Predator - Incursion (21 page)

Small covert missions were the stuff of bar room whispers and mess room rumors. That wasn’t her.

It seemed her orders had changed.

She’d asked General Bassett why she had to do what Marshall asked, of course. His reply, though shocking her, had put an end to her objections.

“We’re all Company people now.”

Yautja Habitat designated UMF 12, beyond Outer Rim
July 2692
AD

Johnny Mains was playing in a forest just down the road from their house, across a field and stream and in a place where signs of an old war were sometimes still visible. It was autumn, leaves were falling, undergrowth fading back. The fall exposed a rusted metal hulk that his father had once told him had been an attack drone.

There was little left to identify its use now, let alone which side it had been on. Paint had flaked and given way to rust. Pieces had been torn off as souvenirs, others had fallen away over time. Maybe it was a hundred years old. Johnny didn’t care, because as a kid anything like this was magical. A key to the past, a tactile thing upon which he could lay his hand and feel the echoing vibration of a battle long-since won and lost.

I’m going to be a soldier
, he decided, one hand on the fallen thing, the other shading his eyes against low autumn sunlight dappling through denuded trees.
Just like dad
.

His father had left several years before, and Johnny hardly remembered him, just the image of a hulking shadow and the smell of sweat, alcohol, and aftershave. His mother told Johnny that he was never coming back, but he lived in hope. Even a dead thing like this old drone held living echoes.

“Johnny,” someone said, a voice deep in his ear. “Come back.” Mains looked around, frowning, listening for his mother’s voice calling him in. There was no way he could hear her from here, their home was more than a mile away across fields and a road, past the stream, and—

* * *

“Johnny!” Someone slapped his face and he jerked awake. The autumn trees vanished, the pleasant coolness against his skin, and Lieder and Snowdon were staring down at him.

“L-T!” Snowdon said. “We’ve got to hustle. Three incoming.”

Mains sat up, groaning, looking around. Snowdon and Lieder squatted in front of him, Faulkner hunkered down a few steps away with the defender. Cotronis was leaning against a rough wall of the cavern-like structure, chin on her chest. She might have been dead. The cables that had arrested their falls hung like loose webbing, disconnected now from their suits.

The ground shook. Dust fell and grit pattered across his face mask. A roar rumbled around them, unending.

“Everyone okay?” Mains asked. At the same time he checked his suit’s computer to assess his own condition, anything worth noting flicking up in his view. Bruising to the left shoulder and upper arm, sprained ligaments in his left knee, an impact wound to his head that would result in bruising. His suit had taken the brunt of the impact, but there was no helping his own body taking a beating from such a fall. The cables had arrested their descent, but it seemed that the
Ochse
’s detonation had sent them tumbling.

“Bumps and bruises.” Lieder said. “The Corp’s not so hot.”

“I’m fine!” Cotronis snapped. “Carried the defender, didn’t I?” She lifted her head and smiled at him through pale lips.

Mains was glad to hear her sounding like her old self, even if she didn’t look it.

“Openings to outside have atmosphere shields,” Lieder said, “but the air in here’s only about fifteen percent oxygen, with some heavy trace elements. Breathable, but not for more than a few minutes.”

“Everyone’s suits functioning?”

“We’re good.”

Mains’s combat view came to life and he saw the approaching danger. It looked like three Yautja, converging on their position from three different directions. The closest was an estimated four minutes away, so they had time to prepare, but no time to answer the many questions that still assaulted his dizzied brain.

How bad was the damage to UMF 12 from the
Ochse
’s detonation? What was the layout of the huge habitat’s interior? How many Yautja were on board? Where had their ships been going, and why? The suits were equipped with communications channels and failsafes, but not to the extent of having sub-space broadcasters. They could talk to each other anywhere on the habitat, but for now they were cut off from the rest of humanity. Any message they sent with their basic suit transmitters would take years to even reach the Outer Rim.

