Alien: Colony War, page 21
Jones circled around the ridge and picked his way along a cliff’s edge, making his way to where he could pull himself up on to the landing platform. Chad realized what he was going to do and followed his route, dragging himself up onto the landing pad just to see Jones running for the New Albion ship, the Victory.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Jones,” he called at the top of his lungs.
Jones turned and fired off a couple of wild shots from his handgun. “You should have stayed hidden, McLaren. You’re going to die on this planet, so there’s no reason I can’t just kill you myself.”
He continued on, reached the Victory, and hit the door controls. Chad skidded to a halt and turned on a dime, starting to run full pelt for the colony building doors to the right of the toppled comms tower. He glanced over his shoulder to see Jones staring at him.
Then the Xenomorph that had been trapped on the ship since it had killed Jerry Bough leapt from the recesses of the Victory, claws outstretched and jaws gnashing as it let loose a hunter’s howl.
Chad didn’t look back again as he heard Jones utter a blood-chilling scream that was abruptly cut off with a gurgling, liquid choke.
* * *
It was a big one, muscular and taut and more than two meters tall when it came crashing down from the ceiling space, scattering their table and chairs and sending them all scrabbling backward away from it.
Merrilyn was the first to react, grabbing for the rifle and letting fly a flurry of pulse bursts, half of which hit the Xenomorph and sent it sprawling backward against the wall.
She was aware of Cher grabbing Therese and dragging her away, for which she was thankful. If she could pump enough fire into the Xenomorph before it could react…
The rifle clicked in her hands.
She looked at it in dismay, and pointed it again.
Nothing.
“Out of charge!” Davis cried.
Cher appeared alongside her, handgun outstretched, haphazardly letting off shots at the monster.
“Therese?” Merrilyn said.
“Back there, safe,” Cher said, pushing another pistol into Merrilyn’s hands. Safe was a very relative concept, all of a sudden.
The Xenomorph took hits and spewed acid blood from its wounds, but it seemed to be unstoppable, shrugging off the worst of the damage and crouching, getting ready to leap at them. Then Davis barreled toward it, a brown, furry missile growling and barking that slammed into the Xenomorph’s torso, knocking it off its feet before it clawed at him and tossed him away like a toy.
“Doggo!” Therese cried behind her.
The sound of her daughter’s voice seemed to give Merrilyn extra strength. The upturned canteen table was between them and the monster.
“The table!” she called out. “Grab it!”
Cher frowned but did as Merrilyn bid, the pair of them picking up the table by its top, legs toward the Xenomorph. She nodded to Cher and they both pushed forward with a simultaneous yell, Merrilyn angling the table so one of the metal legs hit the surprised alien in the chest, forcing it back against the wall and piercing its dark flesh.
It wasn’t enough to kill it. Cher and Merrilyn ducked behind the tabletop as the Xenomorph reached for them. It was trapped and out of range, and weakened by its wound, but only for as long as they had the strength to hold it there. Merrilyn risked lifting her pistol, but the creature clawed at it and knocked it out of her hand.
Then the canteen doors crashed inward.
* * *
“How many, Davis?” Cher said through gritted teeth, not daring to take her eyes off the Xenomorph pinned to the wall by the table.
“Two,” Davis said. “No, three.”
“Shit,” Cher said. “Shit shit shit.” This was it then. This was how it ended. She knew why her sister had died, but she would never get the word out. She would just join the mystery of her death, another victim of the conspiracy.
“Wait,” Davis said.
“Fuck,” moaned Cher. “More?”
Then she heard what Davis had heard. Gunfire. Lots of it, and the howling, screeching death rattles of monsters, out there in the corridor.
She sagged momentarily, then redoubled her efforts, pushing the table against the monster as it screamed and howled at them. Were they saved? Was it in time? And what was that…? Under the screams and the gunfire, a man’s voice, almost drowned but distinct and strong. And saying… a prayer?
* * *
Augustus Trent strode along the corridor, flanked by his Green Berets in their camouflage fatigues and Kevlar as they emptied their projectile rifles into the demons that infested the colony buildings of LV-187. He had never seen the like of these black, skeletal beasts with their rows of needle-sharp teeth and vicious claws, but they were merely another enemy. And the Royal Marines treated each enemy as the same: inferior and to be defeated.
He could see the fear in the eyes of some of the men and women under his command and he needed them to be strong in the face of the cadre of filth that hell had seen fit to unleash against them.
