by Weston Ochse
Kash lowered her pistol.
Hoenikker did the same with his, holding it uneasily in two hands.
“Things are worse than I expected,” Cruz said. “We might have had a chance if it wasn’t for the commander.”
“What do you mean?” Hoenikker asked.
“If we could do a sweep of the corridors, we could create safe zones. The problem, though, is that we have islands of efficiency. The commander has turtled up in his suite and decided to wait out the infiltration. Same thing happening in the shuttle bay. Security locked it down and are keeping us away from the one way off the rock.” Seeing the look of surprise in their eyes, he said, “There are things you don’t know—things I was briefed about after Mansfield became fertilizer, and I was promoted. We’re worse off than you think we are, especially now that the security staff have been OPCON’d directly to the commander.”
“OPCON’d?” Kash asked.
“Sorry,” Cruz said. “Operational controlled. Yeah. This means he’s either taken over the role of security chief, or the security chief is dead. The commander could do his job and we could rid ourselves of the Xenomorphs, or at least keep them locked in the mess hall.”
“Wait?” Hoenikker asked. “What’s going on in the mess hall?”
“Seven is what’s going on.” Cruz shook his head. “They’ve turned the mess hall into a Xenomorph factory.”
“What?” Kash’s mouth dropped open. She glanced warily at Hoenikker.
“Here,” he pulled out his personal vid display from where he had it secured under his armor. “I patched it into the security cams. Just take a look how organized the Xenomorphs are. It’s going to blow your fucking mind.” He handed it to Hoenikker.
The screen clicked on. The Xenos were still at it. Only a few humans remained in one corner of the mess hall, kept there by a twitchy adult alien that snapped and drooled at them every few seconds. They cowered, hugging each other, and even though the display had no sound, it was obvious they were crying and begging the universe to save them.
Even as they watched, a Xenomorph held a red-haired young man over an Ovomorph, its wide-clawed hand on the back of his head, locking it in place. They watched in horror as the Ovomorph opened like the petals of a terrible flower, then the snap and twist as a face-hugger launched out of it, wrapping its tail around the man’s neck, its claws grasping the man’s head for purchase.
“Jesus,” Hoenikker said, jerking back. “This is terrible.” Then he leaned back in. “How do you think it’s communicating?” he asked, turning to Kash.
“I don’t even care,” Kash said. “We have to stop it.” She turned to Cruz, her eyes pleading. “We have to stop it. Can we go stop it, now?” Her lips tightened and trembled as she spoke.
“What’s to stop? Look at the others, stacked over there like logs. They’ve been at this for hours. It’s as if Seven and the other Xenomorphs knew where the other eggs were—but that was a well-kept secret.” Cruz shook his head. “Best we can do is lock the doors to the mess hall, and keep them trapped inside.”
“And then what?” Hoenikker asked. “Then what do we do?”
“We need to hook up with Rawlings and the others. There’s several of us Colonial Marines who planned for something like this. I have an algorithm running that will let me know when they show up on one of the security cameras.”
A subdued ding came from his vid screen. He grabbed it from Hoenikker, punched up a different view.
“Just as I said.” He saw two men and a woman moving down the corridor, then into Engineering. The last one in line turned to check the team’s six, revealing the face of Buggy. Cruz turned to the others and grinned. “We’re heading to Engineering.”
Pulling up a schematic of the station, he found that there were two routes they could follow. One would take them near the mess hall, though, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to get that close to the breeding ground. He glanced at Hoenikker and Kash. No, not with two civilians.
“Alright, you two. Stay on my six. We’re going to join the others, and we’re going to be moving fast, so keep up.” Cruz slid the vid display back under his armor.
The other two scientists stared at him, terrified.
“Nod if you understand,” he said.
They both nodded.
Hoenikker licked his lips.
Cruz put his helmet back on and checked the ammo counter on his rifle. All was good. He palmed the door open, looked left, then right, then left again. After a moment, he turned right and took off at a small jog. The body armor was heavy, but he’d run in much worse conditions. He could be running outside. At night. In the mud and rain. Enemies firing at him. This was nothing more than a jog down the—
He ran full tilt into an adult Xenomorph.
Before he could bring up his rifle, the beast turned to him and shot forth its multiple jaws, spraying him with acid and knocking him to the ground. The armor bore the brunt of the acid. He tried to scramble to his feet but the Xenomorph whipped around, the barb on its tail catching him in the side and throwing him into the wall. He lost his grip on the rifle, which twisted out of his hand.
The Xeno turned to face the scientists.
Both backed away, pistols aiming at the floor.
“Shoot the damn thing!” Cruz bellowed.
The Xenomorph took three quick steps toward them and began to open its mouth.
“I said shoot!”
They raised their pistols so slowly it was like they were moving through water. Cruz knew right then they were going to die. First the other scientists and then him, because like a raw recruit he’d lost control of his rifle. Fucking damn it all to hell. He twisted into a sitting position and reached for his rifle. It was his only chance.
Someone screamed.
Then the sound of two pistols opening fire.
