Chapter 1: Nightmare Come True

"Are we gonna die?"

-Malway

3614 hours (planet time) November 30, 2201

The bright sun illuminated LV-491 but did not give the warmth one would expect from such a bright star. Atmospheric processors did their job and made a clean breathable atmosphere but they did not create clouds or gasses that would trap the heat rising from the planet at night. In fact, most of the time the temperature stayed within the twenties to sixties range. The most common conditions were clear skies, a bright sun, and cold air. Canyons, mountains, and flatlands littered with car-sized volcanic rocks, shaped this planet. In the middle of one of these canyons, confidently walked three men – patrol-style. Flanked by 400 meter high cliffs these men had the appearance of soldiers. The man in front held an assault rifle and a brick-shaped motion detector. Behind him, scanning the caves punched through the cliff walls by lava was a sniper. Every now and then he would stop, point his long barrel toward a cave and stare at it through his scope. Watching the formation's back was a bulky and heavily armed soldier. He was gripping his automatic shotgun as if his life depended on it. All of a sudden, the motion detector starting beeping and the point-man checked the screen.

"We got movement in sector 8A." said Private Frank Chipper. A well-shaped, attractive blonde pilot with piercing blue eyes. "Bearing - west." he reported. "Man, these caves are giving me the creeps!"

He adjusted the flip-screen against the sun and zipped up his flight suit.

"Didn't we secure that area?" asked Corporal Bryan Cork, the five-foot, eleven-inch head of the Marine reconnaissance squad. The black-haired and brown-eyed sniper shared Chipper's fears.

"I thought we got everybody!" shouted Private Martin Malway, a tall and muscular former Australian bodybuilder. "We wasted two bloody hours just to-"

"Hey!" interrupted Cork, extremely annoyed at Malway's demoralizing behavior and mental weakness. "All you were doing the last two hours was performing the Last Rites on yourself every time you saw an alien."

"Yo Cork, we got more movement!" shouted Chipper who had fallen a few meters behind Cork and Malway.

"Which sectors?" inquired Cork, stopping and sweeping the landscape with his powerful .75 caliber sniper rifle.

"Sectors 9B, 2K, and 15L."

Chipper caught up to Cork and Malway, assumed a defensive stance, and pulled back the charging lever of his (10mm) .40 caliber assault rifle. Satisfied that a bullet was in the barrel, he let it snap back into place.

"Damn it!" Cork swore, wishing that he had at least a platoon under command, "we don't have enough ammo or soldiers to kill every freakin' bug that comes out of those damn caves, and whenever one comes out, others are sure to follow."

Malway started panicking.

"Oh no! I'm not gonna do noth-"

"Shut up!" Cork grabbed Malway's bullet-proof vest, "if you keep on talking…let's just say you will beg me to let you perform hara-kiri on yourself with a stick. Without the Last Rites! Got that?!" Cork looked serious.

Then the Corporal took the radio attached to his right shoulder and radioed The Base.

"Recon squad Foxtrot 618 to Base, over."

"Base to Foxtrot 618, identify yourself, over." hissed the comm.

"This is Corporal Cork, we had a run-in with some alien bastards several hours ago and it seems that we alerted more aliens than we killed. Motion detector shows four big blips coming from two directions toward The Base. Please advise. Over."

"Which sectors Corporal? Over."

Cork put his sniper rifle on the ground and took the motion detector from Chipper. He noticed that the signal at 9B moved to 8B.

"Uh…8A, 8B, 2K, and 15L. Looks like at least three packs, four for sure, advancing toward the base, over."

"8A, 8B, 2K, and 15L, roger."

Cork heard communications specialist a.k.a. Gadget tap away on his keyboard. Then something caught the specialist's attention.

"Wait…2K? Corporal Cork, are you sure that there is a signal at 2K? Over."

"Affirmative. Update - contact at 15L just moved north to 14L."

Then it struck Cork. A blip at 2K meant that someone or something was at least two miles away from the southeastern side of The Base.

"How could our Special Forces miss anything in their sweep yesterday?!" cried Malway, "We're screwed man, we're screwed!"

"Knock it off, Malway!" shouted Chipper, "We were trained to identify and eliminate threats, not to lose our nerve. Keep it together man."

"I've got a bad feeling about this …" Malway complained but on second thought, decided to try to take control of himself and not panic.

"This is bad Corporal. What's your position? Over" The Base was now on combat alert – Alpha, the highest.

"Chip, what's our position?" Cork asked.

"I6, sir."

