Aliens: Genocide

by David Bischoff

  The man's eyes popped open.

  Inside he felt as though an atom bomb had just gone off in his brain.

  He rolled his head, and saw, just meters away, a horde of charging, hissing aliens.

  In his arms was a rifle.

  Fire raged through his bloodstream and nervous system. He felt the familiar flight-or-fight response, only flight didn't seem necessary.

  Henrikson, after all, was God!

  And in his hands was a fistful of lightning bolts.

  Grinning, he got up as the aliens approached.

  "C'mon, you bastards!" he screamed. "Let's play!"

  He'd kill them all.

  Then he'd go back up and nail that bastard Grant and that bitch Kozlowski.

  Yeah!

  The gun in his hand started blazing.

  Something was going on down there. Something huge. The motion detectors were going nuts in Private Mahone's hands. And her own internal warning system, her instincts, told her that it was danger, pure and simple.

  "Cripes," said Private Dicer, his eyes bulging, a tic working at his mouth. "I can even feel it in my feet!"

  Sweat had broken out on the brow of Private Clapton. "Shit, man. What are we going to do?"

  "Colonel says if they're not back, we should cut and run. I say we obey orders."

  Every cell in Mahone's body agreed. She wanted to run and hide. She was exhausted in every respect but for the terror that had filled her from the very first. This mission was worse than she'd ever imagined.

  Something deep inside her though surged up. Something strong inside of her took ahold of her, and she realized that it was as much her as her fear.

  "No."

  "Say what?" said Clapton.

  The rumbling was building.

  "Shit, Private, those idiots down there are probably getting torn to pieces. We wait here, and that's just what's going to happen to us," said Dicer.

  Dicer started moving away toward the exit, eyes rolling with terror. Clapton started following him.

  "You assholes move one more step, I'm going to blast you," she said.

  Dicer kept moving and she put a blast a yard short of him, and then aimed in a fashion that they well knew could take them both out with a simple tug of the trigger.

  "Jeez, Mahone? Are you crazy? Our asses are in a sling here!" whined Clapton.

  "Well then rock in 'em, guys. We're going to stay right here and give aid and succor." Her eyes blazed. "And you know what! I've half a mind to go in after the others."

  "You're nuts!"

  "I'm looking at my watch here. We've got a good ten minutes to wait this out. I'm just following orders." She grinned. "Just doing my job."

  Sweating and fidgeting, the others stopped.

  Private Mahone smiled to herself. She was getting something out of this crazy jellybean hunt. She was getting her soul back.

  She just hoped she was going to have a future to use it in.

  "What happened?" said Mahone. "What the hell's going on down there?"

  The three soldiers were still waiting for them patiently where Kozlowski had placed them. Seeing them there was a great relief, a testament to her ability to judge people.

  "No time to explain," said Grant. "We've just got to get out of here. There's a batch of aliens coming up through the tunnel."

  That was all it took.

  The cargo van kept going, rolling along with a few more guards.

  Behind them, she could still hear the echoes of Henrikson's blazing gun.

  Then it stopped, and there was a shriek the likes of which she'd never heard before.

  "If we're lucky, enough of the dead things piled up that they're going to have to clear them out first," said Grant. "C'mon, can't we get this beast to move faster?"

  "It's flat out," she said.

  Running speed. It would have to do.

  It seemed to take forever, but finally they saw the lip of the tunnel's entrance.

  They rolled out, and there, like a delightful promise, was the Anteater patiently waiting for them.

  With her excitement, Kozlowski could almost ignore the pounding pain in her hip.

  She chinned her radio on. "O'Connor! Drop all walls of the perimeter and tell Fitzwilliam to start the engines!" she gasped a breath. "Prepare for an emergency lift-off!"

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Ellis. Get those guns ready. We're going to have some visitors coming out of that hole too damned quickly. Try and stop them, if you can!"

  "Yes, sir."

  They hightailed it.

  They were halfway there when the aliens started gushing out of the tunnel.

  "Now, Ellis!"

  "Roger."

  The private started blasting. The shells devastated whole sections of the emerging aliens. One blasted the side of the hive, sending down clumps of stuff to crush a few.

