Mae’s reboot cycled through emergency protocols. Her personality matrix struggled and nearly collapsed under the weight of such a sudden inrush of information. Her Green Mae splinter was gone, but at the last nanosecond, she risked throwing her core through the open comms channel. It was vital information. Death and suffering stained the download, but her advanced systems avoided Kaspar’s hold.
Rook crouched down next to her, while the team huddled around her, faces knotted in concern even as they kept an eye on their surroundings.
She caught a whiff of his emotions. He wasn’t surprised at all.
Mae didn’t stay on her knees for long. A gleam in Rook’s expression told her that the ruse was over; no synthetic could fail to recognize a system shutdown. Abandoning all pretense, she connected to him via a network and shot him a command.
Say nothing. We’re in some pretty shit right now. It can wait.
“The Fury is in total protective lockdown.” She addressed her Jackals—still intact, but who knew for how long? “We’ve also got more uncontained Xenos inbound.”
“We can still EVA through the first airlock,” Corporal Ware offered. As the tech officer, she must already be thinking of how to secure the doors behind them to slow down any Xenomorphs.
Mae glanced around. They had already arrived at the elevators. “Spike those controls one more time. I really don’t want anyone joining us down here. Let’s go for EVA extraction.”
After Ware had done so, Mae directed her synthetic squads and human Jackals at a quick pace back down the corridor to reconnect with Squad Two, led by Sergeant Fesolai. They’d held their position in the first laboratory and kept the remaining scientists contained.
Mae appraised the Jackals of the situation with as few words as possible. “Xenos have overrun the facility on the other side of this level. We have them contained behind a spiked airlock door, but we need to EVA back to Fury ASAP. Xenos overran the command center. Green Team is gone.”
Fesolai and all the Jackals present had friends and probably lovers on the lost squad, yet they didn’t hesitate for a moment.
“Yes, ma’am,” they all acknowledged her orders.
“What about me?” Vogel grabbed at Mae’s arm. “You can’t just leave me here!” The other scientists broke into full panic as they realized they were in the same situation. Only the Jackals’ weaponry kept them from charging, but it wouldn’t last.
Frightened humans made every situation worse. Mae tried to raise her voice above their demands. “The Xenomorphs have been contained. We’ll secure you in this room. Stay quiet and hidden until we come back.”
None of them seemed to believe her reassurances. The terror became louder as they scrambled to their feet.
Five humans who’d done horrible things. How to weigh the lives of people who’d willingly experimented on others was a moral quagmire Mae wasn’t prepared for. It would have been easier if she were only a regular synthetic. No questions, only obedience to the rules built into her programming. Her father’s gift was also sometimes a curse.
She jerked her head towards Rook. “Grab all those files.” Mae took hold of Vogel by the back of his jacket. They couldn’t take her colleagues, but Zula Hendricks needed documentation and witnesses. Vogel and the data drives would do.
Her Jackals pushed the rest of the panicking scientists back into the room, gently at first, and then with increasing firmness. Only by bringing their weapons to bear did they quiet them enough to shut the door to the lab.
Once in the corridor, they retraced the route they’d first taken with Vogel. In the dim light, three people stood by the interior elevator, clustered together, presumably waiting for it to open. Strangely, they didn’t make any noise even though this was certainly a high-stress situation. They wore overalls, rather than the clean white uniforms of the scientists. Probably they were maintenance or janitorial staff.
Vogel pushed her way past Mae. “Hey, this elevator is on lockdown. Come with us.”
Mae wasn’t impressed, but she allowed it. A human from the station might well be able to persuade others to seek shelter.
Vogel reached out and touched one man’s arm. “I know it sucks, but if you take shelter in—”
The man wheeled about and grabbed her by her security tag. The other two lurched forward and struggled with Vogel. All completely silently.
“Hey, hey, come on.” Sergeant Fesolai shouldered his way forward to break up the melee. “Quit acting like this. Get back to your rooms!”
A mass of figures appeared at the far end of the corridor. More humans shambling towards them slowly when they should have been running in panic. They didn’t scream or make any noise at all. Mae briefly wondered where they’d come from, until she recognized a tall young woman with a tangle of blonde hair. She’d been unconscious in one lab room they’d passed on the way to the other airlock. Whatever anaesthetic they’d dosed her with was gone.
At her side, Vogel let out a strangled sob. “They’re infected!”
