Next she checked the control panel for the winch and discovered that the machine was calibrated with a counterweight of four tons—meaning that a sled with four tons of weight would be hauled up the tunnel at five miles per hour when the switch was thrown. Lex doubted that she and Scar together weighed even half a ton, so with that amount of counterweight their trip to the surface would be quick.
She got Scar’s attention and pointed to the sled.
“Get in!”
But as Scar turned to climb aboard, the alpha-Alien lunged at him from the shadows. The severed stump of its tail lashed out and slashed Scar’s shoulder. The wound exploded in a shower of glowing green gore.
Lex grabbed the piton gun and turned—just as a second, smaller Alien loomed over her. Startled, she fell backwards, into the empty crate. As the Alien reached for her, Lex rolled over on her back and thrust the muzzle of the piton gun between the creature’s snapping jaws.
“Consider yourself exterminated,” she cried as she pulled the trigger.
The back of the Alien’s head blew away and the creature fell limply to the ice. A few drops of Alien blood sizzled and burned the walls of the wooden crate.
Lex peeked over the edge in time to see Scar decapitate an Alien, only to be attacked by another. Again, it was the alpha-Alien with the grid-ravaged hide, his lightning-fast attack a blur of teeth, claws and a thrashing stump of a tail.
Unrelenting, the Predator slammed the blade of a throwing disk down on the alpha-Alien’s head. The wound was deep, but not mortal. Acid gushed from the slash, spraying Scar and pitting his armor. Then the Alien stepped back, raised its claws, and charged again.
Alien and Predator came together with a great crash, and both went down. They rolled end over end, locked in a deadly embrace. Finally Scar kicked out with his mammoth feet, tossing the Alien against a wall of ice.
Lex seized the moment to pull Scar toward the empty crate. At the wall, the alpha-Alien staggered to its feet, segmented tail striking sparks from the ice.
With an angry hiss the Alien took off after Lex and the Predator.
Stubbornly, Scar decided to make a stand. With a roar he turned to face the black monstrosity.
But Lex only wanted to escape. She pushed the Predator backwards with all her might, and her weight carried them both into the empty crate. Reaching over the edge, her fingers closed on the control lever. She pushed it to the line that read Emergency Release.
With a slam, she was thrown backwards, her spine cracking against the edge of the crate. Scar landed at her side at the bottom of the box as it shot up the narrow ice tunnel like an express elevator out of hell.
Up they raced, the sides of the box scraping the ice until it smoked from friction. Lex prayed that the wood would hold together long enough to get them to the top.
As they neared the surface, she noticed flecks of snow around them and looked up. She saw the mouth of the tunnel looming in the distance, cloud-filled sky roiling over the pit, and the tripod platform constructed over the shaft blocking the path of their sled.
Lex managed to cry a warning. “Hold on!”
The box leaped from the tunnel, smashing into the winch rig with a massive impact that shattered it completely and sent the steel tripod supports tumbling down the shaft, clanging as they fell.
Scar was thrown clear. He hugged Lex in a protective hold as they landed in the snow, rolling end over end across the hard, glacial ice.
When the Predator released her at last, Lex tumbled into a drift, where she lay motionless as wind stirred her tattered clothes and a gentle snow fell around her.
The Predator was up instantly, seemingly oblivious to the wound that still sprayed green gore in rivulets down his chest. He searched around him for danger. A low, cold mist wrapped Bouvetoya Whaling Station in an icy grip, and blankets of snow still fell, though the fury of the katabatic storm had finally blown itself out.
Anxiously, the Predator moved to the shaft and peered down. At first Scar saw nothing, though he heard unearthly, echoing cries rising from underground. Then he saw distorted shadows skimming the smooth walls.
Finally, the Predator spied the Alien Queen, leading her hell-spawn up the shaft to the world of humans. Her claws dug into the ice as her children clambered over her, crawling along every inch of the shaft like ants climbing out of a burning hill. On its mother’s broad back rode the alpha-Alien, eyeless head upturned, teeth bared in a savage snarl. When it spotted Scar, it leaped off its mother’s back to scale the shaft on its own.
