Fall for Me.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Pres,
It was an evasion test.
It was the honing of one's ability to avoid the obstacles, to avoid the endless pits, and to hit the goals that had been put forth.
It was an evasion test. An evasion test that threw the taker through a shadowy corridor with swinging axe blades, and flying bullets, tearing shrapnel and screaming demons. It was a test that would pry the humanity from the toughest of the tough, and transform it into a victual of the depths of hell itself.
It was a test that he had taken over, and over, and over. It was a test that he had passed with flying colors, or barely skimmed to victory by the skin of his teeth.
One after another- he would be dropped into the dark, dank tunnels of a million negative energies trying to rip his soul from his very body. One after another, foes and barricades to success and justice flung themselves in endless arrays of buffers keeping him from the light.
One after another- he surmounted weakness itself and swatted these evils away with vicious accuracy and brute force. In a world of might making right- he had surely honed himself to be strong mentally as much as any physical conditioning.
The evasion tests of his life had been countered and won whenever they propped up. He had beaten them all and pulled a hundred others from suffering a similar trap of never ending destruction like he had been cursed with.
The hands of fate still, though- despite all the victories and the greater enhancements to his being- never relented in plucking him from the very fabric of what made him happy, to drop him into another cave of shadow.
So he would be forced to fight his way out again, and again.
When he had been younger- when he had taken the responsibilities and consequences of what he was doing- he had always feared the possibility of death, as not only the means with which his life goals would never be accomplished...
-He also feared death for the unknown shadow tunnels that it dropped the deceased into- the tunnels that no man or woman had ever swatted aside, or had ever emerged from. Death was the final tunnel, the final cave, the final place of the most unstoppable axe blades and bullets and shrapnel and screaming demons.
It was what would have ceased him being who he was.
But... The problem was, he WAS who he was.
And that meant that death could not claim him until he wanted it to.
And that meant that he could beat death.
And that also, finally, meant... That this kind of situation was technically not plausible for himself.
He may have been able to beat death, and he may not have allowed it to take dominion over him- but with all the pain that had been sapped into his body, his mind, and conscious- the prospect of death was seeming more and more gratifying.
"Alright now- chopchop! Wake up, my child. Wake up please. Hello? HELLO? I said-"
-sssssssssssshhhhhhhhKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK-
-CLKAKAKL-
"-AGGGHHH!"
"-Wake. UP.- I assume you're awake now, yes? Yes? Good."
Slumping forwards into the weightless oblivion- the fight now was ever more hopeless in the way it looked overall.
His mind was swimming, life flashing. His determination had twitched- like a stalwart assassin kept his eyes unmoving during a kill -he had faltered with a single twitch, and with the wall of his mental defense fluctuating for even a brief second- the tsunami of pain was allowed access.
As such he ached everywhere. His head was pounding, throat dry, lips dry. He felt disoriented as a energy he could not hope to temper or ward away began to cook his insides- or, at least it FELT like it was cooking his insides. Apparently the doctor hadn't set it to lethal.
It certainly- again -felt like he had set it to lethal.
It was the same argument of someone pulling a magical gun, shooting the victim, and having the bullet only HALF enter the heart, and not making it instant.
Thus forth he quivered, he twitched- he felt cold and then hot, and his body's confusion continuously worked to undo his confidence and assurances.
"I'm only going to ask a fewest more times before my patience wears thin- and you are irreversibly DEAD, my child." A voice filtered into his stasis through a static-laced vox amplifier. "Where is 'Six'?"
His arms were aloft in a 'Crucifix'-like poise- he could not angle his forearm down to imitate the exact gesture he had wanted to present the good doctor with his center finger- but the point got across when he raised his head weakly, and grinned with his still white teeth.
"Six, huh?"
"Indeed. Six. Where is six?"
"You... Wanna' know?"
"Yes of course, my child. Obviously."
"Gofuu."
"...Go-Fuu?"
"Yeah... Planet, nasty place."
"Go-Fuu, eh, my child? Go-Fuu, right- Go-Fuu is... WHERE?"
"Why, it's not even the full name, doctor..."
"Enlighten me, Go-F-?"
"Go-FUCK yourself."
"Ah. Charming."
-sssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhKKKKKKKKK-
CLAKLCKCLAK
"-AAGGHHHH-YOOUU-FUCKKERR! AGH!"
"Why do you resist? I do not understand, my child! I have offered to take you out of the stasis device if you simply tell me where the experiment is, and I've even offered to take you with me on the journey to apprehend said experiment! You are foolish."
