Chapter 18 - Alien: Colony War

It’s like a foot-tall lizard, Cher thought. Or a fat worm. Pink and bloody like raw flesh, its tail wrapped around it like an umbilical cord. It swiveled its head and regarded them all, standing shocked and still around the ravaged corpse of Frank Priestley.

Then it opened its tiny mouth filled with pin-sharp teeth and screeched, suddenly skittering from Priestley’s exploded chest cavity and across the makeshift table, scattering plates and cups, as everyone leapt backward and away from it.

The chestburster. She’d never expected to see it. Now she had, and she’d never forget it. A whine sounded close to her ear and the table shook, crockery flying as a shot slammed into it just where the thing had been only a second before.

“Kill it!” Chad shouted, taking aim again as the thing skidded off the table, Moran leaping away from its trajectory. “It’s at its most vulnerable now! We can’t let it get away!”

Bromley was the first to react, grabbing her pulse rifle and taking aim as the creature—baby? Cher thought crazily—skittered along the floor, heading toward one of the taped up ducts and then veering off to the right. Finally Moran got his shit together and pulled out his handgun, firing off a volley of pulse bursts, always just a second behind the careening horror.

Cher backed away, bumping into Merrilyn and turning quickly, grabbing her and Therese and pulling them away, toward the door. Chad saw her and yelled over his shoulder.

“Don’t open those doors! We have to contain the thing!”

“We’re getting it cornered,” Moran said, he and Bromley letting loose pulse bursts and herding it toward the flat space beneath the window. “McLaren, take the fucking thing out.”

The chestburster chattered and then dove forward. Cher realized what it was doing at the same time as Chad, as it headed directly for where one of the panels had been unscrewed from the central comms desk to cover up the vents. If it got into the innards of the comms hub they’d never find it.

“Got it in my sights,” Chad said, taking aim. He squeezed the trigger just as a sudden, howling gale buffeted the comms tower.

All the lights went off.

Cher stood stock still, barely daring to breathe. It wasn’t completely black, the luminous storm clouds outside offering a faint, preternatural glow against which she could see the silhouettes of the others. She closed her eyes to blot it all out, and suddenly thought about her daddy, being told that he’d lost another daughter, and not knowing why. If there was anyone to ever tell him, of course.

She was going to die here on this distant planet, at the claws or teeth of a Xenomorph, and they might never find her or know who she was. Even if they did, her father would never know the truth. Two daughters killed because of a conspiracy of darkness surrounding the existence of something that everyone denied.

No. No, she would not die here. She had too much to do. Too important a job to finish. Cher opened her eyes—she would not look away. Too many people had done that already, and that was why Shy was dead.

Why Cher would live. To tell this story.

“Fuck. Fuck.” Somebody turned on a flashlight, and then another. Chad shone his underneath the comms hub. “It’s in there somewhere. We’re not safe.”

“I thought you said it wasn’t dangerous,” Moran said, shining his flashlight into the gap beneath the comms desk.

“It will be,” Chad said. “In a matter of hours. It’s down there somewhere, growing as we speak.” He shook his head. “We’re not going to last the night in here.”

“Please,” Merrilyn said, hugging Therese to her. “You’re scaring my daughter!”

“I’m all right, Mama.”

“She should be scared.” Chad looked at them both. “It’s the only way she’s going to survive this.”

Merrilyn had a flashlight in her bag, the Victory crew each had one, and Chad found two more, giving them one each—aside from Therese and, of course, Davis. He handed Cher a handgun.

“You ever used one of these before?”

“I’m American,” she said.

“So, what are we going to do?” Moran said. “If we can’t stay here, where are we going to go? With no power, we can’t even get the schematics of the colony.”

“I know the layout well enough,” Merrilyn said. “We were safe in the canteen. Before you arrived.”

“Far end of the complex,” Moran said. “Two klicks. How many of these things are out there?”

“I found evidence of twenty-seven eggs on the wreck of the Clara,” Chad said. “Assuming they’ve all implanted embryos…”

“Fuck,” Bromley said. “That’s an army.”

“And if there’s a queen, there could be more already,” Chad said. “I think we can certainly say that there’s a hive operating.” They all looked at the dark shape of Priestley on the comms desk. Moran shone the flashlight on him for a second, then swung the beam away.

“Chad,” Cher said. “He was acting weird, like… I don’t know. Can these Xenomorphs, like, mind-control people?”

