Predator - Incursion (2 page)

Lab 1 was still secure, and she again had to use her lock-picking skills. As the door whispered open she pressed back against the wall, listening for the screech, waiting for the violence. But all was quiet.

She slipped inside and got to work.

It took her less than ten minutes to access the mainframe, bypass a series of defense protocols, and commence download of all the information she sought. Three minutes later, the records were scorched from every hard disc, data cloud, and quantum storage fold on the ship and beyond. Liliya became the sole bearer of every scrap of research the
Evelyn-Tew
had carried.

The scientists on board had come a long way. In the past few years they had learned more about the Xenomorphs than had been discovered over several centuries prior—and now she had stolen it all.

It was a heavy weight, but she bore it for Wordsworth… and everyone else. Now her most important mission was one of survival.

* * *

Her plan had been to take one of the ships from the docking bays. There were several shuttlecraft there, as well as a decommissioned Colonial Marines dreadnought-class vessel ostensibly acquired for protection. But some of the lower decks were burning, and as she approached the docking bay she heard shooting, screaming, and the unmistakable screech of a Xenomorph.

So she decided to take her chances with an escape pod.

Over a mile long and half a mile wide, the USS
Evelyn-Tew
was a decommissioned Colonial Marines destroyer built to carry many more people than now crewed her. Bloody evidence showed that the Xenomorphs had depleted the science crew, yet she could only assume that others had escaped. She hoped at least one secure escape pod remained behind for her to use.

Two hundred yards and one level from the nearest lifeboat bay, she heard them. Whispering. Scratching. Brushing along the corridor wall ahead of her, around the corner she was approaching. When the overhead lighting flickered she saw them, too, dancing shadows flitting and shaking as different lights powered on and off.

Liliya paused and froze, becoming as motionless as possible. Ten steps behind her lay a door, but there was no guarantee it would be open. Fifty steps further back was a bulkhead door. If she turned and ran she might make it—or she might not. Even if she did, there was no guarantee that she’d be able to close the door before it, or they, took her down from behind.

Blinking rapidly, she tried to decide her next move, and the shadows burst around the corner.

“I told you I heard someone!” the man said. There was a woman with him. He carried an old model of pulse rifle, and she was holding a carving knife in each hand. They both looked terrified.

“You’re from the canteen,” the woman said. “Liliya, right?”

“Right. You?”

“I’m Kath Roberts. Engineer. This is Dearing.” She didn’t offer his profession, and Liliya didn’t care. It was clear that neither of them knew how to use the weapons they were carrying, and the need in their eyes was dreadful. The need to be helped, and led.

Liliya couldn’t give them that, but they could all work together, and maybe that way they’d survive.

Do nothing to compromise the mission
. The voice in her head was Wordsworth’s, the words her own, speaking what she knew was the truth.
They’ll be a danger to your task. They’ll want rescue, and not what
you
want. Not to disappear
.

“I have to help them,” she said softly, and she saw Dearing’s frown as he heard her. Maybe he thought she was mad.

“You seen any of those things?” Roberts asked.

“One. I hid away.”

“It didn’t smell you out?” Dearing asked.

Liliya shrugged. “That’s what they do?”

“Yeah. We think.” He glanced aside, then back the way they’d come. “If you were heading for the lifeboats, you’re too late.”

“They’ve all gone?”

“From Dock C, yeah. Dock A was destroyed in an explosion, and B is venting atmosphere, and D is almost half a mile away toward the stern. I don’t think…” He trailed off.

“You know we’re on a suicide trajectory, right?” Liliya asked.

“Suicide?” Roberts’ eyes went wide, her face turning pale.

“The ship’s going to crash into the sun,” she said, then added, “Come on. There’s one chance.”

“What chance?” Dearing asked, but Liliya didn’t say. Partly because she didn’t trust him or Roberts, and her knowledge was power. But also because she didn’t know how great their chance might be.

There were emergency escape pods in a bay beneath the officers’ quarters. They were each built for one person. She had no idea how many might be left.

* * *

There was a dead woman in the stairwell.

