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

by Steve Perry

The worker squawked once, fell, hit the deck, hard.

  Wilks dropped and clapped a hand over the man’s mouth, but the guy wasn’t moving. Apparently he’d hit his head and was out cold.

  It all happened in the space of a few breaths.

  “Nice move,” Wilks said.

  “No one else inside now,” Dunston said. “But hurry. Somebody’s coming.”

  * * *

  Billie and the doctor were almost to the dock when they heard footsteps running toward them.

  Billie froze, laying her free hand on the doctor’s arm. He stopped and looked at her, his own dark features a mask of anxiety. She felt as though time had slowed to a crawl, but excuses ran through her head at lightning speed. We’re on our way to a medical emergency, I’m assisting, he’s a doctor, we’re teaching a class—

  Adcox appeared in front of them, out of breath. Billie and Jones let out shuddery sighs in unison, but the lieutenant’s expression was frantic. She grabbed one of their bags.

  ‘Trouble,” she said, and turned back toward the dock.

  Billie fell in beside Char and Jones at a jog. Adcox hadn’t wasted any more air by telling them what had happened, and Billie didn’t ask; they would find out soon enough.

  * * *

  Wilks dragged the worker inside before turning to Dunston. “Who’s coming?” he said.

  “Another worker.”

  “How—?” Wilks started to ask Dunston how he could possibly know, if he’d had some extrasensory flash or something, when he saw the evidence himself.

  There was a table in one corner of the large room where the downed man had evidently been about to sit for breakfast. Except that there were two trays set out, two chairs, and two steaming cups of dark liquid.

  “Pretty mystical,” said Dunston. “Ancient secret of the Orient, multiple-coffee awareness.”

  Adcox arrived, trailed by Billie and Jones.

  Wilks turned to her. “Get everyone in here, now. We’re expecting company.”

  Tully was already working on the air lock; Falk had stepped back into the corridor to help the others bring in the equipment.

  Wilks looked at Ripley and saw the same question on her face that he felt on his own: How much time?

  * * *

  Billie ran into the workroom, Falk shut the door behind her, and Carvey crouched to the floor with a welder. Light too bright to look at flashed. Carvey quickly melted part of the heavy plastic door to the frame and then stepped back.

  Moto unpacked one of the carbines and pointed it at the now-jammed entry.

  Tully tapped in codes at the air lock.

  “Come on,” said Ripley, jaw tight.

  “Okay, okay…” said Tully, almost to herself. “And—got it!”

  The air lock door slid open. Tully unplugged her portable and ran the few steps to the hatch of the Kurtz. She hooked the portable to the new hatch.

  McQuade stepped in after her. The others stood tensed, ready to rush in—

  Behind them, the door mechanism to the D6 entry buzzed. It buzzed again, longer this time, the sound edged with a high-pitched mechanical whine. It could have only been a second or two, but it seemed a lot longer. Then someone pounded at the door.

  “Diestler!” called a female voice, muffled through the thick plastic. “Hey, open up!”

  The man on the floor groaned slightly and rolled his head to one side. Diestler, apparently.

  Moto pointed her weapon at him, but he didn’t move again.

  Ripley turned to look at Wilks, but he was already headed to the entryway.

  The pounding continued. “You asshole! This shit’s getting cold, open up!”

  Wilks punched the entry button. The mechanism whined again, but the door remained closed.

  “Hold on!” shouted Wilks. “Door’s stuck!”

  There was a pause. Ripley gritted her teeth and hoped that Wilks sounded at least remotely like the unconscious worker.

  “Well, no shit,” said the woman on the other side. “Come on, wonder-tech, fix the goddamn thing, my breakfast is dying out here.”

  Ripley could see the crew members relax a little. Wilks had just bought them a little time.

  Tully stopped typing and motioned for McQuade to step forward. A quiet computerized voice came from the monitor at face level.

  “Command pilot please enter vocal access code now.”

  “McQuade, Eric D., captain. A-seven-zero-five-oh-B,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  Tully input the final code, a grin spreading across her face. With a triumphant flourish, she pressed “enter.”

