Legal Disclaimer: This story is a work of fanfiction, written purely for fun and for creative exercise, not for profit. The setting and non-human characters are the property of 20th Century Fox, the plot is from The Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa (and other tributes such as The Magnificent Seven and Battle Beyond the Stars), and what little remains is all mine, baby. For violence, language and mature subject matter, this story has been voluntarily rated M for My God What Else Could It Possibly Be For A Freaking Aliens Setting.

CHAPTER 1: UNDER THE FADING SKY

Planet Sanjiva, primary satellite of Omega Cygni a.k.a. "Naraka" in the Cygnus Star Region
Weyland-Yutani terraforming colony "Threshold," Keller-Bravo canyon at 70 km. inside community border
Company personnel aerovehicle: Registry 7A24-OCS1, approaching central colony complex at high speed

When you lived with constant fear for a long enough time, there were some aspects of it that you stopped hating, some aspects of dread that you grew used to and could even come to depend on. Anemona Sagan had come to know them fairly intimately, she supposed. She supposed that was a contributing factor to her still being alive, when so many others were gone.

The hoverskiff jolted, its skids bouncing over a ridge in the otherwise flat valley floor. In the driver's seat beside her, Brigid Wulcan cursed and wrestled with the joysticks. At the makeshift gun turret in the back, Wulcan's son Ezra made a half-hearted plea to ease off, while golden-skinned Eve Owan in the other passenger seat went on arguing without missing a beat. Wulcan was driving entirely too fast for comfort, especially in the fading light, but with nightfall imminent, driving uncomfortably was entirely more safe than driving slowly.

"If regional patterns stay consistent, then we can no longer expect any help from the Company whatsoever!" Owan was saying. It was always so odd and endearing when she was riled, to hear logic and precise language being spat out with such passion. "If Sanjiva was of any priority to them, they would have responded long before it got to this state."

"You know she's right," said Wulcan, before Sagan could answer. "They're stringin' us along."

"We don't know that. Every colony's suffering, we're not…" Sagan started tiredly, but Wulcan cut her off.

"There ain't no security force coming, Sagan - they cut their losses and you know it! They hung us out to dry!"

"We don't know that, Brigid. Uma Scheller said she reached somebody with leverage this time, we'll know…"

"Oh fuck Scheller! She's a damn billboard, that's all she is!"

Sanjiva was such a beautiful place. Sagan's parents and grandparents had fought for this world against monstrous extremes of chemistry and temperature, won it back from the elements inch by inch, and transformed it from a barren hellscape to the rugged, primal beauty it was today. It was a world of towering mesas constantly swept by hurricane-strength winds, lined with spiderweb networks of tiny cracks that had come to harbour life and warmth. Threshold Colony had been born in these mile-deep cracks, and it had fallen to Ana Sagan to be its caretaker. And there, in Sagan's hands, it would likely die.

"We'll know where we stand with the Company when we see Scheller tomorrow," she asserted, but it took all her politician's savvy to conceal her own lack of faith in that avenue. "I need to hear all the options before we start any plans. We can't afford to go off half-cocked again, we've lost too many people. I need to hear…"

"Dammit Sagan, we got no more options! You need to get everybody back to the complex and make a stand. It's all we got left!"

"No, that would be premature," Owan spoke up. "We are heavily outgunned. If we attempt a second unified confrontation, they will do the same. And this time they will leave no one alive."

"And mine the fucking isotopes themselves?"

"Actually, some of them must have been miners before the Depression," replied Owan, unfazed. "They might do just that."

"All right people, settle down," said Sagan, steel coming into her voice. "I'm not jury-rigging a plan in the back seat of a hover. Once we know all our options and resources, we can get started on a real plan."

"Yeah, while our people are getting picked off one by one every day," Wulcan retorted. "If we don't move now, we don't stand a chance!"

"Shush and mind your driving. It all comes to nothing if we fly into the side," she said sharply. Sagan had heard enough, and it wasn't anything new. She was also growing increasingly nervous as the darkness loomed and visibility dwindled: she had no wish to be caught outdoors after nightfall, not while speeding through a twisting crevasse, and absolutely not on foot.

Sanjiva's long night was coming quickly, accounting in part for Wulcan's risky piloting, and the almost perfectly even-shaped canyon was already shrouded in looming shadows. Before the skiff's headlamps, the dense primordial growth climbed high up the sides and covered the wide canyon floor racing below, all giant ferns and spongiforms. The only place not swathed in the tall foliage was the shallow central river flowing through this and every canyon, and guide markers were periodically mounted in the middle of the river. These markers provided a small beacon of light every five kilometers along, and they were the only light source besides their own.