"-I-I'M...AGH...-I'm, going to KILL you."
"You are to be going nowhere. My child, I control you now. ME. You answer to me. You do not answer to your self-made poetic means of justice, or your late progenitors, OR the experiment."
"You sick little piece of shit..."
"Come now, my child, such uncivilized words?"
"You sick little piece of SHIT. You've been locked up for so long in the Company's augmentation labs that you practically let them skull-fuck you so they would stop implanting all their bionics into the sensitive parts of your misshapen body.
-When me and that 'Experiment' get out of this place, I'm going to take my sweet time tearing your central spine capacitor out through your mouth. THEN, your little orifice would've served some good measure of purpose before you die."
"You're too monologue driven, Mr. Hannson."
"It's earned me points, shut up and let me out so I can do what I just said."
"Not a possibility."
"Not YET."
"Noted. You have one more session before I find the experiment by myself."
"...Keep talking you bastard..."
"Perhaps some time to think more logically will set this straight. Fine, Mr. Hannson you've 'Won' for today. Seal the module."
The hissing departure of several mag-clamps- darkness folded from both sides of his vision, as his sights through a green-hued screen of plexiglass began to grow smaller, and thinner.
Illuminated by the dull lights of the laboratory outside the device- the sight of a man taller and bulkier than any normal human could ever hope to be- became evident right before the shutters closed him off to any and all recognition.
In the resulting, hollow thud- nothing but quiet resurged into his mind to fill the void that had been made.
Here he sat, in the cylindrical hold of a stasis modulator- arms and legs tethered by graviton wires, body plain and naked- himself hung inside the tube of green plexiglass, and repeatedly electrocuted by flows of concentrated energy that were directed at his nerve endings in his entire organic frame.
Here, Glen Hannson found the one closest instance in his life where that inescapable tunnel would again attempt to claim him.
Here, Glen was tortured, he was interrogated- by none other than the infamous agents of the very faction and organization, the very Company he sought to destroy. He had been in the modulator unit for longer than he could properly remember, and it all started with such a simplistic ideal, and plan, and action that was supposed to go without problem.
-Though, technically, everything he did was supposed to be planned and accurate to avoid problems. It was the nature of who he was and WHAT he was.
Glen was the galaxy's only vigilante against the monsters who continuously battered the innocent and unsuspecting, and whom profited from man's strife and poverty.
Glen fought the REAL monsters- not just the ones they created.
Arguably- the 'Experiment', the one called 'Six', would be dubbed a monster by the rest of humankind.
Arguably, GLEN would be dubbed a monster.
Arguably, Glen had gone so far down the road with not only his hunt against Weyland Yutani- but his partnership with the experiment, that he wasn't warranted to convert any of those things regular people would see- to his giving a damn.
Spitting down at the tank's black, unseen bottom from where he hung- Glen shut his eyes and draped lazily, feeling the graviton-tethers over his wrists and ankles flicker in movement as he shifted his weight.
He found himself dwelling in thought- in wonder at what that 'Experiment' was doing right now.
"What do you THINK I am doing, you stupid, stupid-STUPID man?"
Glen couldn't find the right words when his mental sea of confused thoughts and internal strokes was broken by an outside force. It was broken by THE outside force. The only force that could enter his mind, and would ever enter his mind.
Weak, delirious, and defeated- Glen just raised his head and blinked slowly.
He didn't speak or think anything- he purposefully meant for his mind to go blank.
"...Did you think I'd just leave...?" The voice persisted. "Glen, please answer me."
"..."
"Glen, please..."
"..."
"...Glen, I need to know you're alright... I need to know that you're alive..."
"..."
"...GLEN... God damn it, Glen! Glen! Answer me!"
"..."
"...I don't understand... Glen, you can't die. I feel you. Y-You aren't-... You can't die! I'LL die!"
"...You haven't listened to me a day in either of our lives together... Eh?"
"...Oh... Oh, Glen..."
"Don't worry your sweet little behind off... That fuck hasn't done me in yet..."
"I'm coming to get you."
"Yeah-yeah, do what you got to do..."
"Stop that. Hang on."
"...What's your plan?"
"Plan?"
"There's ALWAYS got to be a plan, Mariah..."
"Kill everyone I see, get you, haul you back, and kill everyone I see doing that too."
"Brilliant."
"Hold on, Glen. This is going to be a little bumpy."
"...Why? Where are you?"
