The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 10

  The team’s plan was simple enough—find a way into the installation’s outer cave system, blow a hole in the wall, and go in firing. From what they knew of the installation’s defenses, a number of blast-doors would lock down as soon as any breach was detected, but they had the tech to get past those, lock leeches and metal melters, top-grade military design.

  The complicated part will be getting to that outer system. Their ship might be able to hide from Fantasia’s sensors, but if the footage he watched was any indication of common behavior, the XTs were going to let everyone know they were coming. Kaye had already talked it over with the team leader, Puente, and Anne Simmons, she’d be piloting; they planned to drop as soon as the drug ship left the compound, hoping that the Fantasians would attribute the alien activity to the takeoff rather than another ship coming in. There was no way to keep the surprise total—the drug makers would figure things out quickly enough, the second they decided to tap up their cameras, or soon thereafter. The idea was to give them as little time as possible to get prepared. Grant had already worked out a media-friendly deal with the off-world import officials, to pick up the drug ship as soon as it hit the main shipping lanes, which was one less thing for them to worry about—but the compound was going to be tricky enough.

  So we set down nice and close, say a few dozen meters from a tunnel entrance. Assuming it’s not already full of XTs we’re going to have to clear, which we can’t assume—tex-bangs or incendiaries from a remote launcher first, then . . . depending on the depth of the tunnel we’ll have to stagger explosions, too, so a deliberate entrance closure immediately after we go in . . .

  No matter how close they were able to set down, there was still going to be some contact. He worked through the possibilities, again, the computer looping through the footage, the XTs endlessly racing past on the screen. He’d run through a half-hundred scenarios since they’d rascaled Fantasia’s satellite, would go through at least a hundred more before they made their drop. In combat, it was poor form to clutter up a battle plan with too many variables, but they weren’t in combat, yet; until then, he would consider every combination of strategic steps to get Neo-Pharm’s team inside. It was why he’d been hired. The key to successful combat, C-Cube and otherwise, was adaptability, and he wanted as many options as possible if a sudden course change became necessary. Commanders who got stuck on a single idea tended not to last long.

  The dark, grinning creatures ran past onscreen, hopping and scuttling, clawing their way across the rock. Kaye watched, trying to get used to the look of them, the idea of them. They would be a true test of close chaotic theory—as vicious as a pack of wolves, as single-minded of purpose as a mob of fanatics, but intrinsically far deadlier than either. He would prepare as best he could, use every trick he knew—but his team better be able to set down damned close, or they wouldn’t stand a snowball’s chance against the XTs.

  7

  Tommy allowed himself to be herded back to Ops, not feeling like he was given much of a choice in the matter. Once they’d stored their weapons and stepped through the second lock, back into the compound’s stale air, a couple of the residents had been there to pound them on their backs, insisting that the drinks would be free for the rest of the night. Figure of speech, he’d assumed. When Tommy had started making noise about needing to get some sleep, one of the men—Frank had called him “Stinky”—had informed him that there had to be a “debriefing” first.

  “Fuck, yeah!” Frank Cole had exclaimed, for about the tenth time since dropping the last bug, and gave Stinky a friendly punch on the shoulder; friendly enough to send the narrow young stick-smoker into a half spin. Tommy could smell the smoke on him, emanating from the thick, ratty dreads he wore. Hence the name, presumably.

  “Take it easy there, big fella,” Stinky said, rubbing at his shoulder. He smiled easily, exposing brownish teeth and a will to placate. “You sure kicked some ass today, huh, Frank?”

  “Goddamn right,” Frank said. “I’m a hero, baby. Party tonight! Gonna get some pussy, am I right?”

  Stinky and the other one both nodded agreeably. Frank continued on in the same vein for the whole walk back, Tommy feeling more exhausted with each step. Besides suffering the aftermath of any number of giant adrenaline dumps since he’d crawled out of his cryo sleeper, listening to the shaved-head con go on about his various prowesses wasn’t nearly as entertaining as Frank seemed to think. He hoped to God that “debriefing” was their euphemism for partying; he and Pete could have an obligatory drink and then slip out for the night, get some food, some rest—and most importantly, stay away from anything the Fantasians considered entertainment.

