As soon as the humans began to move, the Predator who was stalking them from behind crossed the passageway and edged closer to its prey.
Meanwhile at the opposite end of the corridor, far ahead of the humans, another Predator morphed to visibility, its face briefly superimposed over the features of a stone statue before vanishing again.
The trap was ready to be sprung, and in the uncertain light of the sputtering flare, it was impossible for the humans to know that they were moving into the Predators’ carefully prepared ambush.
The Piper Maru
The bridge lights were burning, and despite the fact that the ship was on anchor, a full complement of officers was working on deck. The radar operator made countless futile attempts to pierce the wall of snow, while the ship’s meteorologist tried to calculate the duration of the storm based on very sketchy data.
“Is the end in sight?” Captain Leighton asked.
“I’d guess four hours. Six at the outside,” the meteorologist replied. “But it’s just a guess.”
Captain Leighton crossed the bridge and dropped a heavy hand on the radioman’s shoulder.
“Anything? Anything at all?”
“Nothing, Captain… not since the first message. The one the chief picked up.”
Leighton turned to his executive officer. “What exactly did you hear, Gordon?”
“Not much,” the XO replied. “The transmission was broken up by the storm. There was a lot of static. Some panicked voices… nothing coherent.”
“You’re sure the call came from the whaling station?”
“They identified themselves as members of Quinn’s party. Said something had attacked them… or some of them… I couldn’t quite make out the rest. I tried to respond, but I don’t think they heard me. After that, all I got was static.”
“An attack? Ridiculous,” Leighton declared. “Who could possibly mount an attack down here, and in the middle of a katabatic storm?”
“Maybe it was whoever buzzed our ship,” the XO replied.
Leighton stared into the tempest. “We have too many questions and not enough answers. And we’re not likely to get any until this storm ends and we can cross the ice to the whaling station to see for ourselves.” The captain paused to rub his tired eyes. “By then we may be too late.”
CHAPTER 22
In the Labyrinth
Stone was the first to die.
Covering the group’s tail, MP-5 in his hand, he never even noticed the wire-thin noose that dropped around his throat until it was pulled tight and his windpipe had closed shut.
With a jerk on the wire his spine snapped. Then, silent and unseen, his twitching corpse was hauled upward, into the shadows.
A moment later, Bass faltered as a breeze brushed his cheek.
He turned at the same moment that a Predator spear appeared from thin air and impaled him with such force that he was pinned to the stone wall behind him. Eyes bulging, the machine gun flew from his hand. Gore spurted from his nose and mouth before he could even shout a warning to the others.
Sensing danger, Max hit the floor, dragging Charles Weyland with him. They landed hard. As Weyland grunted, Max felt the breath go right out of his boss’s frail body.
“Stay down!” Connors hissed.
But Max looked up anyway, just as something whizzed over his head. He saw the fleeting image of a disk-shaped object encrusted with gleaming, jewel-like crystals.
Lex saw it, too.
“Down!” she cried, pushing Sebastian aside.
The Predator disk missed his head by mere centimeters—so close it cut a swath through the collar of his jacket.
The disk struck the throat of the statue behind Lex. The vibrating blade hummed, neatly decapitating the stone effigy.
As Lex struck the floor, the statue’s head landed beside hers.
Then bright flashes—gunfire—bloomed in the passageway. Rolling into a corner, Lex saw Max Stafford firing at a blur. His bullets gouged holes in the rock around them and ricocheted down the hallway.
Dropping to his knees by Stafford’s side, Verheiden opened fire in the opposite direction. Bullets whizzed over Lex’s head. She found herself temporarily blinded by the muzzle flashes.
“Here!” she heard Sebastian call. “Over here.”
Lex rolled until she was on her belly. Then she rose and began to crawl toward the voice, light motes still bursting behind her eyelids. Suddenly the stone floor trembled under her fingers, and over the booming gunfire, Lex heard a rumble, then the grating sound of stone scraping against stone.
