Aliens, p.15
Aliens, page 15
Turning off her console, Su closed her eyes for a moment. These things were on her ship now, and it was only going to get worse. She’d read the reports.
So much worse.
The “decontamination chamber” was two huge cylinders, one inside the other. There was a fifty-centimeter gap between the smaller and bigger tubes, and into that gap they were pumping a powerful liquid alkaline solution. Their scientist had assured them this would be enough to neutralize the acid blood of the Xenomorphs. That reassurance wasn’t enough for her. The reports made clear how potent it was. It was a hull breach waiting to happen, and very soon they were going to have twenty-two of these black demons bursting forth from the bodies of the fated Vietnamese.
Twenty-two threats to her crew, animal smart and cunning. Patient and zealous hunters, fast and frenetic and relentless.
Su Wong was at the commander’s chair at the bridge. The captain’s chair slightly to the front of her was empty. Their seats were at the forward station, banks of monitors curving around them like a horseshoe. Outside the horseshoe, behind her on either side, were four crew stations. Navigation, two for weapons, engineering. In front of her, a view of space. They’d jumped to faster-than-light after the Vietnamese had been overwhelmed. Heading back to the relative safety of UPP space. The stars had faded when they made the jump, starlight slowly replaced by a diffuse glow, concentrated in the direction they were heading.
Su tapped her fingers on the armrest. New, padded. The chair molding itself to her back. Comfortable in a way that made her uncomfortable. The screens in front of her were top-of-the-line. Able to be operated by touch or by voice, capable of three-dimensional projection. The ship’s AI—Tolstoy 37—was the most advanced built by the UPP yet.
The ship itself was unlike any other in the fleet. The rest employed years- or more often decades-old, parts, recycled and repurposed. Battered and worn down, given to unidentified shuddering and strange odors, all the while being flung through the eternal hard darkness of space.
The Xinjiang, on the other hand, was new and perfect. Faster than anything else in the fleet, and quieter, its hull fixed with displacement plating that confused scans and radar. Armed with three heavy particle beams and two light rail guns, nukes, mines, everything. The UPP and United America ships were ugly and asymmetrical, where the Xinjiang was a sleek arrowhead, five hundred meters long.
The Chinese Command had commissioned and built it outside the usual Union of Progressive Peoples protocols. Their biggest warship and their most silent, and no one knew it existed. Well. For now. They couldn’t keep it secret much longer, given their plans.
Su Wong steeled herself. It had to be done. Questions had to be asked. She had a duty to her crew, as well as to her captain. She snapped a command at one of the lieutenants on the bridge and made her way to Zhang’s ready room.
Just behind the bridge, the room was ostentatious. A top-of-the-line warship she could understand, but this—carpeted floor, wood paneling, portholes with burnished chrome fittings—all seemed too much. The socialist mindset wasn’t quite one for absolute equality—she wasn’t naïve—but the UPP was opposed to gratuitous inequality. For the most part, officers suffered the same privations as the regular soldiers, and to Su’s mind that was how it should be. What were they fighting for, otherwise? What was the point of anticapitalism, if it produced the same injustices as capitalism?
When she was young, she’d read a banned book called Animal Farm. It was a warning about allowing socialist ideology to fail, when leaders forgot their place as the vanguard of the proletariat, as the first among equals. At the end of the novel, the socialist leadership—the pigs—dressed like the capitalists—the humans. Eating their fine food, sitting in comfortable chairs, drinking their expensive liquors.
Well, Captain Zhang looked like a pig, sitting there in his expensive chair, sipping his whisky, reading his datapad.
He was the same height as Su, but wide. A strong face, sharp of eye, with a mole high on his left cheek. He always wore whites on the bridge, and always wore his peaked officer’s cap, with its black brim and gold ropes. It was sitting carefully on his shiny desk now, to one side. Zhang’s dark hair was shining and neatly parted.
She saluted and held her eyes front, focused on the map on the wall behind the captain. An older map that showed the expanse and power of the Qing Dynasty. The territories of Outer Mongolia, parts of Russia, Taiwan, that the current leadership was still determined to return to the glory of China, hundreds of years later. This, at least, was a noble goal.
Captain Zhang returned her salute and straightened in his comfortable chair.
“Yes, Commander?”
“The Xenomorphs are now all gestating in the crew of the Nha Trang, Captain.”
“Yes,” he said, “I’m aware.”
She kept her back straight, eyes on the map. “The next three days present a heightened risk to the ship.”
“Of this,” he replied, “I am also aware.” He shifted in his seat. “What’s the problem, Commander?’
“The Vietnamese crew,” she said, and then hesitated, pressing her lips together.
“Yes?” Zhang prompted.
“They are our comrades.”
“They are.”
“The…” She hesitated. “The measures taken.”
“Are exactly the ones China needs to take.” He leaned forward.
Su Wong was silent, trying to keep her face impassive. He was still leaning forward.
“This ship and this mission are vital for the renewal and the glory of China. You know this, Commander, and yet I feel as though your mind is afflicted with ideological confusion.”
“No,” she said, straight away. “My commitment is unwavering.”
“Then what is the purpose of this discussion?”
