Cher followed Bromley’s outstretched hand to the dark square of the window, lit by sudden bursts of pulse fire. Illuminated by Chad’s gunshots—he was still alive, thank God, but for how long?—there was a black shape, leaning over the sill. Then in a fluid movement it crawled over the edge.
It was joined by another. And another. More, until Cher counted six of them. Six Xenomorphs, clinging to the exterior of the comms tower like black beetles. They began to crawl downward, inexorably zeroing in on the tiny figure of Therese, still dangling from the rope.
“No,” Merrilyn breathed beside her. “No no no.” Then she raised her gun and took aim, letting loose a pulse blast at the first Xenomorph, her shot pinging off the wall just a foot from its crouched form. “NO!” she screamed. “Leave my daughter alone, you fucking bastards!”
Behind Cher, Bromley opened fire with her rifle as well, laying a line of fire between the advancing Xenomorphs and the terrified child, causing them to screech, even above the howling wind… and retreat a little.
“Therese!” Cher yelled. “Let go of the line, baby! Jump! We’ll catch you!”
High up, Therese shook her head.
* * *
“Teesha,” Moran said in a low, urgent whisper.
Bromley glanced over her shoulder. “Guv, what are you doing? Use your fucking gun.”
“Teesha,” he said again. “The Xenomorphs have breached the comms room.”
“Duh, yeah. On account of they’re crawling all over the outside of the fucking tower.” She put her rifle to her shoulder and opened fire again, shouting, “Yessss!” as a Xenomorph squealed and fell from the height, plunging into the ravine beside the landing platform.
“That means the corridors will be clear,” Moran said. “We could make a run for it. You and me. Get one of the trucks and get the hell out of here. Until the storm’s cleared.”
Bromley looked at him, dumbfounded. “You’re really suggesting we leave them? When that kid’s hanging up there?”
Moran couldn’t meet her eyes.
She shook her head. “I thought you were the leading man of this movie, not the bad guy.”
“I just thought—”
“Yeah, well, maybe stop thinking and start fucking shooting.”
Bromley turned away from him and picked out another Xenomorph in the sights of her rifle.
* * *
“I’m going up there,” Merrilyn said, tugging at the rope. “If she’s not coming down.”
“No,” Moran said. “You can shoot. She can’t.” He nodded at Cher. “She’s going up.”
Another Xenomorph hit the landing platform, twitching but not quite dead. Moran ran over and emptied thirty seconds of pulse bursts into it until it was a smoking mess of black chitin, sinews, and acid blood.
“I… can’t…” Cher said, refusing to meet Merrilyn’s stare. High above, two more Xenomorphs crawled over the lip of the window, replacing those that had been brought down. Bromley paused from her shooting to glare at Cher.
“Why the hell not?”
* * *
“You got to come up, Cher,” Shy hollered, her voice shaking. Cher watched her sister with interest. She’d never seen Shy look scared before. It was a new thing. She liked new things. So she said nothing and just stared up at her.
“Cher, I’m not screwing around! Just climb up the goddam ladder!”
“Why?” Cher said.
Shy seemed to do a little dance, her tippytoes scrabbling for purchase on the narrow ledge. She took a deep breath.
“Because I can’t go any further and I can’t go back unless you reach out and grab my hand and pull me round.”
“I still don’t know why you went up there, Shy?”
“Because I wanted to see if I could get all the way ’round the silo, dummy.”
Cher thought about it. “But why, Shy?”
“Because it was there and I wanted to find out. Jesus, Cher, come on!”
Cher went to the foot of the ladder. She looked up.
“You want me to climb up there and hold out my hand and pull you back?”
“Yes, baby girl,” Shy said. “Come on, you can do it.”
Cher put a foot on the ladder and gripped it with both hands. “OK.”
The first three or four rungs were fine. Then she started to get a tingling feeling in the soles of her feet. Her hands felt sweaty and slippery.
“I can’t do it.”
“Sure you can! Just a little further.”
“I can’t. I’ll go get Daddy.”
