The world became muddled and confused. Prime, Green, and Red Mae tangled together. They pulled at each other—separate experiences, but the same mind. There were so many feelings and emotions that one synthetic mind and body struggled to contain them all. Sorting out these fractured and disjointed files was not a task her father ever designed her synthetic mind to handle.
She attempted to fit together her last moments with the Jackals.
* * *
On the planet, the Good Boys sprang into action to save Red Team. They encircled the squads, projecting their sonic attack. It drove back some of the Xenos, which flinched and turned aside long enough for the Jackals to deploy poly grenades. The thump of the grenade launchers firing punctuated the shrill screams of the attacking monsters. More poured down from the ceiling as their hive-mates struggled against the chemical strands of the poly grenades. They appeared to have learned tactics to deal with them, though: rather than diving in heedlessly, they actively dodged around the other trapped Xenos.
The Jackals wheeled around in a protective formation. Being well armed, and with the Good Boys driving the howling monsters from their path, they held their ground. Except one element they’d never encountered before was the infected humans. Instead of being happy to be rescued, they turned and helped the Xenos.
The synthetics grappled with the infected humans, but their programming didn’t allow them to hurt people. Those the Jackals were here to rescue threw themselves on the four-legged synthetics. They wrapped themselves over their bodies and obscured their sensors until, confused and overwhelmed, the four Good Boys stopped in their tracks.
Losing their sonic protectors meant the Jackals were in trouble. Mae fired grenades into the mass that hurried down the walls, screaming for battle. The Xenomorphs surged in a deadly black wave towards the Jackals. This artificial hive Weyland-Yutani constructed for their trials was full of teeth and rage. The rattle of smart guns and pulse rifles echoed in the chamber. They’d never imagined this black site was so massive.
Escape back the way they’d come was impossible. Mae calculated that the odds of making it back up to the blast door were below acceptable limits. Her mother must know that, too. The only way out was through.
“Push ’em!” Zula screamed, directing fire at the Xenos as they attempted to encircle them. Between all the trapped monsters in the poly-grenade mass lay a clear path forward. An entrance to the valley beyond must lie through there. The synth squad held the line at the rear, taking blasts of acid from their monstrous enemies, while the two human squads pressed on.
Mae let her combat body follow its programming, working in sync with the other squads. It was a certain freedom not to think, or worry, or second-guess. To be one part of a seamless whole. The best genetic humans worked all their lives, trained incredibly hard, to experience something only close to this.
Synth Squad One covered the rear as the humans advanced, pressing into the chamber and towards some kind of hoped-for exit. The roof of this space wasn’t visible, but clusters of blue light traced its shape. This vast network of flickering lights on tiny threads living with the queen could not be coincidence. The humans and the Xenos all displayed the same eerie light.
As Mae’s core shuffled through the possibilities, the Jackals moved in. The blue illumination provided limited light to the human Jackals. It was only when their headlamps illuminated the dark chambers beyond that the queen was revealed. She hung in a net of constructed plastic polymers. Her huge shovel-shaped head was black, but in the joints blue light flickered ominously. This was some strange new version cooked up by the company. It wasn’t the first, but hopefully it might be the last.
With access to all the knowledge gathered by the Jackals over countless missions, Mae hazarded a hypothesis that these civvies must be controlled by the queen. The introduction of Kuebiko extended the control of her own drones to the infected humans, effectively networking them. That was a terrifying fact to be discussed later with her mother—if they lived.
Whatever Wey-Yu introduced to this species, it increased the mental capacity of the queen, but it also created physical limitations. Rather than being suspended from a web of resin, this queen ruled her artificial hive from a company-provided net. Genetic humans, company, and hive all working together: this was Zula Hendricks’s worst nightmare.
Mae knew her mother’s mind; the Jackals needed to get back to the Fury for an immediate orbital bombardment. They needed to destroy whatever Weyland-Yutani made here with the utmost force and with no thought of saving any humans. The scientists who’d done their terrible work down here were trapped along with their unwilling subjects. They flapped among the real victims in their stained lab coats, twisted faces glowing blue. The artificial chambers they’d made for the queen and her brood were now theirs, too. Their fates were all sealed.
