by Weston Ochse
Buggy shook his head.
Rawlings sighed, and lowered his head to his chest, puffing out his neck. White scars could be seen on his dark skin. “Probably just as well. Where was I? Yeah. We were on this LV, I forget which one. Mining colony was losing miners and support staff. Turns out some of those eggs were found deep in the mine. Same eggs we have in the lab right now. We never did get the chance to see what the eggs looked like, just heard about them. Instead, we had full-on adult Xenomorphs. I’ll never forget them. I watched them plow through six marines like the creatures were hot knives and the marines were butter.”
Everyone’s eyes were on him. Leaning forward.
Part of this story, and part of theirs.
“We didn’t come down without firepower, though. We had a pair of M577 armored personnel carriers.”
Buggy gave a low whistle.
Rawlings looked at him and nodded. “Yep. A pair of synchronized RE700 20mm Gatling cannons. We were able to back the Xenos into a corner of the mine and opened fire with all four cannons. We didn’t care for shit about the flechettes. We gave them all we had in HE rounds. Imagine six thousand eight hundred high-explosive armor-piercing rounds slamming into the dozen Xenos that were preparing to charge. Brothers, we turned them into mush. They covered the walls, the floor, the ceiling. We fucking obliterated them.”
“I don’t get it,” Chase said. “I thought you were going to tell us how you lost your hand.”
“But wait… there’s more,” Rawlings said. “We waited, and once the thermal imagers and ultrasonic motion trackers gave us a consistent negative reading, we prepared to open the hatch and exit. I was the first out, opened the hatch, and as I did, some of their fucking Xeno blood fell onto my hand. Must have been dripping from the ceiling.
“The pain was immense. I watched as my hand just turned to liquid and fell away. I remember screaming and falling back inside the carrier. I ordered the driver to put it in reverse and get us the hell out of there. Once we were back in daylight, we got the medics to take a look. The wound had cauterized itself, which was good, but I had no hand. Gone. Just like that. From a few drips of blood. Now imagine what a whole pool of that blood will do to something—do to someone?”
All eyes were wide.
The smile on McGann’s wide face was anything but friendly—more a grimace than anything.
Chase looked ready to bolt.
Buggy’s jaw was set into a firm frown.
“And the M577s,” Rawlings continued. “In the light of day, the armor had been pocked by the Xeno blood. It hadn’t made it all the way through, but it might have, had we let the ceiling continue to drip on it. As it was, there were holes you could put a fist through.”
Rawlings pulled himself up from the bed and went over to his dresser. He opened the second drawer and pulled out a bottle that was only a third full. He took a deep draught and passed it around. Each of the others took a deep draw, as well. When they passed it back to him there was enough for one more, and he took it. He held the empty bottle in his artificial hand.
“And that, gentlemen, is what we have in the laboratory. If any of those get out, not only do we need to kill it, but we need to watch after, because their blood is as deadly to us as they are alive.”
24
Fairbanks hadn’t eaten in three days. He hadn’t drunk anything either. A container of his own urine stared back at him, begging him to take a sip. He’d read and seen planetary survival vids where people had been forced to drink their own urine in order to live, but he’d never thought he’d be one of them.
An hour or so ago—he’d lost the ability to keep track of time—he’d gone to it and lifted it to his face, but the smell had overpowered him and made him gag. With nothing in his stomach, it was little more than dry heaves, but the attempt had left him exhausted.
When he’d fled, he hadn’t been sure where he was going to go. All he knew was he needed to get away. He needed to be able to think—to come up with a plan. After all, he wasn’t a bad guy. He’d just been caught up in the middle of bad things. He’d been blackmailed, pure and simple. Was it his fault? No. He was a victim.
He’d go to the grave believing as much.
But he’d needed a place to plan. Because of his work in Logistics, he knew where things were kept. He knew the layout of the storerooms, and knew which ones were never inventoried. Which ones were so inconsequential that they didn’t have sensors. He’d chosen one of those, certain that he couldn’t be found. He’d made himself a hiding spot behind some old bedframes and boxes of paint. What it lacked in the comforts of home, it more than made up for in its spartan qualities.
