Aliens: Genocide

by David Bischoff

  "Let's get a roll on."

  "Yeah, Begalli. And you go first," said Grant. "Let's see a little courage for a change."

  Begalli nodded, picked up his pheromone meter, and they were off again toward the depths of the alien hive.

  "The queen's chambers should be down there," said Begalli.

  The electric torches stabbed down into the darkness—but beyond their reach, Kozlowski saw the beginnings of what appeared to be some kind of bioluminescence.

  "Okay," she said. "This place has had a few surprises that we weren't prepared for. There still might be more. Dr. Begalli, Corporal Henrikson, Daniel Grant, and myself will head on down to the chamber. Dicer, Clapton, and Mahone, stay here and guard our backs. I don't expect the radios to work, so let's just say if we're not back in an hour, get back to the lander and get out of here."

  Private Dicer was a skinny guy with big eyes that seemed about to pop out of his head. He'd put on an excellent display of bug killing, but clearly the pressure was getting to him. Sweat pasted his long stringy hair down over his forehead. Private Clapton was a little more poised. He was a thickset easy-come, easy-go sort with a ready humor that he'd somehow lost now. Private Mahone looked as though she simply could not even believe she was here. But they were all good soldiers. They'd been good soldiers up above and they'd be good soldiers down here.

  "Yes, sir," they chorused.

  Kozlowski took the controls of the drone from a trooper and motioned the party onward.

  It took another ten minutes to get down to a place where the lamps were necessary to see. Still, Kozlowski kept the side lights of her suit on, just in case things suddenly went dark.

  The tunnel went around a bend.

  Suddenly opened up.

  It was the biggest chamber that Kozlowski had ever seen.

  Eerily lit by the bioluminescence was the scene that the scientists had more or less predicted.

  The four huge pods, radiating around a larger pod, above which the queen towered, a true giant, like a devil tilted atop her evil throne.

  Only the sketchy holograms could never have hinted at the textures or the colors, the bizarre organic geometry here that threatened to drive a mind mad if concentrated on too closely.

  The queen's pod glistened and oozed with what Kozlowski knew to be royal jelly.

  The stuff that would make Grant an incredibly rich man, that would give the armed forces what they wanted, that would spell a success to this bloody campaign.

  "Incredible," said Grant.

  However, his eyes did not glow with avarice.

  "Amazing," said Kozlowski. "We've hit the motherlode of royal jelly here." She looked at Grant. "You're going to get your tank filled, I think."

  She patted the metal, and it echoed hollowly.

  "Little problem," said Grant. "What about queeny?"

  The gigantic creature perched atop the center mound did not even seem to notice they were even there. Its attention seemed focused off into space, as though it were meditating.

  "I'm sure it's psychically directing the rout of the reds," said Begalli. "Must be. It's so absorbed, it didn't even notice the death of its guards." He quickly scanned the room again. "Four pods. Four guards. Excellent correspondence. Looks like we've got this place all to ourselves. All we have to do is to deal with the queenie, and she's just a sitting duck!" He smiled broadly, skipping a little closer to the gleaming, gooey treasure hoard. "Looks delicious, doesn't it? Ah, what wonders that stuff must hold. I can't wait ..." He cut himself off suddenly and looked furtive.

  "Can't wait?" said Grant. "This is my expedition. What exactly can't you wait for?"

  "Uhhmmm. Nothing. Nothing, sir ..." He drifted closer to the pod. "Look at it all. I never thought I'd see this much up close. God, it's beautiful."

  The queen mother was as still as a statue. As still as death.

  Beautiful? Was fear beautiful? Dread? Terror? All the primitive juices battled now at Alex Kozlowski's barrier.

  Michaels's beautiful head boiling apart with acid.

  His scream.

  Her guilt.

  She wanted to turn and run from this place. It was worse than she had ever imagined it. The dead body of her lover seemed superimposed over everything.

  She calmed herself. She'd known that she would never get the trauma of that dreadful Hollywood day off her mind, that she'd have to live it all over again in her head.

  She just never realized she'd have to live it over again in reality.