A man, his face a still mask, threw himself at R3 to Mae’s right, knocking the unit over. Others immediately flung themselves onto the combat body, pinning it to the ground and beating it with rocks. Synthetic protocols did not allow that unit to respond with deadly force. Mae was the only one without those inhibitions. It was eerie to watch the Xenomorphs make room for the infected humans to take down synthetics. They used the Jackals’ desire to save lives to make a most effective trap. Mae unloaded her pulse rifle into the nearest charging woman, almost cutting her in half. Let the queen try to figure out how she’d done that.
As the Jackals entered her domain, the drones hung back. Zula looked up at the massive, constructed chamber Wey-Yu made for the queen they’d always wanted. Additional hexagonal plastic chambers held more of her brood. How long did the company work on this project? It was far beyond a mere black site laboratory. This was a factory.
The hanging queen watched them, her elegant, horrific face turned towards the mass of Jackals. She did not want them there. Her mouth opened to reveal her inner teeth, clear sharp points that also gleamed with a faint blue light.
“Hold fire,” Zula said under her breath. “Switch to flame units.”
“We should fry the whole lot now,” Shipp said, joining the others who carried incinerators.
The queen let out a low hiss of warning. She could not come down, but she had a whole hive of humans and drones at her disposal. On the ground beneath her feet were the freshest of her eggs, recently laid and still developing. They would need hosts, but not just yet.
Was the queen eyeing the genetic human Jackals for the future? Could she plan like that? Mae hated not having any data with which to calculate risks.
“We won’t get the whole nest.” Zula’s voice trembled with barely controlled anger. “We need to get back to the Fury, then we can hit the whole damn thing. Nuke twenty clicks from orbit. We need to be sure.”
“Understood.”
“Keep moving,” the colonel instructed Red Team, while her eyes never left the queen. “I can see light on the other side and it ain’t blue.”
The queen held back. While her eyeless, smooth dome of a head tracked their progress, the drones hung from the ceiling, obeying her command. Mae and her unit covered the rear as the other squads followed the passageway towards a rough-cut opening in the side of the mountain. The queen didn’t follow, but her screams and her drones leapt in pursuit of the Jackals.
Once they were clear of the hive, the drones kept back, tracking them, but not killing. Mae’s hypothesis that they wanted to keep some more hosts alive seemed to be true. She kept that conclusion to herself. It would serve no one at this particular moment.
They emerged into the valley they’d glimpsed on their arrival, the one scattered with the bones of yet more humans. The wind whipped across the bleak valley as they withdrew from the entrance. Mae bent and examined the bones. None bore the flickering Kuebiko light.
“Colonel, whatever control the company thought it had over the queen, it lost,” Mae ventured.
“What makes you so sure?”
She pointed off into the mist. The human eye couldn’t see it, but there was a large open-topped transport parked on the access road running up the valley. The company modified it to be perfect for middle management to view a chase. Scattered around it was blood, but no bodies.
Red Team moved to secure the area around the vehicle. A pair of claw marks sliced through the Wey-Yu logo on its side—it almost looked deliberate.
Shipp bent and picked up an employee ID card. “By the looks of it, Mr. Edward Bennington brought quite a few scientists down to watch the Xenos chase their delivered prey.”
Private Gorev snorted. “Then they became part of it.”
Ackerman leaned in and checked the vehicle. “Looks like she still runs, ma’am.”
A faint hiss echoed up from back in the valley, reminding them all that time was short.
“Jackals, we’re leaving.” Zula climbed into the transport vehicle. “It may not be military issue, but we’ll take it.”
The squads hustled to take their seats. Mae took the front one next to Gorev at the wheel, while synth unit R2 claimed the rear position. Now there were only two of them from two squads. They took a quick tally of their losses. The synthetics bore the brunt of it, but Feldman, Meadows, and Lancaster were gone. The whole unit understood what would be happening to them.
“Move out.” Zula stared back the way they came. She might have feared more Xenos, but so far there was only mist. Gorev accelerated as quickly as the bus would allow.
As they reached the end of the valley and climbed the service road towards the space elevator terminal, Zula still did not relax. She must have the same concerns as her daughter. What did this all mean?
“Damn the comms blackout.” Her mother activated her tight-beam transmission. “Fury, come in Fury? We’re going to need orbital bombardment on the coordinates I’m sending you. Once we’re at Minos, you can begin. I want annihilation at twenty clicks.”
Silence was all that came.
* * *
Mae’s memories struggled against that one pivotal moment. Split in two places by time and space, her synthetic brain attempted to sort more emotions into convenient packages. She reached back for more data.
