The Complete Aliens Omnibus, Volume One (Earth Hive, Nightmare Asylum, the Female War)

by Steve Perry

  Ahead was Stephens’s cabin, and something drew Billie that way. He wouldn’t be using it—one of the bodies she’d seen spaced had been the colonel. Surprised her, that he would die defending the ship, but maybe she’d read him wrong.

  As Billie approached the door, it started to open.

  Damn, somebody was inside!

  She glanced up and down the corridor. She’d never get clear in time. Whoever came out of Stephens’s cabin would see her before she could get to cover. If he was armed, she’d catch one in the back.

  Billie raised the rolling pin, triggered the freezer, and flattened herself against the wall to the right of the sliding door. She hoped it was only one of them.

  As the man stepped out into the corridor, Billie swung the rolling pin. The liquid inside hadn’t solidified yet, but the pin was still heavy.

  She smashed the pin into the man’s head, angled just over his left ear. She put her shoulder and back into it, it was a good swing, powered further by her fear. The thick plastic shattered as it met bone, probably cracking the skull as well. Viscous blue coolant splashed from the broken pin, covering the man’s face with cold globules.

  He didn’t go down. He staggered, slammed into the doorjamb, and wobbled, but he didn’t go down.

  Billie stepped in and drove her left hand at the man’s belly, just below the sternum. The peeler sank into his flesh all the way to her hand.

  White fluid sprayed from the wound onto her as she jerked the peeler out.

  Android blood, she realized, as she tried for the second stab. He was an artificial person.

  The android managed to twist and slap at her hand, partially deflecting the second thrust so it missed his solar plexus and skidded over his ribs, gouging chunks of his uniform and flesh out, leaving a shallow ditch that stretched from the center of his chest almost to his shoulder.

  The coolant from the rolling pin clouded his vision, though, and his own punch missed Billie by a hair. As he wiped at his eyes, it gave Billie enough time for one more shot. If she didn’t drop him with it, he would have her. Even a wounded android was still stronger than an ordinary human.

  Billie jabbed, a long stroke, aiming at his eye. Growing up in a hospital you learned something about anatomy. The eyes were the easiest path through the skull to the brain.

  The peeler hit just under her target, bounced up, and sank through the softer eye tissue. Jelly oozed from the ruined eye as the peeler went in.

  The android jerked away from Billie, reached up with both hands, and jerked the peeler out. The serrated edge brought most of the eye out with it, clearing the socket until milky white circulating fluid welled and spilled.

  He stood here for what seemed a long time, then collapsed. He didn’t say anything, not even a groan, just dropped as if his bones had vanished, and died.

  Billie’s heart raced, pounding as though trying to dig its way out of her body. She still held part of the shattered rolling pin in her right hand. She let it fall. The clatter it made seemed loud in the corridor.

  Her first reaction was to turn and run, but she didn’t. Instead, she wondered why the android had been in Stephens’s cabin.

  Inside, she figured it out. The parts missing from the carbines were stacked neatly in rows on the colonel’s bed. Who would have put them there? Somebody had sabotaged the weapons, and it looked like she had found out who. Why had he done it? It didn’t matter, she could worry about that later. Right now, she had other things on her mind.

  Billie picked up one of the feed ramps, stripped the receiver on her weapon, and replaced the missing part. She snapped the connector into place and the ramp toggled through a diagnostic code and then clicked into place. She shoved a magazine into the carbine, touched the bolt control, and cycled a round into the firing chamber. The magazine’s counter showed ninety-nine antipersonnel rounds remaining.

  Billie smiled. It was tight, but she felt a lot better. If the headshrinkers in the clinic could see her now, they’d really have something to worry about: good God, it’s a crazy woman with a gun!

  Damn straight. And if anybody gave her any shit, she was going to invite them onto the dance floor for a fast and deadly tattoo tango.