  A dozen-plus voices raised to them as they entered Ops, a scattering of overenthusiastic applause. Frank shook his greasy, meaty fists in the air, struck a muscle-man pose, eating it up. Big shock. Tommy did his best not to look angry; no one liked a sour “hero.” Pete gave a wave, a halfhearted grin.

  Trace Berdella walked toward them from the middle of the room, clapping, smiling, his pretty girlfriend hooked to one arm. It looked like a show.

  It is a show, he thought. Trace stopped in front of them, still applauding.

  “Congratulations,” he said loudly. “Return the conquering riders! Frank, for your last triumphant night here with us, all benefits—and I do mean all—are on the house. You’re also off haul duty tomorrow morning.”

  “Fuck, yeah!”

  “And for the visiting Chase brothers, you will be required to take full advantage of our hospitality. I’m happy to report that all non-essential shifts have been cancelled for the night, in respect for our fallen comrades—”

  The resulting cheer drowned out most of the rest of what he said, about everyone checking with Ana or Trog to make sure they’d been taken off the schedule. He added that he’d be “incommunicado” for a few hours—from the bags under his eyes, Tommy assumed sleeping—and that Mac Simpson would in charge of the evening shift.

  He left a moment later, the girl attached to his side, to a chorus of happy farewells. Beers were pushed on them. Someone handed Tommy a burning stick, a blend of marijuana and blina, a rainforest-grown disassociative, in a chemically enhanced wrapper. He passed it on.

  A handful of people were talking at once, describing the ATV’s wild ride, the face-off with the aliens. Frank was thumped on the back. A couple of the hoods from the drop ship had gathered around Pete, talking animatedly, laughing loudly.

  “Wait’ll you see the footage. Tommy, right?” The girl who’d moved next to him was in her early twenties, built, a soft, pouty mouth and eyes like chips of ice. She smiled at him, a friendly, open smile that didn’t touch her eyes.

  “I’m Ana,” she said.

  Tommy nodded and deliberately turned his attention elsewhere. He saw Pete laughing at something someone said, and felt a wisp of loneliness. When he looked back a moment later, Ana was talking to someone else.

  “Hey, good shooting out there,” someone said, moving next to Tommy. He was overweight and older, in his forties perhaps, and had a vintage 1950’s rock-and-roll haircut, black and swooping. “Anyone tell you what happened to our last pilot?”

  “Yeah, I heard,” Tommy said. He drank from his beer, warm and overly yeasty, presumably a local brew.

  “So you’ll be making the runs from now on?” The man asked. “Because I wanted to talk to you about maybe carrying up some packages for me.”

  “No, I’m temporary,” he said. “One time only.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s cool. One time only and one hell of a story to take home, right? You nailed that bug.”

  Tommy nodded. “Sure did.”

  The man waited for more, which Tommy didn’t offer. He wasn’t interested in being pals with the people who’d just bet on how close he had come to dying.

  “Well, have fun,” the fat man said, and moved away.

  Tommy managed to kill about ten minutes standing close to the “snack” table, picking out some stuff to take back
to his room—a protein shake, some dried fruit—and pretending to watch the movie. Someone had put an action flick on the big screen, and a number of people were half-watching, talking over it; he didn’t stand out. He looked around for Pete . . . and caught a look from a tall blond young man across the room, a certain tilt of the upper body and hips that suggested an invitation. A sleepy blink, a hand dropping to his groin . . .

  Tommy sighed and shook his head, ready to leave. He was too tired to expend the effort dodging another interaction. His overextended muscles felt like rubber. He’d get Pete and they could spend the evening crammed into one of their tiny rooms, watching movies on the computer or just shooting the shit. He started back across the room—

  —and there was Pete, standing with his new buddies behind a bank of monitors. He was inhaling off a stick, his face and chest puffing with the effort, searching the faces in the room as he quickly passed it along. He saw Tommy approaching him and froze, an expression of guilt washing over his squinting gaze. Then he smiled sheepishly, breathing out a plume of fragrant gray smoke.