"Base, our position is I6."

"Copy that Foxtrot 618, now listen up, the Colonel wants you to intercept the blip at 2K and if hostile, engage it. Your orders are to proceed to sector 1K ASAP and from there, south toward the target at 2K. Copy?"

"Affirmative," replied Cork, "I don't mean to complain, but my squad contains, other than me, one soldier and one pilot. We can hold off ten, hostiles. Fifteen at most, but no more than that. Not to mention that we are four miles away from 2K and it will take us at least half an hour to get to that sector. Over."

"Copy that Foxtrot 618. Unfortunately we cannot send any reinforcements. SpecOps are currently executing a high priority mission, our troops are on a supply run, and we can't give you anybody from our Base Defense Force, we are limited on soldiers as it is. You're going to have to do this one on your own. Good luck Foxtrot 618. Base out."

This was not the kind of encouragement that Corporal Cork wanted to hear. Ever since the aliens, who smuggled themselves in a cargo starship delivering water, destroyed the original Colony Research Complex, Cork had been in many life and death situations. He knew that only luck saved him every time. Luck does not last forever; one day, he knew he would not get lucky…

"All right men-" Cork paused. He remembered the time when his reconnaissance squad had ten men. Now he commanded only two soldiers. "Our orders are to go over to 1K and then head on a collision course with the signal. Are there any questions?"

Usually this was the time that Malway would start complaining or stalling. But Malway limited himself to only three words.

"No questions, sir."

This was good for Cork as the leader of Foxtrot 618. The last thing he needed right now was an unstable and scared soldier. He needed every man he could get, especially his heavy weapons specialist.

"Troops! Let's move it out!" exclaimed Cork, and his squad quickly jogged toward the designated area.

Chipper took the point, armed with a .40 caliber (10mm) assault rifle, and a .45 caliber (11.5mm) machine pistol that was in a holster strapped to his chest. He liked this setup because it was easy to switch between his primary and secondary weapon. He packed 390 rounds for his AR, and 70 rounds for his machine pistol. Corporal Cork was roughly three meters behind Chipper; his primary weapon was a .75 caliber (20mm) sniper rifle, and for his secondaries he had two .40 caliber (10mm) submachine guns with six-inch knife attachments under each barrel. He took 90 rounds for his sniper rifle, and 300 rounds for his SMGs. The lowest ranking soldier, Malway, covered the small groups' six o'clock with his secondary weapon. A good three meters behind Cork, Malway was armed with a short-barreled 8-gauge combat shotgun "Brute", and strapped to his back, barrel-down was his primary, a .50 caliber (12.7mm) machine gun with a 1.59 caliber (40mm) pump-action grenade launcher attachment. Malway took 1500 rounds for his primary weapon, 13 grenades for the launcher, and 40 shells for his secondary weapon.

When Foxtrot 618 covered about 1.5 miles Malway finally revealed the reason for his sudden change.

"Corporal?"

"I don't have time for it."

Cork did not have time to listen to Malway's attempts to avoid combat. He was going over tactics and strategies and planning for the worst.

"No sir. It's not that, really."

Cork turned his head and took a quick look at Malway who, surprisingly, looked sincere.

"What is it?" the Corporal asked.

"Are we gonna die?"

"Wrong question Malway. The right question is 'Are we going to get to 2K in time to kill the damn aliens and keep The Base safe?' which reminds me…Chip! What's our position?"

Private Chipper looked at the motion detector.

"Sector 2J sir, a mile away from sector 2K."

"ETA?"

"At present speed, nine and a half minutes. If we run, about six minutes."

"Time?"

"3850 hours sir."

"What!?" Cork almost dropped his sniper rifle.

"Sir, you forget that here on LV-491, days are forty-eight hours long. Back on Earth, it would be around seven-thirty p.m. or in military time, 1950 hours."

"Oh. Can't get used to this damn planet and its days."

"Corporal, what are we waiting for? Chip just said that we are five minutes away from those bloody insects. Let's go an' get 'em!"

"Hold your horses Malway. We were told to go to 1K not 2K."

"But the freakin' aliens are at 2K! What's the bloody point of going to 1K when we can just shoot their bloody-excuses for heads at 2K?!" Now Malway was beginning to sound like his old self.

