Alien, p.22
Alien, page 22
Zula relayed Davis’s message to the others. “Lock and load, people,” she said, then she began running toward the warehouse’s exit, the others following behind her.
The dock was where dropships unloaded, bearing supplies or new personnel. It also served as a vehicle depot and maintenance bay, and the trainees’ armory was located there as well. Security had its own armory, but Zula had insisted her team maintain theirs here, since much of their training took place outside of the Lodge. She wished they had time to stop and grab pulse rifles, but the screaming informed them that they couldn’t afford to take the time, not unless they wanted to let the Necromorph claim more lives.
They reached a wide-open space that resembled the interior of an aircraft hangar, and this allowed the team to see in all directions. No shadowy nooks and crannies here in which the Necromorph could hide. Zula wondered why it had left the Warehouse, and decided it was probably due to a lack of prey. No one there to hunt, so the creature moved on until it found what it was searching for.
There were vehicles of various sizes parked at the west end of the dock, from small two-seaters to larger transports like the one Zula and the trainees had used earlier that day. The east end contained flying machines, from unmanned drones to skimmers. The northern wall contained a large semicircular airlock to allow vehicles to enter and exit, and a dozen yards from that was a similar airlock—this one much smaller—which was used by dropship crews and passengers once their crafts made landfall.
The Necromorph was near the smaller airlock, surrounded by a quartet of security guards. The guards were blasting away at the creature, using their handguns, making sure to keep far enough back to avoid the thing’s claws and tail. Zula was impressed by the men and women. Xenomorphs were creatures straight out of humanity’s worst nightmares, but these people were fighting this one as if they dealt with monsters like it every day.
Still, their guns didn’t do much damage, so it was only a matter of time before the creature killed them. If Zula and the trainees added their weapon fire to mix, however, maybe the sheer volume of ammunition would have a chance at breaking through the Necromorph’s exoskeleton.
She was about to give the order for the group to move when the Necromorph slapped its tail against the pustules on its back, causing black goo to splatter from the ruptured barnacle-like structures. The monster hissed in fury and spun around, showing its back to its attackers and flinging its tail outward. The tail was covered with the viscous black substance from the pustules, and the violent motion sent the slime flying toward the guards.
It struck their faces, hands, chests, and abdomens, and wherever it touched it sizzled and began eating its way into their flesh. The guards shrieked in agony and stopped firing. They dropped their guns and staggered backward, a couple of them cupping hands over melting eyes. The Necromorph slapped its tail against its back once more, and again it flung the tail outward, splattering even more of the acidic pus onto its screaming victims.
That’s stuff’s deadly, just like Xenomorph blood, Zula thought, but the substance also contained the cellular necrosis virus. As she and the trainees watched, the guards began to break out in lesions and pustules. Their screams became coughs, and they scrambled about in confusion as if desperately looking for something, anything that might bring them some relief.
It was too late.
Taking advantage of the confusion, the Necromorph sprang toward the guards, slashing with claws and barbed tail, biting with its jutting secondary mouth. Within seconds the guards lay dead on the floor, bodies ravaged by disease and injury, blood and slime all around them.
One of the trainees vomited noisily.
Zula didn’t take her eyes off the Necromorph to see who’d gotten sick. It didn’t matter. She felt like puking, too. However, the sound of retching drew the Necromorph’s attention. Its head snapped in their direction, and it bellowed a challenge.
Zula had an idea.
“Davis, open the smaller airlock—just the inner door.”
The door in question immediately rose upward.
“You intend to trap the Necromorph.”
“Yes.”
If they could force the Necromorph backward into the chamber, Davis could close the inner door, shutting the creature inside. That would give them time to go to the armory and get pulse rifles—with grenades for everyone this time. When they returned, Davis could open the airlock door, and the Necromorph would be trapped in a killing box. With all of the team concentrating their weapons fire the damn thing wouldn’t stand a chance.