“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” Trent called over the sound of gunfire and the death screeches of the monsters, “I will fear no evil.” He put his foot on the neck of an injured creature and fired his revolver into its head until it stopped twitching. “For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff comfort me.”
They had killed five of the things, by his reckoning, and there was some commotion ahead in a double doorway where he could see at least two of the beasts crouching. A sign above the door proclaimed it to be the “Cantine.” Trent signaled for his troops to head toward it.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of thine enemies, thou annointest my head with oil…”
Three Green Berets fell to their knees and killed the two creatures by the doorway with bullets, avoiding the corpses which bled acid that smoked and boiled where it landed. Trent nodded his appreciation.
“My cup runneth over,” he intoned.
There was more noise from the canteen… human noise. Shouts and screams and… a dog? Trent stepped carefully over the bodies of the creatures and surveyed the scene. Two women had one of the monsters trapped against the wall with a table, but they were under extreme pressure. There was indeed a dog, which seemed to be guarding a small child in the corner. Trent checked his revolver.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” he called loudly as he strode toward them. It was the first time he had taken a proper look at one of the creatures, its bulbous head, its gaping jaws. Truly dragged from the mouth of Hell. He held up his gun as he approached.
“And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” The stricken creature turned its face to him and hissed, opening its jaws. Trent emptied his gun into its head, and it slammed back against the wall, the explosive shells blowing its brains out. The surface bubbled as the acid began to eat through.
As the two women holding the table slumped to the floor, Trent looked around as his team signaled that the immediate area was clear and secure.
“Amen,” Augustus Trent said. He holstered his gun. “Now, is someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
“Sir!” one of the marines called, and Trent turned to see a man in the doorway. His troops’ guns were trained on the newcomer. He was tall and broad, and looked exhausted.
“Chad!” the dog shouted. Trent raised an eyebrow.
Curiouser and curiouser.
The man held up his hands. “Thank God you’re here.”
“Correct,” Trent said. “You can indeed thank God that we’re here.”
26
As soon as Chad had cautiously entered the colony buildings, the ruined comms tower burning above him, he heard the gunfire.
Abandoning caution, he ran down the corridors as fast as he could, quickly coming across the corpses of the Xenomorphs that had been massing to attack the canteen. There he found what he recognized as a troop of Royal Marines and their commander, who introduced himself as Captain Augustus Trent of the HMS God’s Hammer.
Chad told the captain everything he needed to know about the Xenomorphs, expecting the usual barrage of questions and disbelief, but Trent just kept absent-mindedly stroking the scar that ran down his face.
“I wondered why the Cronulla was here,” Trent said.
“That was the ship that the Colonial Marines came from?” Chad said. “What happened to it?”
“We did.” Trent smiled thinly. “You’ve met with the landing party? What’s their location?”
“Dead,” Chad said. “Most of them in the dropship that destroyed the comms tower. Their officer was killed on the landing platform.”
“What happened to him?” Trent said.
“Xenomorphs did.”
“You have a ship, yes?” Merrilyn stepped forward, Therese hiding shyly behind her.
“I do, ma’am,” Trent said, touching the front of his beret. “The finest ship in the service of New Albion.”
“New Albion?” Chad said. “But the Royal Marines had to be here for the Three World Empire.”
“The galaxy is changing, Mr. McLaren,” Trent said, “and we must change with it. I, along with my crew, have decided that we are better placed serving the needs of this emergent new force than being the… what was it the commander of the Cronulla called us before he died? Ah, yes. A toothless bulldog. Better than being a toothless bulldog in the service of the Three World Empire.”
Trent stood. “We have three dropships here. I must go and get patched through to New Albion to apprise them of the situation. That all the trade party who so bravely held this colony for them have lost their lives in service to the new empire.”
“But you’re going to take us with you, right?” Cher said. “You can get us up to your ship and back to New Albion?”
“Members of my team will remain here for your protection,” Trent said. “Please don’t worry, ma’am. I do not intend to leave anyone on LV-187.” He turned and marched away with two of his marines.
Yes, well, Chad thought, that’s not the same thing as taking us with you, is it?
* * *
“I’m so glad to see you,” Cher said, giving Chad a long hug that she was too exhausted to break off. “I thought you were dead. Everybody else is.”
“Do we have any idea how many of these things have been killed?” Merrilyn asked.