  “Hey,” he said, and coughed. “My hero. You met M-Cat and Simon on the ship, right? This is Freeman, and this is Stinky John.”

  The men all nodded at Tommy. Freeman, a burly guy with a blue spider tattooed on his neck, held the stick out to Tommy.

  “I’m good,” Tommy said.

  “They were just telling me, Trog’s going to run the whole thing on the big screen later tonight, soon as he edits up the high points,” Pete said.

  Stinky John grinned. “Bugs took the cows someplace without a camera, so we gotta watch something.”

  The rest of them laughed, Pete included.

  “Don’t forget the titty show,” Lyle said. “Get Ana into the tequila and she’ll give us a dance.”

  “Jessa’ll do it for a nickel,” Stinky John said.

  “Rijke would pay us,” Lyle said, and they all laughed again.

  “Actually, I’m pretty beat,” Tommy said. “Thought I might try to catch some sleep.”

  “Naw, you don’t wanna do that,” Freeman said. “You’ll miss the show. You want some skritch, wake you up some?” He started rummaging in a pocket.

  “Thanks, but I’d rather crash. Pete, can I talk to you for a minute?”

  That look of guilt flashed across his brother’s face again.

  “Ooh, you the bone?” Simon said, grinning, or maybe it was M-Cat, Tommy hadn’t ever caught which was which. “You gonna lay down the law on baby bro?”

  Tommy didn’t look at him. “Pete?”

  “It’s cool,” Pete said. “The man saved my life, least I can do is spare a word. I’ll be right back.”

  Fuming, Tommy walked straight out of Ops, Pete close behind. As soon as he thought they were far enough away, he turned to face him.

  “The ‘least’ you can do?” Tommy said. “What is that shit, Pete? Who are you trying to impress?”

  Pete stared at him. “What?”

  “You really want to hang out with these assholes?” Tommy asked.

  “They’re not assholes,” Pete mumbled.

  “They’re sure as hell not your friends,” Tommy said. “Where were they when the manager was volunteering you for the trip to the pens? Which one of them spoke up, concerned about your well-being?”

  “Okay, I get it,” Pete said. “I owe you. But I don’t—”

  “No, that’s not it,” Tommy said. “You don’t owe me anything. I’m talking about staying alive and out of trouble, and mingling with these people isn’t the best way to do that. They don’t give a shit what happens to you.”

  Pete finally met his gaze, his own sharp with disgust. “‘These people’ again. Jesus, Tommy. When did you turn into such an elitist?”

  “This isn’t about me,” Tommy said. “Think about what you’re doing. You swore up and down that you were going to stay out of the sub-trades—”

  “I am!”

  “—and since the second we landed, you’ve been all about making friends and fitting in. You still want to fit in, and these people were just taking bets on whether or not we would survive. Listen to me, seriously—no one here is okay, Pete, they’re not making good choices, they’re headed to their own fucking doom, and I don’t see why you want to be one of them. Christ, they’re having a party and two of their friends just died! I don’t get it, I don’t know why you want to be here.”

  Tommy paused, breathless. The dim corridor was cold, and he could smell the stick on Pete when he spoke, his voice calm and reasonable.

  “We just survived an incredibly traumatic experience, and all I’m doing is celebrating the fact that I’m alive, that we’re alive,” he said, and Tommy could see that he hadn’t heard a goddamn thing. Maybe it was the stick—or maybe it was just that Pete wanted to die young, or end up on one of the new prison rocks, and couldn’t sit still until he achieved his goal.

  “And they’re not all like that,” Pete continued. “I’m not saying that everyone here is a saint, okay? But so what? That doesn’t mean that they’re not human beings. We all make mistakes, and, like, I’ve made mistakes, all right? But you throwing them up in my face all the time isn’t going to do anything but make me feel like shit. I’m not perfect, I know that, but I’m trying. Everyone’s just trying, man. We can’t all be perfect.”

