They waited half an hour, as they’d said they would, then Chad fired up the Stinger and nosed it around and out of the ravine. Over the hills around the colony, to bring them out near the landing pad. The fire in the comms tower had burned itself out and its toppled spire was embedded in the shale landscape, the wreck of the Cheyenne dropship tangled with it.
As they approached, Merrilyn sat up in her seat, peering through the drizzly rain to the landing platform, but there was nobody waiting for them. She slumped back down, gazing listlessly out of the window, as Chad brought them as close as he could to the facility.
“They saved us,” he said quietly, “and in saving us, they might have saved countless more people. Once we get off here.”
All Davis ever wanted was to be human, when that was something billions of people took for granted every day of their lives, never giving it a second thought. Yet it had consumed Davis. Drove him forward, urged him on. How to become human. How to grasp that elusive will o’ the wisp, when nobody could agree on what it actually was.
Ultimately, he’d succeeded. Not through his jokes and not through his love for Zula Hendricks and not even through his selfless sacrifice.
Davis had attained humanity because he’d learned to lie.
Chad hadn’t said anything because he knew it wasn’t his place, even though he desperately didn’t want Davis to throw himself into certain death down in that reactor core. But he’d known that Davis was lying. He didn’t need to go there. Therese’s processing chip was more than adequate for her to store all the protocols for the shutdown. She could have done it all by herself.
Davis had gone with her because he didn’t want a little girl, even a sophisticated synthetic little girl, to die alone. Chad was sure of it.
Merrilyn nodded, but said nothing.
Out of the Stinger, they skidded down the slope to the landing platform. The Victory was in one piece, thank God. Chad checked his watch. The system lock Trent had put on it should be about to time out. They were free. At last.
The platform was littered with corpses, both human and Xenomorph. Cher wrinkled her nose as they gingerly picked their way through them.
“We’ll line up the human bodies for when the next ship arrives,” Chad said. “So at least they can be identified and their loved ones informed.”
“What about the Xenomorphs?” Cher said.
“Let’s burn them,” Chad said. “Even dead, they can be dangerous if they fall into the wrong hands.”
“But the colony buildings are littered with them,” Merrilyn pointed out.
“We’ll do what we can,” Chad said with a shrug. “We always do what we can. Sometimes that has to be enough.”
He told the other two to stay back, and opened up the Victory. He’d been in too many rodeos just to climb into a spaceship on a Xenomorph-infested planet, and not expect the worst. He gave the ship a full sweep—cockpit, flight deck, mess, cryo chambers, and cargo hold—picking up a pulse rifle and two fully charged pistols on his way. It was clean.
Cher and Merrilyn were keen to leave immediately, but Chad felt as if he had to at least try to clean up the mess for which he felt partially responsible. They found spades and shovels in the ship’s hold and over the next hour they used them to pile what they could of the rotting Xenomorph corpses in the center of the platform. Not everything could be moved, but enough for their purposes.
Then he found a can of fuel in the garage bay and a Zippo in the hold of the ship, and poured the fuel all over the stinking lot of them. Without ceremony he fired up the Zippo and tossed it on, the bonfire going up with an implosion of oxygen. The Xenomorph corpses caught immediately and sent up a thick column of acrid black smoke into the rainy sky.
While he started to boot up the Victory’s flight computer, Cher and Merrilyn stood by the ship, each examining a handgun. The hatch was open, and he could hear them talking.
“You ever fire one of these before… before all this?” he heard Cher say.
Merrilyn shook her head. “Never. You?”
Cher laughed. “I’d have thought you could tell from my godawful aim.”
“Do what I do.” Merrilyn held up the gun and pointed it at the bonfire of Xenomorphs. She squinted and looked along the length of her arm, centering the sight on the end of the barrel. “Put that little sight right in the middle of your vision. Pick your target.”
She let loose a burst, and the partially ruined head of a Xenomorph exploded in the depths of the conflagration. Cher followed suit, and another dead Xenomorph bit the dust. Chad smiled in the cockpit as he watched them.
“See?” Merrilyn said. “It’s easy when you get the hang of it.”
“I never thought I could kill another living thing, especially with a gun,” Cher said, sighting into the bonfire again. “Funny how things change.”
“Funny how people change,” Merrilyn said, “and how the worst situations can make better people of some of us.”
Chad’s smile froze on his face.
It emerged from the twisted metal wreckage of the ruined comms tower, picking its way through the rubble until it could stand on the landing pad and uncurl itself to its full height, throwing back its large, crested head and emitting an ear-piercing screech that caused both Merrilyn and Cher to put their hands to their heads.
Chad slid out of the cockpit and exited the ship, standing next to them and shouldering his rifle.
“What the fuck is that?” Cher said. “It’s twice the size of the others.”
“They call it a Praetorian,” Chad said, not taking his eyes off the huge Xenomorph. It wasn’t moving, not just yet. It seemed as if it was watching them, sizing them up, its Queen-like head cocked to one side. “When a hive gets to a certain size, the Queen creates them as protectors. It’s a vicious process. She selects certain drones and they emit a pheromone that causes the others to attack them. Only the strongest survive the onslaught and the transformation begins. It really is survival of the fittest.”
