Red Team rounded a sharp turn, carefully spread out and wary. Up ahead, five humanoid forms wandered down the corridor. They gleamed with heat and were clearly visible in infrared. They wore company overalls. These must be experiment victims, like the ones they’d encountered by the base of the space elevator. They appeared disorientated, shuffling back and forth behind an open blast door.
“Contact. Civvies,” Mae whispered back to her commander.
Zula and Shipp moved to the front. As they assessed the forms ten meters ahead, the first synth squad provided them with cover.
The humans moved only slightly. They stood in the middle of the corridor, unarmed and facing away from the Jackals. It was as if they could not hear the Jackals coming at all.
Zula gave the signal, and the second squad of synthetics took point. The Good Boys passed between the silent people to scan the corridor ahead, and still the humans did not move. The size and menacing shape of the Boys usually prompted some reaction. Whatever drugs the scientists administered to these humans must not have worn off yet.
First Squad moved up, keeping their weapons trained on the silent humans. Sergeant Ackerman was the first of the genetic humans to reach them. Two women and three men didn’t even make eye contact with him, their heads remained tilted up slightly. They stood in place, swaying but silent.
When Ackerman poked one with the tip of his pulse rifle, there was no reaction.
Zula and Shipp approached, bringing the medic, Private Feldman, with them. Mae was among the two synthetic squads that gently herded the lost humans back against the plastic wall. They offered no resistance, not even making a single noise of protest.
Zula’s face twisted. “What fresh fuckery is this?” Coming from someone with as much experience as her, that was concerning.
Shipp shook her head. “Can’t be over twenty years old, any of them.” She gestured Feldman over to check them out.
The private hustled up and gave them each a hasty examination. She shone lights in their eyes, trying to get a reaction, asked quiet questions, and looked for signs of external injuries. Nothing made a difference.
Feldman looked to Zula. “I don’t know, ma’am. They are physically fine, but all their eyes are dilated. It might be drugs, or some kind of brain injury.”
Mae detected a strange odor coming off them. It was at such a low level that the human nose could not identify it. However, it reminded her of something. “Colonel, may we turn off all visible light sources for just a moment?”
Her mother hesitated. Humans were always resistant to doing so, even when they wore other devices like infrared displays. “All squads, go lights out,” Zula commanded, “just for a moment.”
The corridor plunged into a darkness only broken by the bioluminescent glow coming from the walls—and from the skin of the five people.
“Back on.” Zula shifted to stand next to Feldman. “Is it some kind of contagion?”
“Negative,” Mae replied before the medic could. “I detect no viruses or bacteria. However, there is an unidentified odorant emanating from their pores.”
Her mother’s face tightened. “If they’re infected with something, we should get them back to the Fury under quarantine conditions.” She glanced back down the corridor. “Looks like we’re all going to go through quarantine protocol. Second Squad, you accompany Private Feldman back to the space elevator landing with these five, and return to Minos. Also, see if you can wake up the humans we found in the crate and evacuate them as well.”
The combat androids R5, R6, R7, and R8 snapped into formation around Feldman, guiding the infected humans back the way they’d come.
The one remaining synthetic squad moved into a wider V formation to provide cover for as many of the genetic human Jackals as possible. The squad’s programming adjusted with the change in numbers as Red Team pushed on. The corridor narrowed and spiraled down, and Mae realized they were in the structure the Pinpoint drones found that ran vertically down the cliff face.
The temperature continued to climb, though—now up another five degrees—causing all the human Jackals to break out in a sweat. As Mae scanned forward, she noted changes in the walls of the tunnel. They were still composed of the same material with the same hexagonal shape, but it took on a translucent quality. The deeper they ventured, the more the atmosphere became hot and moist.
The narrow, spiraling path meant only two Jackals could proceed at a time, almost shoulder to shoulder. Mae and R2 were in the front line, and she constantly beamed back her findings across the synth network, and to their commanding officers.
Reaching the bottom of the spiral, the passage finally widened. Now, some of the transparent hexagonal panels were occasionally replaced with openings. These were not more corridors, but rather smaller chambers.
The Good Boys identified biological remains, but nothing alive. Mae bent and stuck her head into the first hexagonal chamber they found. She immediately identified what that biological matter was: an open Xenomorph egg at the back of the space, and in front of it sprawled a young woman’s body with her chest blown open. Curled up by her right foot was a desiccated facehugger. Her bright red hair matched the blood splattered around the translucent chamber.
The synthetics located forty similar chambers, all stacked on top of each other. The rank odor of death filled the corridor. The Jackals already had plenty of experience with it, but seeing so many young lives sacrificed in the name of company profits always made them angry. It washed over Mae as well.