  Ripley grinned. Almost there—

  Nothing happened.

  “Invalid code. Access denied. Please enter new code now.”

  * * *

  Wilks picked up the tool that Diestler had dropped and stared at it. It was some kind of computer hookup, an oblong box with several conductors and prongs on one side.

  The woman called impatiently from the other side. “Come on, Diestler, or I’m going to sit on the fucking floor and eat it all—yours, too. Don’t tell me you did this door all by yourself while I was gone.”

  Wilks looked at the box in his hands and stopped. Of course, of course!

  “Diestler? Say something.” The woman sounded suspicious now. “What are you doing, anyway? You beating off in there or something?”

  “Just a sec,” said Wilks. “I’m trying the code on this one.” It would have to hold her. He turned and ran, as quietly as he could, back to the air lock.

  * * *

  “I don’t have any new codes!” said Tully. “This is it! They must have changed them since yesterday!”

  The crew stood around her, tense.

  “Can we blow the door?” said Jones.

  “Not without alarms,” said Falk. The big man looked angry. “And that wouldn’t do us much good, to have a big fucking hole in our escape ship.”

  Billie felt despair rise inside her. To be stopped by a fucking door—

  Wilks shoved past her and handed a box to Tully. “Plug this in,” he said. “Quick!”

  She grabbed it and jammed the conductor into the opening of her portable.

  Ripley looked at Wilks. “What—”

  “New access codes, got to be. The general is more paranoid than we thought.”

  The hatch of the Kurtz popped open.

  * * *

  McQuade and Ripley strapped themselves in at the console while the others moved around behind them, preparing for flight. Wilks stood next to the two pilots. With any luck, the female tech hadn’t alerted anyone yet. If she had, they would be thoroughly fucked.

  As McQuade punched the disengage controls, a voice crackled out over the intercom.

  “Ah, Kurtz pilot, identify yourself, please.”

  “This is Captain Eric McQuade. And who is this?” He spoke gruffly, impatiently.

  “Sir. This is Lieutenant Dunn, sir, of the Kirkland. Please state purpose and authorization. Sir.”

  “Operation Arrowhead,” said McQuade. He sounded bored. “Access P-two-one-four-oh-two.” General Peters’s code.

  There was a pause. “Sir? We have no missions scheduled from this sector.” Dunn sounded very young and very nervous. “Could you please wait while I raise the general—sir?”

  “Jesus Christ! Peters schedules another bug-hunt without telling some dumbshit lieutenant and now we have to wait until you drag him out of bed to okay it again? Think, son! Why would we want to go on this trip? For fun?” McQuade paused. “Fine. Go ahead. But you better hope the general is in a good mood. Lieutenant.”

  There was another pause, and Dunn spoke again, obviously cowed. “I’m sorry, sir. Um. Go ahead, access cleared and verified. Good luck, sir.”

  Wilks and Ripley grinned at one another and Wilks slapped McQuade on the back. From behind them, Wilks could hear the others laughing. He walked back to strap himself in, feeling vaguely sorry for Lieutenant Dunn; by the time he got hold of the general for verifica
tion, they’d be way out of range. And there would be hell to pay for it. Too bad.

  Billie smiled at him when he sat down. “Score one for the good guys,” she said.

  He adjusted his seat before he answered. “That was the easy part.”

  She nodded, and her smile faltered slightly. Wilks leaned his head against the back of his chair and let out a deep breath.

  They were in it all the way now.

  10

  Ripley was the last one awake on the Kurtz. She double-checked the course setting in the dimly lit room, shivering slightly from the cold. She wore only a tank top and underwear, fine for the sleep chamber but little protection from the frigid stillness of the ship; the air warmers and recyclers had already been dialed down to minimum. The system would kick back on a couple of hours before they woke up—or before she woke up. She had reset the controls on her chamber to rouse her an hour before the others. No good reason, really, just instinct. The last of the preparations made, she turned away from the computer and padded barefoot to her chamber. All around her, the crew members rested, already in their own dreamworlds. Ripley hoped they slept well; so far, the men and women of the Kurtz had done okay, and she was glad to have their help.