“Can we save the anatomy lesson for later?” Merrilyn lifted her gun. “Just tell us how to kill it.”
“Preferably before it kills us,” Cher yelled. “It’s coming!”
The Praetorian put its head down and began to advance. How had they missed this? Chad wondered. Either it had been hidden away somewhere while it was completing its evolution or… Chad’s blood ran cold. Could there be another hive somewhere in the facility? That made getting off this planet even more urgent.
The Xenomorph screeched again.
“They always seem somehow cannier than the drones,” Chad said, taking aim and opening fire. The alien put its head down and his projectile bounced off its armored crest. “They’re also stronger and meaner and faster, so they don’t much need smarts when brute force will do.”
Merrilyn and Cher let loose their own rounds at the Xenomorph, but they weren’t slowing its advance at all. It seemed to arrive at the same realization. Chad could almost imagine the gears clicking. Their weapons were no threat. It put its head down and prepared to charge, tail whipping fiercely.
“Let’s get in the ship,” Cher said, backing into Chad as she fired. “That’ll give us some protection, right?”
“Not for long,” Chad said. “It’ll tear the Victory apart like it’s made of paper.”
The Praetorian began to run, dropping to all fours and bounding toward them, eating up the distance on the landing platform.
“So how do we fucking kill it?” Merrilyn shouted again.
“It’s still just a Xenomorph,” Chad said as they backpedaled toward the ship’s hatch. “We need to counter bloodlust with our human tool kit.”
“What—peace, love, compassion, and empathy?” Cher shrieked, firing and firing until her pistol clicked, empty. The Xenomorph was four meters away, its muscles and sinews tensing as it prepared to leap. “Hope someone puts that on our gravestones.”
“No,” Merrilyn said, suddenly stopping as she backed into the port side of the Victory. “None of those things. Superior firepower, is what.”
Chad looked at her, and what she had come up against. A pulse cannon, rigged up on the hull. Merrilyn turned and ran into the ship, while Chad dropped to his knees and emptied his rifle into the Xenomorph, knocking it momentarily off balance as Cher picked up Merrilyn’s discarded pistol and took pot shots at its head.
There was a hum and Cher felt the ship start to vibrate. Chad grabbed her and dragged her to the ground, just as the Praetorian gathered its senses and crouched again, tail coiled, then leapt toward them.
The pulse cannon whined and burst into life, a bolt of energy hitting the Xenomorph square in the chest, just a meter away. Its head snapped back and several more pulse bolts slammed into it until it hit the deck, a smoking, tangled, mess that started to leak acidic blood onto the landing platform. The Praetorian shuddered, raised its huge head, then crashed back, silent and quite dead.
Chad helped Cher up as Merrilyn emerged from the hatch.
“Now,” she said, a lopsided smile on her face. “Shall we get the hell out of here, or is there anything else that needs killing?”
* * *
The Victory lifted smoothly off the landing platform and Chad nosed it upward, toward the clouds and beyond. They were all strapped into the cockpit for escape velocity, and as the engines roared and slammed them back into their seats, Cher took one last look at the dwindling colony of LV-187.
She had come here looking for answers about her sister’s death. Had she found them? Not in the way she’d been expecting, she thought. Not in the clean, ordered, logical way she was hoping. Shy Hunt had died on Hasanova, and all that the world knew was that there had been secret, military, covert operations going on there, and that supposedly nobody was at fault. Cher still didn’t really know why she had died, what had been the motivating force—that single, pinpoint moment when someone had put a gun on her and pulled the trigger and ended her life. She didn’t know why, on the most basic level.
What she knew was why on a much bigger scale. The real question had always been not why Shy had died, but why it had been covered up—and that was something Cher could never have even dreamed of when she left Earth, what felt like a million years ago,
Shy had died, ultimately, because of politics. Cher was reminded of their daddy. “Everything is a political decision.” Everything. Even running through a corridor in the dark, being pursued by creatures torn from a nightmare and made grotesque, in twisted flesh. That was a political decision, because those things would never have been on LV-187 but for the schemes of human beings.
They burst through the cloud cover and into the violet sky. It was beautiful, and as they accelerated Cher could see it darkening by degrees, the vast emptiness of space appearing above them.
But no. Not empty. Teeming with humanity, and with something else. Xenomorphs. How many worlds had fallen like LV-187? How many cover-ups had there been? How many lies had been told, palms greased, secrets kept, people killed, just to make certain this conspiracy was kept in the shadows?
No longer. Cher Hunt had come here looking for a story, and had found that she was the story. There was no room for objectivity, not anymore. This was her story, just as much as it was that of every other living human in the galaxy.
It was her story, and she was going to tell it.
* * *
Merrilyn felt the G-force pressing on her as the sky around them darkened and the engines of the Victory pushed them onward, away from the grasp of LV-187. Every kilometer saw the cold dagger of loss twist deeper into her heart. She had lost Therese twice, had her heart broken and remade and broken again, like one of those Japanese pots. Now she had to remake it once more, but this time it would be harder, and more durable, and less likely to shatter. She would make sure of it.
