The system’s data blocks were in the lower back of the Max, safely out of reach of a drugged and wired volunteer—
—except they’re all there, hydraulics suspension, medical— armaments. Pull the wrong one and it’s all over—
—and if he could free up one hand, reach back, and flip up the panel, find a flat indentation the length of his finger, and happen across a nonessential drain on the system amidst a dozen identical indentations—
There was no way. The physical interface of the suit would rip him apart before the creatures even got close. He’d never be able to manage the pain, let alone find the controls, keep firing—
Another half-dozen drones boiled inside their shells and collapsed; three more were bisected by a strafe of the Max’s pulse rifle and added to the growing hole in the hissing deck to their left. More pushed on behind them, springing across the burning mounds to get at the two human invaders in their stinking hive.
We’re gonna die and the station will blow up anyway and this is all for nothing—
Jess fired at a single drone that leapt above the strafe of Max’s singing automatic, the bullets shattering through the muted dark abdomen—
—and clicked to empty.
—but Jess will die first.
There was no more time to think. Ellis acted.
* * *
Talk to him, distract him—use his hunger…
The commander didn’t lower the automatic as he walked toward her in the silent room, and Lara babbled out the first thing that came to mind.
“Why me, Pop? How do I qualify for survival?” She kept her voice softly confused.
He stopped, stood a meter in front of her with a look of dull surprise, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that she might not know.
“Because I—I care for you…”
She knew and it made her sick—but if she could push some emotional buttons, it might make him drop his guard.
“…I insisted you were part of the deal,” Eric went on sincerely, gaze still searching hers for some measure of understanding. “Grigson could see I wasn’t going to back down, he had to give in…”
Lara edged away from the console as he spoke, staring deeply into his eyes, keeping hers wide with feigned surprise, a girlish shock that he had taken such measures to save her—
—work it, act like he’d expect you to…
The weapon followed her, but the commander didn’t seem to notice the drift, too caught up in his attempt to sway her.
“I hoped—when this is over I’ll never have to work again, the deal I got—we could work things out, we could be together—”
Lara’s hip brushed against a table and she stopped, shaking her head, trying to look as hurt and upset as she could without letting the anger show.
“Eric, I don’t want any part of this, it’s not right—”
Pop’s lined faced turned desperate, openly pleading. “You feel that way now, but in time you’ll come to see that it had to be done—it’s for us, Kat, for our future!” Lara frowned thoughtfully and shifted her weight to one leg, using the slight motion to slip her left hand behind her.
“But we don’t have a future, Eric—think about it. How long do you think Grigson will let us live?”
Her fingers touched a flat, cold metal surface and she froze, thoughts racing wildly as she realized what it was.
The refrigeration unit. With the face-hugger inside.
“I’ve got that covered,” said Pop eagerly. “He can’t lay a finger on us, we’re safe as long as we have that data log— but we can talk about it later. Right now we have to go—”
He took another step toward her and she stepped away from the unit and to one side, no longer blocking it from his view.
Shit, this better work—!
She met his urgent, lovesick gaze evenly and reached one hand hesitantly toward her throat, acting like a woman torn, a woman with no choice but to be in love with the man who had bargained for her life.
Lara stepped forward with wistful longing in her eyes, let him see the desperate desire to believe him, to be with him, to hurry—
—and then down at the refrigeration unit, letting a weary, sorrowful smile play across her features.
“Pulaski’s champagne…” she whispered, and shook her head.
Lara looked back into his eyes and smiled uncertainly. “To our future, right?”
Eric just stared at her, pistol steady in his hand, and for a moment, she thought she’d overplayed—
—and then he grinned at her, and she saw triumph and smug satisfaction in that grin, he’s going to do it!
“That’s right, to our future,” he said, and reached for the door of the unit, still watching her as he fumbled for the lock on the handle, smiling warmly. “We’ll take a bottle with us and celebrate in style—”
The lock clicked, and Lara tensed herself for action.
Hang on, boys…
* * *
Jess’s rifle went dry and the Berserker suddenly went insane. The enormous warrior dropped its right arm and whipped the left around to cover. It didn’t stop firing as it sprayed across, armor-piercing rounds cracking against the bulkhead in front of them.
“Ellis, what are you doing—?” Jess screamed, as flakes of metal chipped and flew, as the attacking drones gained meters of ground to both sides of them.
The Max took one lumbering step forward, still whipping the pulse rifle back and forth. Jess leapt behind the suit as shattered fragments of the wall sang toward them, as the aliens screamed on, closing in—
—we’re dead, he lost control—
—and Max suddenly pivoted sideways in a smooth, single motion and twisted the flamethrower back into the air, both arms raised like a crucified man—
—and the fists unleashed their power, and fifty meters of corridor on either side of them exploded with screaming death.
29
Pop opened the refrigerator and a piece of broken bottle washed to the floor in a gush of sticky liquid.