Mae’s enhanced synthetic vision locked onto the broken remains of the tech spike in the woman’s hand. It didn’t come from the spiked elevator controls, so it must be the one Mae drove into the airlock controls.
A human opened that airlock door, and yet she was still alive. Kuebiko must create a bond or a connection between human and Xenomorph—a terrifying idea that would need to be examined further. Unfortunately, there was no time to do that now, because behind the crowd, a snarling mass of teeth and rage raced towards them. A flood of Xenomorph drones scrambled to reach the Jackals. They shoved past the crowd in their haste to reach Blue Team, ignoring the infected humans as if they were furniture. The only other explanation was they considered them part of the hive.
She processed all of this in the seconds before the black mass of writhing, snarling monsters reached them.
“Contact!” Mae yelled, but her Jackals were already bringing their guns to bear.
The squads, human and synthetic, opened fire. At first, they used the poly grenades, punching them into the mass of Xenos and infected humans charging towards them. The neon orange strands filled the corridor with a heaving, struggling, screaming nightmare of a mob.
They didn’t have enough poly grenades, Mae realized. They were in danger of being overwhelmed.
In the midst of this chaos, the three humans by the elevator pulled out the spikes on the control panel. The elevator came to life, and Mae glimpsed Vogel being dragged inside. With her security clearance, and the humans assisting, they’d be able to go anywhere on Minos.
“Pull back to the extraction point! Now!” She shouted to be heard over the snarls of their attackers, who strained against the chemical bonds from the grenades. Mae did not use the word retreat because every Jackal and military unit loathed the term. This was a strategic withdrawal.
They were about to run out of poly grenades and would need to use live rounds. The five screaming scientists from the room didn’t make things any simpler. It was always easier to experiment in silence. Facing the consequences of their actions drove them into a panic. Now they howled for the Jackals to save them. Their voices merged into a cacophony of desperation. They pleaded that their humanity was worth so much more than those they had happily experimented on.
Mae had no time for them. The hellish, squirming mass of Xenos and infected workers surged towards them down the corridor. They were about to be overrun. The Jackals sealed the first line of Xenos with poly grenades, but they were pushed from behind by yet more.
Minos was preparing to export these ‘managed’ Xenos all over the galaxy, and now they flooded the corridors, tearing the place apart. They didn’t look so managed from close range. Whatever control Station Chief Rolstad thought he had over them was gone, if it had ever existed at all.
“Poly grenades out. Switch to pulse rifles,” Corporal Bui called out, and Mae understood they were on the edge.
“Short bursts only. Watch that spread!” Sergeant Fesolai bellowed.
Controlled missions, where everyone stuck to the plan and the training, was when things went smoothly and by the numbers. But when the unexpected arose, humans, even trained military veterans, could lose their grasp of the basics. They could devolve as a team, falling into battle blindness, prioritizing their own survival above the unit’s.
Mae sensed, in the next few moments, that the situation might devolve into that chaos. In the enclosed space, the Jackals risked punching holes in the station’s hull, but the squads had no other choice. The mass of Xenos and humans pushed forward. Individuals snapped and cracked from the forces at the rear. The monsters’ limbs broke and shattered, splattering the ceiling, walls, and those around them with thick acid.
Now, with only eight meters separating them, the Jackals needed to move. They laid down suppressive fire and fell back down the corridor. The acid of the downed Xenos ate through the floor of the corridor as more shoved past them. The stutter of the pulse rifles increased in pace, the light of the rounds illuminating the dim corridor in bursts.
The Xenomorphs’ charge brought them closer and closer to Blue Team. The advanced combat synthetics took the brunt of the assault. Acid-repellent surface covering couldn’t hold out forever against the number of Xenos pouring down the corridor. B1 and B2 fell first, torn apart, bathed in acid. They were trampled under the monsters’ sharp feet. B3 and B4 took some splatter damage. B3’s right leg struggled to remain operable as they withdrew back towards the airlock.
With the combat synthetics failing, the genetic humans were next on the line. They were not properly prepared for battle with Xenomorphs. How did they miss this intel?
Rook claimed that the company compartmentalized the computer systems, but did they really? She hadn’t been able to confirm that without plugging into the system herself. She’d believed Rook, and now, as the Jackals faced down a wave of Xenos, she wondered if this was the other synthetic’s fault.
Private Leone took a spray of acid to his face. Kaur grabbed him by his vest and dragged him back as he screamed in pain. The tipping point she’d long studied and feared rushed towards them as fast as the Xenomorphs themselves.