  Wilks. She would go find Wilks and get him loose. He’d know how to handle this. And once she got Wilks, they could collect Mitch and get the hell out of this mess. Maybe it wasn’t the best plan in the universe, but it would do for now.

  She hoped.

  21

  Massey watched as the other six air pods arrived in the vicinity of the 1st Squad’s hive.

  Watched the various angles the cameras gave him as the marines began shooting the pods out of the sky.

  Well, well. They must have gotten hold of some of the downed weaponry. At least two plasma rifles were working from the ground, spearing his troops with brilliant green spikes.

  His androids were pretty good, but they were general-purpose expendables, strong and quick, not extensively trained for formal combat scenarios. In this kind of thing the marines had the edge, even though they weren’t armed very well. Three of the six pods flamed out and crashed; the other three quickly pulled out of range and hovered over the area.

  “Commander,” came the query from the com, “we have a problem here.”

  “I’m not blind,” Massey said. “Hold your position. Keep them in sight.”

  He leaned back in his chair and rubbed at his chin. He turned away and called to the android standing guard at the door. “Go get Wilks and bring him here.”

  The android left.

  Hmm. Yes, this was much more challenging than he had expected. Still, it was a minor setback. He had uploaded a raft of information about the planet, and his primary mission, to keep the government from securing an alien specimen, was accomplished. Should he continue this, or cut his losses and go home? On the one hand, he’d done pretty much what they wanted him to do—he could tell the company that the surface teams had been destroyed by alien wildlife and they would shrug it off as nothing. The company had its specimen, another one would only be backup. On the other hand, he hated the idea of even a partial failure.

  Yes, it was an interesting question. He’d have to think about it a little more.

  * * *

  It was blind luck that let Billie see the pirate moving Wilks along, a gun jammed into the marine’s back. Wilks had his hands crossed behind him and held with a thin carbon-fiber cuffstrip. The man—or was it another android?—herding Wilks along didn’t glance down the corridor as he passed, his attention being on his prisoner, so he didn’t see Billie crouched down by a radiator heat sink.

  When they had gone by, Billie stood and cat-footed to the end of the cross corridor. She peeped around the corner in time to see them turn toward the control deck. Well, she had wanted to find Wilks and now she had. She slipped into the main corridor and started after the two.

  * * *

  Wilks had a feeling that wherever he was going, he might not be leaving under his own power. What the hell, he figured. He’d been living on borrowed time for more than a decade. He should have died with his squad back on Rim. It had all been gravy since, and not real tasty most of the time anyhow. Fuck it. If his number was up, then his number was up. He was going to go down like a man.

  * * *

  Bueller had the squad dispersed and shifting positions every few seconds. They were lucky the air pods hadn’t been designed for anything other than quick and dirty transportation—the little craft didn’t have much in the way of sensing gear, only basic radar and Doppler, no sniffers or IR. And no weapons except what the passengers themselves carried. Since the androids flying the pods had to rely on their own senses for targeting, the camo suits the marines wore made it difficult to see them. They were hard to see but the pods weren’t. And the two plasma rifles the squad had would reach the same distance as the ones in the pods. So if they came down within range to splash the marines, they risked getting smoked themselves. And since they were much bigger and bette
r targets, so far the score was marines three, pirates nada.

  Then again, they couldn’t sit here on the ground much longer. Sooner or later the bugs would come swarming out of the mound and that would make things more than a little worse for the squad. They couldn’t afford to be pinned down here.

  “Okay, everybody listen up,” Bueller said, using his scrambled opchan. “We got to move out before company comes looking for dinner, everybody copy? On my signal, we rocket, magnetic south. Ramirez, you take point, Blake you cover. Everybody else keep your head down and give me asses and elbows.”

  Bueller didn’t think the pirates could tap their opchan, but he remembered the lesson he’d learned from Wilks when he and Easley had gotten nailed during a practice assault back on Earth. “On my signal, marines, gainsay prior.”