“Our methods, sir.”
“Methods?”
“Surely there must be other ways—”
“There are no other ways,” the captain said. Her eyes flicked over to him, then back to the wall, but in that glance she could see the sheen of certainty in his eyes. “The United Americas, the Three World Empire, the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, all of the imperialists have access to Xenomorph specimens. Right now, they are conducting experiments. Right now, they are weaponizing the black demons, gaining a military advantage over the Union of Progressive Peoples—and what are the UPP doing?” Captain Zhang raised his eyebrows, as if he was expecting an answer, but Su knew he wasn’t. She remained silent.
“They talk. The grinding wheels of their bureaucracy so very slow. The Russian politicians, the German technocrats, the elites of the UPP who place themselves above China—they do not have an ounce of our vision or zeal. For too long we have been the poor cousins of the UPP. We had our own empire, Commander, and we let them take it from us. Broken up and dished out like treats, including to the United Americas.” His voice quavered. “We have suffered this humiliation for twenty years. Now it is time to retake what is ours.”
“And Vietnam?” she asked. “Are they our poor cousin?” She regretted it as soon as she said it. It was imprudent to push her captain when his blood was roused.
His face froze, eyes boring into her, but then the look faded. “Vietnam is our little brother, and like us they are treated with contempt by the UPP. After the Chinese resurgence, we will be sure to take care of them.”
Su Wong said nothing. It was a vague and impossible promise. Captain Zhang was in no position to make it, and she had never heard Vietnam mentioned once, when discussions of the Chinese bioweapons program was taking place.
“Do you require thought management, Commander Wong?”
Fear grabbed her, like a fist. “No sir. My commitment to the glory of China is as strong as ever.”
“I could have Tolstoy develop some personalized countermeasures for you. Make sure your ideological commitment remains undiminished.”
Personalized countermeasures. Brainwashing. Constant questioning, of every word spoken, every gesture. Endless repetition of Chinese Communist Party dogma, in her spare time and during her sleep. “An exhaustion so pure,” a friend had told her, “you have only the energy to love the Party, and nothing more.”
“That is not necessary, sir,” she said, her voice even. “My mission is focused on the greater glory of China, and the safety of my crew. That is all.”
“In that order?”
“In that order,” she replied, quickly.
He stared at her for few moments longer, then returned his attention to the datapad.
“Dismissed.”
She saluted and left the room while the captain sipped his expensive whisky.
XUAN NGUYEN
41
The hole in her foot woke her up.
She’d been dreaming of rain. Smiling, her face turned up to it, yet she couldn’t feel the water. The rain fell, hard, but not on her. She moved, her arms out, her mouth open, but couldn’t feel or taste a single drop. It washed past her feet, battered the tarpaulins nearby, hawkers running for cover.
Frantic, she ran out into the street, face to the heavens, her smile gone, the shadows around her deepening. The street empty now of all people, of everything save the shadows, reaching out, crawling across the ground—
* * *
Her foot woke her up. A burning, itching sensation, she started awake and the back of her head hit the inside of the metal box. The tendrils of sleep dissipated quickly, the reaching shadows faded, but that fear was replaced by another: fear at the noise she’d made. She waited, in the silence. But no scuttling came, no maddening rapid tiptoe of the death spider on the outside of the box.
Xuan Nguyen turned her attention to her foot. It swung between a dull, throbbing ache and a burning, itching sensation. Acid blood. It had taken her hours, more, lying and thinking about what had happened, in this small metal coffin. The creature she’d stabbed had acid for blood. It had melted her scalpel, burned a hole right through her foot. Dissolved Hao’s hand and forearm. The one he was using to keep the creature away from him. She’d killed him. She’d killed him.
She bit down on her fist to stop the sob, felt lightheaded, dizzy. How long since she’d eaten? How long since she’d had a cup of water? Had she been in the box a day? Two? She had no way to check. No true sense of the passing hours. She’d managed to sleep, but she wasn’t sure for how long. Woken once to the sound of the death spiders scrambling over the box. A second time, now, to the pain in her foot.
There were painkillers in her med-kit, both minor and major. Of the latter she had morphine. Five ampoules, and a needle. One would kill the pain for three or four hours. Three ampoules would kill all her pain and fears, forever. Her hand drifted down to the med-kit. She could probably do it, even in the dark. Knew by touch where everything was. Xuan had to be able to use it instinctively, under fire, in a damaged ship, in a hostile environment.
Her fingers crept in and popped open a second, smaller, protected pouch inside the kit. Her fingertips caressed the cool glass of the vials.
Then she thought about her father. Frail, pretending to be strong, smiling as she boarded the ground car to take her to the ship. No other siblings. He was all alone in their tiny apartment, though he had Aunty Bình next door. Blustering into the room and criticizing her father for smoking and opening windows and following up with giant bowls of steaming delicious phở, her father trying to keep his dignity at it all, seated on his tattered reading chair, but smiling, just a little.
Xuan smiled, too, at the thought.
She removed an ampoule. Just one. She worked her other arm from underneath her, tingling savagely, and worked her fingers. When the feeling had returned, she swapped the morphine to that hand, and found the needle with the other. She was good at this. Even in the darkness, even in her cramped makeshift coffin.