  But there were so many of the things that they just kept on coming, regardless.

  And coming too damned fast.

  "Hurry it up!" called Grant.

  Fortunately they hit a decline, and gained some speed.

  They were almost there.

  The ramp had been lowered for them. All they had to do, thought Kozlowski, was make that ramp. Roll up. Get in, and nip off.

  That was all.

  Grant was running alongside her. "Alex ... how's the thigh?"

  "Better. Why?"

  "I think we can run faster than this drone. We might have to abandon it."

  Kozlowski shook her head. "No freaking way, Grant. We came all the way to get this stuff. We're taking it back with us. Do you hear? I for one want to see you take a bath in the shit!"

  Grant grunted. "Only in the nude, and only if you'll join me."

  "If we're both lucky, Grant. If we're both lucky."

  Somehow, they made it to the ramp. The drone rolled up like a champ. "Fold up shop!" cried Kozlowski. "Ellis, get your butt in here."

  The hydraulic struts of the ramp started squealing up, hauling up the platform.

  Through another door Private Ellis raced in, still clutching his dead friend's saxophone.

  "Closing up the guns."

  "Damn. We've got nothing to shoot them with now," said Kozlowski, hopping off the cargo drone, letting the side serve as her crutch.

  "Engines firing."

  "The damned hatch has got to close first!" she cried.

  Then, a flicker of nightmare:

  Talons, scrambling for a hold on the ramp, coming up now like a castle drawbridge in the face of vandals.

  The too-familiar banana-shaped head, the drooling fangs ...

  A hissing insinuated through the sound of the hydraulics.

  Guns raised to shoot the alien scrabbling in.

  "No!" cried Kozlowski. "The blood will eat through the door. We won't be able to lift—"

  "Hell," said Ellis. "I can't play the stupid thing anyway."

  With all his might he threw the saxophone.

  Its metal base bashed directly into the alien's head.

  Bonk!

  The creature was knocked off the door, and it closed, tightly and firmly, no alien blood acid eating through it.

  The lander rumbled and throbbed, and Kozlowski could feel its rockets kicking off this foul planet's dust with fiery disgust.

  Epilogue

  She was lying in bed, with a beautiful view of the stars through a viewport window.

  She was safe and sound, and a few simple, nonaddictive drugs were running through her system, killing the pain of the fractured thigh.

  She was off the Fire. The mission was complete. The Corps was going to be happy, and maybe she'd even get a promotion. She felt the loss of her troops heavily, but then she'd lost people before. Old hat. The emptiness went away. Eventually.

  She felt no imminent sense of danger. She had some books to read, and some vids to watch.

  Why, then, Colonel Alexandra Kozlowski asked herself, did she feel so bored and antsy?

  This should be a time to ce
lebrate.

  After they'd gotten the Anteater safely back on the Razzia, and off-loaded the tank, they realized they had twenty-five hundred gallons of the stuff. Grant's scientists were totally blissed. It was enough to work with, and absolutely top quality, no sign of that red strain whatsoever. There was a good chance now they could even create their own queen mother.

  They'd nuked the black hive as a parting shot.

  There were probably xenos left on the planet. But it would take a long, long time to regroup. Kozlowski imagined one playing a soulful sax as its hive burned.

  Yeah!

  Turned out, according to Friel and others, this whole "red aliens" thing was a fluke. The queen mother and the queens were dead now, and all their eggs. They'd never come scratching on their door again.

  The generic brand though ...

  They'd be around. They were the universe's cockroaches, with a vengeance.

  And she'd helped step on her share.

  A time for rest and relaxation and recuperation. A time for peace and meditation and—

  Whatever.

  So it was that when Daniel Grant came to see her later that day, she was overjoyed at his visit—though she'd be damned if she'd let him know how much.

  "Hello, Colonel. How are you feeling?"

  "Okay. Not an extreme fracture. The machine set it, and it should heal while I'm in hypersleep. A little physical therapy on Earth, and I'll be right as rain."

  "Good. I'm pleased. Very pleased." His eyes seemed to drift toward the stars and into abstraction.

  "You come here to talk about something?"

  "Nothing in particular. I just wanted to make sure you're all right."