Chad shrugged. “I saw five corpses in the corridors, plus the two in the doorway, and the one here. There were six in the hold of the dropship that crashed into the comms tower. How many did they kill last night? How many did we?” He rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a moot point. If there’s a hive, and a queen, and more eggs… it depends how many of the colonists they kept alive.”
“So the place could still be crawling with them,” Cher said. “Where the hell is Trent going? We need him to get us the hell out of here, and nuke the fucking place.”
“Agreed,” Chad said, “and the God’s Hammer should be more than equipped to do that.” He looked up. “Here comes Trent now.”
“You get through to your bosses on New Albion?” Cher said as Trent walked up to them and pulled up a chair, sitting astride it with his arms over the back. He ignored her and pointed to Chad.
“Mr. McLaren. Tell me again about the reproductive cycle of these Xenomorphs.”
When Chad had gone through it all again, he noticed three of the Royal Marines edging closer, their rifles in their hands. He frowned.
“Trent? What’s going on?”
“You are all being detained, temporarily, for your own safety.”
“On what grounds?” Cher said, standing up and bristling. “I’m a citizen of the United Americas.” She glared at him. “You’re making a very big mistake.”
“You are, along with Mr. McLaren and the synthetic dog, wanted for questioning on New Albion in connection with a serious breach of a no-fly order.” He turned to Merrilyn. “Ms. Hambleton and her daughter are citizens of a foreign power which is at war with New Albion. You will all be held here until our operations are complete.”
“Can’t you at least detain us on your ship, rather than here where those creatures might still attack?” Merrilyn said, looking around.
“What operations, Trent?” Chad said. “What exactly are your orders?”
“Mr. McLaren,” Trent said mildly. “You mentioned the existence of a hive. Now, where exactly would we find that?”
* * *
An hour later the marines had set up, in the center of the canteen, a field comms unit on which were displayed the various schematic overlays of the colony base.
“Can we get lifeforms readings on here?” Trent asked.
“Just patching into the colony mainframe, sir,” the marine at the controls said. “Any second now…” A fleet of yellow dots appeared on the map. “This concentration is us, here,” the marine continued, pointing to a cluster. “Here and here we have gold and red teams.”
“And these?” Trent pointed to a small grouping on the far side of the colony, and then several individual dots scattered around.
“Xenomorphs,” Chad said at his shoulder. “I count at least… twenty?”
Trent looked at him. “And where do we find this queen? We find her, we find the hive, right?”
Chad studied the schematic. He called Merrilyn over and pointed to one of the stationary dots.
“Where is this?”
She peered at it. “That’s the fusion reactor hub.”
Chad straightened up. “Then that’s your hive.” He looked at Trent. “I still say it makes more sense just to nuke the facility from orbit. You could lose a lot of men mopping up twenty Xenomorphs, and the queen… you don’t know what you’re dealing with here.”
Trent frowned. “We are not destroying a viable colony operation, along with all the oil and ore that’s stored in those tanks. Do you monitor the news, Mr. McLaren? Do you know how scarce a resource oil is, especially out here in the colonies?”
“Profit wins again,” Chad said. “Fine, Trent. You want to do it the old-fashioned way, I’ll help you. But people are going to die, you get that? And I don’t want my friends to be among them. Will you guarantee their safety?”
“I’d be a fool to make that promise,” Trent replied. “But you have one of the finest bodies of military personnel in the Weyland Isles boiling for a fight here, so I rather fancy our chances against an uncoordinated mob of blood-crazed animals.”
“I’ve heard that one before,” Chad said quietly. “It never ends well.”
Trent smiled. “This time you have God on your side, Mr. McLaren.”
* * *
Trent, Chad, and six Royal Marines were outfitted in armored apesuits, favored by both Colonial Marines and Weyland-Yutani operatives. At Chad’s insistence, the soldiers had Weyland-Yutani ID23 underslung incinerator units fitted to their NSG23 assault rifles. He told Trent it was the only way to make certain the eggs were fully destroyed. Trent himself was armed with his Norcomm semi-automatic; when Chad asked for a weapon, he was given a basic pulse sidearm.
“You won’t need it,” Trent said confidently. “My team will handle this. You won’t even get your hands dirty.”
“Why only six?” Chad said. “We should be taking three times that number of personnel.”
“Because we’re professionals.”
* * *
Chad turned to the others, Therese hiding from the mask of his suit behind Merrilyn. He flipped the face visor and smiled at her.
