rifle with the other straining arm and fired past Teape at a shadow that leapt into the light; the hissing bug was thrown back against one wall, chunks of its abdomen torn out and away.

  He took a step back, both arms aching now; the Candyman’s dead weight was tremendous, amazing, but his body inched across the slick and bloody floor as Jess pulled.

  Teape had backed up with him, spraying the dark offshoot wildly in a sweeping arc.

  “Go, I got it!” Teape shouted, and targeted another grinning creature, its long skull exploding into smoking shrapnel.

  Jess backed down the hall as quickly as he could, his muscles screaming, Pulaski’s heavy body sliding in the thick smear of blood that poured from his wounds. They were at the bend now, the corner of the L-shaped corridor, the door back to the secured area just in view.

  Teape was still targeting, laying down a steady stream of bullets against the shrieks and hisses of the attackers. He backed up another step—

  —gonna make it, ten meters, hang on, Candyman—

  And Teape’s rifle clicked empty.

  Before Jess could raise his own weapon, Teape had dropped his, thrown it down and pulled up the mask from around his neck in a flurry of panic. He fell to the floor, his covered face turning toward Jess, eyes wide and filled with terror and a silent plea.