“Okay guys, we go offensive,” he said. “Too early to dig in—we have no idea of our surroundings or what’s going on elsewhere. I see no signs of the enemy beyond these three, so once we’ve dealt with them we’ll recce and see just how much shit we’re in.”

As Mains stood, the ground shook beneath his feet. Immediate surroundings gave the impression of being on a planet, not an artificial vessel. The walls and floor were some kind of dark rock, no straight edges or right angles. Moisture dripped from everywhere and ran in glistening rivulets through channels eroded into the ground. The air was heavy and warm, humid to the point of saturation, and it was only their suits’ climate control keeping them comfortable. Even so, his face mask clouded slightly with each exhalation, misting away in seconds.

It was hot out there.

“Faulkner, Lieder, you get thirty yards ahead, camo up and wait. Cotronis, you’ll have to settle down here. Snowdon, ten yards the other way with me.”

“I want to be—” Cotronis began.

“Corporal, if those things get past any one of us, you’ll be here to stop them attacking the other’s flank.” Mains’s tone brooked no argument, and he didn’t have time for discussion. In minutes the first of three Yautja would be upon them. Back on Southgate Station 12, with a full complement and battle plans drawn up, they’d lost Willis and Reynolds against just two of these hunter killers. Now, shaken up and weakened, and on the enemy’s home turf, the odds were stacked much higher against them.

“You got it, Johnny,” Cotronis said.

“Okay,” Mains said. “Suit lights off, everyone on infrared. Camo up.” His suit obeyed his thought prompt, switching his view and initiating its cloaking shield. Reverse-engineered from captured Yautja technology, their cloaking devices were clunky and threaded through every part of their suits, but worth every gram of weight. As he and Snowdon headed off along the uneven tunnel, she started flickering from view. He made sure his suit sensors were attuned to the devices’ specific frequencies so that he could still make out the shadow-shape of every one of his unit. To outside eyes, however, they would be faded into the dark, damp, stony background.

“Here,” Snowdon said as the tunnel opened up ahead of them. The ceiling was high, the concave floor sloping down several yards beneath them, and Mains saw at least six other tunnels feeding into the area. There was some tech on the far wall, but he couldn’t quite make it out. His suit scanned it, but was no wiser. Yautja technology seemed to advance quickly and change rapidly, and it also differed drastically from place to place, as if developing independently. For every new discovery, a dozen more questions arose.

That was why Mains couldn’t put total trust in the cloaking tech. It was of Yautja origin, taken apart and bastardized by the Company’s ArmoTech division, copied by people in labs who would never have need of it in the field. If it worked, it worked, but he’d never bet his life on it. The Yautja were too smart for that, and too inscrutable.

“Just inside the tunnel?” Snowdon asked.

“That’s what I’m thinking. Not too close, but not out of sight of each other.”

His display showed one red dot approaching their location from one side, the other two somewhere above and behind them. The local layout seemed complex, so it was difficult to discern just where the Yautja might emerge. What was clear was that they would be upon them in moments.

Mains and Snowdon crouched and prepared, nursing their com-rifles. He selected wide field nano-shot, having seen how effective it had been on the surface.

From behind them came the hiss-crack of the defender being fired, a heavy weapon that shot thousands of wire filaments in expanding clouds that would shred any living thing within range. In such an enclosed environment it would be formidable. Mains watched his display and saw Cotronis in close combat with a Yautja. Another three shots from the defender, a piercing scream, and then Faulkner grunted in satisfaction.

“One down.”

Mains had no time to reply. Across the open space in front of him, a Yautja darted from the dark mouth of a corridor, running quickly along the slope and drawing close. Mains held his fire but Snowdon unloaded, the nano-shot seeking its target and then ripping the air apart in a thousand glaring detonations. Mains’s suit dimmed his view, but the reaction time wasn’t perfect. In infrared, the explosions were blinding.