Zula and Shipp examined the remains for themselves with tight expressions. All three major powers forbade human experimentation, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen. Only in the darkest corners of the galaxy would corporations dare to conduct such experiments. The promise of well-paying factory jobs on Minos lured in many of the strongest and brightest. Now, it was clear that they were in fact meant to keep this black site flush with victims for experimentation.
Mae caught flickers of frustration and exhaustion on her mother’s face. This was not the first corporate horror she’d witnessed.
“These corpses are glowing, too.” Shipp’s hand tightened on her rifle, though there was no target in sight.
“I want samples bagged and tagged, and we’re saving as many of these people as we can.”
It seemed important to offer some hope to her mother, so Mae pointed out, “The empty wagon up top suggests some more victims have only just arrived.”
Shipp’s eyebrows drew together in a dark frown. “Then let’s make some hustle, people.”
“Get ready,” Ackerman barked. “We got bugs up front.”
The Good Boys raced ahead, scanning and reporting back on more empty chambers. The squads moved faster now, urgently hoping to find survivors. Still, they kept formation and good order.
More humans emerged up ahead, and they appeared in a similar state to the ones sent back to Minos with Feldman. However, as Mae’s synthetic Jackals neared them, they scattered. They probably were afraid of the onrushing soldiers, thinking they were about to get mowed down.
“We’re here to evacuate you.” Mae’s voice came out tinny and modulated. The purpose of their combat bodies was not to offer comfort or sympathy.
She pursued them down the corridor, followed by her synth unit, and into a larger room. The civvies scattered left and right, and she noted one strange point: they didn’t scream in panic. They moved on bare feet, not making any sound.
Back behind them, Mae’s sensors registered a heavy metallic slam. It must be that blast door.
“They have shut our entry point,” she reported on an open channel back to her mother, in case this body and splinter was destroyed. The civvies ahead still ran on, though they likely couldn’t see much in the dark; the bioluminescence became muted, down there.
Her mother’s voice snapped through the comms. “Contact Feldman, find out what the hell happened.”
Mae sent a message through to the private. No reply came. They might have to maintain radio silence for off-planet communications, but their own network was still working. Feldman should have acknowledged.
This was a tricky situation. If they worked their way back, then they might find a locked blast door. They would be trapped here with no way to escape. Going forward meant going into the unknown, but there must be a way out through the training facility, at least. Splitting their forces could also be a deadly mistake.
Zula Hendricks’s first consideration was for the civvies.
Forward. The order flashed into the synthetics and onto the heads-up displays inside the human Jackals’ helmets. Remaining in formation, they pushed forward, examining the parameters of this larger space.
That strange composite material covered the walls. The humans who’d fled from them now stood in a cluster near the back of the large room, in front of a hangar door emblazoned with the Weyland-Yutani logo. If intruders managed to reach this far into the complex, there was clearly no longer any point in subterfuge. The strange odor increased in parts per million as Mae and her synth squad moved closer.
“Lights. Let’s see what we’ve got.”
The squad turned on their headlamps, shining a light on the twenty civilians gathered there. As the light raked over them, they let out low groans.
“We’re here to help,” Ackerman called. “Let’s get you back up to the station—”
His voice choked off as the humans spun around to face the Jackals. Lines of blue light ran up their arms and over their expressionless faces.
“Help us! Help us!” they all screamed out, rushing towards Red Team. Used to frightened, unarmed civvies, the Jackals tried to push them back without firing.
“Fuck off,” Private Gorev yelled, as a wide-eyed young man clawed at his helmet.
Corporal Minkas punched a woman attempting to wrestle his pulse rifle away. “Goddamn it, we’re trying to help you.”
“Hold your fire!” Shipp’s voice broke through the chaos. Mae’s network told her both she and Zula were at the rear, experiencing the same surge of civvies. For all their yelling, these company employees didn’t display fright or any other human emotion. Shoving two men off her, Mae did not discern any flicker of conscious action from any of them.
Struggling and throwing the company workers to the ground, the squads eventually cleared some space. Applying rifle butts or knocking them back with fists seemed the most appropriate way to deal with them.
As Mae shoved a worker backward with her shoulder, the rattle of an opening door reached her. A man with ragged hair and blue light gleaming on his skin stood by the switch he’d just flicked. The hangar door opened into another, larger chamber. She hoped it would lead out to the valley.
That seemed like a good thing until hatches high above them in the ceiling also opened, and the true nightmares made themselves known. They emerged from every hexagonal chamber in the walls, hissing and snarling. The same blue light danced over their carapaces and along the edges of their curved heads. The Xenomorphs crawled down the walls and launched themselves towards the Jackals with a terrifying ferocity.