“We’ll be away from here soon. We’re leaving all this behind.”
Davis trotted over and Chad squatted to talk to him. “Be careful,” Davis said. “You promise me?”
Chad ruffled his fur. “We’ve got a lot to do, Davis. Neither of us are dying here.”
“Mr. McLaren,” Trent said, pulling down his visor. “Time for us to roll out.”
“Be safe,” Cher said.
“For all our sakes,” Merrilyn added.
A team of four additional marines escorted the fire team down the corridors until they came to the double doors marked with the nuclear warning stickers. They were locked and one marine fixed a low-level magnetic charge, blowing the locks with a precise, muted whump.
Inside was a small, steel-lined foyer with an elevator and a flight of metal stairs. Trent indicated for the fire team to start descending the steps, and turned to the four marines. “Two on the doors, the other pair back to the canteen.” He looked at Chad. “Shall we do this?”
Chad could think of nothing he wanted to do less. He’d seen Xenomorph hives. He’d seen queens. He was normally running away from them, not walking into them.
Hitting the night vision switch on his visor, he fell in behind the marines slowly descending the stairs. Trent stayed behind him.
* * *
In the canteen, one of the marines got the big water boiler working and proceeded to make mugs of tea for everyone. How very English, Merrilyn thought, sitting by the observation window, watching the clouds scudding across the sky while Therese petted Davis. Rain pattered lightly against the window, but it wasn’t another storm as bad as last night. Still, she didn’t feel as good about this as she should. Why could they not have airlifted them off LV-187 in a dropship, back to their vessel in orbit, and then played their stupid little soldier games? Why did they have to wait here for this to be played out?
Cher was helping distribute the tea among the marines lounging in the canteen, and she brought two steaming mugs over to Merrilyn. “Milky and sugary, only way it comes, apparently,” she said. Merrilyn gratefully accepted the mug and sipped at it. She could sense that Cher was wanting to say something.
“What is it?”
Cher bit her lip, hesitated, then said, “While everyone was resting… I saw the security camera footage. From when Therese found the Ovomorph.”
Merrilyn put her cup on the table. “Ah.”
“That was the first contact the colony had with the Xenomorphs?”
Merrilyn nodded warily, pondering what she was going to say. They had been through a lot together, more than most people had to bind them, but still she was not ready for all of this.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Jones,” he called at the top of his lungs.
Jones turned and fired off a couple of wild shots from his handgun. “You should have stayed hidden, McLaren. You’re going to die on this planet, so there’s no reason I can’t just kill you myself.”
He continued on, reached the Victory, and hit the door controls. Chad skidded to a halt and turned on a dime, starting to run full pelt for the colony building doors to the right of the toppled comms tower. He glanced over his shoulder to see Jones staring at him.
Then the Xenomorph that had been trapped on the ship since it had killed Jerry Bough leapt from the recesses of the Victory, claws outstretched and jaws gnashing as it let loose a hunter’s howl.
Chad didn’t look back again as he heard Jones utter a blood-chilling scream that was abruptly cut off with a gurgling, liquid choke.
* * *
It was a big one, muscular and taut and more than two meters tall when it came crashing down from the ceiling space, scattering their table and chairs and sending them all scrabbling backward away from it.
Merrilyn was the first to react, grabbing for the rifle and letting fly a flurry of pulse bursts, half of which hit the Xenomorph and sent it sprawling backward against the wall.
She was aware of Cher grabbing Therese and dragging her away, for which she was thankful. If she could pump enough fire into the Xenomorph before it could react…
The rifle clicked in her hands.
She looked at it in dismay, and pointed it again.
Nothing.
“Out of charge!” Davis cried.
Cher appeared alongside her, handgun outstretched, haphazardly letting off shots at the monster.
“Therese?” Merrilyn said.
“Back there, safe,” Cher said, pushing another pistol into Merrilyn’s hands. Safe was a very relative concept, all of a sudden.
The Xenomorph took hits and spewed acid blood from its wounds, but it seemed to be unstoppable, shrugging off the worst of the damage and crouching, getting ready to leap at them. Then Davis barreled toward it, a brown, furry missile growling and barking that slammed into the Xenomorph’s torso, knocking it off its feet before it clawed at him and tossed him away like a toy.
“Doggo!” Therese cried behind her.
The sound of her daughter’s voice seemed to give Merrilyn extra strength. The upturned canteen table was between them and the monster.