“The pyramid!” she heard Weyland shout. “It’s shifting again!”
* * * * *
Lex crawled across the cold floor toward Sebastian’s voice. Her vision was clearing, but not fast enough. A thick panel slid out of the wall next to her head far enough to block her path. Sebastian reached out and grabbed her arm, hauling Lex to safety.
Had she stayed where she was, Lex would have been cut off from the rest of the party.
“Wait—” Miller cried.
Another stone door dropped from the ceiling. Sebastian’s and Miller’s eyes met a split second before the door slammed down between them.
The gunfire stopped abruptly. Max raised his flashlight and scanned the faces around him—Weyland, pale and drawn; Sebastian, still clutching Lex and playing his own flashlight on a stone wall that mere seconds before had been a long, expansive hallway.
“I think I hear something,” Lex whispered. “Someone yelling maybe… it’s coming from the other side of that far wall….”
She was listening to Connors. He’d been trapped alone when the wall panels had slammed shut around them. Now he was pounding the thick rock that separated him from the rest of the party—first with his fists, then with a booted foot.
“Hello! Can anybody hear me? Is anyone there?”
In another chamber, where Miller and Verheiden were isolated together, Verheiden stumbled to his feet, dazed. He’d seen Bass and Stone die, and it had unnerved him. All his training in the use of exotic weapons, all his prior military experience had not prepared the man for the kind of slaughter he had just witnessed.
Verheiden staggered around the room looking for a way out. Panic was taking hold, and the man was fast losing control. Verheiden paced around the tiny chamber like a trapped animal.
“What are those things? Did you see what they did to Bass and Stone? I hit that son of a bitch. Dead on. He didn’t stop. He didn’t slow down. He didn’t even flinch!”
His voice was echoing off the walls loud enough to drown out Connors’s yells from the adjacent chamber.
“Hey, Verheiden.”
Miller’s yell snapped the man back to reality. “What?”
“I’m no soldier, but I think you should calm down. We’re not dead yet.”
“Thanks, Professor,” Verheiden said, unimpressed.
“Actually, it’s Doctor. And you’re welcome.”
Verheiden rubbed his face with his callous hands. “We’re never going to get out of this place.”
“Don’t say that.”
Verheiden looked down at Miller, sitting on the floor. “Whatever you believe in, you should start praying to it… Doctor.”
“Hey,” called Miller. “You have children?”
A smile curled Verheiden’s mouth. “A son.”
“I have two,” Miller said brightly. “You know what that means? We don’t have the luxury of quitting. We’re going to make it out of here. You hear me? We are going to survive this if I have to drag you the whole way.”
Verheiden lifted his eyebrows in surprise. Since when did a Beaker have more guts than him?
Max yanked the strangely designed spear out of the wall and eased Bass’s bloody corpse to the floor. He tore the backpack from the dead man’s shoulders and tossed it aside.
Immediately, Weyland snatched the bag and ripped it open, to examine the weapon inside. “No damage,” he said thankfully.
Max
looked up. “One of our men is dead.”
Weyland touched Stafford’s arm.
“I’m sorry,” he said in a tone of genuine regret.
“I need to know what this man died for.”
Weyland blinked, surprised. “He died trying to make history.”
“Whose?” Max demanded. “Yours?”
Lex turned her back on the two and squatted beside Sebastian. She strained to hear Connors’s voice again, but he had gone quiet—which was probably a bad thing, she decided.
Lex noticed Sebastian staring into the distance and fingering the Pepsi cap that still hung around his neck on a frayed leather strap. She lifted her hand and touched his. “Careful. That’s a valuable archaeological find.”
Sebastian managed a wan smile. “Nervous habit.”
“Can’t think why you’re nervous.”
Lex followed Sebastian’s eyes, and they both stared at the cold stone slab that trapped them.
“Imagine,” said Lex. “In a thousand years, I could be a valuable archaeological find.”
