Alien, p.26
Alien, page 26
It was too late for Zula to crawl through and escape before Davis took off, but the door was still her best hope for survival. She pressed her hand down on the middle of the circular door and waited. After several seconds it slid open.
Time to go, Zula thought.
Before she could climb inside, the Necromorph—apparently having decided to ignore the disorienting sensations of powered flight—started toward her. The claws of its feet tik-takked on the floor as it came, and its clawed fingers clenched and unclenched as if it were anticipating sinking them into her flesh. Its tail swished lazily behind it—like a cat’s, Zula thought—and it hissed softly, menacingly as it came, ropey strands of drool dripping from its mouth.
She raised her pulse rifle, intending to shoot the goddamned thing once more to deter it from attacking, but when she squeezed the trigger nothing happened. She took a quick glance at the ammo counter on the weapon’s side and saw it was down to zero. All her ammunition was gone, and she’d already switched out the clip once since leaving the Lodge.
She had no more clips.
When the Necromorph was within a meter of her, she thought it would rush forward and attack. Instead, the creature leaned forward, opened its jaws wide, and its smaller secondary mouth emerged. It coughed, and a black cloud of cellular necrosis gusted out to enshroud her. She flinched, terrified at first, but then she remembered she was in an EVA suit and was protected from the disease.
Except for the tiny hole being eaten away in her helmet’s faceplate. Had the dot of black goo penetrated all the way through? If it had, could outgoing O2 push it away? She didn’t know, but if she had been infected, she wasn’t displaying symptoms yet.
Checking her display, she saw that the breach was still imminent, and hoped that was true. Stepping backward to the rear row of seats, she bent down, grabbed hold of a seat belt, and wrapped it around her arm.
“Climb, Davis! The steeper, the better!”
The synthetic obeyed instantly. The skimmer’s nose tilted upward until it was pointed straight into the cloud-covered sky. The Necromorph tried to maintain its footing, but the change in the skimmer’s altitude came too fast. The creature slipped and slid, hands and feet scrabbling on the floor, desperate to maintain its position, but the g-forces were too much for it and, without anything to hold onto, it fell downward to the insulated bulkhead that separated the engines from the rest of the ship.
The bulkhead was now the bottom of a pit, above it the craft’s passenger area. Zula hung downward, gripping the belt she’d grabbed. There wasn’t much distance between her and the Necromorph, and if the monster had suffered any injuries they weren’t apparent as it began to climb up the walls of the shaft.
She kept her gaze fixed on the thing as it came. Lightning flashed around them more frequently, maybe because they’d moved away from the Junkyard and the rest of the training area. The engine whine was louder now, almost deafening. Zula shouted to be heard over the noise.
“On my mark, Davis, go into a steep dive!”
Again, the synthetic didn’t question her judgment, which was too bad. She would’ve liked someone to talk her out of this.
The Necromorph was halfway to her.
“Now!”
Davis performed the required maneuver. Zula retained hold of the seat belt as her body twisted and fell. When her lifeline grew taut, she swung herself between the last two rows of seats. The Necromorph fell past her, claws slashing the air as it attempted to get a piece of her. It missed, and continued falling until it struck the windscreen.
“When you’re low enough, level out and decelerate,” Zula said.
“Low enough for…? Oh, yes. I see. Will do.”
Seconds later the craft leveled out. Both Zula and the Necromorph hit the floor at the same time. She moved fast, letting go of the seat belt, dropping her pulse rifle, and crawling quickly toward the emergency exit’s open door. She slid inside and crouched over, searching for—
—the harness. There it was, attached to the drop cable. She didn’t have time to put it on properly, so she slid it over the top of her body, gripped it tightly with her hands.
“Release!”
One of the Necromorph’s clawed hands plunged through the upper opening, seeking to grab hold of her. Before it could, the bottom door slid open, and Zula tumbled out into the air. She spun as she fell, but managed to keep hold of the harness all the way down. The line went taut, and she couldn’t see what was happening, but when her boots hit the ground with a jarring thud she let go of the harness and rolled forward to bleed off momentum.
“Disengage cable and seal the door!”
Looking up at the skimmer she half-expected to see the Necromorph plummeting down toward her. It wasn’t. The cable detached and began falling toward the ground, and the outer emergency exit door closed tight.
“I’ll take it from here,” Davis said.
She grabbed a handful of soil and rubbed it against her faceplate, wiping away the black dot of Necromorph goo. Then she stood and watched the skimmer angle upward once again, to ascend rapidly into the cloud-filled sky, engines screaming now, lightning flashes illuminating its path. She imagined the Necromorph inside, once more having fallen against the bulkhead, pressed tight by g-forces, confused, angry, and—she hoped—frightened.
When the skimmer was almost lost to view, Davis sent a power surge into its overloaded engines, and for an instant the craft’s explosion lit up the sky more brightly than any lightning could. Zula smiled.
It was a magnificent sight.