"First of all Malway, shut up!" Cork's patience ended right then and there. "Second of all, we were ordered by our superior officer to go to 1K and then move to 2K! And third of all, it looks like all of your fucking weightlifting caused your useless muscles to hog 90 percent of your blood leaving only 10 percent to your much needed brain!!" Cork surprised even himself. Never before had he mocked someone's physical appearance or raised his voice so much as he was doing now at Malway. He took a deep breath and then more calmly said, "Otherwise, you would've understood that while we are moving south to 2K, the aliens are moving north to The Base. By the time we get to 2K, the aliens will already be either at 1K or at The Base."

"Sorry, sir. I understand, sir." said a shocked Malway. Not at the fact that Cork had shouted at him, again, but that he did not strike him. Any other officer certainly would have.

During Cork's barrage aimed at Malway, Chipper was surprised that while the signals at 8A, 8B, and 15L had already moved to sectors 4A, 5B, and 12L, the signal at 2K didn't move south to 1K. Instead, it did something that if it was an alien, it never does. Right after Malway's apology Chipper stopped running and reported this to Cork.

"Corporal Cork!"

"What happened? Why'd you stop?"

"Sir, the signal at 2K didn't move to 1K."

"Well where did it move?"

"Sir it didn't move, it disappeared."

"No…" For the second time in a day, Cork almost dropped his sniper rifle. "Damn bugs stopped moving. Somehow they found out that we are on our way to perform brain surgery on them and now, they want to ambush us."

Obviously this scared the devil out of Malway.

"Well what do we do now? Remember LV-426? Every damn Marine died except Corporal Hicks. You want that to happen again!?"

"Listen to me, chicken!" This was from Chipper. He did not want the Corporal to waste his breath on Malway anymore. "If the events of LV-426 repeat here, then you will die with honor. Like Hudson. He was a wus like you. He saved his team by firing his weapon until he was killed by an alien."

"All right men, listen up!" Cork came up with a plan. "We are now half a mile away from where they were seen last on the motion detector. Malway, switch to your machine gun. We'll need the firepower. We are going to jog until we are three hundred meters from 2K. At three hundred meters, we will blitzkrieg 'em. Let's go!"

For some reason, this short speech gave ramped up Malway's confidence. He strapped his shotgun to his back and shouldered the portable machine gun. He flipped open the top panel on the gun, inserted the ammunition belt, closed the panel, and noisily racked a round into the chamber.

As Malway ran to catch up with the rest of Foxtrot 618, Chipper, due to his Air Force training, had been keeping track of the team's position and watching the motion sensor.

"Corporal, I just saw a flicker on 2K."

Cork felt slightly more confident at this confirmation that the signal, whoever it may be, was still at 2K.

"Keep it tight people. The damn cockroaches probably stood still until we got real close to them, and now they're ditching their positions and hiding in one of their caves, which is why Chip only saw a flicker."

"Movement!" Chipper reported. "Lot's of movement!"

"Where?" asked the Corporal.

"Three o'clock, two hundred meters."

"Damn bugs heard me talking about' 'em."

One hundred meters on Foxtrot 618's right was the edge of a cliff with a twenty-foot drop. One hundred meters away from that cliff and the team was the blip's source.

"Sir, that means that they are on our right!" Malway informed Cork.

"Malway that is the smartest thing you said today." Cork said, obviously annoyed. Then in a more neutral tone, he added, "Is that launcher loaded?"

"Sir! Yes it is. Sir!" Malway whispered as loudly as he could.

"We hit 'em hard, fast, and we don't miss. Do you read me?" Cork whispered.

"We read you sir!" Malway and Chipper whispered back.

"On the count of three."

Private Chipper with Corporal Cork to his left crawled on their stomachs toward the cliff edge, Malway's machine gun prevented him from crawling so instead, he snaked to the cliff on his back and like Chipper and Cork to his left, stopped at about three meters from the cliff, assuming a one-knee defensive stance. Cork slightly raised his left hand and lifted three fingers in fast succession. Then the three of them stood up and quickly moved to about one meter from the cliff edge.

It took them three and a half seconds to take in the entire situation. There was a total of seventy-seven xenomorphs charging Foxtrot 618 and scaring the hell out of Malway, who never before saw so many aliens in one place. Twenty meters away at Foxtrot 618's ten o'clock were twenty bunched up aliens; seventeen aliens just ran up to the foot of the cliff and seven hundred meters behind these two groups of aliens ran another forty aliens straight toward the cliff. This was an entire alien pack.

