The Complete Aliens Omnibus Page 6

  Pete motioned toward the room’s largest gathering. Two men were at its center, both laughing loudly and drinking heavily.

  “The big guy is Raif, he’s muscle,” Pete said, keeping his voice low. “Bodyguard or something, up here to avoid a, ah, legal hassle. The other one’s Mitchell, goes by Mighty. He’s on maintenance. Twice a year Msomi sends up a shipment of cattle, and every couple of weeks, someone has to go out and drive a few out of the pens—they’re a ways north of here, I guess—and make sure all the equipment is online.”

  “A few cows?” Tommy asked. “To feed how many aliens?”

  Pete shrugged. “I guess it keeps the numbers down. Apparently they don’t need to eat much once they’re grown.”

  “Why not just breed the cattle here?” Tommy asked.

  “Dunno. Didn’t think to ask,” Pete said.

  “Well, why send anyone out?” Tommy asked. “They could do it all from inside, couldn’t they?”

  “But that wouldn’t be any fun,” someone said behind Tommy, loudly. He turned and saw Trace Berdella standing there, smiling broadly. Trace Berdella reminded Tommy of a guy he’d known in flight school, always quick with a joke, smooth as polished glass, bright and funny and charming as hell; he’d been dropped from the program the day the cops had shown up to arrest him for serial rape. Most creeps looked and acted creepy, but there were exceptions.

  “We’ve got to keep ourselves in practice,” the manager continued. “Plus, there’s the entertainment factor. You must be the . . . Chase brothers?”

  Pete jumped to answer. “Yeah. I’m Pete, this is Tommy.”

  “Highjacks, if I’m not mistaken,” Trace said. “Is that right?”

  The conversations around them all seemed to die down at precisely that moment. Pete shuffled his feet, looked around uncomfortably.

  “That’s right,” Tommy said. “Technically, though, I think we’re shanghaied.”

  Trace grinned. “I guess you are at that. You the pilot?”

  “That’s me.”

  Trace nodded. “The last pilot we had, Mr. Mullin, tried to betray Mr. Msomi. He ended up outside by himself.”

  Tommy kept his face a mask. “That was stupid of him, then, wasn’t it?”

  “Suicidal,” Trace agreed. “We’ve just been using the computers since, to and from, but our last shipment almost crashed thanks to a power surge, of all things; Mr. Msomi and I both agreed we needed another pilot. One of his people is in training on Earth, even as we speak.”

  Tommy didn’t answer. Pete had told him as much on the day he’d shown up on his doorstep, only thirteen weeks prior. Msomi needed a pilot for a one-time deal, fast, and if Pete couldn’t provide one . . .

  Trace had turned his attention to Pete. “Which makes you . . . the insurance?”

  Pete flushed, cast a guilty look in Tommy’s direction. “Yeah.”

  Trace nodded. “Well, we’ll find something for you to do while you’re here. Until then, welcome to the party,” he said. “Have a drink.”

  He stepped past them slightly and raised his voice. “Comrades, guests—raise your glasses to John ‘Mighty’ Mitchell and . . . What’s your full name, Raif? Your file only has you listed as ‘Raif, L.’

  The big man with the beer in his hand mock-glowered. “Leslie,” he growled, his voice a bass rumble.

  Trace blinked, then grinned. “Oh, gotcha. A toast to Mighty and Raif, then, for this adventure they are about to undertake, risking their lives for the greater good of Fantasia. Give us a show, boys.”

  A chorus of hoots and cheers, and the two men bowed their way out of the room amidst backslaps and jokes, the party’s happy tension cranking up a notch. A couple of people moved over to the work stations, another two or three came in from the main corridor. It all felt chaotic, slightly out of control. Tommy looked around, saw that Pete was getting himself a drink—obeying orders, he supposed—and found himself an empty table. He sat, arms crossed, and waited for the “show” to begin. A party, to watch aliens impregnate cows. Sure, why not? Maybe they had a resident cripple they liked to kick around, too.

  He saw the prostitute, Ri, step into Ops, smiling, moving easily—a far cry from the tense, agitated girl who’d stepped off the drop ship a couple of hours prior. She exuded confidence and sexuality, and Tommy saw a number of the locals perk up, expressions of interest and envy and lust cast in her direction. Ri ignored them, moving directly to Trace’s side—where he, in turn, ignored her.