She was spread down the stairs. Her uniform identified her as a ship’s officer, flight deck crew, but there was little else to distinguish her from the other dead people Liliya had seen. Torn flesh, ripped clothing, splintered bones—in death, at least, the Xenomorphs made everyone equal.

I caused that.

She shoved the thought aside.

Stepping gingerly past the mess, she tried to place her feet on dry parts of the stairs. There weren’t many. The woman had been caught making her way down toward the escape pods, and there was no saying whether the creature that had killed her had continued down, or come up from beneath.

“Step carefully,” she whispered back at Roberts and Dearing. “Don’t slip.” There was plenty to slip on. But they made their way down to the landing and around to the next flight, and then they were in a gently lit lobby area, with several comfortable seats and a drinks machine in one corner. The lighting was low-level faux daylight, expensive to maintain and generally reserved for the plusher parts of ships. It was obvious that they were in the officers’ section.

Roberts waited to be told what to do. Dearing shrugged, holding the pulse rifle in one hand.

“Which way?” he asked.

Liliya recalled the ship’s layout and zeroed in on the escape-pod bay. It was another level down, but close. She turned away for a second, listening, stretching her senses, trying to make out whether danger was close. Life support hummed. Distant thumps shivered, seemingly gentler down here, as the ship’s drive continued their acceleration toward the star. No more screams, no more gunfire or hissing creatures. That was no comfort.

It might mean that everyone else was dead.

“Come on,” she said. “We don’t have much time.”

Leave them
, Wordsworth’s voice said.
The mission is all
.

Yet saving these two people might mean rescuing some small facet of her soul.

They followed her down another level. Access doors to the escape-pod bay were stuck open, the electronic lock beside them a smoking mess. Someone had already blasted their way through.

“Oh, no,” Dearing said.

“They might not all have gone,” she said, but already she was thinking ahead. Calculating time and trajectory, supplies, and life-support potentials. Balancing saving the two people with her against the successful completion of her mission.
I’ve come so far
… she thought. She couldn’t let herself down now.

They reached a circular room with seven round doors, each leading directly into a pod dock. Access was designed to be quick and easy in an emergency.

“Shit,” Roberts whispered.

“Only one left!” Dearing said, and Liliya wondered whether he knew what that meant. She turned around. He was already stepping back from them, lifting the gun, not quite aiming it at her but ready to swing it up at a moment’s notice.

“You don’t need that,” she said, staring him in the eye. He paused, just for a moment. Then he backed away three more steps until he was pressed against the soft bulkhead beside the access to the remaining escape pod. Here in the officers’ compartment, they even dressed the walls of the emergency bay.

The ship’s engines pulsed again through Liliya’s feet, and she wondered if the others sensed it as well. Probably not. There was a lot she could perceive that would escape them. Dearing’s increased heartbeat, the dribble of sweat at his temple, and the whitening of his knuckles around the pulse rifle’s trigger.

“Dearing…” she said.

“They’re only designed for one person,” he said. He looked back and forth between Liliya and Roberts, as if trying to decide who might come at him first.

“There are a dozen other ships in this system at any one time,” Roberts said. “We’ll be picked up in a matter of days. It’ll be cozy, but all three of us can get in there.”

Yet that’s not what I want
, Liliya thought.
I don’t want to be picked up—not by anyone but the Founders
. She should have known better than to bring them along.

Dearing lifted the rifle.

She was fast, but probably not fast enough.

“Roberts is right,” Liliya said. “It’ll be tight, the launch will be rough, but three of us can last in there for days. You think they wouldn’t give the officers enough food and water? You think they don’t consider a bit of comfort?”

Dearing glanced to the side and touched a panel on the wall. His eyes were wide with the excitement of imminent escape.

“You can’t leave us here to die!” Roberts said.

“There are more lifeboats aft,” he said.

“That’s half a mile away!” she shouted.

“Quiet,” Liliya said firmly, but it had already gone too far. There was a dynamic here that she hadn’t perceived, and Roberts’ next statement exposed it all.

“Don’t I mean anything to you?” she asked.

Liliya took a step forward as Dearing’s face dropped. He saw her, and drifted the gun barrel in her direction.