“The table!” she called out. “Grab it!”
Cher frowned but did as Merrilyn bid, the pair of them picking up the table by its top, legs toward the Xenomorph. She nodded to Cher and they both pushed forward with a simultaneous yell, Merrilyn angling the table so one of the metal legs hit the surprised alien in the chest, forcing it back against the wall and piercing its dark flesh.
It wasn’t enough to kill it. Cher and Merrilyn ducked behind the tabletop as the Xenomorph reached for them. It was trapped and out of range, and weakened by its wound, but only for as long as they had the strength to hold it there. Merrilyn risked lifting her pistol, but the creature clawed at it and knocked it out of her hand.
Then the canteen doors crashed inward.
* * *
“How many, Davis?” Cher said through gritted teeth, not daring to take her eyes off the Xenomorph pinned to the wall by the table.
“Two,” Davis said. “No, three.”
“Shit,” Cher said. “Shit shit shit.” This was it then. This was how it ended. She knew why her sister had died, but she would never get the word out. She would just join the mystery of her death, another victim of the conspiracy.
“Wait,” Davis said.
“Fuck,” moaned Cher. “More?”
Then she heard what Davis had heard. Gunfire. Lots of it, and the howling, screeching death rattles of monsters, out there in the corridor.
She sagged momentarily, then redoubled her efforts, pushing the table against the monster as it screamed and howled at them. Were they saved? Was it in time? And what was that…? Under the screams and the gunfire, a man’s voice, almost drowned but distinct and strong. And saying… a prayer?
* * *
Augustus Trent strode along the corridor, flanked by his Green Berets in their camouflage fatigues and Kevlar as they emptied their projectile rifles into the demons that infested the colony buildings of LV-187. He had never seen the like of these black, skeletal beasts with their rows of needle-sharp teeth and vicious claws, but they were merely another enemy. And the Royal Marines treated each enemy as the same: inferior and to be defeated.
He could see the fear in the eyes of some of the men and women under his command and he needed them to be strong in the face of the cadre of filth that hell had seen fit to unleash against them.
“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” Trent called over the sound of gunfire and the death screeches of the monsters, “I will fear no evil.” He put his foot on the neck of an injured creature and fired his revolver into its head until it stopped twitching. “For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff comfort me.”
They had killed five of the things, by his reckoning, and there was some commotion ahead in a double doorway where he could see at least two of the beasts crouching. A sign above the door proclaimed it to be the “Cantine.” Trent signaled for his troops to head toward it.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of thine enemies, thou annointest my head with oil…”
Three Green Berets fell to their knees and killed the two creatures by the doorway with bullets, avoiding the corpses which bled acid that smoked and boiled where it landed. Trent nodded his appreciation.
“My cup runneth over,” he intoned.
There was more noise from the canteen… human noise. Shouts and screams and… a dog? Trent stepped carefully over the bodies of the creatures and surveyed the scene. Two women had one of the monsters trapped against the wall with a table, but they were under extreme pressure. There was indeed a dog, which seemed to be guarding a small child in the corner. Trent checked his revolver.
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” he called loudly as he strode toward them. It was the first time he had taken a proper look at one of the creatures, its bulbous head, its gaping jaws. Truly dragged from the mouth of Hell. He held up his gun as he approached.
“And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” The stricken creature turned its face to him and hissed, opening its jaws. Trent emptied his gun into its head, and it slammed back against the wall, the explosive shells blowing its brains out. The surface bubbled as the acid began to eat through.
As the two women holding the table slumped to the floor, Trent looked around as his team signaled that the immediate area was clear and secure.
“Amen,” Augustus Trent said. He holstered his gun. “Now, is someone going to tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
“Sir!” one of the marines called, and Trent turned to see a man in the doorway. His troops’ guns were trained on the newcomer. He was tall and broad, and looked exhausted.
“Chad!” the dog shouted. Trent raised an eyebrow.
Curiouser and curiouser.
The man held up his hands. “Thank God you’re here.”
“Correct,” Trent said. “You can indeed thank God that we’re here.”
26
As soon as Chad had cautiously entered the colony buildings, the ruined comms tower burning above him, he heard the gunfire.
Abandoning caution, he ran down the corridors as fast as he could, quickly coming across the corpses of the Xenomorphs that had been massing to attack the canteen. There he found what he recognized as a troop of Royal Marines and their commander, who introduced himself as Captain Augustus Trent of the HMS God’s Hammer.