  She looked around the room a final time before climbing into her own sleep-box, and wondered if she would dream during the sleep that was so like a shadow of death…

  Ripley shivered again as she triggered the mechanism, but not so much from the cold as before.

  * * *

  Wilks had been here before, he was sure of it. He was standing in a dark place, the air around him alive with fear and tension.

  “—they’re all around us!” Someone yelled behind him. Familiar, like the rest of it. A warning horn screamed somewhere ahead of him in the hot, wet darkness. Huge coils of glistening black covered the walls all around him.

  “No,” he said softly.

  It couldn’t be. He, they were on Rim. Where the aliens had killed his unit, where he was going to die—

  “Shut the fuck up!” Wilks yelled out. He knew what had to be done. He’d done it before. “Maintain your field of fire, we’re gonna be fine!”

  Eight of the squad were dead; as a corporal, he was ranking noncom, he had to stay in control—

  He heard shots in the alien den; the sound of a caseless carbine pounded his ears.

  A little girl clung to his arm, crying. Billie.

  “Easy, honey,” he said. As he picked her up she turned her tear-streaked face up to look at him while all around the creatures screamed and weapons screamed back at them. “We’re gonna be fine. We’re going back to the ship, everything is gonna be okay.”

  He was trying to run but his legs had been dipped in plastecrete. Everything was happening too fast and he couldn’t move. He shouted more orders, unable to see who he called out to. Who was left?

  “Shoot for targets, triplets only! We don’t have enough ammo to waste on full auto suppressive fire!”

  There was a sealed door ahead. They would have to cut their way out, fast. The reactor was approaching meltdown and a swarm of the killing things was right behind—

  Billie screamed when he tried to put her down. God, she was so small, so helpless! “I gotta open the door,” he said.

  Someone stepped out of the darkness to hold her. He turned, grateful, and—

  “Leslie?” She was dressed in camo, a carbine slung over one shoulder.

  “Got her,” she said. She smiled easily.

  Wrong, this part was wrong—

  No time to think. He pulled a plasma cutter from his belt, triggered it. The stacked carbon lock melted and ran like water as he waved the cutter back and forth.

  The door slid up.

  He knew what was coming, knew that the queen would be there, waiting to take him. He had dreamed it before…

  But—no.

  He stepped forward into a black, empty corridor and the sounds behind him fell away. It was dead quiet.

  Billie stood there. Not the little girl she had been only a minute before. She was grown, a woman, wearing an untabbed soldier’s uniform. He could see one of her small breasts exposed, glistening with sweat. She walked toward him, her face calm and beautiful.

  “David,” she whispered, and pressed up against him.

  His lower belly tingled, penis suddenly hard and straining.

  He felt dizzy. No, this was wrong. But he went with it. “Billie,” he said, “we have to get out of here, there’s no time—”

  She silenced his mouth with hers, traced his lips with her soft tongue. He closed his eyes as she moved her hands over his chest and downward, circling…

  As he gave himself over to the pleasure, the noise behind them suddenly washed back over him. Alarms and gunfire and screams—

  He jerked himself away from Billie and grabbed at his belt, opening his eyes. Quickly, a weapon, something!

  He was alone, unarmed. He spun around in a circle, looking for Billie, looking for anybody

  He heard the aliens getting closer, but couldn’t see anything.

  A computer-chip voice informed him that meltdown would occur in five seconds.

  “No!” he cried out, fell to his knees. “No, no, no—”

  “Three seconds. Two. One. Meltdown—”

  The world turned white.

  * * *

  Billie and Ripley walked side by side down a dark, debris-littered tunnel on Earth. It was neither warm nor cold; the air was still and silent. Billie turned to look at Ripley several times, but the older woman kept her eyes straight ahead.

  They were looking for Amy. Billie guessed that they were in some kind of transportation shaft; she wanted to ask Ripley, but couldn’t find the words. She said nothing.

