Aliens, page 26
Jacob was silent for a moment.
“After the news breaks of what has happened here, are you hoping to save your skin by saving Julia?”
“You don’t have a clue,” Ramón said. “Julia was meant to be there all along. We need to salvage Olinka at all costs. The Yutani family is heavily invested in everything we are doing.”
Leticia shifted her eyes to Jacob. Ramón’s words were stinging. She could tell because she lived with him long enough. Part of her felt hurt for Jacob. No one wanted to be a puppet.
To her surprise, Jacob’s demeanor remained calm.
“The difference between me and you, even me and the company, is that I know who I am without any of this. I want something greater than myself. I can survive stripped, and widdled down. Same with your sister. Her biggest concern in all of this was for her team. That’s why she said yes to me.” He leaned in. “Be hurtful all you want, but right now you have to give us every last detail concerning the shadow operations—this is a life-or-death situation.
“When we get through this crisis, I’ll expect your resignation.”
Leticia believed every word he said, and even felt bad for her brother—almost. He’d just got a taste of his own medicine.
“Whatever,” Ramón spat out. “I don’t care anymore.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re probably already set for more than a lifetime.”
“Niños, you’ve said your piece,” Leticia said, cutting in. “We will arrive soon. If it won’t help the mission, I don’t want to hear it. Not now. This is the only moment that exists. We survive one minute, then survive the next.”
Ramón cleared his throat. “Perhaps you should know that, like an Egyptian or Mesoamerican pyramid, the facility has been created with smaller chambers. It’s not just the levels I mentioned before. There are the secure spaces where the team worked with the Xenomorphs—and other pathogens in development—but they’re sealed tight. Julia’s distress call would have ensured that.
“When I unlock any of those doors,” he continued, “it will probably unlock the other large entrances or exits, including the dropship bay. I can’t isolate the front entrance. And whatever damage has been done…”
Leticia slowly reared her head toward him. “This just gets better and better. We’re walking into a tomb, then, and might let out the fucking mummy at the same time. Is that it?”
“I don’t know, sis,” he said. “I’ll bring up the blueprints and see if I can find a hack.” Ramón buried his head in his tablet, and Jacob turned to Leticia.
“Hey, can I ask you a favor—not that you owe me one.”
“You can ask.”
“I’m a bit embarrassed, but that won’t matter if I’m dead.” He scratched the back of his head. “You mind showing me how to use a weapon?”
Leticia could see the fear, and his desire to contribute in some way. She suspected that given the chance he would do anything to save Olinka. She had to give it to Jacob, he had heart and soul, even if he was naive. And she couldn’t blame him for being taken in. Ramón had been a charmer all his life. He and Julia had created an elaborate plan with everyone else just bricks in their building.
Ironically, it was a pyramid they would enter. How many economic disasters had been built on such foundations?
“Alright, I will give you a crash course,” she said. “It could save your life, or someone else’s.” She lifted her pulse rifle. “La Loba” was written in white across the body of the weapon.
“La Loba.” He smiled as he said this. “The wolf?”
“Yeah, my roots are in Mexico.” Leticia ran her fingers across the writing. “But if I were to be anything, it would probably be jaguar. In the Raiders we have our pack, and we fight like a pack, but the pack is only as strong as each wolf.”
“That makes sense,” he said. “So can we start that training now? Run through the basics. I don’t give up easily on the things I want.” A ray of hope glinted in his eyes as he said this. Part of her hoped she was included in the things he wanted.
Of course, if they were dead, romance didn’t matter.
“Sure,” she replied, and she showed him the basics of using the rifle. Mostly just made sure he could point and shoot. “When we land it will be dark. We’ll need to create a perimeter of sensor mines, even if the building seems secure. Contain the threat as much as possible. And we need to stick together at all times.” Remembering how well he’d obeyed orders before, she put extra emphasis on her words.