He turned his puzzled gaze to the open unit and Lara stepped in, arm raised—
—and delivered a sharp, chopping blow to the side of his neck, forcing his head toward the refrigerator. She heard the creature scrabble at the frame and used her hip to knock him closer, her weight to drive his upper body down—
—and Pop screamed as the spidery face-hugger crashed into him, the wet legs groping to meet at the back of his skull.
He convulsed backward. Lara was thrown clear as he dropped the pistol and clutched at the powerful legs of the creature.
Pop strained, his face red and eyes terrified as he danced madly to free himself from the tenacious embryo carrier. Blood dribbled beneath the skittering claws, the long tail spinning up to curl around his throat.
“Help me—” he gasped, and Lara stepped in, took a deep breath—
—and hit him in the gut as hard as she could.
Eric collapsed to his knees, both of his hands loosening against the muscular digits of the face-hugger—and Lara heard his last, choking swallow before he fell over, one hand flailing wildly at her as he went down.
The creature settled itself, tail coiling tightly around Eric Izzard’s throat, legs adjusting as it adhered itself to its dark purpose. His arm dropped, the fingers twitching once.
So long, Pop…
Lara hit the headset control as she scooped up the nine-millimeter, checking it automatically. Twelve rounds, full clip—
—and the explosive sounds of bullets and fire over the ’set were the sweetest things she’d ever heard; Max was still on-line.
“Jess, Ellis, this is Lara! Face-hugger got Pop, do you read?!”
Amidst the alien screams and the roar of battle, she heard Jess coughing, his voice thick with smoke.
“Hurry—”
“I’m on my way!”
Lara ran, not even pausing to see how much time was left on the fail-safe—or sparing another thought for the dying man who lay motionless on the deck behind her
.
It was going to be very fucking close.
* * *
Ellis heard Lara’s words amidst the high, keening flutters of digital energy that coursed through his system—but he didn’t fully understand them as the Max decimated the screaming drones, humming with the strange power that surged through his program—
—clear the nest—
—and he didn’t even know what he’d disabled, and didn’t care. The exhaustion was gone, replaced by a need that sent him to new heights of frenzied action in the thick, explosive smoke of the screeching darkness.
M108 canister grenades sent high-velocity sprays of alloyed buckshot to one side of them as the flamethrower spewed ignited fuel across the drones on the other side. He used the pulse rifle to clear the straggling survivors of the explosions, the dull thunder of the bullets tearing their bodies to acid-spouting chunks.
Ellis was Max again, but in a way that he could feel— and what he felt was hot and pounding, a crude mixture of passionate hatred for the teeming dark creatures and fear for Jess, of wonder at the killing strength he commanded and the throbbing pain inside his mind. And above it all, the rapid electrical pushes of the system’s boosted power, urging him to destroy—
The broken, smoking walls of the passage to his right were starting to burn, the buildup of oily fuel igniting. Jess or Lara shouted something from far away and Ellis-Max pivoted, smoothly swiveling his giant limbs as he turned, sent the weapons blasting down opposite paths. He was both of them now, the man and the machine, and Ellis had forced the program to his amplified will and created something greater than the sum of its components.
Kill them all, destroy the hive—protect Jess.
He gloried in the eradication of every single bug that threatened them, himself and the man who stood beneath him, coughing and screaming strange words. Modification of energy with purpose alteration, he had the power to do it; Jess was what he protected from the infestation.
Ellis-Max rode with the surges of malice and intent, the computer serving them both—and the enemy fell and burned within the Berserker’s bottomless fury.
* * *
The walls and deck trembled around them and Jess backed to the control panel for the bay doors, fighting to breathe and losing the battle.
“I’m coming in!” Lara shouted, and Jess tried to get through to Ellis again, choking in the black-stained air, the smoke overpowering, deadly—
“Ellis, she’s here! Do you copy?”
The Max continued to fire, Ellis lost inside of the destructive frenzy that it had become. Through the billows of fire and blackness, Jess could no longer hear the screams of the attackers—
—but he heard Lara and reached for the entry panel before she finished shouting.
“Lock’s closed, I’m in, clear clear clear—!”
Jess slammed the button and smoke sucked past him, into the cold red shadows of the thundering bay. The flames in the burning corridor suddenly erupted to new life in the silent pump of pressurized air beneath the roar of the shuttle engines.
“Come on, we’re not safe yet!” Lara screamed, and the hysteria in her voice told him what he didn’t want to know, the nuke—
“Ellis, now! Come, heel, listen, we have to go NOW—”
Jess backed into the bay, eyes tearing from frustration and shouting, from the sting of roiling smoke—
—and Max lowered its arms and stepped in after him.
Yeah, follow me, that’s it!
Jess turned and ran for the shuttle as it rattled deafeningly against the deck, as the back hatch folded into a ramp, as Lara yelled for them to hurry—
—and reached the ship’s loading door with Max right behind, the giant steps vibrating over the clatter of the ship.