  Billie felt anxious, scared that they would miss Amy somehow. She was reassured that Ripley was with her, knew that if anyone could find the little girl, it would be her. Besides, it didn’t matter who found her, as long as she was okay…

  They came to a fork in the tunnel, both of the corridors leading off into darkness. Without speaking, Ripley started down the one to the left. Billie wanted to go with her, but Amy could be in either one. She walked into the other tunnel alone.

  She kept up a steady pace for what seemed like hours, headed in a straight line. The only sounds were her footsteps and breathing, echoing off into nothing. She knew she shouldn’t be able to see at all, there being no lights, but for some reason she could make out each section of the tunnel for a few feet in front of her. She walked on.

  Suddenly, she heard a sound ahead of her. She stopped and listened. A child was crying, the lonely wail carrying through the dark corridor and surrounding her. The acoustics were distorted; she couldn’t tell how far away she was…

  “Amy!” She called out.

  The crying continued.

  Billie started to run, certain that it was her. “Hold on, Amy! I’m coming!” The sound of her voice was strange and somehow flat in the echoey chamber.

  She ran for a long time until she saw a bend in the tunnel. She knew that Amy would be around the corner, and cried out, happy. After all this time, finally

  “Amy!” She ran around the corner. Stopped, heart pounding. Dark despair fell onto her, a hard rain, cold and awful.

  The tunnel forked again into five spokes. Far away she could hear Amy crying, and try as she might she couldn’t tell which tunnel it came from.

  “Where are you?” She called out, but there was no answer except for the sobs of the lost little girl.

  Billie sank to the floor, feeling more alone than she ever had in her life, cradling her head in her arms. She began to cry herself, feeling as lost and scared as the unseen child.

  From somewhere distant, she heard someone call her name, but it wasn’t Amy. She didn’t have the strength to reply, and she didn’t care. She would never find Amy, she knew that now.

  She wept until she was awash in tears. There was no hope.

  No hope at all.

  11<
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  Ripley slipped her feet into a pair of boots and yawned widely. She felt grainy and exhausted, hung over from sleep. She knew that it would eventually wear off once she got moving, but that didn’t stop her from a vague, wistful feeling as she looked around at the slumbering crew members. There were times when just staying asleep seemed infinitely better than getting up.

  She sighed, stood, stretched her arms over her head, then bent to touch her toes. A half-remembered line occurred to her as she flexed her arms—something about an early bird getting the jump on others. The air cyclers had kicked on as scheduled, a low mechanical hum in the quiet sleep area, but the room was still cold enough for her breath to show. It would be warmer by the time the others got up—apparently early birds were hot-blooded creatures.

  Her sleep had been deep and dreamless and she had awakened, though not refreshed, at least ready to get on with things. Her general plan to get the queen to Earth was okay, if perhaps not altogether reasonable. The specifics were still hazy. Like getting the goddamned thing onboard, for one—the creature probably wasn’t going to just hop into the hold if they asked politely: Excuse me, bitch, would you step this way?

  Well, one thing at a time; they had three days before they reached the queen’s planet, plenty of time to come up with something.

  Ripley had seen the layout of the Kurtz onscreen back at Gateway, but maybe walking it would trigger some ideas.

  She went out into the chilled corridor.

  The Kurtz was a two-function freighter, built not only for deepspace but also to enter a planet’s gravity and land. It was shaped like an old-style bullet with fins—flat on the bottom, with rudimentary wings—and was aerodynamic, more or less. She’d learned to fly in similar vessels, had gotten her ticket as a pilot in a ship not too different from this one.

  The upper level where she now stood was a series of rooms bisected by a main corridor that ran the length of the vessel. The command control room was forward and to her left. Across from her were a series of doors running down the hall: crew’s quarters.

  So, let’s take a little tour, shall we?

  She began to walk to the rear of the ship.

  Each room would have its own ’fresher, but the shower was communal to help regulate water supply. It stood in between the last cubicle and a small workout room. Beyond the gym and aft was the med center, which looked cold and sterile behind the clear plexiflex door. With any luck, they’d have no need for the facility…