"Why is it still so dark?" asked Ezra Wulcan in the back, after several minutes of silence. It was hard to believe he was just fourteen, after all that had happened and everything he'd done, and painful to know that he'd left his boyhood behind so soon. "Haven't we passed the outskirts yet?"

There was a long moment of silence, and then Owan tonelessly said "Yes, we just passed marker bravo-eight."

Sagan hadn't been keeping track, but if Eve Owan said it was bravo-eight, then it was bravo-eight. They were well inside the colony borders now, and they should have passed at least a couple of settlements brightly lit from habitats, workplaces, and harbor platforms built at all heights in the canyon sides. Most everywhere in their vertical community would be bathed in the cheerful light of its buildings and vehicles once Naraka's light had faded, but all Sagan could see was the river and the ferns in the skiff's headlamps.

"Everbody's killed their out-lights," said Wulcan, her voice growing hoarse. "I'm calling in."

Sagan didn't stop her. If the enemy was here in the middle of Threshold, then there was no point in radio silence anyway. The past few months, people had been dousing their lights and hiding if they thought trouble was coming, for what it was worth. There was little point to it if their heat signatures were being tracked from orbit, but frightened colonists with little tactical knowledge tended to act on instinct, and they could hardly be blamed.

Central didn't take long to answer. "Hi Brigid," came Osman Kern's voice from the radio. He sounded tired, on edge. "You all right?"

"We're fine. The Hoffmanns are gone. So what the hell's going on at Central?" Wulcan snapped, ever to the point.

"We… we got visitors. With guns. They want to talk to Sagan. Uh, they're telling me to… they're saying take your time. They… they're happy chatting with the eight women, three men and two children in operations."

"Aedon's there," Sagan said. It wasn't a question. That was how the outlaw leader talked, the way he mixed sardonic humour with veiled threat. God, she couldn't take much more of this. "Tell him we're coming straight away."

"Osman, tell the prancing faggot we'll be there any minute," Wulcan dutifully relayed, and her son gave a half-laugh that was more an expression of shock and anxiety than amusement.

"Ma! That's open-channel, he might hear you!"

"Let him. I don't give a flying fuck anymore." Brigid Wulcan had kept her work-language out of her home and away from her kids, once upon a time. But now, she worked for criminals instead of Weyland-Yutani, her husband and all her sons but her youngest were gone, and a safe and civil home was a thing of the past.

After a time, the lights of the central complex drew near, the main building outwardly resembling a wall of metal built around the base of a small isolated mesa, with rows of observation bubbles and vehicle ports lining the sides. And above, in one of the docking alcoves carved into the side of this tower of stone, the running lights of foreign spacecraft shined down: two large transport shuttles that once served the same company that had founded Threshold, but which were now bristling with weapons aimed at the community below.

x x x x x

Weyland-Yutani terraforming colony "Threshold," central colony complex
Level 3 east: operations and administration section

In earlier days, Threshold's operations and administration center had looked as sterile and utilitarian as the command bridge of a starship, with the observation shields closed and lighting kept low, every console lit and updated, every mechanism and containment door well maintained and functional. Now, with a vast living world of fresh air and open space at their doorstep, few Sanjivans chose to stay cooped up in the confines of their grandparents' original home, and those who did had made it quite a different and much more welcoming place.

The man known as Usires Aedon, if indeed that was his name, was strolling about the op center admiring the changes when the chief administrator came in. Sagan watched him as he walked by the row of panels that had once monitored the external air composition, drawing his ungloved hand through the curtain of soft ferns almost covering the instrument bank. The gunmen flanking her made no attempt to get his attention and neither did she.

Aedon was a particularly odd one as space raiders went, foppish and flamboyant at one instant, sadistic and terrifying the next. He made much of his appearance, wearing black leather and purple velvet with a military chestplate and harness under regal robes and cape, like some aristocratic knight of Old Earth outfitted for a modern war. His long raven-black hair was that of a man intimately familiar with the Pro-V vitamin, carefully draped in an elegant-looking style over the disfiguring burns on the side of his face. He was a bizarre and unpredictable package overall, and the Sanjivan colonists had often wondered if they would have been better off with some typical brutish thug.

Sagan scanned the area as she waited, noting that there were four outworlders besides the two escorting her and the ringleader himself. All were carrying hodgepodge firearms and battle gear, and Aedon had his heavy pistol and ridiculous samurai sword. Osman at the comms panel was the only Sanjivan still at a console; Heidi Van Vehmendal and the others were huddling on the observation stage before the guns of the pirates. A chill ran through her and she forced herself not to look at the stage: Van Vehmendal and many of the operations staff were healthy women of child-bearing age, and Kern and the two other men were obvious targets of aggression. She could only hope that none of the outlaws picked them out and decided to have a little fun.