After he’d overcome his initial fear at being caught, he’d fallen into a deep pit of boredom. No vids. No games. No books. Nothing. Just him and his mind, replaying the events of what turned out to be a pretty pathetic life. Somewhere during the second or third replaying of his school years he’d decided that if he ever got out of this situation, he’d make a wholesale change. He’d find a way to leave Weyland-Yutani, maybe buy out his contract, then sign on to a terraforming mission or a pilgrimage. Life wasn’t meant to be lived inside the cold steel walls of an outpost like Pala Station. Life was meant to be lived outdoors, under wide open skies. Life was to be lived with people.
He knew this last part was because of his loneliness. Ever since he’d come aboard the station, he’d found it hard to make friends. The idea of having a boyfriend or a girlfriend was even more ludicrous. The funny thing was, the one he was most drawn to was the blonde security guard. She could probably break him over her knee, but he’d enjoy her doing it. He’d once had a boyfriend in college who was twice his size. He’d thought he’d loved him, but it turned out that he’d become codependent. The guy was addicted to stims, and could be quite the bully. Eventually, Fairbanks realized that he’d spent more time trying to placate his partner than being with him on his own terms. Or were those his own terms?
His head jerked.
Was that a sound?
He stopped breathing and listened for the door to open.
Nothing came.
Maybe he hadn’t heard anything.
Maybe it was all in his mind.
But there it was again. Not the sound of the door, but something smaller. Something like a scratching noise. What could it be?
He scooted so his back was in the corner where the urine container was. He glanced around for a weapon, scrambled toward one of the bedframes and grabbed a piece of metal that had been dangling. He gripped it and began to wrench it back and forth, making more noise than he believed possible.
The scrabbling came again, this time nearer to him.
He wrenched faster and managed to come away with the twelve-inch piece of metal just as a creature leaped onto the bedframe in front of him. He fell back, colliding with the urine container, the putrid liquid sloshing up, wetting the back of his shirt. He gaped at the creature.
It had been a rat once, for sure. But instead of small rat legs, it now had long segmented chitinous legs that held up an enlarged torso. And its face. Its face held a maw with serrated teeth that looked capable of shredding his arm. The entire creature was the size of a station cat, which meant it had to have increased in size no less than ten times. But how could that be?
A high-pitched laugh escaped him.
Was this something Hyperdyne created? Or was it something they wanted?
No. He couldn’t believe it. More likely it was something that escaped from the lab. Hadn’t there been a breach before the Leon-895? Either that or… or what if the regular rats had come into contact with the blood of one of the escaped specimens? Could that have done this?
The creature leaped to the ground, landing five feet in front of him.
Fairbanks let out an, “Eep!” and kicked out with a shoe.
The creature easily avoided the move and leaped atop the leg. Fairbanks bit back a scream as he began to shake his leg furiously, trying to remove the thing, but as ha
rd as he shook, the creature wouldn’t let go.
He managed to climb to his feet while still shaking his leg. The creature had its long legs wrapped around it and was trying to chew through the fabric of his pants. Shoving the length of metal against the creature’s torso, he tried to dislodge it, but it wouldn’t move. He tried again, this time poking harder. The creature looked up and snarled at him, then went back to trying to… bite him? Eat him?
Stepping forward he kicked his leg against the metal bedframe. It made a calamitous noise, but the creature still held fast.
“Fucking hell!”
Fairbanks kicked five, six, then seven times, pummeling the creature against the metal until it finally released. He fell back against the wall. His leg ached with the kicks. He held out the metal, this time prepared to defend himself.
The creature had landed on its back and it took a moment for it to right itself. When it did, it glared at him and bared its serrated teeth.
“Fucking hell,” he repeated, this time his voice low and filled with dread. “Stay back you little fucker,” he said, punctuating his words with the metal.
