Chapter 11 - Alien: Colony War

“There’s LV-187 ahead,” Chad said.

Cher peered at the grey speck dead center in the cockpit windshield. Davis sat upright between her and Chad.

“How long?” she asked.

“Six hours and twenty-three minutes,” Davis said. “We’ll be in hailing distance in three hours.”

Suddenly she was nervous. All the talk of Xenomorphs and face-huggers and chestbursters had seemed abstract and distant on New Albion. Following the frantic flight from the terminus, she hadn’t had much time to think about where they were actually going and what they were going to do when they got there.

“What if the New Albion military doesn’t let us land?”

“They haven’t even been deployed yet,” Chad said. “I’ve been monitoring for military transmissions in this sector—there aren’t any. Besides,” he added. “you saw those soldiers. New Albion is a colony ruled by a buffoon with an army of idiots under his command.”

“Hmmm,” Cher said, not convinced. “In my experience, the politicians who pretend to be buffoons can ultimately the most dangerous. As much as it looks like it, Maurice Pepper isn’t winging this. He’s got a plan, all right, and if that doesn’t involve sending his army to LV-187, then we’ve got to assume there’s something even more dangerous going on.”

“Anyway, we’re not here to interfere in whatever New Albion does or doesn’t have planned,” Chad said. “We’re there to gather evidence.”

“And what if you’re wrong?” she countered. “What if there isn’t a ‘Xenomorph infestation’?”

“There is.” Chad stared ahead at the gradually growing sphere of LV-187. “I know it. You spend as long fighting these things as I have, you develop a kind of sixth sense about them. I can smell them, even from here.”

“In space no one can detect your scent,” Davis put in.

She looked at the dog, then up at Chad, who shrugged.

“Cher, why don’t you go grab some sleep?” he said. “There won’t be much opportunity for rest, once we get down there.”

* * *

“He seems sad,” Cher said as she pulled a blanket over her on the narrow bunk in the sleeping quarters. Davis had followed her and was lying down beside the bunk. “And more than a little angry.”

“He’s seen a lot,” Davis said.

Cher stared at the low ceiling for a while.

“Because of Amanda? What happened to her?”

Davis seemed to chew on that. “To understand that,” he said, “you must first understand Chad a little better. He went into biomedical research because he wanted to help people. To cure diseases, to eradicate illnesses. His career led him to work with the most brilliant biomedical scientists in the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. They were very close to several major breakthroughs with regards to a host of conditions, including many cancers.”

Cher sat up in the bunk. “What happened?”

“Chad discovered that the research was not entirely... ethical. One of his collaborators even had experienced direct contact with Xenomorphs. In fact, he had been held captive in a hive and survived. He was convinced that the answer to his work lay in the symbiotic relationship between Xenomorphs and their human hosts, and what changes were wrought inside the human body when a host was impregnated with a Xenomorph.”

Cher stroked her chin. “So what you are saying is… these creatures could actually be a force for good? In research terms? But this is huge. They could actually hold the answer to curing cancer?”

“Theoretically, but it depends on how far you are prepared to go to test that theory.” Davis licked his paws for a while, then continued. “Chad’s collaborator was… changed by his time in the Xenomorph hive. Not physically, as far as I know, but mentally. He lost his humanity. His experiments on both Xenomorphs and humans were without the constraints of scientific ethics. He was cruel. Indifferent to suffering.

“Chad was conflicted. On the one hand, their work was important. On the other…”

“On the other,” Cher guessed, “he couldn’t condone what he was witnessing. So he… what?”

“He turned whistleblower. Tried to tell the world what was happening at the Weyland-Yutani research labs, and that’s when he realized his life was in danger. That the company would go to any lengths to cover up the work they were doing with Xenomorphs. Fortunately, that’s when he met Amanda. She saved his life, in more ways than one.”

“She worked for Weyland-Yutani as well?”

Davis nodded. “She was an engineer, but always looking for answers about what happened to her mother.” He looked at Cher. “A little like you with your sister. Anyone who comes into contact with Xenomorphs falls into a black hole of Weyland-Yutani’s making. It is a conspiracy that spans the stars. Sometimes it seems like the biggest secret in the universe.”

“The world should know,” Cher said. “All the worlds. They all should know. This is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced.”

“Cui bono,” Davis said.

Cher pulled a face.

“Latin,” he explained. “It means, to whose benefit? There is no profit for Weyland-Yutani in having humanity unite against an alien threat, but there is profit in revolutionizing the pharmacological industry through the research. Or weaponizing the Xenomorphs.”

“But all these wars… they’re all pointless in the face of the threat of these monsters.”

