Nadia Pieper took a long swig of the water in her canteen, an effort to try and rid her mouth of the disgusting aftertaste of this morning’s breakfast. The Company couldn’t even make decent bacon and eggs. Both ended up tasteless, the bacon brittle and the eggs slimy. Thank God for Twinkies - - Ralph always kept a secret stash of them for bad meals and other "emergencies." Heh. What nourishment.
Screwing the cap back on, Nadia looked around at the burning desert around her. She was glad to get away from here; this planet had given her an uneasy feeling since they had first landed. The lack of wind, the crashed ship, and now the weird creatures from last night’s attack . . . Giger’s ghost story that he told to Cominsky late last night had only added to her eagerness. Those things actually burst out of people’s chests? No way, she thought, tromping forward behind the rest of the platoon. That’s pretty damn scary. To have some living thing inside you? She paused, thinking everything over. Well, that’s no different than having a baby, except it does its own cesarean section for you.
Babies . . . she always wanted to have a baby, to carry on the family name. But James didn’t. He was too afraid of the responsibility, of waking up in the middle of the night, of changing diapers, checking feeding times - - it all made him sick to think about it. But the joy that one gets in return, Pieper thought, Is well worth the wait. She looked thoughtfully at her engagement ring, the enormous diamond gleaming in the sunlight.
Sometimes James made her so mad. He could just be so . . . insensitive, sometimes. He didn’t care if she wanted a baby; he didn’t want one, and that was final. Don’t mind the fact that women have to do most of the work. No. He just plain didn’t care. Just before she’d left, they’d had a fight about it; he’d said some very unkind things to her, and she wasn’t even sure then that she knew why she was marrying him, the slug. But she was sure that he’d be there when she arrived, welcome back gift in hand and open arms. That was James.
She sighed, the weight of her rifle pulling her down. There were so many mixed up emotions, so many feelings that didn’t make sense. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something wasn’t right at all. James just wasn’t very understanding, no matter how she tried to explain things. It was as if they weren’t very compatible; the kind of gut feeling one gets about someone else. They had too many fights . . . his methods were always "Buy your way out of it," and the next day, he’d have her a new necklace, or a box of chocolates, or, one time, a brand new Porsche. Really.
Pieper wasn’t sure if she wanted that. What about a man who could apologize from the bottom of his heart, instead of letting his wallet speak for him? A man who listened to her, a man she got along with. A man who wanted a baby . . .
"There she is," Ralph said, coming up beside her. "Our ticket off this hell-hole. Thank God." They both stared at the dropship, parked calmly in the middle of the wasteland, her entrance ramp down and welcoming. She looked like some sort of enormous flying beetle, sitting there in the sunlight, a glare gleaming off her shiny surface. It was so nice to see the shuttle, their ride home.
Something was wrong, though . . . the entire scene was too calm. There were no signs of movement or life. "Where’s Weaver?" Pieper asked, surveying the craft. "And, for that matter, where’s Fox?" Neither pilot nor copilot could be seen in the cockpit.
"Fox is probably taking a leak somewhere around here," Ragsdale said, running to the front of the platoon. "Right now, I don’t care where they are, just so long as I get home."
"No," Cominsky replied, "She’s right. It’s too quiet." He paused, gripping his pulse rifle with his massive black hands. "Shouldn’t they have come out to greet us by now?"
Ragsdale, who was the closest to the ship, pointed to her cockpit. "Look at the windshield, guys," he said, his eyes large and staring. "That ain’t axle grease, if you catch my drift."
Pieper’s eyes floated up towards the large glass window, and could see that it was smeared with something from the inside. Some sort of fluid . . . red . . . blood. There was blood all over the inside of the cockpit and on the windshield. Son of a . . .
"That’s it," Cominsky rumbled. "We go in nice and easy, and watch each other’s backs." He paused, looking at the immense craft. "Stay frosty, guys. This could get ugly."