Scar activated his shoulder gun, but the armor sparked and the red aiming lasers went dim. Roaring, he yanked open a panel and fumbled with the controls. After a moment’s work, he aimed the plasma gun and fired again. This time a bolt arced into the shaft and an Alien exploded. The Queen hissed angrily as gore rained down on her.
As the weapon on Scar’s shoulder began to spark again, the Predator stepped away from the shaft and shed the last of his battered equipment, including his now-useless plasma gun and what little remained of his pitted and broken armor. When he was done, only Scar’s mask, a loincloth, boots and chest plate remained from his original gear. Even the mesh netting—rent with a dozen tears and robbed of its energy—was beginning to cool in the relentless Antarctic conditions. The frigid wind bit into the Predator, sapping his body heat and reducing his internal temperature to a dangerously low level.
With one last glance down the shaft, Scar retreated, to wait for the explosion that was mere moments away….
Lex stirred, moaning. She felt the winds burn her naked cheek, and the sting of snow on her face. Then a strong hand grabbed the collar of her jumpsuit and hauled her to her feet as if she were a helpless kitten.
Awareness returned quickly, and Lex blinked up at a familiar face mask.
“Hold on,” the Predator said in an electronic voice muffled by the wind.
Hoisting Lex off her feet, Scar ran away from the shaft, toward the abandoned whaling station. Boots crunching in the snow, the Predator carried Lex through the center of the compound. The buildings were all nearly buried by drifting powder. Lex looked backwards, over Scar’s bleeding shoulder.
She saw the alpha-Alien emerge from the mouth of the tunnel. The creature hissed when it saw them. Then a bright green flash of light nearly blinded her. She quickly averted her eyes. A hot jet of burning energy surged up the tunnel, scorching all the Aliens in its wake. When the plasma washed over the alpha-Alien, it didn’t even have time to scream before it was blown to bits.
As the force of the blast rolled over them, Scar redoubled his pace. But almost immediately, a massive aftershock threw human and Predator to the ground. The force tossed Lex free of the Predator’s grip. Staggering to her feet, she saw Scar down on one knee, his shoulder gushing green more intensely now. Then a third shuddering shock wave sent them both reeling to the ice again.
When the blast vaporized everything in the underground cavern, millions of tons of ice were instantly transformed into steam, which melted more ice to create even more steam. Suddenly the ice pack around the mouth of the shaft and the mess hall next to the pit were catapulted into the air. Like a house of cards, the weathered timber splintered and pitched to the ground, fully collapsed.
Then the ground began to cave in on itself as the ice grotto and the pyramid were obliterated. Into the spreading crater, more sections of the whaling station, the abandoned base camp, and the mobile drilling rigs all tumbled, sucked deep into the bowels of the Earth.
Lex watched anxiously as the caving ice continued to spread outward, like ripples in a pond—ripples that swallowed more and more of the landscape as they flowed inexorably toward her and Scar.
Scar grabbed Lex, forcing her to her feet even as the ice pack shattered under them. Pulling her along, the Predator stubbornly ran on, despite the fact that there was no hope of outrunning the widening tide of destruction.
Lex stumbled as the ice shifted under her. Falling helplessly into the abyss where th
e collapsing ice threatened to bury her forever, she yelped as she was yanked upward so forcibly that her arm was nearly pulled out of its socket. Before she could react, Scar threw her like a rag doll onto a patch of unbroken ice. She spun, then crashed limply into a snowdrift.
Then the Predator made his own desperate leap to safety as the ice disappeared under his feet.
CHAPTER 30
Bouvetoya Whaling Station
Lex tried to open her eyes, but her lashes were caked with snow. She had to blink several times to clear them.
She was on her back, looking up at the sky and the heavy, black, cast-iron vat still teetering on wobbly legs at the edge of the cliff, despite the earthshaking violence that had rocked the vicinity.
With a moan, she felt something digging into her back. The spear Scar had fashioned from an Alien tail and the shield made from their armor were still strapped there. Lex sat up and looked around. She and Scar were lying on the very edge of a mammoth crater that had swallowed the whaling station; only the huge vat for cooking whale blubber and the wharf and docks over the frozen harbor remained intact. Around the perimeter of the crater a few tiny shacks leaned precipitously, on the verge of collapse.