27
ONE WEEK LATER
The Commissary was only half full. That was partly due to the subdued atmosphere in the Lodge after everything that had happened, but mostly because more than a third of the facility’s population had succumbed to cellular necrosis before the outbreak burned itself out. There simply weren’t as many people around anymore, and many of those who were didn’t much feel like socializing.
Zula sat at a table with the surviving trainees: Ronny, Masako, Ray, Genevieve, and—his leg in a cast—Donnell. No medical professionals had survived the Necromorph’s attack on the Lodge, but Davis had researched the procedure to set the leg, which he claimed was straightforward enough. He’d guided Zula as she set Donnell’s bones and put a cast on him. The man had only cried out in pain once—okay, twice—so she figured she’d done an adequate job.
“I can’t believe Venture is shutting the whole place down,” Ray said.
“Would you want to work here after everything that happened?” Masako said.
“I guess not.”
“They won’t abandon the place entirely,” Ronny said. “They’ll use it for something. Maybe make it a resupply depot for ships.”
“They’ll probably keep the mines open, too,” Donnell added.
Everyone agreed that was likely.
They were all drinking—coffee, tea, or water—and as Zula sipped hers she sat back in her chair. Her back felt fine, not even a hint of soreness despite everything she’d put her body through during the fight against the Necromorph. She’d also developed no symptoms of cellular necrosis, something for which she was profoundly grateful.
After the destruction of the skimmer—and its sole nonhuman passenger—Davis had contacted the proto-colony to arrange for someone to come pick them up. Several colonists got into one of the heavy ore haulers, the big machines sturdy enough to handle the strong winds, and set out for the Junkyard. Zula and the trainees’ O2 had been running low by the time the colonists found them, but they reached the colony before their air ran out and remained there, safe and warm, until the electrical storm ran its course.
When Zula returned to the Lodge, Davis told her about Brigette’s last request. She made a trip to Millard Gagnon’s lab, and with the synth’s help got inside and destroyed all his research on the Ovomorph and Necromorph. That required deleting a number of computer files and physically trashing the computers themselves as an added precaution. Gagnon had been so paranoid about his research that he’d never saved it to the Lodge’s intranet, so once they’d finished, they knew they’d gotten it all.
The bio-samples—especially the Ovomorph, the embryo-implanter, and the corpse of the poor man Gagnon had used as the Necromorph’s host—were more difficult to dispose of. In the end an unexpected fire broke out in Gagnon’s lab, and for some unknown reason the lab’s fire-suppression system failed to activate in time, only coming online and extinguishing the flames when the lab and its entire contents had been reduced to a charred ruin.
Upon returning to the Lodge they’d learned of Aleta’s death. Davis checked the woman’s outgoing messages, as well as the files on her computer. Her assistant’s as well. Aleta had sent several messages to Venture’s higher-ups regarding Gagnon’s experiments, but she’d sent no hard data. Davis deleted all the files on the computers, though, just to be sure.
His ident chip was in Zula’s pocket, and a duffle bag containing what few possessions she had lay on the floor next to her chair.
“So what are you five going to do now?” she asked.
Ronny exchanged glances with the others before answering.
“Venture’s asked us if we’d like to relocate to another facility, and continue with the Colony Protection Force.”
“Word is,” Genevieve said, “that Venture was ready to pull the plug on the program, but someone convinced them how important it was.”
“Was it you?” Donnell asked Zula.
“Ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies,” she said with a smile. Her actions of the past few days had given her a bit of clout, for the moment at least. It wouldn’t last. “Are any of you going to take Venture up on the offer?”
“We all are,” Ronny said. “Especially considering the pay raise they’re giving us.”
“You’re worth it,” Zula said. “You’ve got a hell of a lot more experience now.”
The group fell silent for several moments, and Zula knew they were thinking about their comrades who had died while they’d gained that experience.
“How about you, Boss?” Ronny said. “Want to join us?”
“If it hadn’t been for you,” Ray said, “a lot more people would’ve died.”
“The Lodge might be nothing more than a corpse-filled tomb right now,” Masako agreed. “The proto-colony, too.”
Zula sipped her coffee.
“I can’t,” she said finally. “What happened here has convinced me that I can’t stand by and wait for the next opportunity to continue the fight against the Xenomorphs—and more importantly, against people stupid and greedy enough to think the monsters can be exploited. I’m not going to wait for the fight to come to me, like it did here. I’m going to take the fight to the corporations, to try to prevent incidents like this one from happening in the first place.”
The trainees were quiet for a time.
“Maybe we could go with you,” Ronny suggested. “You want to win a fight on the scale you’re talking about, you’re going to need people by your side.”
“True,” Zula said. That was something she had learned at the Lodge, as well. Yes, she had Davis, but the two of them alone couldn’t take on the entire galaxy. Here it had taken all of them—the dead as well as those who’d survived—to stop one Xenomorph. This creature had been an especially deadly specimen, true, but that only told Zula that Xenomorphs were even more of a threat than she’d thought. If they could all mutate, stopping them once and for all could prove far more difficult than she’d ever imagined.