Then as the dropship got closer, they went silent. Leticia gave Mohammed and Frida a glance they would recognize as a sign to prepare for anything.
“We have arrived,” Desiree said from the cockpit. “I’m landing us.”
As soon as they touched ground, Leticia unbuckled herself from her seat. “Mohammed, get those sensor mines ready. Program them for anything bigger than you.” She moved to the hatch to be the first out, rifle in hand.
A two-hundred-fifty-foot pyramid of reflective solar glass stood before her, utterly black in the approaching night. The main research facility, Olinka One. What different stories she heard from Jacob and Ramón. There were no visible lights, mayday signals, or any signs of human activity. Still not a trace of destruction to the outside.
Frida was next to her. “I don’t know what’s worse, a ruined war zone where you can guess what your opponent has in their pocket, or something like this. It’s so silent, we could be entering another dimension.” She nudged Leticia. “Good thing we aren’t virgins—otherwise we would all be dead within minutes.”
“No shit, and that’s what worries me. The silence, I mean, and the dark. We’re going in blind until we get the drone inside. Those Xenomorphs are big fuckers, they won’t escape any radar, but they’re predators, too, and will hunt like it. I’m not dealing with those things in the dark. We wait for daybreak.” She looked up. “It won’t be long—this ain’t Earth, as much as it may feel like it.
“Seeing those things, it’s made me feel farther from home,” she added, “but closer to my mom. If Julia is in her ‘panic room’ then she can wait a little longer. To tell the truth, my gut says there are no survivors.”
A voice from behind startled her. It was Ramón.
“I know whatever I say won’t be heard,” he said, “but we should act now, and pray it’s enough.”
“Go on in, be my guest, Ramón.”
He could pout like a child, because it wasn’t his show anymore. She scanned the area in the encroaching night. There was more vegetation here, and the cliffs backing into the ocean weren’t far off. The faint scent of saltwater wafted in the breeze. The two moons in the shape of crescents glowed above the dusty indigo sky turning dark. The stars would be out soon, and in a few short hours the sun.
“Finish up prep and get a little shut-eye, Frida.”
Jacob joined her, but didn’t show any of the pride he’d held when they arrived on the planet.
“It’s even more impressive than the photos,” Leticia offered.
“I know,” he said sadly. “Since I started this project, I had high hopes for how this first meeting would go.”
“Let me go check on Desiree and Mohammed, and I’ll come back to give you another short lesson with the pulse rifle.”
“Anything I can do?”
She smiled and touched his cheek, remembering how good it felt to make love to him. Might have been the last time either of them experienced ecstasy.
“Pray.”
Leticia left Jacob to check on their small band of lobas. Frida and Mohammed unloaded and took stock of the cache of weapons and ammunition. Desiree still scoured the perimeter with the drone. In covert operations they sometimes only had six, now they would have to make do with five.
The feeling of being diminished cut into her confidence, especially when she remembered how the Xenomorph towered over Nathan. It was her responsibility to keep him alive. To keep all of them alive.
Fuck the facility. Let it burn with the same acid fury as the blood of a Xenomorph. She turned the situation over in her mind, trying to see it from different directions, like trying to figure out the best place for a sniper to make the cleanest kill shot.
Desiree rushed toward her.
“We have incoming communication, and I think you’ll want to take this.” As they ran back to the dropship, she added, “They’re already in orbit.”
The fuck?
Leticia hit the comms. “This is Director Vasquez.”
“Vasquez?” the voice said, sounding strange, and… “Yeah, so we received a distress call. We’re in orbit, but not over your position, so we can be ready to roll in a few hours. What’s your plan?”
“First, how long have you been in orbit?”
“Stand by,” he responded. Then, “Been here for a hot minute, on orders not revealed.”
“Well, that’s damn good news for once,” she said. “First light we head into Olinka One—I don’t want to risk going in the dark with this one.”
“Smart. We will be there as soon as we can. How hot is it? Our satellite shows things pretty quiet.”