He spun to the sound. The scientists had finally done it, sending dozens of rounds into the face and chest of the Xenomorph. Its body jerked and twisted with the impacts. Acid and spittle flew from its face, landing on the walls and ceiling. Where it hit, the surfaces sizzled. Finally, it fell backward, its blood blistering the ground beneath it. Had the floor been made of metal or something less solid than concrete, he was sure it would have melted through. Even so, pockmarks appeared.
Cruz kicked out to get away from the spreading pool of acid, then managed to get to his feet. He checked the armor, which didn’t seem worse for wear, snatched his rifle off the floor, and nodded at the pair.
They both stood wide-eyed and open-mouthed, staring at the dead Xenomorph. Cruz approved. They might be good for something after all. Chances were they were going to get killed pretty quickly if the shit hit the fan, but at least they’d been blooded, and knew the working end of a pistol.
“Good job.” He turned and stepped around the dead predator. “Okay. Let’s go.” He started his jog again, this time slowing down a little at blind corners. About a minute and a half later they were at the door to Engineering.
He palmed open the door.
Three hard-looking persons turned to greet him with their pulse rifles.
Then they all grinned.
“Howdy, Marine,” Buggy said.
Cruz mock saluted, made sure the two scientists were in the room, then palmed the door shut.
Rawlings pointed to the scorch mark on the chest plate of the body armor.
“Ran into a little trouble, did you?”
“Score one for the scientists. Thing took me by surprise.” He cranked his neck. “Damn those things are strong.” He noticed that McGann was studying a particularly confusing schematic. “What is it you all are doing?”
“We need some place to turtle,” Rawlings said. “Shit’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better. Not to mention we can’t even get to the food storage now.”
“Wait until those assholes in the commander’s suite run out of food. They’ll start eating themselves, sooner or later.” When Rawlings shot him a questioning look, Cruz related w
hat he knew, and the conversation he’d had with Security Tech Francis.
“So where’s the place you think is such a good candidate to hide?” Cruz asked.
“Thompson’s hunting lodge. I heard there was one off station,” Rawlings said. “And ‘off station’ means we get away from the Xenomorphs. Even better”—his face brightened— “it’s supposed to be fully stocked.”
“If I remember right, there were enough dangerous things outside of the station to keep us on lockdown,” Kash said, joining in.
“That was before the Xenomorphs,” Cruz said. “Plus, if it belonged to Thompson, then it probably has a lot of firearms. Something tells me we don’t have enough.”
Rawlings nodded, pointing at his scorched armor.
“Something tells me you’re right.”
42
Hoenikker felt the shaky aftereffects of the adrenaline rush. He’d never fired a pistol point blank into an alien that could kill him in the blink of an eye. At first, he’d frozen and couldn’t move. A voice screamed from the inside, telling him to lift the pistol, but the only muscles working had been his leg muscles, propelling him backward.
Then his scream became real and his arms unlocked. He could still hear the sounds of gunfire and see the rounds impacting the Xenomorph’s head and chest. The way it stiffened and fell back with each impact.
Realizing he was still holding the pistol in a shaky hand, he set it down on one of the desks. He wiped sweat from his forehead, bewildered that a body could produce so much, and glanced over at Kash. She seemed to be processing the same emotions, but was taking it better. Still, he could tell by the slight tremble in her shoulders that her adrenaline was bleeding away as well.
And Cruz? He seemed to be impervious. Daunting in his power armor, his dark skin, sharp features, cutting the perfect image of a Colonial Marine. He stood with one leg jutting out, one hand on his hip as he spoke confidently with the others. Moving from the maintenance closet to Engineering had been a walk in the park for him.
Hoenikker straightened his spine. If he was going to survive this, he needed to emulate the man as much as possible. Cruz noticed his movement, glanced at him, nodded, then returned to his conversation.
Evidently former Deputy Station Chief Thompson, prior to being unceremoniously removed from his position by Bellows, had used station assets to build his own hunting lodge about two kilometers from the station. His own outpost where he could play safari. If what the others said was right, they’d have enough food and weapons to last until a company of active Colonial Marines could come.
“Does anyone know if there’s been an SOS?” McGann asked.
Buggy, who was a comms tech, responded, “Here at Pala, we don’t have the capability for deep space transmissions. We sent SOSs to the San Lorenzo, but we have no idea if their radio systems are set to auto-forward, or if there’s a comms tech doing the work. We can’t raise anyone, and have no way to go find out unless we take the shuttle up.”
“The shuttle is out of the question,” Cruz said, “for now.”
“That means no one knows what’s happening here,” Hoenikker said.
Buggy nodded. “That’s exactly what it means.”
“All the more reason to get out of here,” Cruz said. “Let Security fight the Xenomorphs until either one side or both are dead.” He pulled out his personal vid and groaned. The screen had cracked in two places. He tossed it onto a desk. “It’s all about water and food now. Napoleon knew that an army traveled on its stomach. It’s why he almost conquered all of Europe. He didn’t have to master warfare—he only had to master logistics. The two groups that are holed up are probably experiencing hunger pains. Infighting is going to follow.”
Kash began to rummage through the desks and the lockers.
“What are you doing, ma’am?” McGann asked.