  And this time it could be her skin bubbling off, to expose the grinning skull beneath.

  "Beautiful?" said Grant. "I'm not so sure anymore. People have died for this stuff. I feel ... responsible."

  "No time for self-remonstration," said Kozlowski. "Glad to hear you've got a conscience, but we really should finish this mission up. Begalli, get away from there. We can't take any chances. I want that thing up there dead, and I'm going to do it myself, right—"

  Grant, though, was on a jag. Apparently the deaths of the other three soldiers, so close, had really shaken him up.

  "I don't know," said Grant. "I just don't know."

  "Mr. Grant! You started this whole thing rolling."

  "Yeah, and I'm going to have to live with it for the rest of my life, too. I'm paying for my ignorance. But you, Begalli—" He brought his gun up. "You've been sabotaging this mission from day one, haven't you?"

  "What?" said Begalli, turning back to him.

  "Come off it! I've been watching you, Begalli, and I know damn well you're up to something," said Grant. "You're still working for MedTech, aren't you?"

  "Okay, sure ... I have been up to something." He took a breath. "I'm doing research, independent of Neo-Pharm. I'd planned to publish articles on my findings."

  "Articles?"

  "A new kind of alien. I'd go down in history. I'd be famous ... forever!"

  "Articles?" repeated Grant.

  "I've got more than enough money, Grant. And I always hated MedTech—what I want is to be acknowledged for my scientific efforts. That's why I wanted to come down here. Maybe I'll even write a book ... Yes, a bestseller!"

  "You heard it, Grant," said Kozlowski. "The only thing he's guilty of is scientific greed. Now back off ..."

  "So how do you know he isn't lying ... ?" Grant started to say, before a sudden hissing shriek froze his sentence.

  Without warning, the queen mother jumped.

  It sailed through the air, and it landed just short of Dr. Begalli. Stunned and disbelieving, Begalli tried to turn.

  A long set of secondary jaws streaked out from the alien's mouth, slicing and hammering into the back of the scientist's head, boring through and pushing his eyes out of their sockets like red Jell-O being squeezed through cookie cutters.

  Kozlowski was stunned. The thing wasn't supposed to be able to do that. Wasn't its ovipositor fastened to the pod? But then wasn't that just something else they didn't know about these aliens?

  Only a flicker of a second of thought, though. Already her rifle was going up, aiming, squeezing off a round.

  Henrikson fired at the exact same moment.

  Their fire converged upon the exact same spot on the queen. It hissed and wailed, a hole blown in its thorax. Its blood rained down upon Begalli's head and boiled his face away. The alien started toward them, forelimbs clutching and seeking.

  Kozlowski lifted her rifle and aimed at its head.

  It still came forward.

  Henrikson's blasts joined hers, and the thing's head burst asunder like a ripe melon.

  They backpedaled to avoid the spurting acid, and the great queen mother writhed and spasmed in its death throes.

  Kozlowski stepped forward, looking down at the massive thing.

  Fortunately it had come far enough that it hadn't spoiled its own jelly.

  "Right," she said. "Too bad about Begalli. Let's get this tank loaded out of here, quick."

  She jumped over to the vehicle and pulled out the vacuum tap.
This bit was going to be the easy part.

  Only when the cargo drone's tank was topped off, did Kozlowski pull the tap out of the membrane. There was lots more jelly, but they just couldn't take it.

  "I hope this will be enough," she said sardonically.

  "Yes," said Grant. "Yes. It will have to do, I suppose."

  "Something wrong, Grant?"

  "I think you know what's troubling me." The man sighed deeply. "Besides, I don't get it. Only a few people knew about the alien incubation project. If Begalli didn't sabotage it, who did?"

  Casually, Alex Kozlowski grabbed ahold of her rifle. She'd been thinking about that very same thing.

  And she didn't care for what was floating up on her mental screen.

  She was about to turn when Henrikson's voice sounded behind them.

  "Thank you, folks. That looks just fine," he said. "Please drop your weapons. This close, one blast of this rifle can deal with you both."

