For a second the thin man looked ready to argue. The look he received convinced him that it would be unwise.
Manning turned to the bruiser with the tattoo on his shaved head.
“Connors, take Groff, Hunsucker, Juergens, and Blake. Head to the far side of this damned thing and find out what’s back there. All of you keep your eyes open. We already know there might be bugs, and we know that three people are missing. Everybody communicates through Cho and the rest of comm.” He spun hard to look at Willis. “Satisfied?”
Willis nodded, looking smugly victorious. If Manning noticed, he didn’t give any indication.
Adams shook her head, a weird smile on her face.
Decker stared at her for a second, reading her amusement.
“What?”
“Suits,” she said. “Nothing’s changed, except Manning lets this feeb think he’s made a difference. This is the same breakdown we’d have had anyway. Two secondary teams, half of each team staying nearby, the other half moving further out to guard the perimeter. Main team—the one we’re with—heads for the last known site of the MIAs. All he did was piss Manning off, so now more people are coming with the main group.”
Decker nodded his head. He was used to dealing with the other end of the scenario. Like as not, there would have been times when he’d have been the Willis in the equation.
A moment later they were heading back for the side of the ship and the long black tube of silicon that rose toward the distant ceiling. Twenty mercenaries headed for the last known location of three missing men.
DiTillio woke in darkness, his body dripping sweat. Something hot and wet was pressing down on his arms, his chest, and he could feel things crawling over him.
“What the fuck?”
If anyone else was around to hear him, they did not answer.
The wetness on his chest pressed down and spread out and he felt hands smoothing the heaviness over his clothes. He was having trouble breathing, but not enough to make him panic. The lack of mobility was causing that. Whatever the stuff was that was covering him, it was hardening quickly.
The air stank of oil and metal and something acrid. He tried to see anything at all, but there was no light.
So when the shape crawled over his face, he had no notion of what it might be, except that it moved on long, thin legs. He tried to shake his head, and the fingers clamped into his hair, pulled tightly over his face.
“What?” Panic ate at him, and he shook his head harder as something wrapped around his neck. It was hot enough that it felt like it would burn his flesh, and it constricted like a hangman’s noose, causing him to choke. Then it loosened a bit.
DiTillio started to speak again, to beg if he had to, but before he could utter a sound something was in his mouth, pressing past his lips, past his teeth and shoving further still.
Panic didn’t even begin to cover what he felt. He tried to thrash his head to the side but the grip was too much. Whatever was in his mouth rammed in harder, pushing into his throat. He would have gagged if he could have, but whatever it was took advantage of the motion and shoved deeper still.
His eyes watered in the darkness. He tried once more to scream.
19
UPWARD TOWARD DARKNESS
As they neared the side of the alien vessel, they saw the blood.
It was Decker who found the first weapon. According to Manning, it belonged to Rodriguez. It was a reaper, much like the one he was wearing holstered on his hip. That hardly inspired confidence. Spatters of blood showed on the ground, and a few more trickled down the side of the ship.
Grimly, they began climbing toward the dark tunnel. It was a relatively simple climb for Decker and the rest.
Emotions were spiking all around him, although there was a lot more anger than fear. Decker sorted through and sought to focus on what was ahead, and he kept coming up with the same thing. There was a pervasive sense of menace that neither grew stronger nor weakened as they climbed.
The blood spots were more frequent as they ascended. Manning gripped the hull nearby, and he called in regularly, keeping Cho and Piotrowicz posted. As they approached the tube, Decker looked down, and could barely see the group at the foot of the ramp, tiny in the distance.
Manning was the first to reach the tunnel’s entrance. He pulled out a powerful light, which he strapped to the shoulder of his armor. Several of the others below him did the exact same thing. Decker felt naked without one, but the lights seemed strong enough to let him see.
The mercenary’s fingers sought a place to grip the interior of the tunnel and found one. He hauled himself up and in. Decker clung there, frozen in place, but Adams was right behind him and tapped his side.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Chief ain’t gonna wait.”
Maybe the sedatives were wearing off. Maybe he was just finally adjusting to them. Whatever the case, he nodded and continued upward, his fingertips finding spots to grip with relative ease. When he reached the tube, he grabbed the edge of the opening, and hoisted himself inside.
Even there, the angle of the tunnel forced him to climb. The spun silicon—which had looked so smooth from below—offered plenty of handholds and footholds alike. There was light moisture clinging to the interior, pooling at times, making it slippery. He felt a hint of claustrophobia, but quickly damped it down.
The sense of malice had not changed—it was still coming from all around them, but the intensity hadn’t increased.
Adams remained directly behind him, the light mounted to her shoulder showing him the best spots. Ahead of him Manning continued to climb as the tunnel shifted, leveling out a bit. The way became easier, and the air itself turned moist. There was a scent that was uncomfortably familiar for no reason he could discern.
Then it hit him. It was the scent of the nightmares he’d been suffering for months. But was it possible to smell something in a dream? He had no idea.
Time lost meaning as they moved, climbing and shifting along the course of the tunnel, and then the oddly organic structure opened up, allowing them to stand. The other mercenaries moved up behind them.