"Madame Director," Aedon finally intoned in that rich deep voice of his, not turning to face her. "Have I mentioned how much I love what you've done with the place?"

"Every time you visit, yes," she answered, carefully keeping her voice neutral and cordial while fear clawed at her throat. "Welcome back to Naraka Prime."

"Oh, I haven't been far," said the pirate commander. He had paused by the wide plexiglass wall that was the first observation window, looking over the framed photographs and colorful children's drawings scattered around the border.

"Every time I see one of those Company conveyer-cloned outfits out there, every flat grey corridor, every empty storage bay, every stonefaced rock-grubber without a dollar in his pocket or a drop in his tank, I get to thinking: 'Why can't this place be more like Sanjiva? Vibrant, lovely, productive Sanjiva… God, I can't wait to hit the high road back to Naraka system.' That's what I get to thinking, Miss Sagan, because there's not an outfit in this cluster that's a better sight than yours."

"Commander, we've been doing our best to meet the quotas you…" Sagan started to say.

"Everywhere I go these days, everywhere I look," Aedon interrupted her as he continued his stroll, "all I see are barren trade stations, mines and industries, grounded ships, washed-out spacers everywhere, all languishing penniless and idle. Where are the defenseless fuel refineries, ill-protected by a starving military? Where are the depots overflowing with goods unable to reach their markets? Where are the clamoring consumers with coffers stuffed with funds on worlds with nothing to buy?"

"A business like mine should be thriving in this extraordinary fuel crisis," he said, and let out a heavy, melodramatic sigh. "Yet I set out, and search, and bring back piss-poor spoils and barely enough ion cells to keep my own ships in space. It seems the days of good hunting are over. Milady, you would weep to see what a sorry state the galaxy is in. We are truly blessed to have a world like this under our feet – by God, I love Sanjiva!"

"My people love this place just as much, don't you boys?" Aedon made a sweeping gesture to his men, and there were some snickers of laughter from the outlaws. The scrawny scar-faced one he called 'Jacek the Jackal' sing-songed "The grass is green and the girls are pretty," and there was more laughter.

"It's a positive shame that I have to pull some associates off for our business out-system," the commander continued. He was by the entrance to Sagan's administration office now, playing with the curtain of glassy fern-resin beads that the Jurewicz family had given to her so long ago. "This sweet air, the blue skies, the living soil underfoot! And the food! Wholesome non-synthesized meals, from produce culled the very same day!"

He leaned over and swiped a waterplum from the snack basket on the coordinator's desk, took a big juicy chomp out of it with a loud crunch and much exaggerated mmm-hmm's. That got more chuckles from his thugs. They were enjoying his theatrics all right, but the Sanjivans were as still as statues. Sagan wondered distantly when was the last time anybody had put anything fresh in that basket.

"Ah, that's the stuff… my whole mouth is tingling," Aedon said, in a low growl of satisfaction. "If I ever see another packet of Nutri-Synth Twelve – what's that swill meant to be, cornbread? – I think I'll drop every damn thing and turn into a farmboy right here. Time on Sanjiva's like shore leave, nobody wants to ship up to the Oscuro and back to the old grind. What a privilege it must be to live here, Madame Director!"

"So, Tiny Tupolev, my man!" Aedon sauntered over to the mountain of muscle that was his planetside lieutenant. "How are you enjoying business on this lovely planet these days, Tiny Tupolev?"

"I'd enjoy it a lot more if there weren't so many empty vaults," Tupolev replied, unsmiling.

"Which brings us to the one little problem in idyllic Sanjiva," said Aedon. He turned and fixed his remaining eye on Sagan, and his voice was suddenly ice-cold and devoid of humor. "Why exactly have I returned to a fuel-producing colony as lush and mineral-laden as this, and found so little refined product?"

For a moment, the colony director was unable to speak. On the observation stage, the female Sanjivans were swiftly clustering around the boy and the two men and shielding them with their bodies; Aedon, in some twisted sense of chivalry, did not personally harm women, but murdered their husbands and sons without hesitation. And everyone in Threshold knew that when they heard that tone of voice from him, gunshots were not far off.

"Commander," Ana Sagan started again, managing to summon a hoarse whisper after clearing her throat several times. "We've been doing our best to meet the quotas you've set for the refineries. But all the shipments have stopped, and Threshold depends on the Company for fresh supplies, equipment and… and personnel. Without outside support… we-we can't keep up normal production unless we can..."