“The colonization of the galaxy is going to move forward,” Zula said. “People will leave Earth looking to forge new lives for themselves. They’re going to need someone to protect them from whatever hostile forces they might encounter along the way—especially when those forces turn out to be their fellow humans. The five of you are uniquely qualified for the job now. Not too many people have gone up against a Xenomorph and beat the damn thing, let alone lived to tell about it. You’re all needed out here, doing what you were trained to do. Protect.”
Again they fell into silence for a time, but it wasn’t an uncomfortable one. Rather, it was a companionable silence, one where they could simply sit and enjoy being in each other’s presence without needing to say anything. Zula hadn’t had many friends in her life, and it was a good feeling.
Masako nodded to the duffle.
“Shipping out then?” she said.
This was the real reason Zula had asked them all to join her in the Commissary. To tell them she was leaving. A supply ship had landed yesterday, and Zula had talked the commander into giving her a lift off-planet.
“Yes.”
“Heading off to tilt at some more windmills?” Ronny smiled. His words were teasing, but his tone was warm.
“Not right away. First, Davis and I are going back to Earth. We need to pick up a friend.”
See you soon, Amanda, she thought.
She took another sip of her coffee and smiled.
28
“I can’t believe they left all this stuff here.”
“It’s cheaper to abandon it than ship it off-planet.”
“I suppose.”
Royce Leahy and Taneka McKinley walked down an aisle in the Lodge’s warehouse. Both carried computer pads and both were tired. They’d been cataloguing the building’s contents for several hours now, and Royce didn’t know about Taneka, but he could use a break.
“Do you think it’s true?” Taneka asked.
“What?”
“What they say happened here. You know.”
“You mean that there was some kind of monster running around killing people? Naw. The only thing that killed anyone here was a disease.”
Neither of them was wearing a biohazard suit, but they’d both been inoculated against cellular necrosis. Besides, the outbreak had been months ago. The facility was completely safe now—at least, that’s what Royce kept telling himself.
Not long after the outbreak, Venture had closed down V-22—or the Lodge, as it was more commonly known—and reassigned the surviving personnel to facilities on other planets, space stations, and even Earth. The Lodge had remained empty since then, but now Venture was looking into the feasibility of reusing the facility—or at least sections of it—as a refueling station. Royce and Taneka were part of the inspection team that had been sent to evaluate the Lodge’s potential. Venture wanted everything checked out, including the life-support systems. They worked fine, although he thought the air had a musty smell to it.
In Royce’s opinion the Lodge would be too expensive to operate, even partially, and Venture would be better off leaving the facility empty and offline. But he was just a lowly site inspector. Why would the higher-ups in the company give a damn what he thought?
“I know it’s true,” Taneka said.
It took Royce a second to realize she was talking about the monster again. She went on.
“One of my friends has a cousin who worked in the Tech department here. She says the monster was real.”
Royce didn’t feel like arguing with her about it. He was too tired. They’d been on their feet without a break for hours now, and—
He stopped walking, and frowned.
They’d come to the end of one of the aisles in the back of the warehouse, a section that wasn’t particularly well lit. There, sitting on the floor and concealed in the shadows, was something that looked very much like an egg. A big one.
Taneka saw it, too.
“What the hell is that?” she asked.
Royce turned his computer pad’s screen toward the thing, illuminating it with the light from the display. The object was a greenish leathery thing, about three feet high and covered with black lesions and crusty nodules.
“I have no idea,” Royce said, but suddenly Taneka’s talk about monsters no longer seemed so ridiculous. “Whatever it is, we should report it to a supervisor.”
He reached up to tap the comm device in his ear. As if the motion was a trigger, the egg began to quiver, and then it opened like a flower.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my fantastic agent Cherry Weiner for her guidance, support, and friendship. Thanks to the Mighty Steves—Steve Saffel and Steve Tzirlin—who helped shape this novel from the beginning. Alien: Prototype is a far better book because of their efforts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tim Waggoner’s first novel came out in 2001, and he’s published more than forty novels and seven collections of short stories since. He writes original fantasy and horror, as well as media tie-ins. His novels include Like Death, considered a modern classic in the genre, and the popular Nekropolis series of urban fantasy novels. He’s written tie-in fiction for Supernatural, Grimm, The X-Files, Doctor Who, Kingsman, Resident Evil, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Transformers, among others. His articles on writing have appeared in Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Journal, and Writer’s Workshop of Horror.
He’s won the Bram Stoker Award, been a multiple finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award and the Scribe Award, and his fiction has received numerous Honorable Mentions in volumes of Best Horror of the Year. In 2016, the Horror Writers Association honored him with the Mentor of the Year Award.
In addition to writing, Tim is also a full-time tenured professor who teaches creative writing and composition at Sinclair College.
Tim Waggoner, Alien