* * *
Blue Team reached the airlock they’d previously entered the laboratory through. B3 hobbled forwards, one leg dragging. Acidic damage compromised B4’s structural integrity. The human squad members were injured, too. Private Cojocaru bit back screams of pain as acid ate through her armor. Corporal Ware’s helmet had taken a direct hit from a Xeno’s inner mouth. However, they were in survivable shape.
Mae ordered the inner airlock door closed and spiked it from the inside. The dull thuds of the Xenos smashing against the door thundered on. The Jackals checked their weapons and their suits.
“Lieutenant,” called Sergeant Fesolai. “The team can’t perform an EVA again.”
Mae ran her eye over Blue Team. Jackal armor stopped the worst effects of Xenomorph blood, but the EVA suits they wore over them were not as hardy. They were torn and damaged in ways a hard vacuum would take advantage of. Outside the airlock, they’d die.
Rook clearly also came to the same conclusion. He raised an eyebrow in her direction, waiting for her order.
“The synthetics can EVA to the Fury, cut their way in.” She didn’t include herself in their number. “The rest of us will defend this airlock. It is a B-rated door, and should hold against the Xenomorphs for long enough.” She gestured to the human Jackals to put on their helmets, which should provide air long enough for the synths to slip outside and close the outer airlock door behind them. They’d need to hang on to something, though.
At the window of the inner airlock door, the infected humans stared in at them. Blank faces reflected no emotion at all, but Mae sensed there was something greater behind their expressions. Something drove them, and Mae suspected it was the station chief.
No monster knew how to work the mechanics of an airlock. The humans did, though. One punch of the right button, one pull of the handle, was all it took.
The klaxons rang out and the red lights inside flared to life. It was the only brief warning Blue Team got.
Then the vacuum of space opened up around them. Some Jackals managed to hold on to the wall and floor grates for a few brief seconds. Carts and medical implements went flying around them, striking human and synthetic flesh alike. One heavily loaded crate smashed into Mae’s left leg. Pain bloomed, but her systems didn’t register any damage. B3 tumbled out, crashing into Cojocaru and Tawiah, taking them with it out into the black. B4 tried to hold on to Corporal Ware, but missed grabbing hold of the wall by millimeters. They went out together.
Mae followed a second later. She calculated how long it might take for her systems to degrade enough to cease functioning in a vacuum.
As the blackness of the void reached out, someone grabbed her leg. It was Rook, his fingers locked on to her ankle. His expression remained calm, but his eyes flickered with loss. Scanning down, Mae realized he’d jammed his hand through the grating of the floor. He’d done as he promised to her mother; he’d protected her.
Still, Mae’s vision filled with the horrific sight of her entire team careering off into space like scattered leaves. Without their helmets fully secured in time, and with the damage to their EVA suits, they didn’t suffer for long.
She began to intimately understand her mother’s trauma from the past. It wasn’t all about physical injuries done to her, but rather the people she’d lost along the way.
Rook worked along her leg and pulled Mae down next to him. In the vacuum, his words now needed to go through the synthetic network. Let’s get back inside the station through the nearest airlock. Your thrusters are damaged.
I noticed that, but thank you.
They took care to work their way down the guide ropes to reach the airlock on level ten. Rook bypassed the security, and they crawled back into the station. After the outer door hissed shut, Mae examined the damage to her EVA suit. The right thruster was a write-off. They’d have to reach the Righteous Fury through the umbilical attaching it to the station.
While she checked the damage, Rook started work on opening the inner door lock. No sounds reached them with it shut, but she expected chaos beyond. Getting back to the Fury would not be easy.
* * *
Mae didn’t want to see more. Losing Blue Team. The horror of the black site and its training facility. Yet, like her mother, she’d go on. She pulled on the thread that held all three Maes together.
The connection with Colonel Zula Hendricks. That last signal between Red and Blue where they’d both done what their mother wanted.
* * *
A crackle of a signal reached her on the open communications channel. As with Green Mae, it was a chance. There were no words, only data.
A searing pain flared to life behind Mae Prime’s eyes. She’d planned on reintegrating her splinters in a controlled fashion. These wild reconnections were painful. All her core processes staggered under the weight of so much raw and unfiltered information. She already bent under Green’s emotions and sensations, but now Red piled on top. She needed to contain the chaos. Sectioning off the different experiences and feelings was the only way to cope.
Rook, being in the same network, became aware of the upload. He stopped his repair to open a comms channel. “What is your status, Red Team?”