"There's a magnetic locking mechanism in the ceiling compartment directly above you."
"...Aw, hell..."
"You got a better idea?"
"...Nope, I don't."
"Good. Now be quiet, and watch your head-"
"You're sexy when you're pushy."
"-Delighted to hear that. Your head?"
"I'm a little HUNG at the moment..."
"We'll make due. Ready?"
"Uh-huh. Mariah?"
"Mm?"
"Leave a few for me to kill too."
Glen waited all but another moment.
There was an echoing snapping sound of severed metal- screeching of servo gears, flapping of loose nylon line. His world surged downwards, weight pressed into the top of his skull, feet felt like they were made of clay- being pushed into his ankles.
Then the falling stopped- the tank thudded with a crash of cracked steel, hollering men, hissing coolant lines being broken open. Glen thrashed downwards, and the graviton-tethers jerked against his wrists roughly.
"-AGH! Damn!" He swore, gritting his teeth, dangling in the now westward tilted darkness of the tank. Sparks flickered somewhere above his head.
"I always knew you'd 'Fall for me'- get it?" Mariah's silky voice mused in his mind.
"...Less comedy, more break-me-out."
"Working on it."
The positive was- the doctor had let his confidence get such the better of him- that not only did the 'Experiment' he sought practically show up on his doorstep- but she showed up on his doorstep a rabid, infuriated mess.
Little to Glen's immediate knowledge- Mariah was angry. VERY angry.
The good doctor had pissed her off more than she had ever been in years at a time. Now, she was going to make him pay by getting Glen out- and the two of them were going to blow shit up.
First, though, she had to get him out of the modulator.
After all, she'd only cut the cables.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Pas,
When he was a little boy, he saw many things that children normally didn't see. To the contrary of first impressions of that widely broad fact, these things were good.
He had grown in a family of scientific minds, between parents that found studying the ways of physical reality, the greatest of all passions to inspiration, and expanding of the human soul.
His father took into the mind the way things worked, while his mother took into the mind the way things lived, and they did so together, and they taught their son how to do both sides of a greater tree of knowledge.
Maps of archeological digs, alien mountains and oceans, techniques of cultivating crops no farm ever mass-produced in any colony system, hints of solving mysteries people had spent their lives attempting to, and failing, to answer.
Glen Hannson remembered the moments of his sheltered, early life like yesterday.
He remembered the feeling of no worries, confidence, and brilliance as he unraveled the words of the galaxy at such a young age.
He remembered the interesting coworkers and allies his parents accumulated.
He remembered the interesting coworkers and allies HE had accumulated.
He remembered all of these amazing things that had rendered him a bright, intellectual boy who had the answers to problems so many other beings struggled to cope with and live towards. The ways he wanted to help people, and the techniques he would use to do so.
The pride on his parents' faces when they realized their child would live on to do astonishing things written in the data-logs of millions of other souls...
And then he remembered the sleek, onyx monsters.
And then he remembered how they took his parents and his life from him...
And then he remembered Mariah.
Two years ago, Glen had stumbled onto a greater asset of the Company he waged war against in his quest to end the infamous 'Project Xeno'- in a remote lab on an unnamed world, in untamed and uncivilized wild space.
He had found a 'Super Xeno'- one that was actually successful and hadn't been put down by Weyland Yutani- he had wounded it, the two almost killed each other- and before either could fully grasp what was happening, they were working together to bring down the Company.
For the longest of times she was just 'Xeno', or 'Bug', to him- but eventually, she chose the title of 'Mariah', on the backwater colony of Oorga after their closest brush with death fighting a Necroravager mind-controlled by Weyland agents.
In the two years that had passed- Glen and his Xenomorph had traveled to every corner of the galaxy that he hadn't already frequented- they found all manner of problems across the stars and they worked to fix them.
Yet for all the successes and final victories that had accomplished- it had been a good amount of passage before somewhere like Epsilon-Candis came up to thwart their unbeatable track record.
Liberating impoverished, forgotten colonies from local warlords- Glen and Mariah had been back and forth across a swathe of space, coined the 'Forlorn Stars'- where the fringes of humanity's civilization had colonized without governmental aid or sponsorship.
As such the rat holes that resulted with the new colonies found themselves under slavery from people who organized themselves into independent armies. The warlords had been the main problem in the systems of the Forlorn Stars- so Glen and Mariah had spent a year waging war against them.