Suddenly the alarm on Sebastian’s digital watch went off—a harsh, unexpected sound in that tiny stone cell. He stood up and helped Lex to her feet.
“Don’t go writing yourself into the history books just yet,” he told her as he silenced the alarm.
“What’s that about?” She pointed to his watch.
Sebastian smiled. “Just a theory. Listen…”
In the distance there was an explosive sound, like rolling thunder. Then the familiar grating of stone against stone—far away, but coming closer.
Sebastian placed his ear against the wall. He listened for a long time as the sound continued.
“I hear it!” Lex said softly. “But what is it?”
“I think the mechanism of the pyramid is automated,” Sebastian explained, his ear still pressed against the stone. “I believe it reconfigures every ten minutes—the Aztec calendar was metric, you see? Based on multiples of ten.”
Suddenly Sebastian stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against. Three seconds later, the stone door slid aside to reveal a brand-new passageway.
Lex was impressed. “Give the man a Nobel Prize.”
“I’d settle for a way out.”
Max jumped to his feet, weapon in hand. Now that they were free, he was impatient to move.
Weyland rose slowly and seemed to have trouble getting to his feet. Despite his increasing infirmity, the industrialist would not relinquish the backpack containing the mysterious weapons.
“Everyone ready?” Lex asked.
Max stared into the dark abyss. “Ready? I’m ready,” he replied. “But just where the hell are we going?”
“It’s a maze,” Sebastian declared loud enough to break the tension. “A labyrinth. We’re meant to wander through it. I’m sure this was built to trap its victims, and we’re bound to run into trouble. But all mazes have a way out—that’s the point. So let’s move before the walls come down and trap us again.”
With a final glance at Bass’s corpse, Stafford shouldered his MP-5 and took point. Lex and Sebastian watched him go. Weyland hobbled forward, leaning on his ice pole, the heavy oxygen tank weighing on his back.
From up ahead, they heard Max Stafford’s voice.
“The labyrinth awaits.”
CHAPTER 23
In the Labyrinth
Verheiden scrambled when the wall he was leaning against slid into the ceiling, opening a small, cramped crawlspace that had not been there before.
“What now?” the mercenary moaned.
Crouching down, Miller peered into the darkness. “We never went this way before.”
“Yeah, so what’s that mean… Doctor?”
Miller did not reply. Instead he raised his flashlight and traced the walls of the tunnel with it. The corridor went on for about twenty-five feet, then split abruptly in two. When Miller saw the fork in the road, he actually grinned.
“It would seem that we’re rats in a maze.”
Verheiden saw Miller’s expression and scoffed.
“Sorry,” the engineer said sheepishly. “But I really like puzzles.”
With Miller in the lead, they crawled inside.
They traveled for a few minutes. Then Miller heard a voice ahead of him in the confines of the narrow duct.
“Hello?” Connors cried. “Can you hear me?”
“Who is that?” Miller called. It was difficult to make out where the voice was coming from. Sound bounced all over the place inside the shaft.
“It’s Connors,” called the voice. “Where are you?” The sound echoed hollowly, and from far away.
Suddenly, the man began to scream, his chilling voice reverberating throughout the pitch-black duct.
“Connors!” bellowed Verheiden. He hurried forward, trying to catch up to Miller. But suddenly the floor opened under the mercenary and Verheiden plunged through a trapdoor.
With some difficulty, Miller managed to turn his body around in the tight shaft. He pounded on the floor Verheiden had fallen through, but he couldn’t even find a joint.
“Verheiden?” Miller called. “Can you hear me?”
The reply was faint and distant. “Miller… get me out of here.”
Miller looked around, trying to find a way into the trap. “Hold on!” he yelled. “I’ll figure a way to get to you….”
Verheiden had fallen into a small, restrictive tunnel too low to stand up in and too tight for his lanky, six-foot-plus frame to find much comfort.