Then all hell broke loose, almost literally. Malway fired two grenades at the bunched up aliens in fast succession and peppered the surviving aliens with .50 caliber lead. Corporal Cork got down on one knee and spent half of his ten-round clip in three seconds sniping the forty readily approaching aliens. He missed his first target, killed his second target and the alien behind it with the same bullet, and nailed a third alien by destroying its neck. His fourth round was wasted and his fifth punched through an alien's knee. Chipper threw a grenade at the seventeen aliens scaling the cliff wall, killing three aliens and severely injuring a fourth that died soon after. Hearing an explosion and alien screeching, he emptied his assault rifle's whole clip into the nearest two aliens clinging to the cliff wall below him, killing both. Without time to reload, he stabbed the barrel of his assault rifle into the first alien whose head popped up over the cliff. The dead alien plummeted back down with Chipper's assault rifle. To make sure it was dead, he pulled out his machine pistol, kneeled, and blew off its head. He emptied the rest of his clip into three aliens almost at the top of the cliff. Ten kills in twenty seconds.

Malway killed all of the aliens he initially targeted and was reloading and Cork killed seventeen aliens and was aiming for an eighteenth (he missed) when Chipper shouted, "Stand back! NOW!"

Cork switched to his SMGs and, with Malway, quickly backtracked providing cover for Chipper who was running away from the cliff. When he saw and heard Cork and Malway leveling their weapons in his direction and shouting for him to get out of the way, he reloaded his pistol. After that, he only made two steps when a very sharp round claw landed on his shoulder and wheeled him around, Chipper used the momentum and slammed his pistol into the alien's head. In response, the alien screeched and viciously back-handed Chipper's torso. Chipper flew back, emptied his whole fourteen round clip into the alien's head, and neatly back flipped onto his feet. He reloaded and racked the slide on his pistol and prepared to support his team. Malway used the clear angle of fire by firing into the headless alien corpse until a bullet ripped through a leg and the body tumbled down the cliff.

Apparently this alien was just the scout for the six aliens clinging to the cliff wall, because as soon as his dismembered and bullet-riddled body tumbled down, Foxtrot 618 heard the typical eerie screeching that meant more pissed off aliens are coming. Foxtrot 618 was not mistaken. Following the screeching, six aliens literally flew up from their cliff wall position and ran at the team only six meters away from the cliff and firing all weapons. These aliens jumped and rolled toward the team making it difficult to aim. This forced Foxtrot 618 to fall back four times throwing incendiary grenades to cover their retreat. Fire generally worked well against xenomorphs...for a short period of time that is. In forty seconds, the last alien, missing both arms and half of its head, slumped down, twitched twice, and then lay still. That is when Malway lost control of himself and started wildly shooting at the alien's corpse.

"YOU BASTARD! YOU BLOODY DAMN COCKROACH!"

"Malway!" shouted Corporal Cork.

"COME ON! GET UP SO I CAN KILL YOU AGAIN!"

"MALWAY!"

If Malway did not suddenly run out of ammunition, he would not have heard the Corporal.

"Don't look that tough now, do they?" Malway mocked the dead aliens.

"Cool it Malway! You just wasted the rest of your ammo on a DEAD BUG!"

"Sorry sir. I-"

Malway did not get to finish because he was interrupted by the rumble of a stampede of twenty-three blood-thirsty aliens thundering toward the cliff, and very close now. Foxtrot 618 was exhausted and the weapon with the most firepower, Malway's machine gun, was out of ammunition. They simply could not handle twenty-three more aliens.

"This is it men! Let's show these freakin' oversized cockroaches the consequences of messing around with Foxtrot 618! Malway drop your damn machine gun and take out that Brute."

"Are we gonna die, sir?" asked Malway.

"If we die," Chipper said. "we die like men, shooting those bugs until either we're dead. Stopping only when we're out of ammo…and even then, only to grip our weapons like clubs and continue the massacre."

Chipper and Cork never really liked Malway, but in these last moments of their lives, they set all differences aside and only hoped that they could kill enough aliens to justify their death and protect The Base. Malway's thoughts were suddenly cut short when he heard the aliens stabbing their claws into the cliff wall and, scaling it with amazing speed.

"HERE THEY COME!" shouted Cork.

The aliens crawled over the cliff in two waves. The first wave lost three aliens out of thirteen to Cork's SMGs and Chipper's machine pistol, a second later the second wave numbering ten aliens, rushed Foxtrot 618's right flank - where Malway held his ground. At this point the aliens were reduced to nine in the first wave and six in the second wave.

