The Complete Aliens Omnibus Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also Available From Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Book I: Criminal Enterprise

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  Epilogue

  Book II: No Exit

  Part One: Alive

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Part Two: C - 3 L / M

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  Part Three: Dead Man Talking

  0

  Part Four: Escape Route

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Part Five: Good as Dead

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  About the Authors

  THE COMPLETE

  OMNIBUS

  VOLUME 7

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

  THE COMPLETE ALIENS™ OMNIBUS

  VOLUME 1

  VOLUME 2

  VOLUME 3

  VOLUME 4

  VOLUME 5

  VOLUME 6

  VOLUME 7

  DON’T MISS A SINGLE INSTALLMENT OF THE RAGE WAR BY TIM LEBBON

  PREDATOR: INCURSION

  ALIEN™: INVASION

  ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: ARMAGEDDON

  READ ALL OF THE EXCITING ALIEN NOVELS FROM TITAN BOOKS ALIEN: OUT OF THE SHADOWS

  ALIEN: SEA OF SORROWS

  ALIEN: RIVER OF PAIN

  ALIENS: BUG HUNT

  ALIEN: THE COLD FORGE

  THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATIONS

  ALIEN

  ALIENS

  ALIEN3

  ALIEN: RESURRECTION

  ALIEN: COVENANT

  ALIEN: COVENANT—ORIGINS

  ALIEN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

  ALIEN: THE ARCHIVE

  ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY THE ART OF ALIEN: ISOLATION

  ALIEN NEXT DOOR

  ALIEN: THE SET PHOTOGRAPHY

  THE COMPLETE

  OMNIBUS

  S. D. PERRY AND

  B. K. EVENSON

  TITAN BOOKS

  The Complete Aliens Omnibus: Volume 7

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783299133

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783299140

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: December 2018

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  ™ and © 2008, 2018 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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  THE COMPLETE

  OMNIBUS

  VOLUME 7

  BOOK I

  CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE

  S. D. PERRY

  This book is for hunka hunka burning husband.

  PROLOGUE

  The end of a long, cold sleep, and Thomas Chase is twelve years old. He lies on the top bunk in his room, hugging a tired flannel blanket to his narrow boy chest, listening to his little brother crying. Every morning since Mom died, since Dad started drinking heavily, Tommy wakes up to the lonely, pitiful sound. His own tears come at night, when his brother is sleeping, when Dad is passed out or on his way to it, but Pete always cries in the morning. He says it’s because he dreams that things are like they used to be, and when he wakes up and realizes how things really are, he gets sad.

  For a time, Tommy would crawl down and sit with Pete, sometimes put an arm around him, sometimes just talk to him about other stuff, video games or movies, until he stopped crying. Peter was only eight, after all, and as hard as the past couple of months have been on Tommy, he thinks that maybe Pete has it worse. Him and Mom, they’d still been really close. Still, though, after the first few weeks were past, Tommy mostly just ignored it. Pete didn’t cry as long, if he just ignored it.

  Today, though, Tommy can’t stand it, he just can’t. He woke up in the middle of the night to pee and started thinking about things, about Mom, and didn’t get back to sleep until he heard the first birds calling, saw the black at the window turn to a deep blue with the dawn’s thin winter light and now he’s exhausted and heartsick and his little brother is bawling like he’s the only one in the world with problems.

  “Shut up,” Tommy snaps, and maybe Pete doesn’t hear him because he keeps crying. Tommy feels a flash of something like terror, like he’s diving into a black hole—and then an incredible rush of anger, of fury, that his whining baby of a brother won’t listen to him, not even for a fucking second.

  “Shut up, why can’t you just shut up!” he hisses, and even in his spasm of rage, he can hear the venom in his voice, hears it and is afraid, and is then ever angrier for feeling fear. Angry at himself, maybe, but right now there’s Pete.

  A gasp of silence, a sniffle, a hitching breath—and the wail Pete lets out is infinitely louder than before, more than loud enough to wake up Pop, and no way will Pop be sober this early.

  “Pete,” Tommy says, as loud as he dares, and it doesn’t make a dent in the plaintive sound, doesn’t approach it. Their father has never hit them, not yet, but the way he screams when he’s drunk, the way he’s been escalating, Tommy’s afraid it’s only a matter of time. Frantic, Tommy drops flat, grabs the rail, and looks down and under the bunk, searching the line of shadow for his sobbing brother—

  And there’s no one there. And there’s no sound but the song of a few starving birds outside in the cold, one of them chirping a strange and mechanical sound, and the line of shadows beneath the bunk lengthens suddenly, snapping out across the empty bedclothes, engulfing young Tommy.