After exactly 389 days of killing mercs, warband soldiers, hired guns- blowing up armored commercial vehicles and industrial tractors with AT Plasma Cannons mounted in them- they had finally reached the palace of a warlord named Nigel Ulruno.
Ulruno begged for his life- offered information, and Glen- initially -put down his Braxis Colt pistol, and questioned the warlord on promise of his not being executed.
Nigel told them of a planet far from his homeworld and private kingdom of the forest world Selecruz- of a planet named Epsilon-Candis that was protected by a small contingent of 'Bionic Zombies'- as he claimed.
The warlords of the Forlorn strip hadn't been able to surpass the world's defenses for the few times they'd tried- and according to Nigel, any of the soldiers that died and went unrecovered were added to the defenses as more of these 'Bionic Zombies'.
Glen got star chart information, smiled, and stepped away from Nigel- at least allowing the man the decency to stand, before he shot him in the face and spit on the corpse.
"I don't like that." Was all Mariah commented as he stepped over the cadaver of the warlord. "He surrendered."
"Yeah? Well so did the citizens of the nearby colonies he massacred- tell that to THEM, tell that to the children he had in a sex ring around the palace grounds- tell that to all the widows and the widowers he and his ragtag mob made." Glen ranted. "I feel NOTHING, towards this."
He looked down again, made a point to press the heel of his boot into Nigel's ajar lower mandible- and forced downwards until there was a hollow sounding- clk.
"NOTHING."
"...Than I feel nothing to it as well."
"I want to leave."
"To where this time?"
"I want to see these 'Bionic Zombies'- fuckhead here was talking about."
"It's probably another warband, or a chieftain."
"Something isn't right about it."
Low and behold- when they landed on Epsilon-Candis, the WY symbol of Weyland Yutani was plastered all over the stone and metal structures of a massive, spanning, fortress built into the side of the planet's largest ravine.
The ravine was called 'Helman's Drop'- named for a famous privateer that killed his entire crew by landing his ship near the starting crevice of the location, that caused a massive landslide that created the modern day ravine.
The Yutani assets running this fortress had built it in a sprawl down the face of the ravine- there were orbital defense cannons that had probably been 'Bought' off of the Navy, as they were old obsolete models from obsolete star ships no longer in service.
Towers with snipers, spotlights- and apparently Type-9 HEATSIG scanners were positioned all over the tops of large, fat, rectangular buildings and on a twenty story wall that rung around the facility's top chin that was like an extension on the rim of the flat terrain outside the ravine.
It looked like someone had taken a metal, robotic, circuitry laden tongue- and had unfurled it over the cliff and down the ravine's face.
For the longest of times they spied on the facility- temporarily abandoning their campaign to liberate the Forlorn Stars- they killed a security patrol and took their I.D cards, and Glen tore open their armor suit's powerpacks to disrupt the alarm signal of their ceased vitals.
Standing from one of the dead soldiers- Glen rolled his head to get out a stiff pull in his neck- he watched the onyx hide of Mariah unfold from a crouch, showing her in a red sheen against the black from the blazing sun overhead.
Looking at him- she held two tiny, blue colored, illuminated chips with a toothy grin from her long, rounded head.
"Easy." She scoffed.
"Until they get their act together- and they will." Glen sighed. "...How's the armor?"
Mariah stretched her neck- giving off a clicking sound of touching synthetic. She shrugged, and her tail flicked to and fro.
"Still a little stiff."
"It'll pass. I can't have you getting killed on me."
"Yeah... You'd be awfully lonely anyhow."
"True. And it's no picnic for me either."
"Really now?"
"Yes."
"How so?"
"I liked it better when you ran around naked all the time."
"Degenerate."
"Yep. Yep I am, my jiggly friend."
CLACK
"-OW!"
-One of the dead soldier's helmets flew out and rebounded off of his head with a hollow hit.
Reeling from the impact with a purposefully exaggerated stagger back- Glen chuckled at the antics and drew his eyes from the haughty Xenomorph.
Mariah and he had become rather closer than he would've initially imagined- it was something that not at all was possible for the regular folk of the galaxy to comprehend, especially since the dreaded 'Xeno Plagues' of 2299.
Mariah was unlike the average drone of her kind in the fact that Weyland thought it would be a smooth idea to combine her with pure strand human DNA- something that overrode the hard-coding of the Xenomorph genes, and wired in independent thought and emotions.
The problem with this revolutionary addition to a Xenomorph soldier- was that they were still treating her like they did the mindless, hive driven beasts that she had been created from.