Chad told the captain everything he needed to know about the Xenomorphs, expecting the usual barrage of questions and disbelief, but Trent just kept absent-mindedly stroking the scar that ran down his face.
“I wondered why the Cronulla was here,” Trent said.
“That was the ship that the Colonial Marines came from?” Chad said. “What happened to it?”
“We did.” Trent smiled thinly. “You’ve met with the landing party? What’s their location?”
“Dead,” Chad said. “Most of them in the dropship that destroyed the comms tower. Their officer was killed on the landing platform.”
“What happened to him?” Trent said.
“Xenomorphs did.”
“You have a ship, yes?” Merrilyn stepped forward, Therese hiding shyly behind her.
“I do, ma’am,” Trent said, touching the front of his beret. “The finest ship in the service of New Albion.”
“New Albion?” Chad said. “But the Royal Marines had to be here for the Three World Empire.”
“The galaxy is changing, Mr. McLaren,” Trent said, “and we must change with it. I, along with my crew, have decided that we are better placed serving the needs of this emergent new force than being the… what was it the commander of the Cronulla called us before he died? Ah, yes. A toothless bulldog. Better than being a toothless bulldog in the service of the Three World Empire.”
Trent stood. “We have three dropships here. I must go and get patched through to New Albion to apprise them of the situation. That all the trade party who so bravely held this colony for them have lost their lives in service to the new empire.”
“But you’re going to take us with you, right?” Cher said. “You can get us up to your ship and back to New Albion?”
“Members of my team will remain here for your protection,” Trent said. “Please don’t worry, ma’am. I do not intend to leave anyone on LV-187.” He turned and marched away with two of his marines.
Yes, well, Chad thought, that’s not the same thing as taking us with you, is it?
* * *
“I’m so glad to see you,” Cher said, giving Chad a long hug that she was too exhausted to break off. “I thought you were dead. Everybody else is.”
“Do we have any idea how many of these things have been killed?” Merrilyn asked.
Chad shrugged. “I saw five corpses in the corridors, plus the two in the doorway, and the one here. There were six in the hold of the dropship that crashed into the comms tower. How many did they kill last night? How many did we?” He rubbed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a moot point. If there’s a hive, and a queen, and more eggs… it depends how many of the colonists they kept alive.”
“So the place could still be crawling with them,” Cher said. “Where the hell is Trent going? We need him to get us the hell out of here, and nuke the fucking place.”
“Agreed,” Chad said, “and the God’s Hammer should be more than equipped to do that.” He looked up. “Here comes Trent now.”
“You get through to your bosses on New Albion?” Cher said as Trent walked up to them and pulled up a chair, sitting astride it with his arms over the back. He ignored her and pointed to Chad.
“Mr. McLaren. Tell me again about the reproductive cycle of these Xenomorphs.”
When Chad had gone through it all again, he noticed three of the Royal Marines edging closer, their rifles in their hands. He frowned.
“Trent? What’s going on?”
“You are all being detained, temporarily, for your own safety.”
“On what grounds?” Cher said, standing up and bristling. “I’m a citizen of the United Americas.” She glared at him. “You’re making a very big mistake.”
“You are, along with Mr. McLaren and the synthetic dog, wanted for questioning on New Albion in connection with a serious breach of a no-fly order.” He turned to Merrilyn. “Ms. Hambleton and her daughter are citizens of a foreign power which is at war with New Albion. You will all be held here until our operations are complete.”
“Can’t you at least detain us on your ship, rather than here where those creatures might still attack?” Merrilyn said, looking around.
“What operations, Trent?” Chad said. “What exactly are your orders?”
“Mr. McLaren,” Trent said mildly. “You mentioned the existence of a hive. Now, where exactly would we find that?”
* * *
An hour later the marines had set up, in the center of the canteen, a field comms unit on which were displayed the various schematic overlays of the colony base.
“Can we get lifeforms readings on here?” Trent asked.
“Just patching into the colony mainframe, sir,” the marine at the controls said. “Any second now…” A fleet of yellow dots appeared on the map. “This concentration is us, here,” the marine continued, pointing to a cluster. “Here and here we have gold and red teams.”
“And these?” Trent pointed to a small grouping on the far side of the colony, and then several individual dots scattered around.
“Xenomorphs,” Chad said at his shoulder. “I count at least… twenty?”