“Not that we know of, but people who spend time in a hive and survive… it changes them. I don’t just mean becoming a host. I worked with a scientist… He spent time in a hive, and it messed with his head.”

“It would,” Moran said. “Poor Frank. God knows what he was put through in there.” He shone his beam at the doors. “So, we’re going to make a run for it? To the canteen?” They all looked at each other in the dancing lights.

Cher felt sick. This seemed like suicide to her. Surely they should stay here, and try to kill that baby one. At least the comms room was secure. And they could call for help when the storm lifted.

“What about your ship?” she said.

“There’s a goddamned monster in it,” Moran said.

“Maybe we could kill it. Hide out in there.”

“We can’t take off yet, anyway,” Chad said, going to the window. “And if they decided to attack en masse… we’d be sitting ducks in a very confined space.”

“How do these things hunt, anyway?” Moran said. “Scent? Sight? Movement?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Chad said. “There’s even a theory they can locate and zero in on human brainwaves, but it’s far from proven, and I’m more than a little skeptical.”

“Sounds like you don’t really know shit about these things,” Bromley said, checking her rifle for the umpteenth time. There was accusation in her voice. “They can die, that’s all I really need to know. We should move out.”

“Is that really…” Cher said. “I mean, all of us? Two kilometers of corridors? In the pitch black?”

“I’m inclined to agree with Cher,” Chad said.

“You stay if you want,” Moran said. He looked at Chad. “Like I said, McLaren. I’m a main character in this thing. I thought you were, too, but I guess there’s only room for one in any story.” He walked to the doors and his hand paused over the keypad. “Anybody wants to come with me, fall in now. Anybody wants to stay…” He shrugged. “I’ll make sure you get a mention when I give my report.”

Moran slammed his hand on to the keypad and the double doors whispered open. He shone his torch into the corridor and screamed as the Xenomorph barreled at him, its jaws clamping down on the forearm that he threw up to protect his face. Man and monster tumbled backward into the comms room, Moran’s flashlight hitting the floor and spinning around, picking out the vicious attack like an ancient stroboscopic movie show.

It picked out something else as well. Cher gaped in horror as she glanced away from the Xenomorph and through the doors, into the corridor, shining her flashlight to reveal the darkness bubbling and boiling as though a black sea… a black sea that was a horde of Xenomorphs, advancing on them.

“Close the doors!” she screamed, running forward. Merrilyn blinked at her, then at Moran underneath the wiry attacker. She seemed to debate the wisdom of shutting themselves in with the creature.

“Now!” Cher screamed.

Merrilyn complied and hit the pad, and the doors hissed shut—but not before a long, bulbous head forced its way through the gap, screeching and baring its rows of cruel teeth.

“Chad!” Cher cried as the Xenomorph got its hands to either side of its slick head, and began to force the doors open. Chad looked at her, then at Moran, then at the alien leaning in.

“Fuck,” he said.

There was a volley of pulse fire and the Xenomorph on top of Moran writhed and twisted as Bromley’s rifle punched burst after burst into it. Chad aimed a shot at the alien in the doorway and hit it on its armored head, causing it to loosen its grip on the closing doors but not forcing it back far enough.

“Cher!” Merrilyn said. “In the mouth!”

She looked at the gun in her hand. She’d exaggerated her street smarts when Chad had asked her if she’d ever used a gun. She had, but only for shooting rats on the farm.

The Xenomorph began forcing the doors further open. She glanced around desperately. Moran was on his back, not moving. Chad and Bromley were emptying their pulse rifles into the twitching Xenomorph beside him.

It was up to her. Except she was frozen. She couldn’t move a muscle. She was going to die here.

I’ll go get Daddy, she remembered saying to Shy, stuck up the grain silo. I’ll go get someone else to help. Just before Shy plunged to the ground. Now Cher was going to die here, and so was everyone else. Because she couldn’t do anything.

“Merde!” Merrilyn said, leaving Therese cowering by the wall and running over, grabbing the gun from Cher’s hands and stuffing it into the gaping jaws of the alien. She pumped the trigger several times and the Xenomorph was thrown backward. The doors slammed shut.

Cher sank to her haunches, back to the door, and began to sob uncontrollably.

* * *

“That sure is some powerful shit,” Moran said, watching the acidic blood bubbling and burning through the floor underneath the corpse of the Xenomorph. He’d taken a nasty bite to his forearm and his face was slashed with claw marks, as was his chest. His jacket hung in tatters.