The Necromorph glanced over its shoulder at the open airlock, but when it saw no threat it turned back to face them again. It was difficult to say exactly what the creature did—a slight crouch, an angling of the shoulders, a tilt of the oblong head—but it exuded a sly wariness, almost as if it suspected they were laying a trap. Instead of attacking them, it fell silent and remained where it was, watching them as if waiting to see what they’d do next.
This didn’t mean the Necromorph was intelligent. Simple animal cunning could account for its sudden change in behavior. One of the many things that remained unknown was just how intelligent they were. Many times they acted as if driven solely by instinct. Other times they seemed to consider their actions. And sometimes they even worked together, almost as if they were somehow coordinating their efforts with conscious intent.
Not being able to estimate a foe’s intelligence level made it difficult to fight them, if not damned near impossible.
Zula feared the Necromorph would flee, and if that happened who knew how many more people it might kill before they tracked it down again? She couldn’t afford to let it get away.
“We need to keep it from escaping,” she told the others, “and drive it into the airlock if we can. We’ll come at it from two different directions. Ronny, Masako, and Ray, you come with me. We’ll attack it from the left. The rest of you move in from the right. Let’s go.”
She started toward the Necromorph, the trainees splitting into two groups. She hadn’t specifically ordered Tamar to join them. The woman wasn’t under her command, and Zula didn’t know anything about her except the circumstances that had brought her here and which had made them—for the time being, at least—allies. Nevertheless, the woman went with the second group of trainees without hesitation.
For that Zula was grateful. They were going to need all the help they could get.
* * *
Tamar kept her gaze focused on the Necromorph. The creature didn’t attack as they approached, but neither did it retreat. It continued standing in that wary pose, waiting to see what they would do.
The two groups came at it from two different angles, forming a triangle with the creature at the point. The open airlock door was behind it, and the hope was that by putting pressure on the thing from two fronts, they’d drive it into the airlock. It wasn’t a bad plan, Tamar thought, but there was an excellent chance there would be casualties. Zula had to know this, as did her people, but none of them showed any hesitation or reluctance as they drew near the enemy.
Tamar wasn’t a team player. She preferred working on her own. It was easier to control the truth, to manipulate people, and you could adapt more quickly to changing circumstances. Plus, as a spy she knew better than to trust anyone. Still, if she had to put her trust in a group, even if only temporarily, she thought this one was as good as any—and probably better than most.
But she hadn’t come along to help them. She needed a bio-sample from the Necromorph if she was going to salvage any profit from this whole clusterfuck, and she had no intention of risking her own life needlessly. So while she accompanied the second group, she made sure to keep them between her and the creature. They’d signed up to battle monsters. She hadn’t.
For a time she’d thought that maybe a sample of the black crap that oozed from its pustules might contain enough usable DNA, but it had become evident that the stuff was so caustic it wasn’t practical to collect it. Plus it was seething with the virus. Likely the same for its blood—that would be infected too. And if the pus was acidic, there was a good chance the blood might be.
Then, as they’d watched the Necromorph kill those security guards, an idea had come to her. The creature had two mouths, one larger than the other. It opened its outer mouth when it made sound, but it opened it even wider when the smaller second one emerged. Both had sets of teeth, and unlike the rest of the creature they weren’t protected by its exoskeleton. If she could knock one of the teeth free—one of the ones in its larger mouth—it might yield enough DNA for her purposes. Plus, a single tooth would be easier to conceal and carry, hopefully without Zula and the others realizing she’d taken it.
If she was careful how she handled it, made sure to touch only the enamel or whatever the hell it was made out of, she should be okay.
Probably.
Maybe.
As the two teams approached, the creature swiveled its head back and forth between them, somehow monitoring them as they drew ever closer. Zula and the trainees held their fire as they advanced, and Tamar was impressed by their discipline. When both groups were about fifteen feet away from the target, Zula gave the command to fire.