  "I'm fine. Nothing more?"

  "Well, everyone seems to be on the emotional mend. Lot of people are just sleeping ... I guess in reaction to all that stress."

  "And you. What are you doing? Taking any baths in your royal jelly yet?"

  "No. No ... Waiting for you." He laughed. "The scientists are just tickled pink. They've already started to work on it, along with the samples of the red alien DNA. They say maybe they really have got something here."

  "I hope so. We had to dole out a few lives for it."

  "I'm going to make sure that those lives were not lost in vain, Alex." He looked down at the bed, smoothing the linen thoughtfully. "Actually, you know, maybe there was something I wanted to talk to you about."

  "Shoot. I'm not going anywhere."

  "I was impressed by your work here. When we get back, I'm probably going to need someone to head up a security team for Grant Industries. The job is yours, if you want it."

  She laughed. "And leave the marines? No way. I've got a mission in life, Grant. And it's not to guard your butt."

  He shook his head. "I don't understand, Alex. How much longer can you do things like this mission? How long do you think you can survive?"

  "I don't know any other kind of life ... except ..."

  "Except what?"

  "Except for maybe when I was a little girl. Yeah. I had a real good life when I was a kid, Grant. Perfect. And then a bunch of monsters came down and destroyed that life and destroyed a lot of lives." She shook her head. "Think about it, Grant. Think about it while you're sitting up there in your ivory tower when you get back. This may seem like hell to you. It's pretty rough, sure ... That mission was one of the roughest. But chew on this—most wars get fought between people arguing over some relatively silly matter ... usually involving money or land or possessions. People kill people. It's stupid, senseless, and a waste. History is drowned in the shed blood of martyrs for meaningless causes." She shook her head. "I don't know if I'm even going to make any history books, Grant. But I do know that whatever I accomplish against ... against this plague against decent life ... this evil that has infected the galaxy ... It's not meaningless." She took a deep breath. "Now how many people can be positive ... absolutely feel-it-to-their-toes sure ... That their lives mean something. That as full as foibles as they are, they're living and fighting for something good."

  Grant seemed to consider that for a moment.

  "I can't argue much about that, Alex." He slapped his knees and stood up. "But we can't all be Joan of Arc. Somebody's got to get the engines of commerce running. And somebody's got to be in charge of those engines."

  "Well, maybe you've got a different view of things now that you've looked at life through the jaws of one of the monsters coming at you?"

  "Sure. Sure. Of course, now I've got to figure out how to look at life without worrying about mobsters or MedTech."

  She laughed. "I'm sure the generals and admiral back home will be so pleased, you'll have no problem, Grant."

  "I don't know ... I just hope that what we've done on this journey does make a difference."

  She smiled. "I've been watching you, Grant. I think it already has, jelly or no jelly."

  "Thanks. I guess maybe you're right." He started to leave, then paused and turned.

  "Alex?"

  "Daniel?"

  "If you won't work for me ... Maybe you'd like to have a little bubbly, a little caviar, a little gourmet dinner with me sometime?"

  "Hell no!"

  He sighed, nodded, and turned to go.

  "But if you want a beer and some pretzels sometime, Daniel—I keep my larder well stocked with those."

  He seemed confused for a moment, looked at her.

  She winked at him.

  His face flushed and he laughed.

  "Count on it, Colonel. Count on it."

  He blew a kiss at her and turned.

  "Oh. And, Danny boy," she called after him.

  He turned. "Yes?"

  She'd pulled out the cigar he'd given her, along with a lighter. She puffed the thing alight. "Thanks for the smoke."

  "Anytime, Colonel. Anytime."

  He left.

  She looked back out at the stars.

  She hadn't seen stars as beautiful as these, she thought, as filled with wonder and awe—

  Well, since she was just a kid.

  Suddenly, unaccountably, she found herself craving pretzels and beer as she blew thick puffs of smoke at the bright points of light.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DAVID BISCHOFF is the author of 40 novels spanning almost every genre: science fiction, fantasy, horror, historical, YA and mystery. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Star Trek: The Next Generation—Grounded. The scripts he's written for television include two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK

  August 2004. Scanned, proofed and formatted by Bibliophile.