“There’s no time, Cher! I can’t hold on…”
* * *
“I let you down,” Cher said quietly. Her breath was coming short and shallow. “I let you down.” Her heart was beating ten to the dozen. “I let you down.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Merrilyn snapped, and she grabbed the bottom of the rope, pulling it tight.
“I can’t do it,” Cher said.
She paused. She closed her eyes.
“I can do it.”
Cher took the rope from Merrilyn’s hands and pulled on it hard.
“I can do it,” she said. “I will do it. I won’t let you down again.” Then she braced herself against the rain-slick wall, and began to haul herself upward.
* * *
“I guess this is goodbye, Chad,” Davis said. “I know I never achieved my dream of becoming human, but I have known love, and I have known comradeship, and I am honored that I can call you my friend.”
“Shut the fuck up, Scooby,” Chad said through gritted teeth, pumping a volley of pulse bursts into the gaping jaws of a Xenomorph, throwing it backward into two more behind it. That made his kill tally three. At least eight had gone over the edge. There were another ten fighting their way into the comms room. “Neither of us is dying here today.”
Chad set off running, as best he could, with Davis strapped to him like a baby. “Is this what makes you human, Chad?” the dog said. “The continual clinging to the belief you will survive, even in the face of unsurmountable odds and overwhelming evidence to the contrary?”
“No,” Chad said, picking up speed as he barreled across the room, three Xenomorphs hissing and shrieking as they leapt after him, their claws cleaving the air he left in his wake. “This is what makes you human.”
He launched himself into the air, his momentum and the added weight of Davis carrying him forward. “Rank fucking stupidity!” he bellowed as they both catapulted through the open window, fifty meters up in the raging storm.
* * *
Pulse fire bursting around her, Cher made it to where Therese hugged the rope, sodden with rain.
“Hey,” she said.
Therese looked at her over an arm. “Hi, Cher.”
“Your mama is worried about you.”
Therese flinched as, just meters away, a Xenomorph howled and fell past them. Far below, Bromley cheered.
“You came to get me.”
“Yeah. Your mama asked me to. She’s busy killing monsters.”
Therese thought about it as the wind whipped her hair, plastering it to her face.
“OK,” she said.
Cher braced herself as Therese wrapped first one arm around her, then the other. She looked up. Xenomorphs were swarming toward them, driving their claws into the exterior of the tower, dragging themselves down, their heads glistening in the light from the pulse fire, drool falling from their teeth, mingling with the rain.
“Hold tight, Little Flower,” Cher said. “That’s what Mama calls you, right?”
Therese nodded. “I’m scared.”
“Me too,” Cher said, the child wrapped firmly around her. “But I’m not going to let you down.” She said, “You ever been to an amusement park?”
“One near Paris,” Therese said. “Before we came here. As a treat, but I was too little to go on the big rollercoasters.”
“Well, you’re a big girl now,” Cher said. “Get set for the ride of your life, Therese.” Then she pushed her feet against the tower, loosened her grip on the rope, and the pair of them started to slide down, screaming half in terror, half from the thrill.
* * *
“Little Flower!” Merrilyn said, hugging Therese. “Are you hurt?”
Cher had tightened her grip on the rope as they neared ground, burning her hands as she slowed their fall, and they landed in a wet heap at the bottom.
“I’m fine, Mama! Wheeee! That was a good ride! Can we do it again?”
“Can we save the family reunion for later?” Moran said through gritted teeth. “Let’s fall back. Those things are still coming. They’ll be at ground level in no time.”
“There’s something else coming as well,” Bromley said, lowering her rifle and shielding her eyes against the rain as she peered up toward the window.
* * *
Chad made a grab for the rope, feeding it through his hand as they flew out into the storm. There were Xenomorphs clinging to the outside of the tower like black flies, crawling down to the landing platform where he could see the figures of the rest of them, apparently all safe.
For the moment.
Three meters out he gripped the rope tightly and started to swing back to the tower. His outstretched feet connected with the wall, hard, and he pushed off again, feeding the rope through his hands, rappelling out and down another few meters, past a pair of Xenomorphs that screeched and reached out for him.