Everyone started blasting away at the Necromorph, bullets slamming into its exoskeleton and bouncing off without doing any significant damage. The rounds caused more pustules to burst, and the trainees had to be careful not to get splattered by the toxic goo that was released. The thing hissed and screeched in fury, and its tail whipped through the air, barbed tip seeking soft flesh into which to bury itself.
Tamar fired along with the others, but unlike them she aimed for a specific target: the creature’s mouth. She wasn’t a sharpshooter by any means, but she could usually hit what she was aiming to hit. So it only took her a few shots to strike the Necromorph’s upper mouth. It took her a couple more to dislodge one of the teeth, but she did it. A tooth fell, hit the floor, bounced twice, then skittered to a stop. Tiny strands of flesh clung to the root of it, the meat coated with a yellowish substance Tamar assumed was the creature’s blood. The spot where the blood touched the floor began to sizzle and bubble, and she knew she’d been right about the blood’s acidic properties.
Feeling a surge of triumph, she quickly fought it down. Time to celebrate later, when she had the tooth in her possession and was still alive… and far away from here.
Studying the situation, she debated the best way to retrieve the tooth. She could wait until the battle was over, one way or another, and take it then. The longer she remained part of the fight, though, the greater the chance she would be injured or killed. It would be best if she could grab the tooth now and get the hell out of there before she ended up sliced and diced, or rotting from the inside out.
She stood between Angela and Genevieve, and Brenna was slightly in front of the three of them. The other women were so intent on firing at the target that they were unaware of anything else. The creature hadn’t done much in response to the two-fronted assault. Some screeching, claw swiping, and tail whipping, and that was about it. It didn’t seem hurt at all, more confused than anything, as if it couldn’t decide what to do. She wondered if the creature was having trouble processing so much sensory input at once, and was trying to make sense of it in order to plan the best retaliation.
Let’s see if I can make its choice easier.
Up to this point she’d fired her gun one-handed, but now she gripped it with both hands and moved forward, as if determined to step up the intensity of her own attack. In doing so, she “accidentally” stumbled into Brenna. She didn’t knock the woman forward more than a foot or two, but the movement was enough to draw the Necromorph’s attention. It took a step toward Brenna, and its tail whipped around and struck her across the face with a loud crack, just the way a real whip would’ve sounded.
Brenna was knocked to the side and collapsed onto the floor. Her cheek had been flayed by the tail’s barbed end, and blood streamed from the wound. She grimaced in pain and raised her pistol, clearly intending to fire it again.
Then she screamed.
Some of the viscous black goo had still adhered to the tail, and now it began eating into Brenna’s flesh. Her uninjured skin began showing signs of infection, and the lesions and pustules came on swiftly. Tamar guessed this was due to the gunk getting into an open wound, giving the virus direct access to her bloodstream. The woman began coughing violently, and her gun hand shook so hard that when she fired, her bullet went wide and missed the Necromorph entirely.
Tamar loved taking risks—calculated ones—which was why she’d become a spy in the first place. Certainly there were easier ways to earn credits, but she loved the challenge of spying, loved the thrill and excitement of it. And yes, the danger too. So when the Necromorph dashed forward, lowered its head, and sent its secondary mouth through Brenna’s skull into her brain, Tamar made her move. Everyone else was watching their friend’s death. No one would notice her snatching up a stray tooth.
Just in case, she covered her action by pretending to be so appalled by what had happened to Brenna that she was scrambling away. She ran toward her prize, feigned a stumble, reached down toward the floor as if to steady herself, then grabbed it. She straightened and continued running, elated with her success.
Her intention was to keep running, circle around, and head for the dock’s exit. She didn’t care whether Zula and the surviving trainees managed to kill the Necromorph or it killed them. Either way was fine with her. She’d gotten what she’d wanted.