“Pointless, but still profitable,” Davis said. “Wars require weapons. The Xenomorphs are worth more as potential combatants than as a common foe.” He paused, and added, “Imagine an army of them dropped onto an enemy world. Just imagine.”

Cher thought about it. She really hadn’t considered the enormity of this, about what they were going to do. She remembered the handwritten note stuck on her windshield back home. “SMART MONEY SAYS DROP IT.” The Weyland-Yutani tentacles stretched far and deep. Shy’s death had been sucked into that corporate black hole, and people were already watching her, warning her not to try to reach in and pull anything out. Or she’d go the same way, get trapped there as well.

SMART MONEY SAYS DROP IT.

Here she was, going up against murderous alien killing machines, and if she survived she was going up against the might of the military-industrial-pharma complex that ran a good portion of the universe. Question was, which one was most dangerous?

“Where is Amanda Ripley now?”

“Amanda McLaren was cremated and interred at Westlake Repository, Little Chute, Wisconsin, following her death from cancer on December 23, 2178,” Davis said.

“Oh,” Cher said. “I didn’t… No wonder he’s so sad.”

“At least,” Davis said after a while, “that’s the official story.”

“You mean she’s still alive?”

“She’s in hypersleep. At a secret location. If she wakes, she will die, but that will not happen. Not until Chad has the means to wake her free from cancer.”

“He wants to… what? Restart the experiments on Xenomorphs to cure his wife’s cancer? But surely he could have done that by staying to work with Weyland-Yutani, instead of deciding to fight them?”

“That is what drives Chad McLaren, and divides him, and pushes him on, and beats him down,” Davis said quietly. “Every single day of his life. In one hand he has his principles, in the other he has the life of Amanda.”

One life against potentially billions, Cher thought. From what she had heard of the Xenomorphs, it would take one egg—just one—to make it to Earth, and then… It didn’t bear thinking about. They had to be eradicated.

Weyland-Yutani had to be stopped.

But she knew if she could bring back Shy, even at the cost of blowing this whole Xenomorph conspiracy wide open, then she’d do it. Without even thinking. No contest.

“What Chad told me, about the way the Xenomorphs work,” Cher said. “Growing in the body, co-opting their host’s DNA… they’re like a cancer, really, aren’t they?”

“It is perhaps more of a journalistic analogy than a scientific one, but it stands,” Davis conceded.

“Maybe Chad’s focus has shifted,” Cher mused. “Maybe, with this mission to wipe out the Xenomorphs wherever he finds them, he’s not trying to cure Amanda’s cancer anymore. Maybe he just wants to eradicate it.”

Davis appeared to think about it. “I think I understand you, even if it does not make a huge amount of logical sense.” He cocked his head and looked at her. “It’s a very human thing to say, I think.”

“Thank you,” Cher said, and turned on to her side to face the wall, hoping to try to get a little sleep.

* * *

“LV-187, come in. This is the Elvik, private cruiser registered to New York Port Authority, United Americas, Earth. Permission to land requested, over.”

There was a static hiss, then Chad heard a voice with a British accent say, “Permission denied, Elvik. LV-187 has been claimed under interstellar law by the colony of New Albion. In light of the impending conflict between New Albion and the Three World Empire, this is not an appropriate place for you to visit right now. Repeat, permission denied. Over and out.”

“We have an emergency,” Chad said into the comms link. “Repeat, we have an emergency. We require immediate landing permission. We won’t make it anywhere else, over.”

There was a long pause, then the British voice came back. “Sorry to hear that, Elvik. However, I cannot grant you permission to land. If you want take up an orbital position around LV-187, we are expecting imminent aid from New Albion, who may be able to assist. But to be quite honest, mate, the military might have a bit more on its plate, what with a colony war on the horizon. Best to take your chances and move on, I’d say. Over and out.”

“Not an option, LV-187,” Chad insisted. “This is a code red emergency. Interstellar law compels you to offer a safe harbor for any ship in distress, no matter what the political situation is, over.”

“Look, mate, you enter our airspace and we’ll blow you out of the sky. Can’t make it much clearer than that. Now, piss off. Over and fucking out, all right?”

“So, what do we do now?” Cher said.

“It’s a drilling colony, not a military base,” Chad said. “They don’t have any weaponry to shoot us down. We’re going in.”

“Is it possible they were trying to put us off because of the Xenomorphs?” Cher said. “To protect us because of the infestation?”

“It didn’t sound like it—I doubt they even know about it yet,” Davis said. “The creatures are consummate hunters. They can stay hidden for a long time, even in great numbers. Until it’s time to show themselves.”