“This is rather exhilarating,” Davis said as Chad repeated the maneuver, again and again, gaining more and more distance and putting more and more space between him and Davis and the advancing aliens.
“Couple more and we’ll—” he shouted, then there was a sound like snapping elastic bands and the rope gave, sending them out into space, everything spinning dizzily until he connected, hard and heavy with the rain-slick landing platform. He landed on his back.
“Looks like the gang’s all here,” Moran said, helping him up and firing his gun. “Now we can decide what the hell we do next.”
Chad ripped the plastic strips away, letting Davis fall to his feet. His body was bruised and battered and he suspected he’d fractured a rib or two, but he was alive. They all were. But as he looked up at the Xenomorphs, too many of them to count as they picked up speed, he wondered how long that would last.
“Fall back!” Moran shouted above the howling gale. “Everyone, back along the landing platform. We can’t make it to the colony buildings now. We’re going to have to regroup and rethink.”
They all ran, past the Victory and its deadly occupant, and toward the crippled Elvik.
“In our ship?” Cher said. “It’ll give us some protection.”
Chad shook his head. “For a while, but we’ll be sitting ducks. They’ll tear it apart, eventually.”
They cleared the parked ships and ran the length of the platform, until they ran out of places to go. The darkness of the ravine and mountains on which the colony was built reared up ahead of them, the force of the wind intensifying as they neared the open wilderness that stretched out for kilometers.
“End of the road, guys,” Moran said, breathing heavily.
They all turned to face the buildings. The Xenomorphs had reached the platform, and were moving like a single mass of black, flowing toward them like a dark, shining river. A crack of thunder sounded, accompanied by a flash of sheet lightning that painted the advancing black tide with silver. Bromley dropped to one knee and took sight, opening fire at the advancing horde. Merrilyn pushed Therese behind her and began to pump the trigger of her pulse rifle.
“Give me a weapon,” Cher demanded. She might not be able to hit a barn door at ten paces, but the law of averages meant she’d at least get one of the damn things if she fired in the right direction long enough.
Illuminated by the flashing bolts of the pulse rifles, the Xenomorphs dropped in ones and twos, but infrequently and not always permanently.
This is hopeless, Cher thought. They were going to be overwhelmed. There was nowhere to run and nothing they could do. She had wanted evidence of the Xenomorphs’ existence, and she’d got it in spades. She just wished she’d been able to write the story before she died.
“It was all a waste of time,” Moran said. “We might as well have just stayed in the comms room and died there.”
“No!” Merrilyn cried fiercely, firing into the Xenomorphs. “Never say that! You have to try to live, or what’s the point of being alive at all?”
“Mama?” Therese said. “Are we going to die now?”
The nearest creature was so close that Cher could see its needle-sharp teeth. She wondered what it would be like, to fall under those cruel jaws and slashing claws. Wondered how long it would take her to die.
“None of us are dying here today,” Davis said suddenly.
Moran looked at him. “What have you got, Davis?”
“Rank fucking stupidity!” he announced, and launched himself, growling at the Xenomorph just feet away from them.
“Doggo!” Therese screamed as Davis’s jaws clamped around the creature’s forearm. The creature howled and snapped at the dog with its jaws, flinging its arm out and sending Davis, yelping, tumbling to one side.
This is it, thought Cher, bracing herself for the onslaught, for the carnage. At least I didn’t let anyone down.
“Wait,” Chad said. “What’s that?”
There was a sound below the raging storm, and then suddenly above it. A protesting mechanical whine that was accompanied by a sudden hot wind. Not a natural gale, but one produced by a machine, laced with fuel and metal. Suddenly, the entire landing platform was bathed in blinding white light. The Xenomorphs screeched and howled and paused in their advance.
The whine became deafening and Cher turned, the hot air blasting her face as something rose from the darkness of the ravine. Blinking into the arc lights she could make out the indistinct but unmistakable shape of a dropship, rising up behind them.