  25

  “Henrikson?" said Grant. He knelt and put his rifle down behind him. "You?"

  "That's right, Grant. MedTech pays a lot better than the marines. Damned interesting ride, too. Been enjoying myself." He motioned with the tip of his rifle. "Come on, Colonel—sir. Get that pretty finger off the trigger and set your gun down."

  She obeyed. "You're going to kill us and leave us here, aren't you?"

  "Absolutely. And no one will be the wiser. And by the time we get back to Earth, a goodly part of this royal jelly will be siphoned off—and some of the DNA samples will be gone as well. Just in case ... I daresay, once it's been announced you've been killed in action, your creaky empire will be up for grabs. And the Neo-Pharm scientists will pretty much disperse ... The best ones bought up by MedTech."

  "I checked your credentials, dammit. They were spotless!" said Kozlowski. She knew there was somebody giving them trouble, but she'd always felt that she could contain any problems. She thought she'd read this guy, that he was straight as an arrow. He'd given absolutely no previous sign of disloyalty.

  "Hey! You've got an eminently corruptible bunch you're working for, Kozlowski." The man was grinning maliciously now, savoring his victory.

  "What! Are you really a synth, Henrikson?" said Grant, clearly just as shocked as Kozlowski at this turn of events. And no wonder. Henrikson had been Grant's main man, his apple polisher. He'd brought him down to show him the alien incubation. There'd been a trustworthiness about the guy. A big brotherness.

  Why hadn't they seen through him, dammit, she thought.

  "C'mon. I'm no synth! If I were a synth, I could have taken those Xeno-Zips with absolutely no effect!" He nodded over to the royal jelly. "I avoid the crap."

  "But ... but I trusted you." said Grant. "I've got such a good nose for this kind of thing."

  The grin got broader. "There's where MedTech has got your company beat all to hell, Grant. Every day I douse myself in a special pheromone, designed specifically for leader types to sniff. Makes you trust me, gives type A's like you confidence in big guys like me. That's why the other grunts didn't care for me ... they weren't the kind that like this pheromone. You guys bought it!"

  "But you've risked your life with all the rest of us ... You've been a damned good soldier!" said Grant.

  "Yes, I have, and I've had a good time, too, folks, let me tell you. I am a soldier. A soldier of fortune. I raid alien nests with buddies for money. I'm an independent and damned good at it. Only there's more money in this for me than I'd ever dreamed of—and I get to see the stars, too." He shrugged. "Don't look for anything deeper here. That's all there is."

  "But the death of the alien baby ... that pod ... the sabotage ... it just doesn't add up."

  "Sure it does, Grant. I caused confusion. I hurt the program, and I pretty much framed poor old Begalli. Fact, when I get back with this liquid gold here, that's what I think I'm going to tell them. Yeah. 'It was Begalli, guys. He's dead now, though, along with poor old Grant and Kozlowski. Boo hoo. Mission complete. Now let's get the hell out of here.' You see. Piece of cake."

  He started laughing.

  Unless she acted, they'd be dead within seconds.

  However, since they'd all taken off their helmets, there might be a shred of hope here.

  Without a further thought, Kozlowski dived for her rifle. She scooped it up, put her finger under the trigger.

  And was blasted by the quadruple barrels of Henrikson's weapon.

  Grant watched in horror as the blast hit Kozlowski's left thigh. She spun around and fell hard onto the ground.

  The next thing Grant knew, he was on top of Henrikson. The man had been swerving his rifle for the coup de grace—but Grant's fist sailed into the man's bare face with a solid impact before he could pull the trigger again.

  Where that had come from, Grant didn't know. But it felt so good that he found himself doing it again.

  The attack surprised Henrikson so much he clearly wasn't sure what to do. To defend himself at close quarters he'd have to drop the rifle. But Kozlowski wasn't dead yet, and to give up the weapon meant certain defeat. He lifted his other arm—but Grant countered.

  And nailed him with another punch.

  Thank God he'd worked out regularly! He hadn't done it for fights. He'd done it for his self-confidence and for the ladies. But his reflexes were good, and it had all paid off.