  The last was a code. It meant move at 180 degrees to the last order. If the pirates did have an ear tuned to their private line, they’d be looking for the marines to move south. The squad would be going north, however, and it might buy them a few hundred more meters.

  “Go!”

  The captured android had been listening to Bueller give the order. Bueller didn’t think about it until they were moving—the android didn’t know their codes. When the marines scrambled, the pirate android went the wrong way.

  “Hey!” Bueller yelled.

  Too late. One of the pods swooped down to the south of their position, a plasma rifle on full auto. Its charge wouldn’t last long firing that way, but hosing could cause a lot of damage in a short time. The ground smoked and cratered; rocks screamed as they shattered under the blasts of energy; the pirate android tried to stop but ran into the dancing lines of green death. His internal fluids boiled and he exploded like a water balloon stuck with a sharp knife. Well, it was quick. He wouldn’t have suffered much.

  Blake pulled up, spun, and sighted at the pod. The craft looped from its dive and started to lift.

  “Too far,” Bueller yelled. “Don’t waste your shot!”

  Blake grinned, her smile wide. She kept both eyes open as she aimed, followed the pod with her rifle, then squeezed off the plasma bolt.

  It was five hundred meters if it was a centimeter, a fast-moving target. Not much chance of hitting it, Bueller thought.

  The green beam drilled the pod dead center. The energy bolt coruscated against the heavy plastic, ate its way through in less time than it took a nervous man to blink, and burned out the pod’s repellors. The pod seemed to hang motionless for a heartbeat, suspended in time and space, then it fell like a fat lead ball dropped in heavy gravity. Without the repellor, an air pod had the aerodynamics of a round brick. They were close enough to hear the atmosphere whistle across the hole the plasma bolt made. The thing hit the ground hard enough to make the hard dirt splash.

  “Nice shot,” Bueller said.

  “Like duck hunting,” she said. “Got to lead the target a little, that’s all.”

  They ran.

  The remaining two pods circled high overhead, keeping well out of range.

  “Where are we going?” Chin yelled.

  “To the APC.”

  “It’s the other way!”

  “I know. We’ll circle around. Let them think we’re lost. Once it gets dark we can lose these slush-brains.”

  “Yeah,” Mbutu said, “but can we lose them?”

  Behind the running marines, aliens began to emerge from the nest.

  * * *

  Massey dismissed the android. He turned to Wilks and said, “Your marines have proven quite adept down there. Seems they managed to get their hands on a couple of weapons and now they’re making a run for it.”

  Wilks grinned. “That’s too bad. I hope that hasn’t upset your little plan any.”

  Massey pulled his antique pistol from its holster and stuck it under Wilks’s chin, shoving the barrel into his flesh. “Here’s an idea: Why don’t you call them and tell them to surrender?”

  Wilks managed to grin even wider. “You gonna do what, kill me if I don’t?”

  Massey laughed, backed off a little with the pistol. “It’s nice to work with professionals after all the scum I usually have to deal with. You know I’m going to kill you no matter what.”

  “I sort of suspected that.”

  “It’s necessary, you know. But you can go hard or you can go easy.” Massey holstered the gun and pulled a thin boot knife. The stainless steel glittered in the overhead lights. The knife was only about seventeen or eighteen centimeters long, half of that handle, but it didn’t take much in the hands of an expert. Wilks didn’t doubt that Massey knew how to use it.

  “Hell, my dick is bigger than that,” Wilks said.

  “Not for long.”

  Wilks gathered himself. His hands were bound behind him, but he could use his feet. Doubtless Massey knew hand-to-hand, but better to die trying than not.

  The com chimed.

  Massey moved back, outside of Wilks’s range, and touched a control. “Commander, the marines have shot down another of our pods. They are moving north, away from the APC coordinates.”

  “They aren’t that stupid,” Massey said. “Stay with them. Targets of opportunity.” He glanced at Wilks, then back at the com. He touched other controls on the board. A timer lit the air in one corner of the standard screen projection. It began to count down.