  “Here, I got you a drink,” Pete said, sitting across from Tommy. He pushed a plastic cup toward him. “Scotch rocks, right?”

  Tommy sighed. “Too early for me.”

  “What, you gotta go to work later?” Pete asked lightly, and all of Tommy’s admonitions to himself to save the fight for another place and time blew away in the face of his little brother’s blithe attitude.

  “No, I don’t have to go to work later, because I left my job to come to this little party,” Tommy snapped. “But hey, drink up. You’re on vacation, right?”

  Pete stared at him a moment, seemed to be struggling with himself. Tommy waited, a familiar guilt seeping into his angry silence.

  “That’s right,” Pete said finally. “Keep reminding me of what a fuckup I am, okay, Tommy? I forget sometimes, try to make things better, but since that’s such a waste of your time, I won’t keep trying so goddamn hard.”

  Tommy felt the guilt and anger warring, the guilt quickly gaining the upper hand. “I never said that. Look, I don’t think you’re a fuckup. It’s just hard to see you . . .” He lowered his voice, leaned in, spoke from his gut. “It’s hard to see you wanting to be a badass, wanting to fit in with these people. You’re better than this.”

  Pete shook his head. “They’re just people.”

  “I know,” Tommy said, frustrated. He knew how he sounded, didn’t mean it like that, but he didn’t know what else to say. How could he make Pete understand, that he was angry and sorry and wanted to do better by him, but wanted to kick his ass a lot of the time, too? Worse, that he wanted to walk away, get away from the continuing disaster that was Pete’s life?

  He was saved from having to do better. The gathered Fantasians let out a roaring cheer as the big monitor jumped to life, showed an angled overhead of a battered military ATV, presumably in one of the compound’s billion side tunnels; the wall that Tommy could see was rock, as was the floor. A man in an envirosuit was climbing into the side hatch. He held what looked like some kind of a machine pistol in one hand.

  “That’s Raif,” someone called. “Mighty’s driving.”

  A female voice piped up, loud and sardonic. Tommy saw it was the girl in the red thinsuit. “That’s a switch.”

  A lot of people laughed, Pete along with them, and Tommy saw how it was going to be—how the next couple of days were going to be—and reached for the drink that Pete had brought. Fuck it, right?

  * * *

  Pete sat with Tommy but watched the screen as the ATV powered up, listened to the mostly vulgar comments, drank his drink. Where did he get off, with these people? Pete wasn’t hot on the idea of living on a planet overrun by giant bugs, either, but that didn’t make him better than anyone up here. He’d always looked up to Tommy, thought of him as a strong, bright guy, a little stiff maybe—weird, considering he’d been pretty lax about the law when he’d been younger—but basically a good person, a real person. At home, they didn’t spend a lot of time together; once every couple of months, maybe, one of them would cross town for dinner or a holovid, but it was usually a good time. Tommy had expressed disdain for some of Pete’s decisions, but Pete had never thought of him as arrogant before. These people. How could he even think like that?

  The light in the picture changed as the armored transport trundled through a double lock, two sets of doors opening and closing. When the second set started to come up, a big man with a shaved head and a hard face said, “I say at least five get burned against tonight’s watch. Anyone?”

&nbs
p; A handful of voices rose up, numbers and hours quickly called out, side bets negotiated. Pete heard a woman betting an early morning shift, a couple of men offering up cleaning duties. Pete recognized one of them as a guy he’d met at breakfast, Somebody-Simpson; M-Cat had told him that Simpson had been on one of Msomi’s resolution teams, but had been ratted out by a girlfriend or something, ended up coming to Fantasia to avoid an arrest. Pete guessed that the big, bald hardass was Frank Cole. He’d heard about Cole from a couple of people now, that he was an asshole, a good guy to avoid—

  On the screen something dark flashed by the ATV, then another, from beneath the still raising door—Pete peered closer, felt his breath catch in his throat. Bugs—three of them, now—were actively attacking the vehicle as it moved out of the lock, climbing on it, using their powerful clawed fingers to pull at its riveted seams. Another jumped into the narrow space, its spiky tail slamming the vehicle hard enough to rock it—and then the transport was outside, out of sight, and a blast of fire swept through the lock, billowed out from jets in the walls, driving the aliens after it. Four of them had been “burned.”