Trent looked at him. “And where do we find this queen? We find her, we find the hive, right?”
Chad studied the schematic. He called Merrilyn over and pointed to one of the stationary dots.
“Where is this?”
She peered at it. “That’s the fusion reactor hub.”
Chad straightened up. “Then that’s your hive.” He looked at Trent. “I still say it makes more sense just to nuke the facility from orbit. You could lose a lot of men mopping up twenty Xenomorphs, and the queen… you don’t know what you’re dealing with here.”
Trent frowned. “We are not destroying a viable colony operation, along with all the oil and ore that’s stored in those tanks. Do you monitor the news, Mr. McLaren? Do you know how scarce a resource oil is, especially out here in the colonies?”
“Profit wins again,” Chad said. “Fine, Trent. You want to do it the old-fashioned way, I’ll help you. But people are going to die, you get that? And I don’t want my friends to be among them. Will you guarantee their safety?”
“I’d be a fool to make that promise,” Trent replied. “But you have one of the finest bodies of military personnel in the Weyland Isles boiling for a fight here, so I rather fancy our chances against an uncoordinated mob of blood-crazed animals.”
“I’ve heard that one before,” Chad said quietly. “It never ends well.”
Trent smiled. “This time you have God on your side, Mr. McLaren.”
* * *
Trent, Chad, and six Royal Marines were outfitted in armored apesuits, favored by both Colonial Marines and Weyland-Yutani operatives. At Chad’s insistence, the soldiers had Weyland-Yutani ID23 underslung incinerator units fitted to their NSG23 assault rifles. He told Trent it was the only way to make certain the eggs were fully destroyed. Trent himself was armed with his Norcomm semi-automatic; when Chad asked for a weapon, he was given a basic pulse sidearm.
“You won’t need it,” Trent said confidently. “My team will handle this. You won’t even get your hands dirty.”
“Why only six?” Chad said. “We should be taking three times that number of personnel.”
“Because we’re professionals.”
* * *
Chad turned to the others, Therese hiding from the mask of his suit behind Merrilyn. He flipped the face visor and smiled at her.
“We’ll be away from here soon. We’re leaving all this behind.”
Davis trotted over and Chad squatted to talk to him. “Be careful,” Davis said. “You promise me?”
Chad ruffled his fur. “We’ve got a lot to do, Davis. Neither of us are dying here.”
“Mr. McLaren,” Trent said, pulling down his visor. “Time for us to roll out.”
“Be safe,” Cher said.
“For all our sakes,” Merrilyn added.
A team of four additional marines escorted the fire team down the corridors until they came to the double doors marked with the nuclear warning stickers. They were locked and one marine fixed a low-level magnetic charge, blowing the locks with a precise, muted whump.
Inside was a small, steel-lined foyer with an elevator and a flight of metal stairs. Trent indicated for the fire team to start descending the steps, and turned to the four marines. “Two on the doors, the other pair back to the canteen.” He looked at Chad. “Shall we do this?”
Chad could think of nothing he wanted to do less. He’d seen Xenomorph hives. He’d seen queens. He was normally running away from them, not walking into them.
Hitting the night vision switch on his visor, he fell in behind the marines slowly descending the stairs. Trent stayed behind him.
* * *
In the canteen, one of the marines got the big water boiler working and proceeded to make mugs of tea for everyone. How very English, Merrilyn thought, sitting by the observation window, watching the clouds scudding across the sky while Therese petted Davis. Rain pattered lightly against the window, but it wasn’t another storm as bad as last night. Still, she didn’t feel as good about this as she should. Why could they not have airlifted them off LV-187 in a dropship, back to their vessel in orbit, and then played their stupid little soldier games? Why did they have to wait here for this to be played out?
Cher was helping distribute the tea among the marines lounging in the canteen, and she brought two steaming mugs over to Merrilyn. “Milky and sugary, only way it comes, apparently,” she said. Merrilyn gratefully accepted the mug and sipped at it. She could sense that Cher was wanting to say something.
“What is it?”
Cher bit her lip, hesitated, then said, “While everyone was resting… I saw the security camera footage. From when Therese found the Ovomorph.”
Merrilyn put her cup on the table. “Ah.”
“That was the first contact the colony had with the Xenomorphs?”
Merrilyn nodded warily, pondering what she was going to say. They had been through a lot together, more than most people had to bind them, but still she was not ready for all of this.