Lex got to her feet and gazed out at the devastation. Through the fog that curled around her, it was difficult to determine the full extent of the damage. But the crater itself was vast, stretching farther than she could see.
Deep down, near the center of the pit, Lex could make out a few of the timbers from the old buildings and a high-tech drilling machine lying on its back—all that remained of the whaling station and the Weyland expedition base camp. A dozen paces from Lex, a snow-covered building still stood, though it now leaned precariously. An oil lamp, no doubt lit by one of the expedition’s murdered members, still burned behind a frosted window with a warm yellow glow.
With an undulating warble welling up from within his throat, Scar rose and shook off the snow, to stand beside Lex. As she smiled up at him, Lex heard a dull plop. Then something hissed and sizzled in the snow near her boots. She looked down to see a great, bleeding chunk of Alien flesh—Lex recognized the grid pattern burned into its hide and felt relief.
More gouts of flesh landed in the snow around them. Still dazed, she watched Scar dig through the snow and carefully lift an object, which he cradled in his misshapen hand.
When Scar opened his fingers, Lex saw the grisly thing he held—a severed Alien digit, somehow thrown clear of the blast, its shattered joint still oozing acid blood. He held the bloody thing in front of her face, and shocked awareness dawned in Lex’s eyes.
She nearly recoiled from it, and what Scar wanted to do with it—but in the end Lex decided to accept the honor. She’d earned it, and after all, this final pain would pale in comparison to what she’d already been through.
As the caustic chemical burned her flesh, Lex winced but uttered no sound. The pain seemed endless as the Predator carefully traced the distinctive thunderbolt scar on her forehead.
For a brief moment, human and humanoid stood facing one another in the vast polar expanse, sharing a ritual that was already ancient when mankind was still living in caves and hunting wooly mammoths with fire-hardened spears and stone axes.
But the solemn moment was interrupted when an explosion sounded at their backs and they turned to see the Alien Queen burst out of the crater in a shower of snow and ice.
Snarling, Scar pushed Lex to the ground and hurled the last of his throwing disks at the slavering Hive Queen. The whirling blades slashed the Alien’s throat, severing tendons and opening a gaping wound. Acid blood popped and crackled in the frigid wind and drops rained down, to pockmark the snow.
One disk remained lodged in the Queen’s flesh. The other passed through her black hide and made a wide arc in the air, returning to Scar like a boomerang. But as the Predator reached to catch it, the Alien Queen lashed out with her tail and batted him into the side of the small building. Wooden beams shattered, and splinters impaled the Predator’s flesh. From somewhere inside the tangle of broken wood, smoke and flames erupted from the smashed lamp. Within a minute the entire building was ablaze.
The Predator tore himself loose from the burning debris and staggered to his feet, even as the Queen closed in on him. Before Scar could get out of the way, the Alien dashed the Predator to the ground and crouched over him, claws raised to tear him limb from limb.
But before she could deal a fatal blow, Lex hopped onto the Alien Queen’s back and let out a warrior’s shriek. Shield in hand, Lex lifted the crude spear over her head and drove the tip into the wound Scar had made. The blow was dealt with all the force Lex could muster, and the Queen howled in surprise. Hissing, her tail thrashing, the Hive Mother howled in agony even as she threw her crested head back, trying to dislodge the human.
Lex redoubled her efforts, driving the spear deeper into the Queen’s shiny black hide. Acid blood gushed in a great fountain, drenching Lex and rolling harmlessly off the shield.
Then the Queen rose to her full height, hoisting Lex with her. But still the woman refused to let go of the spear. Instead, she plunged it deeper into the wound. Finally, the Queen whipped her head from side to side with enough force to throw Lex off.
She crashed to the ground, losing her shield. Then Lex rolled away from the Queen, who roared and stamped her massive feet, cracking the ice and trying to crush her flat. Lex leaped to her feet and took off in a dash. Risking a peek over her shoulder, Lex felt a rush of satisfaction when she saw that her spear was still embedded in the Queen’s throat.