  1

  TUESDAY

  Tommy Chase woke up tired and aching, at first only knowing that he’d been in cryo and that the machine had kicked into wakeup. It took a full minute before he remembered the rest of it—who and what and where he was—as the wheezing vents trickled tepid air over his mostly naked skin, as his eyes opened to dim light through tinted plasticene. A bright, annoying beep sounded near his lef
t ear, as it would every fifteen seconds until he got up. He thought he’d dreamed something about that sound . . . Something about birds? And—

  Pete, he thought, and closed his eyes again, remembering where he was, where they were. A familiar mix of anger and sorrow and frustration settled across his chest like a soft, suffocating weight. His little brother had apologized about a thousand times already, but both of them knew it wasn’t enough. Like it ever was. Talk was extremely fucking cheap, and Pete’s sporadic promises to do anything with his life besides piss it away had proven to be pretty much worthless.

  And I still hope, anyway, Tommy thought. More fool I.

  Another chirpy beep, and Tommy opened his eyes again—just in time to see a fist coming at his face, bam-bam, a double knock on the smudgy cryo cover. It was Lee, and he was fully dressed. Tommy saw that small, apparently ever-present smile on Lee’s scarred face before he turned away, disappearing into the shadowy lighting. The other one, Moby, was undoubtedly up, too. So much for waking up the pilot first, although he should have expected as much. The minor jolt of adrenaline from the surprise knock and the renewed awareness of his situation got Tommy moving.

  “Open,” he muttered, his throat slick and sticky from sleeper lube—and nothing happened. He tapped at the control panel set into the side of the unit, near his right hand—and again, nothing.

  He felt a curl of uneasiness in his gut. “Open,” he said again. Cleared his throat, repeating it as he reached up with his trembling arms—eleven weeks was a long time, plenty long enough to need stim options past the standard electrical pulse feed, but this ship didn’t have ’em, not even the old wireless kind—to shove at the manual bar. Which didn’t move.

  I’m the pilot, he thought, working to reassure himself, pushing the bar again, then again, harder. It had to be a mechanical thing, and if it wasn’t, they needed him, he was the fucking pilot—

  The cryo cover raised, cold air rushing in. Tommy sat up quickly, blinking at the brighter light, automatically looking toward his little brother’s sleeper. Still closed. Moby was standing at the main bank controls, not far from where Lee leaned against a dark and battered bulkhead, arms folded, watching Tommy with that creepy little smile.

  “Sleep good, pilot?” Moby asked, his tone mocking, his accent lower-class British. From what little Tommy had seen of the two men before the big sleep, he’d gathered that Moby was the “funny” one. Lee was just scary.

  It was cold. Tommy grabbed clothes off the shelf by the cryo unit, struggled into them. “Are they all locked?” He asked, looking at Lee, already knowing the answer . . . Which was just as well, since Lee didn’t respond.

  Jesus. What if there’d been a malfunction? What if something had happened to Moby or Lee? They were on an unregistered industrial drop ship hiding in the belly of an unlicensed, automated freight runner, and the sleepers weren’t equipped for any real time; more than six months, and Tommy and the others would have been locked into their coffins.

  And so what? Msomi would scratch off two of his goons and a delivery of supply, then send out another ship.

  Cheery thought, and it reminded him that the what-if game wasn’t going to offer a whole lot, not out here. Tommy pulled on his boots, worked to wake himself up. Around him, the other occupied cryo units hissed open, one at a time, as Moby tapped at the controls. Peter sat up from the unit next to Tommy’s, rubbing tousled blond hair, shivering, his eyes sleepy and unfocused. He looked like a little kid. Hell, he was a kid. He sure as shit acted like one . . . But Tommy was relieved to see him, regardless. Even if it was Pete’s fault that they were here.

  “Pilot, come up front with me,” Moby said. “Rest of you lot, get dressed and head to AD. We drop in ten.”

  Ten minutes? Tommy stood up, took a step closer to Moby, having to consciously force his legs not to wobble. “I need a half hour, at least,” he said. “Even if you’ve already run the system checks, I still don’t know anything about where we’re going—gees, atmospheric conditions—”

  Moby grinned. “Cold and dark, innit. Less grav than at home, but not so’s you’d notice—they planted some kinda core rods, supports a partial AG. Enough air that you likely won’t suffocate, but I wouldn’t try to run anywhere. Like you’d want to, anyway, right? Good enough?”

  He turned toward the room’s corridor opening, obviously expecting Tommy to follow. Tommy glanced over at Lee, who watched the exchange impassively.

  “What about the landing site?” Tommy tried again. “Are the coordinates already laid in? Have you already been in contact with the, ah—” He couldn’t bring himself to use its stupid nickname, “station that we’ll be—”

  “Shut it, pilot,” Moby said amiably, taking another step toward the cold, barely lit corridor. “You do as you’re told, right?”