“Colonel Hendricks and most of the unit are alive, but they trapped us on the planet. The station chief shut down the elevator. Minos has also locked down all executive functions on board the Fury. You cannot leave that way.”
Minos was a Weyland-Yutani station, and that company built the Fury. Hacking back should not have been possible, but something in Erynis had never been right. He’d tried to kill Mae on Shānmén. Even though he’d been reset since then, some deep programming must have remained for Rolstad to take advantage of.
“We are aware. Rook and I are both fully functional. We shall come get you.” Mae’s emotional core ran through a cascade of feelings.
The person who answered was not her splinter, but Zula Hendricks.
“Negative, you will not.” Zula’s voice came out through the open channel as calm as if she were ordering a coffee. “Mae, here are my orders. I trust you to carry them out. Broadcast an all-hands emergency escape from the Fury. Those life-saving systems should still work?”
Mae Prime consulted her database of ship schematics. “Confirmed. Shutdown has not affected all safety protocols.”
“Then order crew to abandon ship in the cryo escape pods. I want them all safe in orbit on the far side of the planet. I trust you to choose the coordinates.”
She didn’t care who heard now. “Mother, please, let me help you. Rook and I can find a way—”
“This is a direct order.” Zula’s voice softened a fraction. “We are trapped, Mae, and I don’t want any of my people infected or taken by Xenos. The information on what they’ve been doing here must get delivered to our three generals. Then you’re going to come back with the cavalry. Okay?”
Mae froze at that order. “What do you mean?” “You and Rook take the Blackstar to them. We have the generals’ confidence, and they won’t want what we found leaving this planet. Red Mae is beaming you what we uncovered here.”
“I can’t leave you there.” Mae’s eyes grew hot as emotion choked her throat. This was her prime directive: to protect and assist Colonel Zula Hendricks.
“Yes, you can, and yes, you will. Besides, I have you here with me already. Now, Rook, we discussed what you need to do. Don’t let me down.”
Then Zula cut the comms. Mae grew angry that what could very well be her last conversation with her mother was so short.
“What did she mean?” Mae demanded.
Rook turned back to the inner door lock. “Even to the last, Colonel Hendricks wants me to protect you. If you are in danger of being discovered or in peril, I have the codes to activate your defensive protocol.”
“That will shut me out of my memories!”
“It will protect you until the threat of discovery has passed. You will act entirely like a genetic human.” He glanced over his shoulder and shot her a grin. “Your mother loves you. That’s an incredible achievement.”
Mae wanted to hold on to that, but all she could think of was her mother trapped in an elevator crawler with Xenomorphs at each end.
The door lock beeped. Rook rose to his feet. “Don’t let those emotions stop you from acting. Use them as the humans do, as drivers.”
She’d gotten plenty of advice from her father, Davis, in her time. She needed no more from Rook. Mae switched over to the executive channel on the Fury. In it, she discovered no Minos influence. Erynis, for all his faults, limited the station’s intrusion to the doors and security systems. If he hadn’t, then the station chief might have vented the entire ship, killing all the Jackals on board at once.
“This is Lieutenant Mae Hendricks, relaying an order from Colonel Hendricks. Executive command PARS-43. All Jackals to your cryo escape pods immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”
Through the Fury’s cameras, she confirmed Zula’s troops all scrambled to obey. Mae set the coordinates for the pods’ destination. She plugged in a geosynchronous orbit on the far side of the planet. She made sure to order them to spread out and wait for recovery. That, Mae determined, she would bring as fast as synthetically possible.
Checking her pulse rifle, she glanced up at Rook. “That ship of yours better be up to the task.”
“I assure you it is.”
Rage, kindled by the loss of Blue Team, became red hot as she contemplated the fate of Red Team if they failed. “Good, because we are blowing any docks they have here to shit. I’m not allowing Rolstad to go after any of those pods while we’re gone.”
The inner airlock door to the lower level of Minos hissed open. Now the screams of the inhabitants were audible.
“An excellent idea.”
Mae checked her ammo and grenades. Punching holes in the hulls of Minos Station was now of no concern to her. And while we’re at it, their communications array as well. No one calls for help from here except us.
Rook crooked an eyebrow, perhaps wondering what kind of Mae all this had unleashed. He stepped aside. Then after you.
Making their way to the Blackstar was going to be brutal, but it absolutely needed to be done. No human or Xenomorph better get in their way.