“I don’t know of a single office that doesn’t have munchies. Snacks. We should gather up what we can, when we can— don’t you think?”
Hoenikker agreed. He began on the other side of the room. Let the marines make their plan. At least he could be of use.
Before long they had several bags of chips, some crackers made from some sort of seaweed, and nuts. Then Hoenikker hit the motherlode in Engineering Chief Dudman’s office. Dudman had a minifridge that contained a bunch of food ranging from fruit to some sort of mystery meat in gravy. Hoenikker left it in the fridge, but grabbed a pad and a pen and made a note of what was there. Then he returned to Kash.
“Looks like with the six of us, we have about two days of food,” she said. “Three if we ration even more.”
“That gives us enough time to get to the lodge,” Hoenikker said.
“About that…” McGann began.
Hoenikker recognized the tone, and worry immediately set in. Everyone turned toward the engineering tech.
“Might as well tell us,” Cruz said, a frown already deepening in his face. “News is like a dead body. It don’t smell better with age.”
“As it turns out, there’s… one of three ways to leave the station,” McGann began slowly. “The first is the shuttle bay. There’s an exit by the venting system.”
“That’s out,” Cruz said. “Unless we can talk our way in.”
“Then there’s the mess hall. Backside of the kitchen is an exit door.”
Hoenikker shuddered. That was the last place he wanted to go, no matter how intriguing their interaction was from a scientific point of view.
“Might as well lay down and get face-hugged,” Cruz said.
Everyone nodded.
Buggy shuddered.
“Then there’s the command suites. They have an emergency hatch that allows for them to escape.” She pointed at the screen of the desktop vid. “Good news is that it hasn’t been activated, and it does have power.”
“So you think the commander doesn’t know about the lodge?” Hoenikker asked.
“When he kicked the commander and deputy commander off station,” Buggy said, “I doubt there was an exit interview. External security would know about it, because they were the ones who guarded Thompson while he was outside. They must not have told Bellows, for some reason known only to them.”
Everyone stared. The best guess Hoenikker could make was that the security personnel wanted the lodge for themselves.
“So no matter which way we go, we have to fight,” he said, putting words to what they all must be thinking. “Either the security forces or the Xenomorphs. Am I getting this right?”
“Afraid so.” McGann nodded.
Cruz leaned over and stared at the screen. He tapped it thoughtfully. Hoenikker wondered what was going through the man’s mind. His critical thinking skills might be sharper even than his sadistic tendencies.
Cruz pointed. “Can we shut down power to various doors from here?”
“Sure,” McGann said. “But what good will that do?”
“Well, first thing we can do is secure the doors to the mess hall. That will keep Seven and his merry band of killers in there for as long as it takes him to figure a way out. Hopefully, that will be long enough for us to blow this popsicle stand.”
“And second?” Buggy asked. “You said first, so I figure there must be a second.”
“Second, we lock down all the doors. We’re in Engineering. We have special access. Perhaps we’ll get to the point where we have something we can trade for safe passage out of here.” He turned to Kash. “How much food did you say we had?”
“Two days. Three days max.”
“So, we have seventy-two hours to figure this out. They should be good and hungry by then.” He tapped the screen. “My guess is that the guards in the shuttle bay will blink first. The command suites probably have decent food storage. But the shuttle bay and loading docks? Naw. They’re going to get hungry.”
Hoenikker looked askance at the food on the table, and thought about the stuff in the fridge. He’d never had to ration before—never been told there wasn’t enough food to eat
. He glanced at the other men, all bigger than him. Surely they’d need more calories than he would to survive. They’d have to eat more food.
What would happen in three days if they couldn’t negotiate their way out? Things were going to get worse. Would they actually draw straws, like he’d read about in old books, or would they just kick him out the door? Certainly, he’d be first. After all, what good was he in a firefight, compared to them?
Times like these, one’s ability to survive trumped any other academic or God-given skill.
Cruz noticed him looking at the door.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “It’s not going to come to that.”
Hoenikker stared at him, blinked several times, and wondered how the man could possibly know what he was thinking, unless he was thinking the same thing—only from his own point of view.
That wasn’t reassuring.
“We’re going to get this handled,” Cruz said. “First step is to remove power from every door. That’ll keep them from being able to rewire. Then we sit back for a day and let them freak out. At the end of that day, we get on comms and let them know what their choices are.”
Kash shook her head. “The longer we wait, the more time the Xenomorphs have to breed. Right now we’re facing seven or eight. Soon there will be several dozen.”
“Well, let’s hope that’s the station’s problem. We’ll let the security forces sort it out if and when the Xenomorphs are able to leave the mess hall,” Cruz said.
“I’d say when, not if,” Kash replied.
“I’m afraid that you’re right.”
“Say? Anyone seen Étienne lately?” Hoenikker asked.
Everyone looked at him.
“I can’t see how he survived,” Cruz said. “I guess he went out like he wanted to.”
Hoenikker thought of the man singing, walking down the hall past the Xenomorphs. He couldn’t help but smile at the sheer lunacy of it, and hoped Étienne had found a way to survive.