  “Better safe than sorry,” he said.

  Wilks went for it. He took a couple of quick steps toward Massey.

  Massey laughed and snapped up a sidekick. The move was almost lazy, a contemptuous strike. His boot caught Wilks in the belly and knocked him down. He hit hard, unable to use his hands to break his fall. He dug with his heels in a futile effort to get up. He’d never make it.

  Massey twirled the knife in his hand. “This game is being called on account of rain,” he said. “Time to take my winnings and go home. So long, Sergeant Wilks.” He started toward the helpless marine.

  “Drop it!” came a woman’s voice from behind Massey.

  * * *

  Evening threw long shadows over the alien landscape, and as the sun settled for the night, Bueller and his squad started their circle toward the APC. It was harder to see the air pods trailing them, and therefore it would be harder for the pirates to see them, too.

  “What about the aliens?” Bueller asked.

  Mbutu shook her head. “They must have lousy senses of smell,” she said. “When we cut left back there, they kept going straight. Crummy trackers.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Maybe,” Ramirez said. “Or maybe there’s something in this direction they don’t want to run into. Something meaner than they are.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Ramirez, you always look on the bright side of things,” Blake said.

  “Fuck you, Blake.”

  “You wish. If you had anything bigger than a toothpick I might consider it.”

  Bueller grinned. They might all die out here, but if they could make jokes, then morale was higher than it had been since the pirates had boarded them.

  “Let’s hustle it up, marines. We got places to go and things to do.”

  * * *

  Billie had the carbine aimed at the pirate’s heart and if he made any sudden moves she was going to carve it out of him.

  The man grinned as he let the knife fall. He looked like some of the psychotics Billie had seen in the lockdown section of the hospital.

  “Well, well. What have we here? You the ship’s mascot?”

  “Stay real still.”

  “So that explains the extra on the head count. You can’t be one of those ugly marines, you’re too pretty. Crew smuggle you onboard for fun and games, maybe?”

  Wilks said, “Shoot him, Billie. Shoot him now!”

  The man glanced at Wilks. “Ah. Friend of yours, eh, Sergeant? You have nice taste.” He turned back toward Billie. Slid a half step toward her, hands outstretched wide, trying to look harmless.

  “Another step and I punch yo
ur ticket,” she said.

  “Come on. Sweet little thing like you? You don’t want to kill me. Think about what it would be like, being responsible for the death of another human being. It’ll give you bad dreams, honey.” He slid another half step forward.

  Billie swallowed, her mouth dry. This man was a killer, she had seen the bodies get spaced. And he had done something with Mitch. But his hands were in the air. Shooting somebody down like this, it was different from thunking the android on the head.

  Billie shuffled back a step. “I’m telling you to stop right there.”

  Wilks managed to lever himself to his feet by leaning against a bulkhead. “Billie, this guy is a murderer! You have to put him down! Shoot!”

  She glanced at Wilks.

  A mistake.

  As soon as her attention left the pirate, he leapt. God, he was fast! Billie pulled the trigger on the carbine, but he was already twisting, dropping under the line of her fire. Half a dozen rounds shattered a computer console, the noise was awful, lights flickered as the power surged and shorted in the plugged console—

  She tried to realign the weapon but too late. He hit her above the knees, and she did a half flip forward and landed on her back—

  “Stupid bitch!” he said as he rolled up and caught Billie by the shoulders. “Point a goddamn gun at me!” He snatched her from the floor and threw her against the bulkhead.

  Billie went gray as her head slammed against the wall. Even as she bounced off, he was on her, one hand grabbing her shirt, the other slapping her face. “I don’t need a weapon, you stupid cunt, I could tear your throat out with my fingers!” He slapped her again. Billie felt a tooth cut the inside of her lip. Blood sprayed from her mouth as he slapped her the third time. He shoved her back against the wall, lifted her feet clear of the deck by her shirt. Pulled his pistol from his holster. Grinned like a maniac.