  The blows had opened up Henrikson's face. He bled from the nose and from the mouth, and he went down like a fighting suit full of potatoes.

  Grant kicked the rifle away from him, and then booted him in the head again. Hard.

  "Unnnh!"

  The lights in those bright blue eyes dimmed.

  "You don't smell so good to me anymore, Henrikson!"

  A groan from behind him. He picked up Henrikson's weapon, and then went over to Colonel Kozlowski.

  "Ooooh," she said. "I think my hip is broken."

  Indeed, there was a smoking hole in the overplating of the hip area of the suit, exposing underpart beneath.

  "Yes," said Grant. "The underplating of this armor is designed to withstand severe concussions. Still, you're probably right about that hip. You're going to need some help."

  He helped her up. "Yeah. Thanks." She cringed. "I'll make it."

  "Good."

  "Looks like you did a number on Henrikson there. Surprised you didn't take his rifle and blast him."

  "Don't think the thought didn't enter my mind. No, if we can get him back, I'll be able to use him to string MedTech up by its dangling prescriptions."

  "Sounds good. We go now?"

  "We go."

  They revived Henrikson with a few slaps across the chops, and then they made sure that he knew which direction their rifles were pointing.

  Grant propped Kozlowski up on the sideboard of the drone. She could walk, sort of, but he figured he'd better save that for later.

  The suit was getting too heavy for him, so he took off the top.

  "Helmets?" she said.

  "Forget the helmets. We've got enough weight to slow us down as it is."

  "At least stick them up here on the drone, dammit."

  "Yes, sir."

  He had Henrikson do that. The traitorous corporal performed the task grudgingly, without comment.

  "The creatures should be miles from here," said Grant.

  They started trudging back the way they'd come, with him keeping a bead on Henrikson while Kozlowski controlled the cargo drone.

  They were just at the tunnel opening at the end of the chamber when they heard the rumbling.

  "What the hell ..." said Henrikson, looking behind. "It's coming from that other tunnel, on the opposite end of the chamber."

  "Oh, shit," said Kozlowski.

  Grant watched, disbelieving, as an alien ran into view in the dimly illuminated distance.

  Followed by another.

  Followed by three ... four ...

  A clot of the monsters burst out of the tunnel.

  "They must be coming back t
hrough another entrance!" said Kozlowski. "They must have sensed the death of their queen, dammit, and started to head back."

  "And took a short cut! Well, let's get a move on here. I—"

  He'd taken his attention off of Henrikson for one moment—one short moment!—and had been rewarded by the big man, big time.

  Henrikson's body plowed into his, knocking Grant down, bashing the rifle from his hands. It clunked down beside him, and Grant grabbed it up again.

  Henrikson jumped on top of him and they wrestled for the gun. They were on the other side of the cargo drone, away from any chance of Colonel Kozlowski interceding immediately.

  "For chrissake, you asshole," said Grant. "They're almost on top of us."

  "I'm gonna make it out of here, Grant," said the big man. "I'm going to be the only one who does."

  As they struggled, the bottle of Xeno-Zip fell out of Grant's pocket, cracking open on the alien floor beside him, spilling its contents.

  Henrikson was distracted.

  Grant used it.

  He wrenched the rifle away from the man's hands and whacked the butt across the man's chin.

  Stunned, the man fell back.

  Kozlowski was limping around at that point, holding a rifle. "Stand back, Grant. I'm going to kill him!" she said, nostrils flaring with anger.

  Grant took a look at the groaning Henrikson and the fallen bottle of Xeno-Zip and then at the approaching aliens.

  "No," he said. "I've got a better idea."

  He scooped up a handful of the pills, and he stuffed them into Henrikson's mouth, holding his hands over the man's lips so he was forced to automatically swallow them.

  "Get yourself on the front of that drone, and let's get the hell out of here," he said.

  "What ... ?"

  "Let's just say that it's a far, far nobler thing that Corporal Henrikson is going to do today than he's ever done before."

  Grant put the rifle down between the Corporal's arms and then he grabbed Kozlowski's arm and helped her over to the lander.