Xuan jabbed herself with the drug. Oblivion came. Euphoric and warm and comfortable and welcome. Dreamlike, she floated, up and out of her coffin, out of that tomb of horrors, out of that looming warship that seemed so very small now. Floating, out into space.
Deep in her high, Xuan Nguyen smiled.
42
Xuan woke to silence, save the water. Like plumbing through pipes. No more scraping of the spiders—she hadn’t heard them in hours. Shifting, she pushed against the lid of the box, gently. No give. Didn’t even creak. She shifted again and tried to use her shoulder, clenching her teeth, but she tired quickly, dizziness overcoming her. The dregs of the morphine hit were still with her, but she could feel the headache behind her eyes. Her lips were cracked. She was dehydrated. She was alone. She could barely move.
Xuan sobbed, quietly.
Time moved on.
She dozed again, dreaming of rain.
* * *
Awoke, more fully this time, to a pounding headache. Her foot itched fiercely. There was a sharp odor in the box. After a few moments she realized she’d peed herself. Xuan wondered, briefly, if she should have tried to drink it. Hardcore survival stories always involved drinking pee. Too late now. Drying, dried.
Not a lot of dignity in starving to death in a metal box, as it turned out—and she was going to die here. She was certain of it now.
But she wasn’t ready. Not yet. Not quite yet.
She injected herself with another dose.
Into oblivion, once more.
43
Xuan gathered the three remaining ampoules of morphine in her hand. Clenching them, as the cramps in her neck flared. Her body ached from the prolonged stress of her position. Curled in on herself in this tiny box. The terror had distracted her at first, and then the morphine, but now the pain had no distractions and it bore down on her mind. The muscles in her shoulders spasmed. She whimpered.
Her whole side ached, as did her legs. When she breathed her back pressed against the steel, and it felt like she couldn’t take a full breath in this confined space. She wanted to scream. It sat there, at the back of her throat, wanting to tear itself loose, wanting to put all her fears and all her frustrations into sound, expel them from her body. A true primal scream—but she choked on it, instead. Fearful of what she might awaken.
Xuan pressed against the top of the box again… but she was so weak. She might as well have been trying to move a mountain.
“Fuck!” She yelled it, angry. Her hands were shaking.
The shaking stopped when she heard the noise, froze at the scrape of something against the metal floor. Another noise. Not a scuttling. She wasn’t sure what. Xuan held her breath and listened.
Nothing.
Maybe she’d imagined it.
A hallucination.
That was one of the symptoms of severe dehydration. She tried to swallow, but couldn’t, her mouth too dry, swollen. The attempt caused her pain. Everything caused her pain now. Moving, and not moving. Thinking, not thinking.
Everything bar the precious drug in her hand.
Murmuring. Someone was talking now and still she stayed silent. She could hear the rain and knew she was hallucinating. Her mind trying to pull her back into the past, into a vision of perfect safety, slightly out of focus in her memories, but true and eternal. In the past everything was known and a future was still possible, and so her mind returned there, in these last moments.
More people talked, and walked across the chamber, and she was on the street again, waiting for the evening rain. When the pressure of the humidity built and built and she knew the rain was coming, that ecstatic release from the skies.
“Where’s Xuan?”
Her mind stopped drifting. A voice, so familiar, louder than the others.
“Xuan?”
She pressed her hand against the metal. It was real. The headache, the itching in her foot, the ache of her muscles, the sound of water in plumbing, all true.
People were talking. Someone was calling her name.
Xuan Nguyen screamed. Joyous and desperate, she screamed. When the lid opened, the light was blinding. She could not see, but then a voice.
“Little Sister…” She knew who it was, straight away. It was Hao. He was alive. She was alive.
She cried as Hao pulled her from the coffin and held her close.
44
One at a time, the crew came back to life. The pale death spiders detached themselves, legs curled up, and fell onto their backs. Her comrades were disoriented when they came to, hungry, very hungry, but otherwise completely fine. Some laughing about what had happened to them, though she could tell the laughter wasn’t genuine. Others taking a moment to recover from the shock. To sit and stare at the things that had been attached to their faces, eyes wide.
The nightmare was over, and everyone was waking up.
There were more than twenty-two of the hideous eggs—more like thirty—but all had opened, and it looked like all the spare creatures had died, piled up around her metal box. The surface of the box was pitted, the paint and some of the metal underneath dissolved. Hao pointed out that it was titanium, that the whole chamber had to be made of it. The pale spiders seemed to have an acid they could exude from their underside, but not as powerful as what they bled.
There were holes in the chamber floor where Xuan had stabbed one of the things. Water sloshed near the hole, lapping out occasionally. Thanh, the cook, said, “At least there’s something we can drink.” He moved toward the hole, but the captain held him back. “I’m not sure that’s water.”
“Why?”
“They’ve set up this chamber for these white bugs,” Captain Dang said. When he spoke it was nasal, slightly slurred, from his broken nose. “I think they knew the things had acid blood.”
“So?”
“So water wouldn’t be what I would use to protect a ship from an acid-bleeding alien.”