“Believe me when I say this threat isn’t quiet. So far it’s contained inside the facility. When we go in, that might open the door—no time to give you all of the details. There are civilians not far from us, with two dropships. They need a place to dock. Also be aware, we have created a perimeter of sensor mines for anything bigger than your largest soldier. Just be ready to use all the firepower you got. It’s an alien species.”
Leticia expected a snort, or silence. She received the latter.
“Gotcha,” he said. “See you soon. Stay alive.”
“Thanks. Desiree will connect you to our personnel comms, so we can stay connected once we go in. God speed.”
“Roger that.”
Leticia exhaled. The heaviness in the front of her skull lightened and the stinging that rimmed the inside of her eyes—where she held back her tears—burned less. She walked out of the dropship to let the group know the news.
“Everyone, try to get some sleep, or at least pretend. As soon as the sun rises, we move in.” She jerked her thumb toward the cockpit. “That was backup. They’re a few hours away, but they will be here soon.”
Frida and Mohammed slapped hands—it was the closest she’d seen to a normal response from Mohammed. That was reassuring. Jacob sat on the ground, staring at Olinka One.
Leticia stood there, looking up at the burgeoning stars. In that instant she felt closer to her mother than she had ever before. Somewhere in the gases, meteors, icy comets, radiation, dark matter—all of it—Jenette Vasquez lived on. Leticia took a deep breath.
Keep us safe. Guide me, por favor.
She touched the gold cross around her neck and took the bandana out of her pocket, placing it across her forehead. It didn’t matter much where her father was, because he hadn’t faced the same battle as her mother—the battle that was Leticia’s. Still his face flashed in her mind, and she said a prayer for him, too. Theirs had been a star-crossed brief affair that brought her and Ramón into existence, and ultimately to this moment in time for a destiny now out of their hands.
Leticia would never understand the machinations of humans, but she did understand herself and the desire to survive like the soldaderas during the Mexican Revolution, the pachucas in the 1950s LA riots, the migrant farmworkers, the boys who couldn’t afford college and were drafted to fight in Vietnam. All the way back to her indigenous ancestor warriors suiting up in brightly painted cotton armor as they fought the conquistadors.
Their souls resided here and now she called on their power to survive this fight.
Ramón approached. “I have something I need to say, but in private.”
“You have five minutes,” she said, leading him a short distance away. “I’m teaching Jacob how to use a rifle. Is it more important than a man not wanting to die?”
“In my research, I uncovered all the files relating to the Xenomorphs and all previous encounters. Our mother died in one of them. They were there to neutralize the threat on a small colony. LV-426.”
“And you brought them here,” she said. “You’re fucked up, Ramón.”
“I suppose I wanted to know that I could change the course of destiny, and harness whatever destroyed her. That I was smarter and death could be… something I owned. It wouldn’t hurt me because it was my possession.”
“But instead, it’s just doing what it does best,” she said. “You can’t cheat the stars, and death belongs to no one, but comes for us all.”
“She was a hero,” he said. “According to the files, she gave everything until the very end.” He looked into her eyes. “I was wrong about all the things I said about her as a kid. She would have been proud of you.”
Leticia wiped her eyes and touched her bandana. “You have a way with timing, but at least it gives me even more reason to fuck these things up. I hope you do what’s right when we get in there. You need to make her—and yourself—proud.”
Leticia walked away. She couldn’t process this right now, but she could use the vengeance coursing through her veins. Those things would see who had acid for blood. She approached Jacob.
“You ready for a fight? Let’s go over that weapon for you.”
He rose from the ground then kissed her hard. She didn’t care who saw.
“I’m ready,” he said, “and I did that in case I never get the chance again. You’re an extraordinary woman, Director Leticia Vasquez.” She kissed him back.
“I have one helluva story, that’s for sure.”