"We don't have enough people."

Osman Kern spoke up as she faltered. Sagan's jaw dropped as she stared at him. Osman, no! she tried to say. Don't do it!

Kern couldn't stand it anymore, couldn't stand to see his boss and friend of twenty years stripped of her dignity and all but begging for her people's lives. With him, it was getting to the point where apathy was subsuming fear. Aedon was already as angry as Aedon got, and if Aedon was going to kill somebody then nothing would stop him now. He might as well say his piece and get it over with.

"Sure, a lot of the work is automated, but the bots can't do everything," Osman continued as if delivering a daily report, his voice as stoic and unassuming as always, while all eyes turned to him. "If you could stop taking so many prisoners and release some of the ones you have…"

"Shut your fucking hole!" roared the gunman closest to him. In a flash, the bearded goon was at Kern's side, yanking the colonist's head back by his greying hair and jamming the barrel of a snub-nosed pistol into his temple. There were a couple of reflexive cries from the stage, but they were strangled and barely audible. Once upon a time, there would have been full-throated screams, but the Sanjivans had quickly learned that such displays only invited further bloody reprisals.

Amazingly, Kern wasn't done. Grimacing in pain, he finished his sentence: "… then we could work faster and that would benefit you directly."

"You must really wanna die," the goon breathed, almost lovingly, lowering his ugly face so close to Kern's that it seemed like they were about to snog. "Say the word, Boss, and I'll ventilate this maggot's…"

"Ah, ease off on him, Piotr." The genial, flamboyant Aedon was back, waving his gloved hand in a dismissive motion. "I don't mind a bit of ballsy now and then, makes a nice change from the old grovel."

"He… he's right," Sagan tentatively started. "More people means more ore from the mines and more fuel rods in the vaults, but these last months, it's like you're taking prisoners every day. You don't need to do that, you've got all the hostages you need."

"One of the things I love most about you Sanjivans," Aedon mused, "is your tenacity in the face of hardship. You folks are literally the little engine that could. If I could figure out how you do it, if we spacers could just follow your example, I doubt we'd even be having this conversation."

At Sagan's uncomprehending stare, the pirate leader grew a broad smile and started strolling down the sensor aisle toward the observation stage, idly tossing the plum from hand to hand. He elucidated:

"Construction ores devalue, you modify your refinery and start making fusion isotopes instead. Supply shipments stop, you learn to make what you need and make do with what you have. If outsiders threaten you, you can even band together and miraculously transform from peaceful colonists to soldiers."

Aedon paused, standing across from the comms desk. He again flipped the waterplum casually into the air as he'd been doing, but before the fruit had landed in his gloved off-hand, his arm seemed to blur as his big handgun appeared like magic in his fist. The report was curiously muted, as if the weapon had a silencer. There might have been a cry from someone, from Kern or from the people on the stage, but Sagan only heard the bearded Piotr letting out an indignant shout as he jumped back: "Boss! You got this dirt-packer's blood on me!"

"Shut your whining, all of you," the commander snapped. He moved to the gasping Kern, stuck his long gun-barrel under the colonist's chin and tilted his head upward to look him in the eye.

"You've got stones, sirrah, no disputing that," Aedon said to him, conversationally. "I would expect that kind of behaviour from a fighting man, an equal. But you're a simple God-fearing man of the earth, and that means you acted above your station. I can't help but like your guts, so today I'll just air them out a little. Disrespect me again, and I'll reunite you with your friends at my place, or maybe I'll just air out your thick skull instead."

"You folk are too resourceful for your own good," he said, releasing Kern and addressing the observation stage. "If I give you too much leeway, you'll turn ploughshares to swords, and look how that turned out last time. We don't need another tragedy like that, do we?"

He paused a moment as if expecting an answer, and took a thoughtful bite from the plum. All was quiet for a moment, save for Osman Kern's laboured breathing. Then Aedon turned and fixed the chalk-white Sagan in his gaze, and his voice became quiet, venomous. "I've been too easy on you, I think. Last time I was here, none of you talked back at me like that. Put some of that Sanjivan chutzpa to work in the mines instead of provoking me, and people like your radioman won't suffer the consequences. My guests will stay my guests until your conduct merits their return. Oh, and if I see any more thermal activity at your shipyard, I'll nuke the whole place to perdition. Consider yourself warned."