Once he’d been assured by Chad that he wasn’t going to turn into a monster, that Xenomorph bites didn’t work like that, he’d allowed Bromley to wash his wounds with alcohol and bandage him up. Moran looked over to where Cher was still sitting hunched against the door, hugging her knees.

“Hey, how many of those things did you say were out there?”

Cher said nothing.

Moran shouted, “Hey! I’m talking to you! How many Xenomorphs?”

“Leave her alone!” Merrilyn shouted back. “She’s been through a lot.”

“Duh.” Moran held up his bandaged arm. “I was fucking wrestling with one of ’em. How many, Hunt?”

“I don’t know.” She looked up at him, eyes red and puffy from crying, mascara running down her face. “All of them. All the monsters.”

“Great,” Moran muttered. Just what he needed. A hysterical woman along with a kid and a dog. These were not the sort of people for this kind of movie. He squatted down by the dead Xenomorph. “Ugly fucking thing.”

“So, what do we do now, guv?” Bromley paced up and down in front of the window. “We can’t stay here. We got a dead alien and a dead Priestley and this place is starting to stink. Plus that little bugger growing up under the comms desk somewhere, and we can’t go outside because there’s a horde of the bastards waiting to rip our heads off. So, what do we do, guv?”

Moran wished he knew. He stood up and scratched his beard, then became aware that everyone was looking at him. Well, he supposed he was a natural leader.

“I wish the power was on. Then we could see the camera footage from outside, in case those things have gone.”

“If they’ve gone, it won’t be far,” McLaren said. “Not now that they know we’re in here.”

“If only there was some other way out,” Moran said. He looked at Bromley as a blast of wind rattled the big observation window. “Wait a minute,” he said slowly, and he reached for his gun.

* * *

“You’re fucking crazy!” Chad yelled over the howling wind that roared in through the big open space where the toughened glass of the observation window used to be. Moran had taken his gun and shot it out at the four corners. Its already weakened housings had given and the glass had blown inward, shattering all over the comms room floor.

Chad leaned over into the gale and looked down. It was fifty meters, at least. A smooth, metal surface with no handholds. Icy rain and winds like a battering ram.

“You got any better ideas, McLaren?” Moran shouted. “We get down there, we can get to the landing platform and into the colony buildings away from the Xenomorphs. Make our way to the canteen, or even to the garage and get some of those trucks Hambleton was talking about—just drive the fuck out of the storm.”

Chad looked at Cher, then Merrilyn. The Frenchwoman shrugged. Cher gave him a wide-eyed stare and shook her head. He sighed. Much as he hated to admit it, Moran was right. There was no other way off the comms deck.

“How are we going to get down?”

Moran pulled his head back in and looked around the room. “We need to make some kind of rope. Like they used to do in the cartoons, right? Tie bedsheets together.” He pointed with his good arm. “We can start with those blankets that Priestley was sleeping on. Everybody, go through every cupboard and see what else there is in this place.”

Chad thought for a moment that they should have done this before Moran shot out the window, but decided this was no time for regrets.

They all started to search the room, using their flashlights—all except for Cher, who just stood there in her own pool of darkness, numbly looking at the rest of them. Chad had seen this before. A form of trauma. The human mind could barely cope with the idea of the aliens, let alone seeing them up close. Let alone almost dying at their hands. In some ways, those who were killed by Xenomorphs were the lucky ones. The survivors… they were the ones who had to live with the knowledge of their existence. Who woke up screaming every night, drenched in sweat. Who jumped at every shadow and came to view the darkness with unholy, unbridled terror.

“Cher,” he said, as gently as he could. “I get it. I honestly do, but you’re going to have to pull yourself together. I know it’s hard, but you have to do it. You have to survive.”

“Survive,” she said flatly. She looked at him. “We’re all dead, Chad. We’re already all dead.”

“Survive,” he said fiercely. “You have to. We have a job to do. We have to stop this happening to anyone else.”

“The story,” she said quietly. “I was going to write a story.” She laughed, humorlessly. “Who’s going to believe this?”

“They’ll believe you, Cher,” he said. “They will. That’s why we need you. Do it for all those people, so they never have to see what you’ve seen.” He paused. “Do it for your sister. Do it for Shy. She saw what you’ve seen. She didn’t survive. You have to.”

“For Shy,” Cher said, then she shook her head, as though clearing it. When she looked at Chad again, whatever had been lacking in her eyes before seemed to be creeping back. “Yes. For Shy. And for everyone else. Come on. What do I have to do?”

As she went off to help in the search, Chad noticed Davis looking after her.