Li’chinde’s whole body ached badly from the battle. Of the scores of kills he had laid, he only grabbed three trophies to bring back. The others had seen him in action; he didn’t need physical evidence. Li’chinde picked up a long, jagged shiv and began carving the exoskeleton and boiling flesh away from the inner skull. He had to admire the perks of these creatures; they had one skeleton to shape their bodies, and another, outer one simply for protection. Cutting the outer skeleton, he held the sizzling incision away from his face to avoid any painful accidents.
After cutting a full circle around it, the shining armor, with a little force, slid off of the head, exposing the flesh inside. The tissue was safe enough after a few seconds’ exposure to air, so Li’chinde cut off a few parts of the muscle to feast on later. Finally, with the exoskeleton removed, he placed the skull into something resembling a kiln, burning the flesh out of existence and bleaching the skull a healthy white.
A quick buff and polish later, the skull hung among a dozen other skulls of varied species. One, an ooman head taken from a fairly large specimen (for their species), had been placed on a small shelf jutting from the wall since suspending it from a chain would damage the skull. Li’chinde stopped for a long moment and gazed at the skull, taking a nostalgia trip of past Hunts. It was on the ooman’s homeworld that he had collected that skull.
He could remember it like it was yesterday; the light gravity that let him leap as though he were weightless; the pleasant heat of the desert; the invigorating atmosphere, although it was hard to breathe. It was much like this place. At least, the desert was that he’d hunted in. The ooman homeworld offered so many environments, each of which held a challenge and advantage over the others. It was a Hunter’s paradise.
He could even recall the very ooman that sat on his wall now; it was a tall, powerful creature that carried a gun nearly as big as he was and could tear apart even the greatest Hunter in a second. He still fell, though, after a moment of dodging the torrent of burner blasts Li’chinde had released. It was a kill to be proud of.
Li’chinde smiled at the memory. Stepping out of the ship for some fresh air, he turned to the ooman campsite. After a moment’s prayer and a quick glance to make sure none of the Young Bloods followed him, he slipped on his mask and tore off for the forbidden Hunting grounds.
The only thing lighting the interior of the drop ship was the sunlight streaming through the windshield and the flare Giger had tossed into the hold. All the lights had been broken, presumably by the Xenomorph-things that had attacked them earlier, and blood was everywhere. Thrown against the far wall was the mangled corpse of Fox, with the flare’s light shining on the dried pools of surrounding blood and glinting off his remaining eyeball.
Cominsky, at the front of the group, hesitated for a long second before proceeding into the drop ship. He tightened the grip on his pulse rifle as he stepped up the ramp into the hold, trying to make as little noise as possible. Holding his gun a good distance out from his body, he moved into the middle of the cramped room and did a quick 360-turn to make sure nothing was with him. It was empty. Ralph heard at least three people breathing heavy sighs of relief at the fact, and was pretty sure that he was one of them.
Giger moved ahead with Ralph into the cockpit a little more steadily with the thought that they were alone, but quickly stopped when they saw what was there to greet them. Weaver was strapped firmly into her seat, but blood was painted over the entire cockpit from the cuts and gouges that covered her. Varied organs were splattered over the controls and windscreen, and the corpse had eight small puncture wounds at the edges of her face, as though something had once been attached to it. The middle of her chest was now lying at her boots.
And, worst of all, every last component was smashed to Hell and back, inoperable and torn to metallic shreds.
Holding his mouth, Giger dashed from the room and past the other marines, stopping to blow his breakfast through the grating at the bottom of the ramp. He spat out the last of it and, between breaths, gasped, "They . . . they got the . . . oh, God, we’re screwed."
"What?" Ragsdale inquired, "What did they do?"
Giger wiped his mouth off and pulled himself up to a standing position, leaning on the hydraulic piston holding the ramp. In quick gasps, he choked out, "Facehuggers. They got infected and . . . go see Weaver in there. For the love of Christ, I figured they were only seen around the hives."