Suddenly her hand burned as if she’d grasped hold of a white-hot coal, and she realized what an idiot she’d been. Some of the monster’s acidic blood was smeared on the tooth itself. It began to sizzle on the skin and muscle of her palm. She shook her hand to try and fling the tooth away, but it became embedded in her flesh.
Then the pain was searing, worse than any she’d ever experienced, and it took all her considerable will not to shriek in agony. She managed to remain on her feet and still held her Fournier 350, and even through the haze of pain, she thought fast.
The necrosis!
She’d gotten a dose of vaccine from Gagnon before he died, and she hoped this would prevent her from becoming infected. There was no way to know if he’d given her a strong enough dose, but she figured she might find more in his lab. There was no worry about dropping the tooth, either. She didn’t have to consciously hold it, for it had melted into her flesh, and it would take a finely honed scalpel to remove it now.
She could do that after she took another dose of the vaccine.
The pain in her hand grew more intense the deeper the tooth sank into her palm, and at last she couldn’t stop herself from moaning. The Necromorph seemed to have heard her and pulled its secondary mouth from the center of Brenna’s brain. It turned toward her as if it knew she had dared to steal a part of it. When it dashed toward her, Tamar panicked and instinctively ran for shelter.
Unfortunately, that shelter was the open airlock.
As soon as she was inside, she realized her mistake. She spun around, intending to get the hell out of there, only to find the Necromorph filling her vision, screeching a hunting cry.
Tamar had never been the kind of person who acted without thinking. She’d always prided herself on her rationality, of being able to remain ice-cold when everything was turning to shit around her. It was why she’d survived as long as she had. But the sight of such a nightmarish creature bearing down on her, all claws and teeth and speed—death itself made flesh—shattered her rational mind. She was left with only instinct to guide her, and instinct told her that she needed to get away, to run, run, run.
Turning toward the outer airlock door she slapped her wounded hand against the keypad to open it. Doing so drove the Necromorph’s tooth deeper into her palm, but she was so overwhelmed by the need to escape, to live, that she barely felt it.
The airlock system was designed so that only one door could be open at a time. The inner door slid shut so the outer could open, but it didn’t close in time to prevent the Necromorph from entering. Tamar ducked into a crouch as the thing came at her, and it slammed head-first into the outer door. The impact knocked it back a couple meters, and when the door began to slide upward—air rushing outward in a hissing gale—Tamar slid underneath and crawled frantically onto the craggy surface of Jericho 3.
Her senses were assailed by a deluge of input. The sky was dark, wind raged in violent gusts, and jagged bolts of lightning cut through the blackness, bathing the world in short-lived bursts of illumination. It was cold, too, so much that she felt as if she’d plunged into arctic winter, wind lashing her like whips made of ice. For an instant she was overwhelmed and could not move, but then her mind screamed at her to run, that there was a monster right behind her, ready to kill her the second it could sink its claws into her.
She jumped to her feet and began running into the darkness.
Tamar only made it a couple steps before the need to cough came over her. The Necromorph’s tooth had infected her with cellular necrosis, and whether she escaped the monster pursuing her or not, she was dead either way. She couldn’t suppress it. She opened her mouth to draw in a breath—
—and found she couldn’t breathe.
She could pull air into her body, but her lungs burned as if they were unable to process what they were given. A fragment of Tamar’s rational mind remembered something then. Jericho 3’s atmosphere was primarily carbon dioxide, and she wasn’t wearing an EVA suit. She knew she couldn’t survive long on the surface unprotected like this, that if she couldn’t find a way back into the Lodge, she would die.
Lightning flashed and she saw the backs of her hands. They were covered with lesions and pustules, and she knew that outside the Lodge or inside, it didn’t matter. She was already dead.
Her body spasmed as it desperately tried to cough and was unable to do so. She fell to her hands and knees—pain from the tooth shooting into her wrist and up her forearm. Her head pounded and her vision began to dim. If she was lucky, she’d pass out before the Necromorph reached her.