  He could see on Pete’s face that he felt he was making a good, a real argument. Tommy shook his head, the anger draining out of him. It was like they were speaking different languages.

  “I’m tired of this,” Tommy said. “And I’m just tired. You make your own choices, Pete.”

  He turned and walked. Behind him, Pete made a sound of exasperation, the irritable scoff of a vexed teenager. Tommy kept walking, hit the end of the corridor, and hung a left, back toward his room.

  Fuck it, he told himself, but kept thinking about Pete anyway. Every time they tried to talk, it was the same—Tommy tried to tell Pete he was heading for trouble, Pete jumped to a totally different argument.

  The hall forked, both shoots veering right. He hesitated, went through the first one, finding a splash of green paint on the wall.

  Okay, Mom died and Dad fell to shit. But we made it out, we grew up and got lives. We have options, now. The sound of his footsteps were muffled in the still air, the floor carpeted with some kind of poly sheeting. He came to a tee-section, went straight. That one, he remembered. He’s bright, he’s even half-educated, he could get a legit job . . .

  The hall hooked sharply to the right and dead ended at a pair of doors, a few meters in front of him. That, he didn’t remember.

  Wait . . . Had he come this way before? He paused, tapped on the panel for the door on the left. It slid open, revealing a short section of hall—and standing at the end of it, a lone figure walking through an open doorway, her slender frame silhouetted by a warm light coming from the room she was entering. She turned, saw him—and smiled, her face lighting with the smile, stopping in the doorway.

  Trace Berdella’s girlfriend. Didi?

  “Could you help me for a minute?” she said, her voice gentle, throaty. She was very attractive, long-boned and lean, with a soft frailty to her features. She wore her inky hair in a loose knot, pieces of it framing her pale, dreamy face.

  MX7, Tommy thought. He’d watched a documentary about the drug a few years back. Which means she’s high all the time.

  “I’m looking for the bunk rooms,” he said, backing away. “Think I took a wrong turn.”

  “Please,” she said. “It will just take a minute. It’s important.”

  There was something about her that invited him, a yielding, feminine quality. It made him want to help her—which made him think seriously about his mental health.

  He stopped walking backward, but didn’t move any closer. “What is it?”

  She leaned against the doorframe, seemed to think about it. “It’s art, I suppose,” she said finally. “I want a second opinion.”

  What? Before he could
ask it, she’d walked into the room. It was a curious request from a seriously beautiful woman, and he was tempted. On the other hand, playing art critic for some addict’s recreational scribblings didn’t sound like much fun, and he was beat. He took a couple of steps forward, enough to see what he might be getting into—and was looking into a small, simple room, well lit with candle lamps. A long, dusty-looking counter, a few low stools—and a formless shape beneath a black plastic sheet, sitting on a square table in the room’s center. A neat jar of clay tools stood nearby, wires and paddles and hooks.

  Didi had walked to the table, was now peeling off the black tarp—revealing a clay sculpture, about a meter high. It was one of the XTs, crouched, its head cocked to one side as if listening for something.

  Forgetting his better judgment, he walked toward the sculpture, drawn to it. It was amazing, grotesque and graceful at once, strange and frightening, like one of the bugs but different, filtered through a different mind. Its head was distinctly phallic, even ridged with veins, its body more muscular than bony. She had carefully smoothed out the creature’s spines, made them fleshy and rounded, although its teeth, amazingly detailed, were still quite sharp. The long tail wrapped around the base of the piece, a slab of thick, flat clay. It was an impressive piece, nothing amateur about it.

  “You made this?” he asked.

  “I did,” she said. She had leaned back and was studying it critically, a slight frown creasing her brow. He noticed she was wearing real clothes, a thin tee and sweatpants, no sex-kitten frills. She was beautiful, he had to admit. Seeing that she had talent definitely added something.

  “It’s very good,” he said.

  “Do you think it’s finished?” she asked softly.