While in groups, Xenomorphs were the progeny of tactical brilliance and brutal efficiency- on their own, drones were hopeless and unable to prove nearly as much as a threat. Thus, the Company was able to get away with a lot when they were torturing the Xeno's in ones or twos without a Queen nearby.
However- Mariah, 'Six'- as had been her lab number- was not confined to the pheromone locked thought process of the drones. Thus, the constant bodily harm and physiological damage the scientists conducted on her was enough to drive her into more than one rebellious thought.
As such, when Glen broke her out- she had leapt on the opportunity to do the Company harm when it was figured Glen wasn't trying to shoot her, and that he had similar goals in mind to her own.
He had been a means to an end.
Mariah wound up sealing that deal with him in a higher bond than it had ever appeared to angle in- in more ways than one.
It was a lively awakening for her- not so much though, for the red-colored, dusty, backwater terrain of this forsaken planet in their forsaken strip of territory.
Daydreaming briefly- Glen had his thought interrupted by the constant flitter of dusty air caressing the tip of his nose and his cheek bones. He sighed and raised a finger to rub his nostril at the tiny sensation.
All around them- rolling hills of tan-ish red- rock formations miles and miles high made of crimson, dark, blocky stone, and sparse forests of toothpick-like Candis Red Stag trees gridded the less dune-like terrain in disproportionate clumps.
They were two or three miles from the fringes of the Weyland Yutani facility- and even from that distance they could hear the occasional creak of steel machinery, or whoosh of buggy-like 'Dune Crawler' jeeps patrolling the hills.
Glen looked down at the bodies with an annoyed expression- listened to the air for a few moments more, and bent down to one.
Grabbing the loose helmet she'd hit him with- and shouldering the heavy, armored corpse of the man with a few clanks and shuffles- he nodded at Mariah.
"We should hide them- last thing we need is a Crawler to find them and report it."
"I can agree with that."
"First thing's first- we need to map this out."
"Power supply, power hub, life support, crew quarters, chemical filtering, oxygen filtering, food storage, bridge or auxiliary command- I miss any hotspots?"
"...You're good."
The Xenomorph grinned toothily at him as she threw the second dead man over her arm like some cheap ragdoll she'd plucked off the street.
Mariah's prehensile form was now not only obscured- temporarily -by the Weyland casualty- for Glen had made extensive modifications to several pieces of combat ceramic armor to equip her with a makeshift suit.
It had taken a year- in fact, most of the final parts had come from their conflicts against the warbands in the Forlorn expanses- but the pieces all fit together for the kind of acrobatics and quick movement she relied on.
At the end of the configuration- Mariah's onyx colored body was only hinted by her bare upper arms and shoulders, and a slight crease by the collar under the base of her neck. The armor was all kinds of gunmetal and tan hues due to the multi-origins.
She contrasted heavily against the blocky drab-colored combat armor he always wore- with reinforced ceramic plates only breached by jumpsuit towards his joints and neck.
They were both experienced, and they carried equipment around that was both deadly and efficient- but also were tools they had been using for years, thus, they were masterful with them.
Being a sort of 'Duo of Destruction'- Glen and her had paved through the wicked all across the Milky Way- you could see it through not just how they looked, but how they acted and how they thought.
A 'Normal' soldier, after all, would've left the bodies- thinking the sand would cover them up.
Part of the package that made their names feared was the psychological warfare aspect of their occupations. When you shot their friends right in front of them- it frightened the enemy, made him or her brash with anger, and certainly put them on edge- but what amplified that is if their comrades were dropping from gunshots, and also vanishing.
A thing that Glen had found broke the back of the organizations they combated- was that if soldiers were getting whacked left and right, and some were simply disappearing- things went to hell in a handbasket pretty quickly.
Good marksmanship was in cohesion with terror tactics- and Mariah had found an excellence in the latter.
Since she was what she was... A Xenomorph- even as an advanced one-she still had the natural drone tactics hardcoded into her mind.
Mariah could slink through the sinewy shadows of dark halls, or ceilings, or air ducts- and with her tail, she could drag foes away, dispatch them- and then return to strike quickly and kill another. She'd repeat the pattern.
In the orbit of a gas giant named Lupos- there had been a Weyland Yutani owned contractor station that was set up to fuel Company owned or sponsored ships passing through the sector- Glen and Mariah landed as stowaways, and found these terror tactics overwhelmingly effective.
In fact- one of the main targets that Glen had wanted to kill- a Head of Services Representative for the Company, named Benjamin Gillson- was shot dead by his rebelling soldiers who were trying to force their way to escape pods.