  Tommy still didn’t move, aware that the waking passengers were probably all watching by now. He kept his tone low and reasonable in spite of his growing agitation. “I’m not trying to make trouble. I only want to make sure we all get down in one piece, and ten minutes isn’t enough time to be sure. That’s all.”

  Before Moby could respond, Lee stepped forward, two long strides and he was in Tommy’s face, his seemingly relaxed posture belying his flat, sociopathic gaze, the edge in his soft voice.

  “You got nine, now,” he said. “Might want to shut the fuck up and do your job.”

  Tommy shot a glance at Pete—he looked worn and worried and still too young, hunched over on his sleeper, helpless against a pair like these two, which he was, they both were—and then followed Moby, carefully sidestepping Lee. He had to stay focused. A full day, day and a half, tops, and they’d be asleep again, on their way home, on their way out of this nightmare. As long as they played ball, anyway, and Tommy meant to do exactly that. And he’d see to it that Pete did, too. The situation was bad enough without one of them deciding to man up over a little drug runner posturing.

  Behind him, he heard a couple of the ride-alongs laugh. It reminded Tommy of how alone they were, how much they didn’t belong. For as tough as Pete liked to play, he was out of his league here; these men and women were the real thing. And while Tommy had busted a few windows in his less-than-exemplary youth, taken a few joy rides, he’d spent the last decade being a solid citizen, a tax-paying worker with an apartment and a dog and the occasional live-in girlfriend for company. He wasn’t a coward but he wasn’t an idiot, either; these people could eat him alive.

  As they started down a dark hall, Tommy had a fleeting urge to ask Moby if the XTs were going to be as badass as the company they’d be keeping, and stamped down on it just as quickly. No who’s-got-the-biggest-pair contests, and no being a smartass, either; neither would serve them well over the next few days.

  Goddamn Pete, anyway; if he wasn’t his little brother, Tommy would have left him behind a long, long time ago.

  * * *

  Lee’s voice was soft, but everyone heard it, heard him telling Tommy to shut the fuck up. Pete watched, tense and miserable, afraid of Tommy’s temper, afraid that Lee was going to hurt him—and Tommy looked past Lee at him, his expression deadpan. Pete wanted to do a half-dozen things at once—stand up for his bro, say just the right thing so everyone would shrug it off, hit Lee in the back of the head with something heavy and lethal—but he did nothing. The way he saw it, “nothing” kind of encompassed all his options at that particular moment.

  There was the briefest of hesitations—and Tommy dropped his strangely blank gaze from Pete and stepped away, following Moby out into the corridor without even looking at Lee again. In the sleeper next to Pete’s, a bulky young man that had introduced himself as M-Cat—in the few hours they’d had to get acquainted before going to sleep—spoke under his breath.

  “Laid that fucker out.”

  A couple of the watching passengers laughed at that. One was a thin, unpleasant-looking guy with a wandering eye, Pete didn’t remember his name. There was also a man called Yen, a bruiser with a multiply
broken nose and ritualistic scars covering much of his upper half. Pete had heard that Yen was going to Fantasia to avoid a long stretch for aggravated rape. Tommy didn’t look back at either of them and Pete kept his mouth shut, wishing to God he’d stayed away from Msomi, wondering if Tommy would ever forgive him.

  Maybe not, he thought. But I’ll be out from under after this, and this time I’ll stay out. He’d sworn it to Tommy and now reiterated it to himself, his internal voice firm to the point of anger. I will.

  Not that this was all his fault. Shit just happened to him, he was like some kind of magnet for it, ever since he’d been a kid. Psycho girlfriends, crap-luck timing in delicate—and occasionally illegal—situations, buddies who turned out to be not so loyal when things got a little rough. When you maybe fucked up a little bit. He wasn’t like Tommy, he wasn’t cut out to be a citizen, and he’d made some bad choices. He still tried, though, he always got back up again, did what he could to get his shit together. And he’d started seeing this girl a few years back who’d introduced him to a couple of really cool guys. Guys with plans, who’d been looking for a partner. The girl hadn’t stuck around, but he hadn’t cared, at the time; after a lifetime of struggling, two-bit fraud scenarios and triple-digit net-scams, he’d finally gotten in on some real money—redirecting shipments of legal chemicals to people who were barred from buying them. He’d been an entrepreneur, for fuck’s sake. Living high, more “friends” than he’d ever had, buying any amenity that struck his whims . . . That had been something.

  Looking back, he could see how he’d ended up here—a highjack, surrounded by real criminals, working for criminals, on his way to the dark, whispered rumor that was Fantasia, Adrian Msomi’s unauthorized shake-and-bake. At the time, though, he sure as hell hadn’t seen this coming. Events had just kind of unfolded; a couple of bad business deals, to begin with, a run of sour luck, one thing after another—and then his partners had bailed out when a load of liquid plethium had failed to make its way to Msomi’s people, and he’d been left holding the bag.