People would come to LV-187 again, and maybe they would find them, down in the reactor housing. A little girl and a dog. Or maybe they would no longer be recognizable as such. But Therese, and Davis, too, would live on in Merrilyn’s heart. She had been taught the true meaning of humanity, the true meaning of love, in fact, by things that people said were not human. Apart from Cher and Chad, Therese and Davis had exhibited more humanity than anyone she had met in the past week. Perhaps ever.
What now, for her? For Merrilyn Hambleton? Therese had set her free, unlocked her from the shackles of her grief. It would take time, of course, but that’s what Therese had done for her. And Merrilyn could not let that sacrifice be in vain. She had to live again.
More than that. She would go where Chad and Cher went, if they would have her. It wasn’t enough to just live, not after what she had been through. She had to make sure that nobody else died. Merrilyn held Pinky Ponk close to her, and sighed heavily. The G-force was easing as they broke free of LV-187’s gravity, and the vast canopy of black space stretched out above them.
They were not alone.
* * *
“Oh, bloody great,” Chad muttered. High orbit around LV-187 was like Grand Central fucking Station. “Mother!” he barked into the Victory’s onboard AI. “What the hell is all of this?”
“To our port side is an Independent Core Systems Colonies Class II warship, registered as the Thelwall, with Short Lance missile capability, laser turret array, and seven nuclear warhead enabled long-range missiles,” Mother said. “To starboard there are three troop transports registered with New Albion, to wit the Churchill, the D’Israeli, and the Thatcher. Incoming we have three MiG-730 fighter class ships, which I believe have been deployed from a VP-153D Kremlin-class hunter-destroyer which is just out of visible sight.”
“What the hell is the Union of Progressive Peoples doing here?” Chad said, throwing the Victory into evasive action as it flew straight between the ICSC warship and the foremost of the New Albion transports.
“Accessing recent news feeds,” Mother said. After a moment she said, “Following a number of attacks on Independent Core Systems Colonies worlds by agencies unknown but believed to be either directly ordered by New Albion or by colony worlds which have decided to ally with them, the UPP has decided to adopt an aggressive war footing, especially in the Weyland Isles sector.” Mother hummed a little longer, and added, “A limited nuclear exchange occurred yesterday on a United Americas colony world, LV-729, and though no responsibility has been yet claimed, it appears the United Americas has formally accused the UPP of orchestrating the attack which led to the destruction of a colony facility and seventy-three resident families.”
“Holy shit,” Chad said. “It’s all-out war.”
“Would you like me to take over the flight controls, Mr. McLaren?” Mother said.
“No,” Chad said, wrenching the Victory into a tight turn. “I’ll get us out of this in one piece.”
“We are being hailed by both the ICSC ship and the New Albion transport the Churchill,” Mother said. “Both wish to know what we are doing in this airspace, which they both say belongs to them. Oh, and the UPP ship is now also hailing, and wishes to know our allegiances.”
Chad saw the Kremlin attack ship suddenly emerge into view, and he gave the Victory as much juice as he could, pitching her up and over the three-way stand-off, then finally out of danger.
“Tell them… Tell them our allegiance is to humanity, and if they know what’s good for them they’ll leave us alone and let us be on our way,” Chad said.
“Very good, Mr. McLaren,” Mother said.
They continued to power away from LV-187, and no one followed or sent any missiles their way. They had more important things to occupy them than an insignificant little merchant ship. Chad allowed himself to breathe, and turned to Merrilyn and Cher.
“Well,” he said. “Looks like the rest of the universe has been very busy indeed while we’ve been fighting for our lives.”
Mother chimed in again. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of scanning some recent communiques. Various warrants for the arrest, apprehension and potentially also assassinations of Chad McLaren, Merrilyn Hambleton, her daughter Therese, Davis, and Cher Hunt have been lodged by New Albion, Weyland-Yutani, the United States Colonial Marine Corps, the ICSC, the Three World Empire and—”
“We get the picture,” Chad said. “On what grounds?”
“Various charges ranging from industrial espionage, implication in the deaths of the LV-187 colonists, war crimes, and destruction of USMC property.”
“Fair enough.”
“So what the hell do we do now?” Cher said. “We can’t go back to Earth. Where can we go?”
“We need help,” Chad said. “We can’t do this alone. And the galaxy might be at war, but we’ve still got to follow our original mission. It’s more important than ever. Those Xenomorph eggs are out there somewhere. If people think war is hell now, they have no idea what they’re about to have unleashed on them.” He paused. “We need to find Zula Hendricks.”
“And where is she?” Cher said.
“I have no idea,” Chad said, “but I know a few places to start. There are still some worlds that have no alignment or allegiance to the existing powers, but they’re… not very nice places. We’re going to be in a lot of danger, especially when people find out there’s a bounty on our heads. A bunch of them.” He looked at both of his companions. “So it’s either turn ourselves in to the authority we think is least likely to come down hard on us, or we walk into the jaws of whatever hells await us on the lawless border worlds.”
Merrilyn took out her pistol and looked at it for a long moment, then glanced at Cher, who gave her a little nod.
“Bring it on,” Merrilyn said.