Through that victory- Glen had become proud at their teamwork, and how the Company's assets crumbled in their wake.
But then- he was brought to realize that the fight had... BOTHERED, Mariah.
She didn't like to talk about it a lot afterwards- she said that the whole thing made her feel like something she wasn't- like a 'Feral of her kind'. Glen respected the animosity behind it, and never spoke of it again when they left the station burning.
However- today, in the sandy crags and depths of Epsilon-Candis, Glen found his thoughts trailing back to that talk they had- trailing back to how she couldn't even think about the things she did on that station, even though it was too a bunch of lowlife Company criminals.
-Having dumped the corpses of the soldiers they'd slain- Glen and her took the first chance to sit down for the entire solar evening in a cool cave that overlooked the farthest drop of the ravine outside, and had the Weyland fortress visible directly across from its position.
They didn't light a fire, or use any electronics- seeing as the light could be seen in the totally dark terrain, and the electronics would give off signals that Company scanners could pick up.
In the gloom that tinged the sand and rock around them midnight blue- Glen took off his helmet, and ran a hand through his hair- hissing in discomfort when grains of sand plicked and scattered down his chest and neck.
"-I'm gonna' be cleaning sand out of my ears for weeks." He complained in a sigh.
"You think that's punishment? I have an exoskeleton, my human friend. There are notches and crevices EVERYWHERE..."
Mariah was bent back in a splay atop a pair of boulders towards the rear of the cave- by a small group of canvas totes carrying most of their gear. She was stretching her legs- the right clawed foot extended to the boulder before her- the left, curled under her backside.
She pressed a palm down onto her ankle- and even from where he sat, he heard a joint pop.
"Oo. Much better."
"-You're funny."
"Why?"
"Because you're funny."
"Why?"
"I think you're cute. And the two kind of mesh with me."
"Funny and cute? Hmm."
"Yeah."
He felt her silently step down from the rocks- step over to stand behind him. She knelt, and weight compressed the top of his head- her chin finding a spot directly above his forehead.
Two clawed palms came up and kneaded about his shoulders, and a spined tail curled in an orbit over his ankles and legs, the blade resting by its side on his hip.
"Talk to me." She simply stated.
"About what, my dear?"
"Anything."
"...How are you feeling? Physically? Emotionally?"
"As good as I'll be."
"What does that mean?"
"Leveled out. Content."
"Good."
"What about you?"
"Leveled out."
"Hmm..." She hummed musingly- angling her head lower, she buried her chops into his hair and inhaled slowly. Both of them stared out into the dark blue night outside- broken only by the silvery reflections from the moons of Galatrot and Excelburk, which stood as two white spheres in the sky above.
The sprawling Company facility looked like a landslide of blocky shadows, flickering red and yellow lights- white beams from search towers. An occasional hauler engine hummed from the base, and up into the atmosphere with hollow whispers of clacking.
"...Are we ever going to go somewhere for us? Not for the Company?"
"Like a vacation?"
"That what you humans call it?"
"Yeah. We could use that. I could see if there's any garden planets in wildspace to the north."
"...Be careful with that, please."
"Remember the LAST time we tried to take a break?"
"Yes. I do."
"Right on the landing pad- like a complete dumbass," He recollected his own actions. "-A pirate hideout! HA! And I thought it was a frikkin' travel agency!"
"...Glen, seriously for a moment- a MOMENT, none more."
"-Hm..."
"You think there's an uncolonized, or lightly colonized greenery world out north? Why not south?"
"That takes us by the galactic center. There's no point in traveling across the galaxy."
"I know, but... Do we have to stop if we come across something?"
"...I... I suppose not..."
"I know it's what you do- it's what WE do. But Glen, I'm feeling lonely. Firefights aren't exactly a place to sit down and talk."
"...You're right."
"I made it sound imposing didn't I?"
"No."
"Than why do you sound like that? Did I say something wrong?"
"You never say anything 'Wrong', Mariah," He smiled up at her. "I'm not going to lie and say my work hasn't sucked in much of my life. It's hard for me to just STOP."
"You deal with powerful things, Glen."
"We both do."
"You've killed a lot more people than I have. You've SAVED an innumerable amount more of people, than I have."