“And if that had happened,” Chad said, punching a landing program into the Elvik’s flight computer, “they’d already all be dead down there.”

* * *

“Fucking space tourists.” Moran killed the comms link and turned to Bromley. “They’d better not try to land.”

“It sounded like they really might be in trouble,” Bromley said doubtfully.

“They bloody will be if they try to put down here. Last thing we need is more witnesses.” Moran looked up and frowned. “Where the hell is Priestley? He’s been gone hours.”

“Lifeforms have dropped by one.” Boffin looked up from where he was scanning the colony, monitoring the Victory’s MU/TH/UR patched into the colony mainframe. “Either Frank has offed somebody, or he’s found a store of whisky and has managed to shoot himself.”

“Fuck.” Moran rubbed his eyes. “We’d better send someone to find him. Mir, you want to take a look?”

“Sure,” Amina said, checking her pulse rifle. “He’s probably found a stash of Frenchie porn and is holed up in a toilet somewhere.”

Bromley pulled a face. “Ewww, though can you imagine?” Both she and Amina mimed sticking their fingers into their mouths and throwing up.

“Calm it down, you two,” Moran said. “He could be in trouble. We don’t really know why all those colonists died, and what these bloody lifeforms are on Boffin’s scans.”

“On my way, guv,” Amina said, and she opened up the door from the comms tower. She immediately shrieked and let loose a blast from her handgun as the others all whirled around.

“Dirty fucking thing!” Amina yelled. Moran sighed at the smoking, almost obliterated corpse of a fat white rat on the floor of the corridor outside.

“Lifeforms down to fifteen,” Boffin said from his screen.

Moran stared at him. “You’re telling me those readings could just be escaped lab rats?”

“It’s possible.” Boffin shrugged. “Or cats. They might have a chicken farm here, for all I know.”

Moran felt himself relax. Maybe there weren’t any rogue colonists to dispose of, after all. They could sit this out with just a few animals to pick off for target practice until the Duke of Wellingtons arrived.

“Priestley probably fucked a chicken to death,” Bromley said, high-fiving Mir by the door. “Go and find the old pervert and drag his arse back here.”

Amina turned to Boffin before she left. “You any closer to getting the lights back on?”

“Scared of the dark?” he said.

“No, but I really do hate rats,” Amina said, sidestepping the rodent’s smoking corpse and heading out down the corridor. She decided to head for the dispatch deck where Priestley was supposed to be going, singing loudly and kicking open doors as she went. She really did hate rats. Always had, ever since she was a kid in Lancashire.

She’d once been playing in the alley behind her family’s ancient terraced house in Blackburn and come across one of the things sitting on top of a garbage skip. A malevolent, grey creature as big as a dog. She’d stood there in front of it, almost hypnotized by its red eyes, which regarded her with a baleful stare. She only snapped back to reality when she heard the other kids laughing, and realized there was a warm trickle of pee running down her leg.

She’d run all the way home, crying.

At least there were no rats on New Albion. She’d been quite particular about finding out about that when her father, an engineer, had announced ten years ago that he wanted to apply for immigration status for the whole family. It was cold and wet and ugly—just like home—but there were no rats.

“You in here, Priestley?” Amina called, kicking open the door to a bathroom, a row of stalls set against the far wall. “It’s time to stop wanking and start working.”

Silence. Amina pushed open each of the stall doors and then turned back to the door, and stopped. What was that puddle of goo on the tiled floor? She was certain she hadn’t stepped over it when she came in. She leaned forward to inspect it. Soap from one of the dispensers? It looked thick and gloopy—she didn’t want to touch it. She hopped over it and let herself out of the bathroom.

Further along a set of double doors opened to a wide, dark space filled with vehicles—jeeps, trucks, flyers, and buggies. The dispatch deck. At the far end was a closed retractable exit. Damn Boffin. Why couldn’t he get the lights on? She took her flashlight from her pocket and walked slowly between the rows of armored trucks, calling out.

“Priestley?”

At the end of the row was a stack of fuel barrels, before the next row of jeeps began. Amina jumped at a sudden movement behind them, what sounded like the scratching of claws on concrete. She shivered. She really, really hated rats.

Holding up her gun she cautiously sidled around the side of the stack of barrels, training her flashlight on the ground.

“OK, you furry little shit,” she muttered. “Do you want some of what your little pal got back at the—”

The words died on her lips as the flashlight beam travelled over something on the ground. She raised the beam up, up and up, taking in the full height of the impossible thing that stood there, hissing, its jaws dripping with drool.

It was no rat.