Above his head he could hear Miller trying to find a way into his prison. He pushed on the ceiling a number of times, but if the door was still there, he couldn’t find it now. There were walls on three sides of him. The fourth side, however, wasn’t a wall: It was a cramped corridor stretching beyond his vision. But Verheiden had no intention of going down it alone. He intended to wait right there until Miller found a way to get him out.
Settling in for the long wait, Verheiden leaned against one of the walls, accidentally placing his hand into a pool of slime. Searching blindly for a surface on which to wipe his hand clean of the slime, he encountered a pile of dead skin, like the hide of a snake. More slime dotted the floor, and the mercenary couldn’t help but recoil.
Suddenly, he heard a scraping sound echoing down the corridor. He took a few steps forward and shone his flashlight into the dark. Fearing a force moving toward him, he stumbled backwards, toward the wall.
Unfortunately, something more harrowing was waiting there to greet him.
From the chamber above Verheiden, Miller could hear screams and the sound of ripping flesh. He feared the man was dead.
Lex, Sebastian, and Weyland made their way through the forbidding underground maze, Max Stafford, his machine gun ready, leading them forward.
“Keep up, people. Keep it tight.”
When they reached a fork in the corridor, they halted. Lex consulted her digital compass, then gazed into the darkness, deciding which way to proceed.
Max caught her arm. “Do you even know where you’re going?”
“If we stay on this bearing we should keep going up. If we can do that, we’ll make it to an entrance… eventually.”
Lex noticed that Weyland seemed to bend under the weight of his backpack. She touched his shoulder.
“Leave it,” she said. “It can only slow us down.”
Weyland shrugged her off. “Too much has been lost to walk away with nothing.”
Lex blocked him, eyes imploring.
“No,” spat Weyland. “Unknown alloys, alien technology—the value of this find is immense.”
“The device belongs to those creatures. Perhaps we should just give it back.”
Weyland shook his head, eyes defiant.
Lex tried again. “Whatever is going on here, we have no part in it.”
“This is my find,” Weyland cried. “And I’m not leaving it.”
They locked eyes, but it was Lex who finally relented.
; “Then give it to me,” she insisted.
She took the pack from his shoulders and placed it on her own. Then she curled her arm around Weyland and helped him walk.
“I’ll tell Max you need a rest,” she whispered.
Weyland shook his head. “Let’s get out of here first.”
They walked for a time, then Max halted the group. His eyes squinted into the shadows ahead. Finally, he raised his flashlight—just as a Predator emerged from the darkness.
“Move!” Sebastian cried.
Everyone scattered—everyone but Max Stafford, who dropped to one knee directly in the path of the creature and opened up with his machine gun. In the narrow, confined space the noise was deafening, the bursts blinding. This time Lex averted her eyes to preserve her night vision, and Sebastian—despite the exploding chaos—managed to spot the Predator’s thick-muscled arm as it materialized out of thin air.
In the half-second that the arm was visible, Sebastian observed a device shaped like an abstract sculpture of a turtle shell strapped to the monster’s wrist.
Max Stafford, blinded by his own muzzle blast, never saw the creature’s arm or the unusual device on his wrist. All Max saw was a metallic net hurtling at his face.
The steel mesh struck him before he had a chance to react. It met his body with such force that he was catapulted backwards. The machine gun flew from his hands as Stafford struggled against the steel cocoon that enveloped him. But the more he fought, the tighter the net became. He tumbled to the ground and thrashed there, helpless as a caught fish.
Like razors, the steel threads bit into his clothing—then his flesh.
Stafford’s cries of naked torment cut Weyland like a knife. With a moan of agony that mirrored Stafford’s, he dropped to his knees at Max’s side and clawed at the metal web.
“We’ll get you out of there!”
The piercing threads lacerated Weyland’s hands until they were slippery with blood. Yet he would not give up. The cocoon tightened, and Max’s howls intensified as the mesh chewed deeper into muscle and bone.
[AVP] - Aliens vs. Predator Page 14