"Mariah, it's not just about the life and death... It's the... How do you put it... It's-" He reached up and fiddled with the fingers on her claws with his own by his shoulders. "-It's bathing in that kind of energy. The constant overhanging shadow. Knowing that every pirate I don't stop, will be the nightmare in some village's night, or the rapist of one or more women, or the murderer of one or more civilians, or the ruin to peoples' homes and livelihoods..."
"You can't kill every bad person in this world, Glen."
"-I'm certainly up to trying." He interjected a tad. "I'm not quitting now."
"Not to act as a sudden intrusion- but, Glen, you want me in your life, yes?"
"...Now hold on, this isn't you insinuating about... LEAVING, right? 'Cause where would you go?"
"No. It's not that. But the answer is yes, right?"
"Yes."
"Then all I can ask, about you 'Not Quitting',"
"Mm?"
"-Is, what about me?"
"...What about you?"
"Where do I fit in with all these wars you want to wage? Glen, I don't want to be bound to you through killing things every day of my life. I want spend it WITH you, not just beside you... Does that make sense? It's hard for me to explain what I'm thinking sometimes..."
"It makes sense... You explain things fine, dear."
"Then... What? What do you think?"
"I think I've become fixated on purging something that cannot be purged."
"When we leave this place, take me with you to somewhere calm and peaceful. I don't want to do this anymore."
"...You mean that?"
"Glen I want to make a home with you. I don't want to do THIS, anymore."
"...Okay. Okay, I'll do it."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Pas,
She was so right.
He knew she was right.
He knew she was right and he didn't want to except that she was right. It made him angry to think about it not being right.
It made him angry thinking about, the thing he had spent the majority of his adult life committing to- wasn't right, and that it was consuming him and gradually destroying his essence.
Like a succubus would win over its unknowing quarry through seduction and dark magical stuff you read about in the old-Earth folklore- being a vigilante and a dealer of justice where none was dealt, wormed into Glen's mind as a righteous thing that could not simply be dropped.
His duty was not only to himself- for it extended onto the innocent people of the galaxy, and it purveyed into a lifelong goal, that he knew was not possible to achieve, yet he worked to achieve anyway.
Yes, there were evil people that lived on the worlds owned by mankind, and yes- they did evil things to good people, and even to other evil people...
-But no. No, you could not simply 'Remove' the problem like a faulty piece of machinery. You couldn't just kill all of these people.
You couldn't hunt down every single pirate, criminal, crime lord, marauder and slaver that the galaxy sported- kill them, and expect those vacant slots to remain unfilled.
Every second, a terrible thing happened somewhere- and every second, a beautiful thing happened somewhere. That was just how life- even thousands of years later in space, across millions of intergalactic colonies- went.
-But, seeing all the death, the suffering, the strife and poverty... Seeing his home and his parents burned to the ground... It all made just looking at the situation and saying '-I have to live with it'- all but impossible for him.
Whereas Glen had trained himself from adolescence to enact his unbridled anger on those who morally were wrong in society- all he did was fight fire with fire- and no matter how efficiently he did it, no matter how many gangs or mobs he wiped out... Another would pop up somewhere else to take its place.
Crime was like oxygen- where people lived, crime existed, and nothing anyone ever did would make it all go away entirely.
Whereas law enforcement could not totally eradicate it- dealing executions left and right had the same result.
Immediately- the streets were safe after you beheaded the last member of the once strong, vibrant Cartel.
-But the men you killed- their children, their friends, and their family- would all harbor that hatred you had generated, and would nurture it, and would teach it to their children and their children's children- effectively restarting the process you had just snapped off at the neck.
It didn't matter who or what it was, or what it was for- the cartels of the Isslossi Systems, the warbands of the Forlorn Strip, the pirates of the Mara System's asteroid belts, or even Weyland Yutani- evil would always meet its balancing point of continued existence with justice.
It was a teeter-totter- no side could lean more than the other- you couldn't have people, and entirely just one or the other of that totter.
Society didn't click that way.
Glen, even- didn't click that way.
But he had been trying to force two non-connectable magnets together for decades- and he just couldn't stop.
So when Mariah told him what she told him- he was almost to a level, distraught.
That didn't make sense.
Why would she not want this anymore?
More importantly- what would she do if he just disregarded how she felt?
He and the Xenomorph hybrid were- without question -caring for each other, and they had used the special declaration of such through three-worded vocals, many a time.
For the kind of work they did practically every day- they had a healthy relationship, or, at least what THEY would deem healthy. This was seeing as no other bond like this existed anywhere else in the galaxy- Glen just knew it.