"Let's go, boys. You ladies will have your quotas ready for me like you always do," he boomed to all in the room, his cape flaring out as he strode toward the main lift, "my ships will be fueled and my camp stocked before year-end, and any discourtesy will be met with appropriate reprimand, as always. Let's not mess with a winning formula, shall we?"

"I do adore this Sanjiva, you know," Aedon added, holding the lift doors a moment after all his men were in. "Have I mentioned how much I love what you've done with the place? Don't make me change things any more than I must. That is all."

Just as the doors were closing, he tossed the half-eaten plum through the crack to Sagan in an absurd, playfully psychotic parting gesture. She caught it reflexively, just stared at it for a long moment while Van Vehmendal and the others rushed to the injured Kern. She heard Osman irritably assuring everyone that he was all right and he didn't need any damn stretcher to get to med-lab, then his voice slurred and ceased as he passed out.

There was a wastebasket less than ten feet away at one of the desks, and she willed her unmoving hand to discard the fruit and get to her job. Poor Osman needed her, her people needed her, she needed to do her job and hold Threshold together. But instead, her callused fingers curled in on themselves like claws, crushing the waterplum to a pulp in her trembling fist.

x x x x x

Weyland-Yutani terraforming colony "Threshold," central colony complex
Level 3 east: personnel elevator B

"Did you see the face on the old bitch? She looked like she had Tiny's torpedo up her arse the whole time Boss was working 'em!" Jacek jeered as the lift gradually neared docking level.

"Shut the fuck up, J. I'm getting crotch-rot just thinking about it," rumbled Tupolev, to further derisive laughter.

"Ah, but she didn't look so when she first came in, did you notice?" their commander pointed out. "They were starting to get comfortable with their current state of affairs. Here's a little psychology quiz, children: why is client comfort a bad thing in this business?"

The knife man, Bors, made a snort of amused contempt: "Happy rats might start chewing on the cage."

"Exactly," Aedon nodded. "Our hosts had found some breathing room. I suspect they also had the beginnings of a plan, and that's why I had to give poor Piotr his new paint job. The more fear we inspire, the less coherent thought they muster, and effective resistance becomes ever more unlikely."

"I don't know, Boss. Kick a mutt too much and it might bite back, however busted up it might be," Tupolev cautioned.

"Oh puh-huh-leeze. It's nothing but runts and broads left now, all the pricks dumb enough to screw with us are worm food by now," said Jacek. "What are they gonna do, come at us with frying pans?"

"All I care about is the fuel, and I sure don't feel like picking in the dirt for it myself," Tiny replied. "They're in strung-out shape, and we're not the only ones squeezing 'em. Somebody else is out there, somebody real good at hiding. What's the deal with the 'prisoners,' Boss? Slaver outfit maybe?"

"Not my problem," Aedon shrugged dismissively. "Civil revolt, looters, maybe even local fauna for all I know. They don't bother us, we don't bother them. Let the peasants think we're doing it, makes our job that much easier."

"What about the shipyard?" Tupolev asked. "Do I want to keep my boys away from there?"

"Nah, I won't torch it yet, not tonight anyway," said the commander. "They're not making anything for off-planet, it would take years at that rate. Give 'em a chance to move whatever equipment they're working on."

"I think I'll swing by there tomorrow and see what it is," Tupolev growled. "If you saw thermals from the Oscuro and you feel they're getting brave, then I want to make sure they're not making trouble."

"Have a ball," Aedon nodded. "If you find anything, let me know so I can drop an early easter egg or two."

The lift doors opened and the raiders poured out onto the windy docking alcove, some heading for the shuttle bound for the orbiting Corazon Oscuro, some for the second shuttle heading to the planetside camp.

Amongst the more perceptive of the outworlders, a vague sense of unease prevailed, especially so for the massive lieutenant Tupolev, who was arguably the most savvy of the lot beside the commander himself. The Boss seemed unconcerned about the situation on the surface, but that didn't make things any easier. Aedon was half-crazy, and he always knew more than he was letting on. From the helm of his own ship, Tiny watched the engine lights of the spacebound shuttle recede skyward, and hoped that the Boss knew what the hell he was doing.

Because there was something going on at this mudball of a planet, something that Tupolev sensed but couldn't understand, something bad. There was another force here besides the colonists and his own crew. And it was out of his control.

x x x x x

Author's notes:

My apologies for the long wait since last update! Oh, and it's the same story with updates, just split into smaller chapters, for any previous readers who might be confused. Big chapters aren't working out for me. A smaller chapter size lets me finish more chapters and update more often, which is nice when my only free time comes in erratic bursts. I'd like to thank previous readers for their patience, and to welcome new ones to my humble tale. Enjoy!

- SA