She heard the scattering, scampering sound as one of the things came at them. It had been following their trail, perhaps homing in on the sound of their voices. She didn’t think Dearing had heard it yet. She had moments to react, and in that time everything rushed in at her.

The risks she had taken to be posted on the
Evelyn-Tew,
the favors that had been called in, the machinations behind the scenes by Wordsworth and the other Founders.

The responsibility she bore, the importance of the information she now carried on her person.

The disaster and deaths she had caused by effectively releasing the creatures.

The implications if she didn’t succeed.

Every part of her fought against what she did next. But her commitment to Wordsworth was greater than her own strength, instinct, or the moral code she had developed through her life. His dedication to his cause was absolute.

Liliya stepped behind Roberts, grabbed her beneath the arms, and shoved her at Dearing.

The pulse rifle boomed. The woman jerked once, hard, and slammed back against her. Liliya kept her footing, threw Roberts again, and followed. Dearing staggered back against the wall with the bloodied, dying woman splayed against him. As she slid to the floor, one hand grasping at his clothing and leaving a bloody trail across his chest, he freed the rifle from between them and lifted it at Liliya.

She slapped it aside. Something broke in her hand, and the rifle clattered to the floor, sliding across the bay and coming to rest beside the door through which they entered.

A shadow danced beyond, hard limbs and dark hisses.

“What the fuck?” Dearing shouted. He wasn’t looking at Liliya’s face. His eyes were wide, staring at her torso, and as she glanced down the pain signals hit her at last.

She cried out, more in desperation than agony.

It couldn’t end like this.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair!

Pressing a hand to her wound did nothing to prevent the white fluid from spewing across the floor.

“Jesus Christ!” Dearing said.

Liliya took advantage of his confusion. She dragged him aside with her free hand, exerting all her strength. He tripped over the body of his lover and sprawled on the floor, just as a shape filled the doorway.

She didn’t look. She knew she didn’t have time, and if she was to survive she had to execute every movement, every moment, with complete efficiency. She stepped over the dead woman’s leg, pressed the panel on the wall, waited an agonizing eternity as the escape-pod hatch spiraled open, grasped at its edges and—

Dearing screamed.

She looked—she
had
to look—and saw the Xenomorph standing astride the fallen man, one limb piercing his shoulder, the other pressing down on the small of his back. It crouched low, curved head sloping down at its struggling prey, and as he screamed again its teeth lashed out and smashed his skull apart.

Liliya hauled herself into the pod and slammed the execute button on the wall beside the door. The hatch slammed shut. Something struck the other side, hard, and then a roar shattered her hearing and became everything as the escape pod’s mooring bolts blasted loose and its propellant ignited.

She should have been strapped into the single seat, protected against the immense acceleration. Smashed back against the closed hatch, Liliya let herself give in to the white-hot pain at last.

As unconsciousness fell, she welcomed the release into blessed darkness.

* * *

Between blinks Liliya snapped awake and reality rushed in. A low whine issued from her, an uncomfortable moan with every breath. Pain brought her back. She was alone, and Roberts and Dearing were dead.

“No,” she said.

She had caused their deaths, even if she hadn’t pulled the trigger on Roberts or smashed Dearing’s skull apart with her own teeth.

“No!” She shouted this time, voice deadened by the small pod’s soft interior, and she knew that she was right. There was nothing she could have done.

Not if her mission was to survive.

The escape pod shook for a few more seconds before its thrusters cut out. Weightless, Liliya shoved herself slightly away from the hatch and held onto the seat, swinging herself around, pulling herself down, fixing the strap around her waist and the restraint over her shoulders. Her blood misted the air and formed into droplets, milk-like bubbles that drifted in the disturbed atmosphere.

Her stomach hurt, but what hurt more was the idea that it all might have been for nothing. Once secured in the seat she settled her frantic thoughts, running a calming program that leveled the peaks and troughs of her human personality. It was a process she disliked intensely—Liliya was over fifty years old, and thought of herself as human. Initiating support protocols pulled her out of that pleasant fantasy. Yet it was a necessary evil so that she could assess damage—both to herself and, more importantly, the information she had stolen.