The area couldn’t exactly be called a room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of stuff that seemed like a cross between being a living entity and molded from glass and steel. It was elegant in a way, though there were too many places with shadows that pooled and could hide almost anything. It shone wetly in the illumination thrown by the shoulder lights.
Adams pulled out a motion sensor, and flipped the switch. Nothing. She shook it, slapped it hard on one side, and then stared at it again.
“Damned Weyland-Yutani piece of crap,” she said.
A few of the mercenaries removed the lights from their mounts, and the beams moved dizzyingly over the area. The walls were rounded, and moved smoothly into the ceiling and floor alike. The lights revealed three separate tunnels that stemmed off from the main area, all in different directions.
The smell was worse here.
“Where the hell are we?” Adams asked, and her voice was startlingly loud. Decker shook his head.
“We’re either above the ship, inside of the ship, or we’ve exited the cave altogether,” Manning said. “I don’t know, but we were climbing for a while.” His voice remained calm.
Adams crouched and ran her hand along the surface. Her eyes were wide as she studied the stuff, but her mouth pulled down in revulsion, and she stood up again.
“This shit’s like a spider’s web,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like a web, but it looks like it. Like it’s spun or woven. When I was a kid, my teacher had a colony of funnel spiders in a terrarium. It looked a lot like this. I mean, not exactly, but sort of.”
“First spider I see gets blown to shit. I hate those things,” Sanchez said. He was lean and hard, and looked disconcertingly nervous.
Decker couldn’t blame him.
Manning shot Sanchez a glance, and nodded his agreement.
“Found something.” Adams pointe
d her light toward the base of the wall. There was a substantial pool of liquid there, and the white light revealed it to be blood—likely human. It was already congealing. Manning peered at it, and then turned to Decker.
“Which way, hotshot?”
Decker tried to sort out the sensation that almost seemed like background noise. There was no one focal point to grasp.
He’s not going to like this, he thought.
“I have no idea,” he said.
Manning’s calm faded in an instant, and he leaned in closer until his eyes were inches away from Decker’s world.
“That’s not good enough,” he said, his voice low. “You can sense whatever the fucking things are? Great. Do it. Feel for them, or smell them out, or whatever the hell you’re supposed to be doing, and you tell me where my men are. Or I might just decide that you’re a liability I don’t need.”
Decker felt the merc’s anger flare, and his own flared up in response.
“Get out of my face,” he growled. “I didn’t ask for any of this. You and your employers dragged me here. You act like I’m a fucking bloodhound. Well, I’m not. Yeah, there’s something here that’s fucking evil. I can feel that. But I can’t just perform on command, tell you where that something is, what it looks like, or how many of them there are. It just doesn’t work like that.”
Manning actually got closer. His eyes looked bloody murder, and he spoke with that same calm, despite the rage Decker felt radiating off of him.
“Make. It. Work,” he said. “Find a way. Now.”
Decker held his gaze, then took a step back. He lowered his head, closed his eyes, and clenched his fists.
And damned if he didn’t feel something.
Shit.
“Shit,” he said. “Whatever’s out there, it’s coming this way.”
20
A MOMENT’S PEACE
The five of them walked the area slowly, checking for signs of the missing trio. The lights above them were dim, and seemed even fainter as they moved further around the edge of the gigantic ship.
Connors kept his people in sight at all times. Hunsucker chewed at a lump of gum like it had done his family wrong. The man almost never spoke, but he snapped and popped that damn gum. He was long and lean and his skin was darkly tanned. He had hair so blond it was almost white, and stood out in stark contrast. He was carrying a plasma rifle, and the high-pitched whine of the generator was almost as annoying as the sound of chewing.
That said, Connors forgave all his sins because the little sociopath knew how to use his weapon.
Groff was a brooding presence. He’d been a career Marine and he had the badges to prove it—one arm was covered entirely by scar tissue. Put it together with the other one, and they looked like a “before-and-after.” His hair was close-cropped salt and pepper, while his face looked like it belonged on a younger man. Unlike most of the mercs, he still wore military combat fatigues, and carried his supplies with him almost everywhere he went. Everything about the man made Connors feel a little better about walking in unexplored territory.
Juergens and Blake were by far the most relaxed of the lot. Off to one side, they murmured to each other as they moved along. Blake had secured his flashlight to his pulse rifle, which was also humming. He swung the high-power beam along the underbelly of the ship as they moved beneath it. It was a tight fit, and Juergens made sure to check the structure for integrity. They had no idea how long it had been there, or whether or not it was sound—for all they knew, time might have weakened it.
Better safe than dead.
It was more than his urge to live long enough to become a rich man. Everything about the scenario made him uneasy. Rodriguez was a hard ass. The man didn’t take shit from anyone, and he could handle himself in a firefight. If someone or something had taken Rodriguez out, then that same something was dangerous.
It might be out and looking for another target.
Abruptly Juergens turned his entire body, and aimed back the way they’d come, his light pointing into the shadows.
“Anyone see that?” he said.
“See what?” Connors spun around and looked for anything that didn’t belong.