It took a step toward him, then another, then before Fairbanks could do anything, it leaped. He swung with the length of metal and missed. Instead, the creature landed on his arm. He was surprised by the weight, and even more surprised by the pain as it bit down on his hand, separating tendons and breaking bones.
He couldn’t help himself as he screamed and dropped his makeshift weapon. He spun to the wall and began to smack his hand against it over and over. The creature seemed to become weaker and weaker with each battering, until finally it fell to the floor, knocking over the urine container.
Fairbanks didn’t hesitate. He stomped the damn thing until he saw its guts come out of its mouth. Once he was sure it was dead, he backed away from it, chest heaving, out of breath from both exertion and fear. After a few moments, he looked at his savaged hand, and almost retched.
It looked as if a wild beast had just taken bites from it—which was true. He straightened and removed his shirt, but couldn’t rip a bandage from it with one hand, so he used the entire thing to wrap his wound. When he felt the wetness, he remembered the shirt back had been soaked with his own urine. He could only hope it held some sort of antiseptic property.
With the creature dead, he sat and stared at it, resting in a pool of urine. Was that it? Had he become infected with the same thing that mutated the rat? Was he going to grow long legs and rollick about the station, trying to eat people? The idea made him giggle. The impossibility of it made him laugh—but what if it was true? He didn’t know anything about science or biology, but wasn’t that how it worked?
He sat thinking like this, losing track of time, when an idea came to him.
The longer he’d sat staring at the creature, the more he’d been reminded of his own hunger. And as far as he looked at the situation, it was a win-win. If the creature was infected, it had already infected him, so eating it wouldn’t do any more damage. If he wasn’t infected, then the creature couldn’t infect him, which meant he could eat it and nothing would happen. Except he’d finally have something in his gullet.
But he’d have to get the guts out. He couldn’t eat guts.
And he couldn’t eat the skin, so he’d have to gnaw the meat.
He wished he had some way to cook it, but that would be impossible. The smoke alone would set off alarms. No, he’d have to eat it raw. Thinking about it, he realized he’d already made up his mind.
Using the ragged piece of metal, he crawled over and hacked at one of the spider legs. Once it came off, he sat back and began to gnaw on it. It tasted bitter and vile, but that was probably the urine. If he could get past that, the creature might actually taste good.
One thing was for sure. He wasn’t going to starve.
Like he’d thought, this was a win-win.
25
Hoenikker hadn’t said a word for the last four hours. Neither had Étienne, his efficient movements accentuated by the death stares he gave Cruz when the “chief” of the lab wasn’t looking.
No one was happy to be there, but after all, they were scientists and needed to concentrate on the task at hand. At least, that’s what Hoenikker said to himself, to make everything they were doing seem reasonable… ethical… moral. Because it sure hadn’t felt that way.
Even as Kash quietly directed him to take samples from the exterior of the eggs and store them for further examination, he couldn’t help but glance at the human test subjects who would soon be used as incubators to propel the alien’s morphology along.
Hoenikker had tried to send a message back to Weyland-Yutani corporate, begging for a transfer, but Bellows had put a block on all outgoing comms while the Xenomorphs were on station. According to Buggy, the very existence of the Xenomorphs was supposed to be classified. That they’d only been rumored to exist demonstrated that there were active controls on the information.
Kash handed him another sample.
He took the metal tube, tagged it, logged it, then put it into cryogenic storage.
To keep sane, he’d have to concentrate on the scientific method. Used by scientists across the known systems, the method hadn’t changed since the 1700s—conduct background research, construct a hypothesis, test the hypothesis through experimentation, analyze the data, draw conclusions, then communicate the results.
They had little knowledge regarding the pathogen and its interaction with organic beings. What they did know was that the goo tended to exacerbate naturally occurring characteristics of the test subject, and weaponize them. He’d read the data from when they’d created the acid-resistant armor. The goo was definitely the catalyst, but how it had been used was genius. Now they were going to try different levels of irradiation, as well as a serum developed from Leon-895. If they could give the armor a cloaking or chameleon quality it would make the wearer near invincible.