Cork desperately tried to kill more aliens before they were too close to shoot. He killed three aliens, blew an arm off a fourth and spun twice. On the first rotation he kicked the legs from under one alien and on his second one, fatally sliced the blade attachments through another's skull. The alien he dropped earlier pulled Cork's legs from under him and Cork fell flat on his back. The alien Cork blew an arm off of was running toward Chipper – at this point the most lightly armed. It took Chipper seven .45 caliber round (the last half of his last clip) headshots to drop that extremely stubborn xenomorph. The second wave lined up into a hook-like formation (long end – three aliens, round end – one alien, short end – two aliens) and Malway decided to attack the long end. Pointing his Brute toward the long end, he punched holes through aliens at four shots per second.

Out of ammunition, Chipper whipped out his knife for close-quarters but was instantly knocked down by two aliens - the rest were occupied with Cork and Malway. Cork instinctively dropped an SMG, to cushion his own fall but his back still connected solidly with the ground. He kicked the air with both feet to get up fast but ended up kicking the alien that dropped him earlier. The second and last alien facing Cork made an attempt to slash through his neck but instead hit the barrel of Cork's SMG. Malway killed the leader of the long end and was engaging the aliens behind it when he realized that in a moment they would surround him with the round end on his right and the short end behind him. He reacted by striking the two aliens he was shooting at with the side of his weapon, knocking one out and fatally breaking the other's neck. Switching targets, Malway stabbed the alien making up the round end with his shotgun and blew through its head with the last round in his clip. Then he slammed the butt of his shotgun into the neck of one of the two aliens making up the short end.

Chipper broke his flight by stabbing his knife into the ground up to the hilt. As a result, both aliens landed ten meters behind him and, after rolling another four meters, got up and charged. Cork's SMG flew out of his hand and the alien went for his throat. Luckily Cork caught the alien's limbs and was now wrestling with the incredibly strong alien. The alien that Cork kicked shook off its daze, jumped at Cork, and was impaled in midair with a titanium spear to its cranium. The second alien's claws kept nearing Cork's neck. Slowed down by huge muscles, Malway was not fast enough to kill the last alien which took the advantage and slashed his arm. Overwhelmed by pain, Malway dropped his shotgun and sent the alien flying with a punch from his good hand, and reloaded the Brute with his last ten-round clip.

The two aliens that narrowly missed Chipper charged only a meter when they were fatally knocked down by an armored motorbike. Chipper, not seeing what just happened and thinking that they were just knocked out by their earlier fall, rushed toward the aliens with his knife, having no intentions to let them get up. Three meters away from the aliens, his legs unexpectedly weakened causing him to misstep and trip. The motorcycle was approaching Cork at a high speed when the driver whipped out a six-foot long titanium spear ending in an extremely sharp twelve-inch blade. Cork was conserving his energy by only pushing the alien at three-fourths of his strength. When the alien had a few inches to his throat, Cork gathered what energy he had left and pushed hard. Malway pointed his shotgun at the only standing remnant of the hook and raked a shell into the barrel, when the alien jumped in front of him and tried to knock the shotgun aside. Malway spun and delivered a powerful, bone-shattering kick to the alien's chest throwing it into the air. To finish it off, he emptied the last of his shells into the alien, tearing it to pieces.

Chipper fell face down on the ground and the knife he held, plunged into a dead alien's head. The motorcyclist drove past Cork plunging his spear into Cork's last opponent. Cork felt that the alien was pulled by something and since he was holding its arms, he was pulled with it. Confused and scared, he let go of the alien's hands and fell, his head hitting the ground - knocking him out. Malway saw the motorcycle, something he never even hoped for in this battle, the alien he knocked-out earlier with the side of his weapon, and forgot all about, regained consciousness and hacked very deep into his back. The pain from this and the loss of blood earlier caused Malway to black-out.

The driver dropped the spear with the alien attached to it, grabbed his last spear, and violently squeezed the brakes on his motorbike. Inertia pushed him out of his bike and he flew with his feet and spear pointed at the last live alien. Raising the spear above his head for maximum force, he plunged half of it into the alien's open and screeching mouth. Releasing his hold on the weapon, his feet made contact with the ground and after the inertia slid him another six feet back, he pulled out his ten-inch combat knife - just in case. Chipper, the only person who did not lose consciousness, missed what happened to his and Cork's enemies but saw what the motorcyclist did to Malway's. He was amazed at how fast this man took out four of the aliens that could have killed the rest of Foxtrot 618.

"About time, Pierce! What took you so long?" asked Chipper with mock-disappointment.

Pierce flipped the blade back into its sheath with extreme precision.

"The other three blips." Vincent Pierce grimly droned.