Austin, a wiry, thin-faced rookie in the back, yelled, "Can anyone fly that thing? If they can, couldn’t we just throw the bodies outside and get outta here?"
Peiper muttered something and backed away in disgust. "What sort of monster are you?" she whispered.
Cominsky glanced at her, but pretended not to hear. His massive shoulders rippled as he stomped past the other marines and stopped less than a foot away from Austin. He glared heavily at the marine and growled, "You go out and stand watch at the west border for the next two shifts. If the xenobastards don’t get ya, we’ll hear your opinions then."
Austin muttered out something and strolled alone up the hill towards the sentry tents. "Nothing’s gonna get in from my side," Austin gloated as he walked out of sight, "Unless I decide to let it have a snack or two."
Cominsky raised his gun and popped a warning shot over Austin’s head, effectively shutting him up. "One more word out of you," Cominsky roared, "And you’ll get latrine duty for the time we’re here!"
Puzzled, Ralph pointed out, "We don’t have a latrine here, sir."
"We’ll make him dig one, then." The Sargeant’s voice was flat; Ralph could tell this wasn’t an empty threat.
Giger, finally regaining his composure, yelled, "Everybody, get away! Run your asses!" Once everyone backed off, Giger pulled out his grenade launcher, lobbed a grenade into the cockpit, and leapt off to the side of the ramp as a flaming report bottlenecked through the opening in a blast that shook the ground. Giger shook his head sadly and mused, "That’s the closest thing they’ll have to a funeral. God rest their souls."
Cominsky looked to the ground and nodded his head softly, then called out to the others, "This place is a dead stick. Let’s get outta here and set up fort. Looks like we’ll be stayin’ awhile. And," Cominsky added, lowering his voice so only Ralph heard it, "Unless we get another way out, we’re screwed."
"Sir!" Ragsdale called out to grab Cominsky’s attention, "The Ravenno may still have a ship or something onboard! If we can get to it, we can get off this damn rock, couldn’t we?"
"Maybe," the Sargeant mumbled as he walked past, with the rest of the platoon following.
The night fell over the marines, most of whom were gathered around a small monitor from a diagnostic computer Giger had found and attached a battery to. Giger and Cominsky were both crammed at the front of the console studying the readouts it spat out in a flurry of clicks from the keyboard that Giger manned. Obviously, this wasn’t the first job he had in computers, Cominsky thought to himself.
Tapping through the coded displays and readouts, Giger quickly pulled up a statistical chart of the Ravenno’s systems. The ship itself was most definitely inoperable, with the better part of its systems fried or smashed.
"But, as you’ll see in this map of Deck Four, Sector 7-G," Giger mused, tapping away at the console, "There were two escape ships that were never launched. The first one won’t launch, because the release clamp is jammed and probably never gonna let go - - but the second one," he continued, pulling up a video from one of the security cameras aimed in the landing bay, "is in pretty sweet condition. If we can just get to it, we’ll be able to get out of here."
"Wait," Cominsky interrupted, pointing to a large black spot near the ship that occupied half the screen. It appeared rather . . . ominous. "What’s this?"
"Shadows, looks like. The lights must have broken in the crash."
A few tents over, Peiper was taking in the night air with what little pleasure she had managed to retain since her stay here. Although the air was a little hard to breathe and this place was a dustball whose only features were the low canyons that surrounded the campground, it had a certain rustic beauty to it. Especially with the moon shining over the landscape and painting the gray rocks a soft, pale white. Ralph, on time as usual, appeared from his tent and handed Peiper a couple of Twinkies to offset the half-assed excuse for a dinner the Company had so graciously provided.
"Enjoy," Ralph stated with more than a little swagger in his voice. Peiper could say a lot of things about Ralph, but he always found some way to make her feel better. She liked the confidence and sweetness he displayed around her, even though not even he knew for sure why he did it. She laughed softly as she tugged the wrapper off one of the Twinkies and bit into it while Ralph abruptly broke his eyes from her to the canyons she was looking at. He nodded quietly and muttered, "Nice night. Close enough to one, anyway."