  Cheers and curses, and a couple of people started shouting for camera two, others for the com to be patched through. Pete looked over at the working part of Ops, saw Trog and Ana Lewis—she’d been pointed out to him as a sex worker/programmer—and some other guy tapping away at various stations.

  The screen changed, revealed a long shot of the ATV outside, heading toward the camera that filmed it. Even enhanced, the picture was dark—the more so for the dozens of aliens that sped through the shot, still leaping at the vehicle, some of them pacing it over the rough-rock trail. It wasn’t moving that fast, the terrain too uneven, Pete supposed. An alien jumped in front of the transport, its spindly bone-arms outstretched as if to catch it, and was mowed down, knocked aside. It was immediately trampled over by a dozen more of the things, all racing for the moving transport.

  “Whoo-ee!” The piped-in voice had to be Mighty’s, too high to be Raif’s. “Got us a party, now! Anybody want dip?”

  Pete laughed along with everyone else. Everyone except Tommy, whose expression gave nothing away. After a moment, he got up and headed for the drink mixer, cup in hand. Pete went back to watching the screen, feeling an inkling of hope. Maybe a few drinks would mellow him out a little.

  Another camera switch, and another. More bets were placed—how many bugs were going to hit the windshield, how many Raif or Mighty were going to shoot, respectively, when they made it to the pens, how many would be burned coming back in. The lively betting was punctuated by comments from the two men in the ATV, obviously having a good time. Faint alien shrieks could be heard over the open com, that freaky trumpeting sound they made, but in this context, the sound seemed almost funny.

  The vehicle struck another alien, ripping off one of its limbs. The resulting fan of blood went high and wide, the camera’s angle catching the splashdown. Was that—smoke, rising up from the rock? Pete looked closer, saw thin trails of vapor streaming off the ATV.

  Holy shit. M-Cat or Simon, somebody had said that the bugs bled acid, but he’d assumed they were exaggerating. Apparently not.

  The shouts and bets and jokes kept coming, louder and funnier, everyone trying to get a good line in, trying to keep the party mood going. The ATV lumbered on. One of the bugs managed to get on the roof only to be clawed back down by some of the others trying to get up. Its screams could be heard clearly over the open com, along with a lot of boisterous and highly creative cursing from Raif. “Cunt-faced shizzle fucker” won a burst of spontaneous applause from the appreciative crowd.

  Tommy was back with another drink but only sat silently, watching, while all around them, people were laughing, having a good time. Pete drank, laughed along with them. How long was he supposed to feel guilty? Fine, yes, it was his fault, it was all his fault, but they were here, now. And if Tommy wanted to be a stick-in-the-ass, that was his deal.

  The ride was over too fast, the next camera view showing what looked like part of a cave system, beat-up airlocks visible at two openings that Pete could see. The ATV pulled to a stop in front of one of them, and was immediately surrounded in bugs three deep. A handful of the creatures scrabbled on top, howling and hissing, tearing ineffectually at the panels. The sounds were distorted by the com but still horribly alien and full of single-minded, raging purpose.

  “Here comes the bug zapper,” Mighty said casually, his voice almost lost in the din. A half second later, the creatures seemed to fly back from the transport, those on the roof leaping off with cries of fury or pain or who the hell knew, maybe glee, they were aliens, crashing into their shrieking, skittering fellow bugs like some fucking cartoon.

  Pete cheered along with the rest of them, his attention fixed to the screen as the lock opened, the ATV grinding through. More jets of flame billowed out into the thin air from inside the lock, keeping the bulk of the scrabbling horde from following the smoking vehicle. At least two braved the fire—or just couldn’t get out of the way as the others pushed and screamed—and made it inside before the lock closed.

  The view changed again, away from the frustrated, clawing mob outside to an angled inside shot, above and to one side of the transport. Two dark, grinning creatures continued to attack the ATV, relentlessly throwing themselves against it, searching for entry.

  Another electrical charge from the vehicle backed them off, and a second later the side door slid open, a suited figure stepping out and easily blasting the first of the attacking creatures. Rounds stitched across its obscene head, acid splashing the rock walls of the lock, and it collapsed in a tangle of tail and limbs.