One of the questions they needed to address was, how did the Xenomorphs see? Was it through thermal imaging? Did they have some sort of motion detection? So many questions, with elusive answers on the horizon.
Truth be told, the scientific method excited him.
What didn’t excite him were the prisoners.
Especially Test Subject #3.
Cruz had insisted that each of the human test subjects remain anonymous, so that the scientists could retain some semblance of objectivity. The problem was that some of the test subjects looked like people they knew from the past, which erased some of the subjectivity. Like Test Subject #3. She looked like an older version of Hoenikker’s steady girlfriend during the first two years of university.
Her name had been Monica Enright. She was blond, introspective, but eager to please as if it had been drilled into her by her parents and she couldn’t turn it off. In the end, that had been the problem. No matter how Hoenikker messed up his life or his grades or his relationship, she forgave him and wanted nothing more than to make him happy—in order to be happy.
It had been toxic for him, and just as toxic for her, he’d convinced himself. In the end, he’d walked out.
He’d always wondered if he’d done the right thing. Was it her fault that she’d loved so unconditionally? Was that something he deserved? It certainly didn’t make her a bad person. The opposite had been true—she was a great person. He could still see her face as he left, not understanding, unable to fathom why he was leaving when she would do anything for him.
Perhaps that was the problem. A relationship couldn’t exist without some degree of conflict. He’d needed her to be angry. He needed balance. Still, he wondered what his life would have been like had he stayed with her, married her.
Shaking his head to clear it, he glanced up at Test Subject #3. She was looking at him.
No, staring.
Could it be her?
He had to know.
He went to Cruz. “Can I have a moment with you, Doctor?”
Cruz paused at his workstation.
“I’m a little busy now, Hoenikker. Can it wait?”
Hoenikker nodded and began to back away.
Cruz returned to his work.
Hoenikker stared at him for a moment. “You know what? No, it won’t. I need that moment now.”
“Fine then.” Cruz sat back from his pad, eyebrow up at Hoenikker’s intrusion. “What it is?”
“I need to know who the test subjects are.”
Cruz gave him an impatient look, and prepared to get back to work. “I already explained. We’re not doing that.”
“Wait.” Hoenikker surprised himself by putting his hand on Cruz’s shoulder. “Wait. I—I think I know one of them.”
Cruz stared at him, then the offending hand.
Hoenikker removed it and took a step back.
Cruz appraised him. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since you got here.”
Hoenikker shook his head, thinking of all the specimen therapy Cruz had been doing off the clock. But he let that go.
“That’s not true at all. I was promised alien artifacts. I’m not used to live specimens. It’s not my specialty.”
“Take that up with Mansfield,” Cruz said. Then he added, “Oh, wait. He’s dead.”
Hoenikker felt himself becoming exasperated. “What are you talking about? All I want to know are the names of the test subjects.”
“Because you think you know one of them.”
Hoenikker nodded. “I’m almost sure of it.”
“Do you know what the odds are for that? Come on, Doctor. Do the math.”
“Math be damned. I think I know Test Subject #3. I think she was my… was my girlfriend in college.” Cruz glanced at the test subject in question for a long moment, then shook his head.
“She’s no one to you, Hoenikker. I’m not going to release the names.”
Hoenikker opened his mouth to argue, but Cruz beat him to the punch.
“Enough of this. Get back to work. She’s not who you think she is.”
“But you don’t understand—”
“I understand everything.” Cruz stood, towering a full head above Hoenikker. “You want to save the test subjects. Everyone does—but the universe doesn’t work like that. Those people signed a contract, much like you signed a contract. Weyland-Yutani owns your ass. Weyland-Yutani owns them. It’s a contract. They get to be part of a complex experiment to try and help save the lives of Colonial Marines, and in turn Weyland-Yutani does something for them.” He poked Hoenikker in the chest as he said the next words. “Just. Leave. It. Be.”