Jess spun on the ramp and backed in to the shuttle quickly. Max bent its mammoth shoulders forward to clear the ceiling and stepped in after him.
“We’re in, close the hatch, go!”
The last thing Jess saw before the loading door shut was the smoke in the dark bay, the reflected glow of fire—and the long black skull of a running drone, the jaws snatching as it howled without sound against the shuttle’s powering flush.
The shuttle lifted unsteadily as Jess grabbed a support, gasping—
—and they shot out of the bay and into the freedom of space.
30
Lara was pushed back into her seat as the shuttle rocketed from the terminal and into the blackness. She pushed the controls to the maximum, horribly and totally aware that each second mattered, that even one of them would mean the difference between life and death—
“Nemesis—!” Jess shouted.
“No time, fail-safe’s gonna go any second!”
And if we’re not out of initial EMP range, we’re gonna go with it—
For an eternity of tense silence, they waited. Lara watched the distance elapse in a line of growing numbers across the shuttle’s small system monitor, dismally waiting for it all to shut down as they were caught in the shock—
—and the tiny shuttle reached minimum safe. Lara stared at the numbers in disbelief, opened her mouth to tell them—
—and DS Terminal 949 exploded, a white-hot light blasting across the visual monitors as the nuclear device triggered the station’s reactor. The intense light hung suspended, a swirling mass of burning air and ash—and then it was all gone.
Lara collapsed against her seat and looked numbly at the controls, the elation draining away with the souring adrenaline as she caught her breath. Behind her, Jess fumbled at the Max suit.
Lara punched up the shuttle stats, felt the last of her relief dwindle and fade as she tapped in numbers and read the results.
They had about three days before the air recycler stopped working.
She sighed, closed her eyes—and discovered that the thought wasn’t so terrible that she didn’t still have hope.
A lot can happen in three days…
The worst of the nightmare had to be over—and if they had gotten this far, they might as well pretend that they could make it a little farther; stranger things had happened.
It ain’t over till it’s over. Or so they say.
Lara smiled faintly and sat up straighter at the console. She punched up the distress beacon and set it to automatic, then called up navigation and started to lay in coordinates wearily.
* * *
Jess eased Ellis out of the suit and cradled his weightless form gently. The kid looked like shit; blood formed tiny droplets in the air around his face, hair matted to his fragile-looking skull in red-stained sweat. His eyes were closed, and although he breathed deep and even, he didn’t wake up.
“Ellis, can you hear me?”
No answer, but one of his eyelids fluttered at the sound of Jess’s rasping voice, and his pulse was strong and fluid. Whatever the suit had done to his mind, Ellis’s body had come through.
For what it’s worth. We’re in deep space on a transport shuttle, our chances are up to .01 of a percent of a billion…
Ellis mumbled softly and fell silent and still again, unconscious or just deeply asleep, Jess didn’t know. The suit had fucked up something inside of the young tech, and only time would tell if he was gonna pull out of it…
You saved us, kid. No matter what happens now, you saved us.
He held on to Ellis’s relaxed body and tried to believe the hard part was over, let the clean air fill him up, the tension leaving his body with each deep exhalation.
“Will he live?” Lara asked, sounding as tired as he felt.
“I don’t know. As long as any of us, I guess.”
Lara answered musingly, her voice weary and sad—but not despairing, not yet.
“Why did this happen? That’s what I want to know; what information was so important to the Company that they were willing to sacrifice all of us, even a Max?”
Jess shook his head. “Doesn’t matter much now, does it? Everything’s gone.”
For a moment, there was
only silence. Jess stared down at the kid’s still face and wondered if it was worth it, wondered if there was any point to it all; unless they got picked up in a few days, they’d be dead. And only the Company knew they were out here…
When Lara spoke again, Jess was surprised to hear a grin in her voice. “Know any good jokes?”
He was just as surprised by his own smile as they sped through the ocean of dark, a speck of dust in a silent sea.
“We’ll have to make some up,” he said, and closed his eyes for a while.
EPILOGUE
He dreamed that he had risen up above the Earth in a glorious fire of shimmering green and white. He dreamed that he held the lives of the multitude in his blazing hands, that he breathed molten steel and they cried out in awe of his godhood.
In the vision he suddenly became small, high in the clouds above the trembling planet. A human child, falling in terror through the icy skies, plummeting—
—to the realization that it was all a dream.
Brian Ellis relaxed against the soft warmth of his father’s arms and slept on into the night.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Yvonne Navarro is the Bram Stoker Award winning author of over twenty novels. She has written tie-ins to hit TV shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and movie tie-in novels for Aliens, Hellboy, Species, Elektra and Ultraviolet. She lives in Arizona and is married to author Weston Ochse.
Stephani (S. D.) Perry is the author of several tie-in novels to popular series such as Aliens, Alien vs. Predator, Star Trek and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Perry also wrote the movie novelizations for Timecop and Virus. She is the daughter of bestselling sci-fi author Steve Perry and lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.
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Aliens Omnibus 4 Page 44