  “Get ’em, Leslie!” Someone shouted, and there was more applause, more laughter. The second alien charged and Raif turned his weapon to it, sprayed it with rounds—

  —and the thing kept coming, trumpeting shrilly as blood from its chest splashed behind it. Raif backed up, still shooting, and then Mighty was at his side, both of them firing, the alien going down only a meter from their acid-resistant boots.

  Raif stepped out first, started to circle the ATV—and from behind the transport another dark, spiny presence rose up.

  The audience shouted, some of them pointing uselessly to the XT as it leapt forward. Raif saw it but too late; the first of the rounds smacked into its midsection even as it grabbed him, yanked him off his feet, its head thrown back in a silent cry of victory or death. Raif was still firing as it spun him around—

  —and he hit Mighty, a handful of rounds blasting the smaller man to the ground as he rushed to help. Taking out Mitchell was Leslie Raif’s final act. Shrieking, bleeding, the alien stretched its arms wide, still holding Raif tightly, ripping the big man apart. It collapsed in the next instant, thrashing feebly, acid blood from its wounds spilling over what was left of Raif. Mighty Mitchell lay perfectly still nearby, blood leaking from the holes in the suit.

  There was a moment of stunned quiet among the watchers, disbelief, maybe, broken by a few murmured curses. Pete felt like he’d been sucker punched, and from the expressions around him, he wasn’t the only one.

  “Bad luck,” Frank Cole said loudly. “Pay up, Simpson.”

  Trace was in Cole’s face before Pete saw him move. “You bet on death, Frank?” His voice was deadly soft but loud in the silence.

  Everyone was watching. Cole didn’t answer right away, tried to stare Trace down. He was a head taller and twice as wide, but Trace didn’t blink. Another stretching second and Cole shrugged uneasily.

  “Nah. Bet that three would get in the lock, is all,” he said.

  Trace nodded slowly. “Okay, right. Well. Good on you, Frank. Congratulations.”

  He turned to face the rest of them, his expression grim but calm. Behind him, the screen stayed on the mess in the distant airlock, the crumpled bodies and smoking blood. The alien had finally stopped twitching.

  “Change in plans, partygoers. I need a team to go out, finish the job, and bring ba
ck the ATV. Frank has already volunteered. Who else wants to go?”

  The room was still. Besides the death scene on the wall behind Trace, Cole’s expression of sullen rage wasn’t encouraging anyone to speak up.

  “Fair enough,” Trace said. He glanced over his shoulder, sighed. “Trog, kill the screen, would you? That’s not helping. Moby, Lee, you want to get in on this?”

  Pete hadn’t realized they were at the gathering. He turned, saw both men at the back of the room, near the machinery. Moby had his arm around a somber Ana Lewis, a drink in his hand. Lee stood against the back of a monitor bank, arms crossed.

  “Had a few already, Trace,” Moby slurred, raising his cup. “But I’ll go if you want.”

  Lee stepped forward. “I’m dry. I’ll go.”

  Trace nodded. “Good. Last chance to volunteer, children. I need one more.”

  Pete looked around, wondering who would step up, who would be crazy enough to step up, after witnessing what had happened—and saw that there were several people looking back at him, following Trace’s gaze.

  “You,” the manager said, no question he was looking at Pete, and Pete’s gut dropped. “I told you we’d find something for you to do.”

  Before Pete could fumble out an excuse, Tommy was on his feet. “He’s drunk,” he said. “Pick somebody else.”

  Trace nodded. “How about you?”

  Tommy barely hesitated. “Fine.”

  Pete stood, too. “No way. I’ll go.”

  Tommy glared at him. “Shut up, Pete. I told you, he’s been drinking—”

  Lee was suddenly standing with them, his smile entirely without humor. “Not as much as you, pilot,” he said, so softly that only Tommy and Pete could hear. He nodded at Trace, raised his voice. “We’ll all go. Anyone want to bet that we don’t all make it back?”

  No one answered, of course, but Pete, looking around desperately for some way out, saw the renewed interest in blearing eyes, the slow grins on some of the faces. He couldn’t believe that no one was speaking up, pointing out that Pete and Tommy were newcomers, that they had no experience with the bugs. He looked to M-Cat, to Simon and Jessa sitting at one of the tables, to Trog D., still at communications—and they all stared back, their expressions as clear as words. Better you than me.