The Yautja jigged to the side and slipped, sliding across the floor and leaving a trail of glowing blood behind it.

Mains zeroed on the alien, finger squeezing around his trigger.

The enemy’s shoulder blaster unleashed a hail of shots directly at them. Mains’s suit hardened as he ducked. Rock rained down in a stinging hail as the blasts impacted the ceiling, then a heavier slab growled as it dipped down and struck the floor between him and Snowdon. She gasped, and through the haze he saw her cloaking system fail.

It didn’t matter. The Yautja already knew where they were, and as Mains dropped to his stomach and slid beneath the fallen ceiling, the alien rose in the entrance before him. Nine feet tall, heavily muscled, partially armored, wearing several trophies from its most respected kills—long golden claws, a heavily-toothed jaw, a Xenomorph skull—it glimmered with fresh blood, its own war suit sparking and letting off arcs of strange energy.

The Yautja screeched in delight as it crouched and stepped into the reduced opening, lashing out with a heavy spear.

Mains swung his com-rifle and deflected the blow, taking the opportunity to crawl quickly backward into the wider corridor. He looked for Snowdon on his display, but the reading was confused.

The Yautja slid beneath the fallen ceiling and came for him again, swinging the spear toward him, its point glimmering in the weak light. It caught him a glancing blow across the chest. His suit deflected it, but the impact knocked him onto his back. A warning chimed, and like a flipped beetle he was suddenly vulnerable. He couldn’t use the com-rifle so close, not programmed to nano-shot, and as he instructed his computer to reprogram the rifle the Yautja leapt at him, claws tensed, spear raised, ready to plunge down at his face mask in a killing blow.

Light flared and the Yautja fell, torso tumbling back, the heavy head striking Mains’s stomach. His combat suit, sensing no threat from a weapon, failed to solidify. Mains gasped and rolled to one side, kicking the head away. It rolled and came to rest staring at him through its helmet mask. Perhaps it still saw.

Snowdon appeared beside him, laser pistol drawn.

“Faulkner and Lieder are fighting two more,” she said, holding out her hand. Mains took it, she helped him stand, and they headed back through the tunnel.

Mains checked his suit status. All good.

“Snowdon, you okay?”

“Bit banged up,” she said, but she didn’t run like it. She ran like an Excursionist, concerned for her friends and eager to engage the enemy once again.

Cotronis nodded as they passed her and headed in the other direction, toward the sounds of combat, the flashes, the glare and roars and screams. Mains heard the defender firing again as they skidded around a corner. Past where Faulkner and Lieder were crouched a whole section of walling disintegrated and hazed into the air.

They were at a junction of three tunnels, theirs and two others leading off at gentle angles. A few steps along one tunnel lay two Yautja. One was pulped and dead. The other was thrashing around, splashing its strange green blood up the walls. Bits of it had come off, and the entire tunnel structure around it was pocked with holes. Dust and grit drifted across the floor.

“Don’t let it self-destruct!” Mains shouted.

“In its own habitat?” Lieder asked.

“We don’t know!”

Lieder nodded and darted forward, com-rifle aimed at the other tunnel. She moved along to the Yautja, drew her laser pistol and delivered the coup de grace.

The third tunnel brightened, Mains’s view darkened automatically, and then a volley of explosive shots slammed in around them. Faulkner was lifted from his feet as the ground beneath him erupted, striking the wall hard. Mains heard something crack.

“Just one along there?” he asked, and Lieder confirmed.

“But it’s packing some serious firepower,” she said.

“So are we.” Mains opened up and the others joined in, lighting up the tunnel with nano-shot, laser sprays, and plasma bursts. After three seconds he signaled a cease, and they hunkered down in the tunnel, waiting for the smoke to clear.

Molten rock dribbled down walls. Dust drifted, catching light from a fire further along the tunnel. Several errant nano-shots sparked and zigged through the air, exploding in small blasts.