Nothing.
“Focus your beam, Brent. All you’re doing is making more shadows to chase.”
Juergens didn’t reply, but his light steadied and moved slowly over the large surface.
Connors followed suit, aiming at a different area. Then he froze.
“Hold up,” he said, raising an arm.
There was a shape, still some distance away, slowly heading toward them. It was dark, and the way it moved was unsettling. There were four limbs—legs, possibly—moving under the thing, but above it protrusions rose from the back and bobbed in counterpoint to each step it took. The head was an elongated affair that seemed to belong on something much larger. Its tail was almost as long as the body, and ended in a vicious looking barb.
“What the fuck?” His voice was louder than he intended. He made sure the safety was off on his rail rifle. Thing made a lot of noise when it was fired, but whatever got hit knew good and damned well that it was time to die.
“I see it too,” Juergens said, his voice high.
“Me, too,” Blake said, keeping it low. “What is it?”
It looked almost as if it was made of the same dark glassy substance as the rough tunnels that wove above them and along the distant wall, and even from a distance they could see the shape of the thing’s innards under that glossy exoskeleton. Before Connors could respond, it charged, hissing like a broken steam pipe.
Groff opened fire, and three rounds from his pulse rifle carved trenches in the dirt. The fourth nailed the approaching thing in the leg and blew that limb apart.
The hissing noise became a high-pitched shriek, and the creature fell forward, hitting the ground and bleeding fiercely through the gaping hole where the leg had been a moment before. The ground smoldered and smoked.
“They might secrete a liquid that’s toxic, or caustic, or both.” Still squealing, the thing lunged toward Groff. The merc stepped back and fired another stream of rounds. He was fast, and he was good, and the thing took several more hits before it crashed to the ground and shuddered and… Please God… died.
Connors got on the comm.
“Manning! We’ve got something here. I think we killed it but it’s hard to tell.” His voice shook. He wished it could have been excitement, but it was fear. Everything about the creature was terrifying. The way it moved, the way it looked—even the way it died.
Manning didn’t respond. Connors frowned.
Juergens pointed to his helmet, then to Connors.
“Comm’s dead. Whatever that thing bleeds, it got your helmet.” Connors pulled it off quickly, and looked at the damage. It could only have been a few drops of whatever passed for blood in the nightmare, but that had been enough. The unit was slagged, and a hole had burned partially through the durable shell of the helmet itself. He flipped the helmet over and realized that the caustic fluid was still burning through. Hydrogen fluoride, was that what the damned file said? He wished they could have brought the downloads with them now. He wished he’d read a little more carefully.
If Juergens hadn’t pointed out the damage, there was a chance it would have reached his scalp. Before he could say thanks, Groff spoke up.
“Look lively,” he growled. “We’ve got company.” He leveled his pulse rifle. Hunsucker’s plasma rifle whined a little louder as he took off the safety.
The darkness came to life. That was the only way to put it. The shadows in the distance began moving, seething, and as Connors watched, those shadows broke into smaller forms. He tried counting, but they were too fast and there were too many of them.
Hunsucker took careful aim and fired. A flash of light ripped from his weapon, illuminating everything around them. The ball of plasma burned hot enough to catch the air on fire, and all of them squinted as the missile struck its target. The creature was fast, a
nd almost managed to dodge the blast, but almost didn’t count when it came to plasma.
It had enough time to hiss before half of its head melted away.
The creature was dead before it hit the ground. Its wound was cauterized. None of that caustic crap spilled this time.
But there were more where that came from. Hunsucker smiled and fired again, the light nearly blinding them all. This time he missed—his target dropped lower, squatting like a long-limbed spider, and scurried forward. The tiny ball of plasma hit the ship and burned, melting into the ancient surface, leaving a smoking crater as evidence of its passing.
And then the thing jumped, moving with unsettling agility, twisting its body to allow it to kick off the underside of the ship and run directly into Hunsucker even as he tried to track it with the tip of his rifle. The barrel pointed at Connors, who hit the ground to avoid it.
The merc tried to bring the weapon around, but the thing on top of him pinned his arm to the ground with a powerful grip, and the thick claws at the end of the nightmarish fingers drove through flesh and muscle and bone with unsettling ease.
Hunsucker screamed and kicked at it, but the creature didn’t seem to care in the least. The weapon in Hunsucker’s hand fell free. He kicked again and sent the monster staggering back. The merc rolled back to his feet as quickly as he could. The thing spun hard and fast, and that serrated tail slapped him in the chest hard enough to lift him off his feet and throw him against the ship.
Cries from the other three pulled his attention away. He knew instantly that everything was jacked up beyond reason. Everything. The nightmares were coming closer, and there were a lot of them. His skin tightened, and his pulse rocketed.
Groff stood his ground and opened fire, cutting down one, two, three before the rest of them got to his location. He screamed as they swarmed over him like insects.
“Too many! Too many,” Connors screamed. “Retreat!”
Hunsucker was down and out, bleeding from his ruined arm, and the thing that had attacked him was pulling him along the ground, dragging him away from the rest of the combatants.
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