As the Alien fought to dislodge the spear, she stumbled against the burning building and plunged into the middle of the conflagration. Lex prayed that the monster would burn. Almost immediately the Queen rose from the flames like a phoenix, to attack once more. But Lex was gone.
The Whalebone Graveyard
Lex hated to leave Scar lying in the snow, but until she finished off the Queen, she could do nothing for the fallen Predator. So when the Queen emerged from the burning building, Lex ran in the opposite direction, toward the frozen shoreline.
Cresting an icy mound, Lex gazed out at a vast landscape of bleached whalebones. The bones littered a beach that was enveloped in a cold mist. Racing toward the whale graveyard, Lex sought shelter, a place where she could hide until she formulated a new plan of attack.
But time had run out. As she stumbled across the whale graveyard, the Queen’s black head loomed out of the fog behind her.
Narrowly avoiding the Alien’s raking claws, Lex ducked into the nearly intact skeleton of a whale. The bones rose out of the ice to form an ivory cage of protection. The Queen’s jaws snapped as she tried to grab the woman, but the sharp whalebone splinters pierced her hide. The Queen let loose with sibilant cries of rage and pain.
Racing among the bones, Lex circled the graveyard and hurried back the way she had come—toward the wharf and the only shelter she could find. Scrambling up the edge of the cliff, Lex dived under the tottering legs of the huge iron separator just as the Hive Mother reached out to snatch her.
“Damn it!” Lex cried, rolling away.
The Queen thrust her head between the separator’s support beams. Lex felt hot breath wash over her. It smelled of blood. She grabbed a chunk of ice and threw it at the creature’s gaping jaws. Then, narrowly avoiding decapitation, Lex ducked as the Alien whipped a barbed chain at her head.
“Come on then!” Lex cried defiantly as she slipped under the heavy iron pot.
Arms flung wide, chains dangling from her limbs, the Alien Queen bellowed in frustration. Lex dropped to the ground, crawled through the snow, and placed her shoulder against the weak support beam. She pushed against the wooden strut with all of her remaining strength. A tiny rivulet of blood trickled from the thunderbolt scar on her forehead. Lex tasted it, and pushed harder.
The Alien matriarch hissed like a rattlesnake and her toothy mouth gaped wide. Out of that noxious hole the inner jaws shot forward, snapping at L
ex. Then Lex heard the wood crack, and she felt the support beam tumble as the iron pot dropped from its pedestal, to slide a few feet down the icy slope. But instead of falling on the Queen’s head, it remained in place, held only by a single stout wooden beam sunk deep into the glacial ice.
Collapsed on the snow, Lex panicked. The Queen was advancing, but Lex was out of weapons, ideas and luck.
Just as the Queen’s gnashing jaws were about to close in on Lex’s throat, an unholy howl cut through the frigid air.
Scar!
As he raced forward, Lex could see that the Predator was bleeding from a dozen wounds. But in his hand he held her crude spear, and he was ready for a fight. Fearlessly, he leaped, landing on the Alien Queen’s broad back. With a powerful thrust, he drove the spear clean through her throat.
The Queen bellowed with rage, and the Predator jumped clear. Spinning in the air, Scar landed in the snow next to Lex, where he crouched in a fighting stance.
While the tormented Queen clawed at the shaft, Lex tried to lift one of the chains linked to the Queen’s body and lash it around the iron separator. But the links were too heavy, and her strength, taxed to the limit, finally failed. Dropping the chain, Lex stumbled to her knees.
At that moment, Scar appeared at her side, taking up the task and lifting the chain links, wrapping them around the separator’s handle. Lex rose to help, and for a few triumphant moments they labored together, side by side.
Then Scar suddenly stiffened as the spiked tail of the Alien Queen punched a hole clean through his chest. Arms flung outward, the Predator was hoisted off the ground, writhing on the end of the razor-sharp tail.
With a flick of that deadly, albeit maimed, appendage the Queen dashed Scar to the ground and loomed over him, ready to finish him off.
[AVP] - Aliens vs. Predator Page 20