"Yeah, I guess so," Peiper replied between bites. She must not have eaten much of the dinner, Ralph thought to himself before asking, "So, what do you suppose happens next?"
"Don’t know," Peiper said, swallowing the last of the Twinkie, "but I’m pretty sure it’s either suicidal or depressing . . . you know what they’re all doing at the tent over there?"
"Nah, I figure that it’s probably a bunch of technobabble like last night. I never knew Giger was such a computer nerd, I’ll tell you that right now."
Peiper leaned back against the Plasteel tent and stretched while Ralph was about to have a stroke trying to keep looking at the sky. She giggled softly and turned towards Ralph who was now pulling open a Twinkie while simultaneously trying to stay completely in the conversation. Why was he acting so weird . . .?
Attempting to make small talk, Ralph asked, "So, what do you think James is planning for your return home?"
Nadia smiled and answered without missing a beat, "He’s probably shopping for it right now. I swear, he probably puts more money into me than the government."
"That can’t be a bad thing, can it?" Ralph asked soberly.
"I guess not, unless that’s the only way he can think of to say he loves you," Nadia mused, studying her second Twinkie as though it had something written on the side of it.
After a moment, Ralph murmured, "That can’t be too great. But, at least you know you're safe, right?"
"Not anymore. I’d be a lot happier if I felt safe now."
Grinning faintly, Ralph replied, "Don’t worry about it. Austin may be a jackass, but he’s a perfectly good soldier. We’ll be fine."
Paya did not want this Hunt to occur. Li’chinde could tell; the moon bathed the night with a pale glow, forcing him to stay low to avoid detection, even with his cloak activated. Secondly, the burners that could think were aimed in the direction he’d normally have come from, so he’d had circle around to come in through the West Side, where he got his first break.
A single guard stood there, reading some kind of scroll. Li’chinde activated his zooming tool, and nearly fell over when he saw that the page he was looking at held a picture of a nude ooman female. He rubbed over the part of his mask that hid his eyes, wishing he hadn’t been so curious. Such ugly creatures . . .
The sentry obviously didn’t notice Li’chinde, but he was careful anyway about his approach. This perverse creature would be capable of anything. Approaching silently on the balls of his feet, the invisible Hunter inched his way to the sentry.
Suddenly, the famed ooman "sixth sense" kicked in on the man, and he lowered the scroll and looked around. Li’chinde ducked slowly to the ground so he wouldn’t see him. The man shrugged his shoulders and raised the magazine back to his face. On my planet, this would have him killed out of respect for women. The man began whispering what sounded like compliments to the picture, as though she could somehow hear him. The Hunter activated his sound recorder; this might be useful later.
When the man’s waist began to grow Li’chinde couldn’t take it anymore. He reached out and slapped the scroll - - a ma’ga-seen, the pervert had said - - from his hands, sending the rag flying over the tent beside him. The man jumped back with a small cry and pulled his burner off his back, aiming it at the wave of bent light that was his only tip-off of where Li’chinde was. He squeezed the trigger, but nothing happened. The burner had jammed.
Dropping the burner, the sentry ran in the opposite direction, cornering himself on a wall of a more permanent building. His whimpered a bit, but did little else to protect himself. This is legendary game? He didn’t even try to use the burner as a club!
Li’chinde decloaked and smelled the acrid stench of fear; a stink raised by sweat and urine. This was sad, actually. Doing a favor to the ooman species, Li’chinde popped out his ki’cti-pa and drove the twin blades through the weakling’s neck. In a final act, he brought his foot down on the corpse’s head, smashing it into paste. There was no trophy to be earned from this one anyway. The big, dark-skinned male . . . There was a prize; he could smell the musk of power and honor pulsing from that ooman.
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