27
The onyx pyramid reflected the morning light as it absorbed its radiation. The two moons were still present, remaining on watch until they would have to relinquish themselves to a mightier foe, a sun.
Leticia had planned to remain on watch, but Mohammed couldn’t sleep and took her spot. “We need your leadership, which means you need rest,” he said. “This is one job you can’t sleep on. For Nathan.”
“Mohammed, I’m sorry,” she said. “This was not supposed to end up like this.”
“I know.” He closed his eyes and touched Nathan’s dog tags. “I feel responsible, thinking there was anything more than war in the universe. Nathan and I saw the money, too. We get through this, the rest is a tale yet to be told. Now go sleep.” Leticia reluctantly left, and drifted off quickly next to Jacob on top of a sleeping bag on the floor of the dropship.
Ramón could fuck off if he didn’t like it.
It was the nightmare of her experience in the temazcal, years ago, that alerted her to the breaking day. The dark hands of the Xenomorph had her by the neck, and there was nothing she could do about it. Then she woke up. When Leticia emerged, Frida was already distributing energy bars to the rest of the group and pouring hot instant coffee.
“Last one for you, jefa.”
“Thanks.” Leticia took the coffee that went down hot and soothing. She raised one hand to get the group’s attention as they prepped themselves and checked ammunition. “Las Lobas, are you ready?” They saluted in response, giving a whoop. “Desiree, do you still have the drone stationed on the dropship port at the top of Olinka One? I need eyes, in the event something wants to escape.”
“It’s already in place,” Desiree replied. “Other than that, we are locked, loaded, and ready to fuck shit up. Still no update from the Eagles above, though.”
So much for good news, Leticia thought darkly. “Mohammed, you’re on party patrol. Keep the scanner looking for any movement that ain’t us, and especially bigger than us.”
“On it, jefa, but why do I feel like I’m living the song ‘Hotel California’?”
“Ándale, then.” Leticia finished her coffee in a gulp of heat that burned her mouth, then tossed the cup into the dropship. “We listen to the Eagles drunk as fuck when this shit is over.” Mohammed nodded in agreement, and hefted a flamethrower—the one Nathan had carried.
Ramón had the tablet in his hand, ready to override the facility’s main computer to open the doors.
“Open sesame…”
Leticia turned to Jacob, who now wore fatigues. He had stripped himself of his old life of the Eton boy, Oxford grad, and CEO. He held his pulse rifle, looking ready to fight and die. She admired him for that. He had no high horse, or if he did it wouldn’t last long. The first time she saw a man die it looped through her brain with the same motion of an old movie in a projector. The silence in his eyes, with his brains splattered across a wall, made her aware of the illusion of time.
He had been talking to her one second and gone the next. The unknowing was the worst part of it. The inability to face an adversary head on was as close to death as she could get. When the anxiety built to an unbearable level, was life worth living?
You have to push through those illusions of shadow and imagination, past the difficulty of the moment to move forward.
The entrance that was as wide as three people, but felt like the mouth to hell the size of a pinhole. Leticia raised her arm and waved everyone to move forward. They all carried pulse rifles—all except Ramón. Just as well. She had no desire to die from friendly fire. He wore Raider-standard protective gear, though, and a helmet to stay connected.
Looking to the clear sky one more time she remembered sitting on Roseanna’s back porch, barefoot with a book in her hands and the wind chimes serenading her. She hoped Santa Muerte was bringing their backup closer.
The inside of the facility no longer resembled anything created by a human hand. The simplicity of the interior—with clean lines, minimal decoration, and modern art seen in the photos taken when first built—was nowhere to be seen. Viscous slime crawled down the walls. Some sort of hardened resin morphed the entire space to a level of an inferno only captured in fiction, from the writings of a wild imagination. But this was real.
The grooved walls resembled carved wet stone as they glistened beneath the pulsating emergency lights. This was no haunted attraction at Halloween. It was a temple garden for dark gods, the Xenomorphs. Those creatures had taken over.