It was there between them- the chemistry, the connection, the ability to talk in tune with each other, the striving for the other's happiness, the inability to dwell without the other's company, the physical replication of their spirits through sex- it all existed.
-But what didn't exist, was Glen's perfection of division, with managing his drive for unending vengeance, and his passion for Mariah.
He was stuck in the biggest rut of his life- and he didn't quite know how to sort it all out as of yet.
"-I see it." Glen cut off his own mental wandering- forcing his mouth to work, to speak with his mental uplink to Mariah. "I see those... THINGS, we'd heard of earlier."
Having an unfolded laptop in his lap- Glen had a visual feed being sent directly to the machine via hacked security protocol.
One of the measures that the Weyland mercs here were using, were automated security drones that constantly hovered around the surrounding twenty mile radius of the fortress- they were little remote controlled, propeller-driven robots.
Each bot had three separate cameras, and a small 2mm pulse carbine attachment- thus, Glen had made sure, that when he hacked the drone's camera- he also hacked control of the pulse carbine- all hidden from the security staff who worked the drone net.
He tilted a small stick about to direct the camera of the drone- and through the hazy feed, he saw the contents of one of the varying testing courts that were walled in within the structuring of the exterior fort.
Guards were by every door- and a pair of coat-dressed researchers were using what looked like a portable command console- a computer on hover jets no bigger than his head- to control a file of shuffling monstrosities.
Maybe once, these creatures had been human- but now, they looked so far from the original picture, that Glen could barely see any hint of mankind left within them.
Each one sported a differing array of bionic replacements- but the general status involved wrapping plates of synthetic armor making most of their torsos, thighs, and shoulders- sometimes a limb or two would still be organic, laced with wires and circuit plates.
-But generally, most of their limbs were entirely robotic- and some of them had pulse rifle attachments, and flamethrower nozzles, wired into their wrists and forearms.
These 'Bionic Zombies' all had the top portions of their skull- from the bridge of the nose and up- replaced with red, thin visors over robotic helm caps- or had large, rounded, singular, cyclops-like mechanoid scanners that took up their whole cranium.
They lumbered around in groups or organized lines wherever the researchers directed them to- and the presentation of human experimentation made Glen sick.
"They are frightening, I'll admit." Mariah responded to his report from a mile away- where she hid around the outskirts of one of the security walls- trying to feel about using her mental connections for any sign of other Xenomorphs possibly inside. "More frightening- is that I can detect no others of my kind in here."
"That's odd."
"Do you think they have set up a procedure or device to block my prying?"
"They don't even know you can use telepathy- much less scan around for other Xeno's."
"...You think this facility has a different purpose?"
"I think we see the purpose right in front of us." Glen said grimly. "These bionic people are soldiers. Automated soldiers."
"Do you think the Company is trying to build an alternative army?"
"It's looking like that..."
"What should we do?"
"We should destroy this place."
"I'll be safe and say you don't have a plan for that, YET?"
"If this fortress is so heavily guarded like this... Maybe the mercs' the Company has here, packed some hardware with them."
"What are we thinking? Demolitions gear? Heavy anti-armor or anti-infantry weapons?"
"Mariah, these guys are all ex-defense contractors, pirates, and some of them used to be Navy... I want to see if they have some old colonial garrison equipment lying around."
"...You mean, like vehicles?"
"This is a high-end group, Mariah. We're in the Forlorn Strip- it's not that hard to get your hands on an obsolete light tank or two if you have the cash. They have old capital ship batteries, why not vehicles?"
"You want to demolish this dump, with a stolen tank? That seems... Like a bad idea."
"Not up-front, no... But if they have some, we can use them as PART of the plan." He reached up and killed the hacked link between his computer and the drone. "-Come to me- I have a plan to get the facility specs."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Pres,
Head swimming, body stinging, muscles feeling wobbly and unjust- he was thoroughly suspended and tied by the grav-tethers, and he was virtually helpless as long as he was in this pod.
The doctor had been working to get him to crack for days, and, up until recently- he had little to no inclination that Mariah had ever been able to get close enough to even interfere with the interrogations.
Glen felt a combination of feelings that- in theory -should've cancelled each other out upon making contact. For one- he felt relieved that there was a chance he WASN'T to die in the doctor's laboratory- but for two, he felt deathly afraid.
He felt deathly afraid for Mariah.
That hybrid was fast- she was wicked fast- she'd outran bullets in the past... But, going head first into a fortified Yutani fortress to get him and tug him out while under fire? Their chances were slim. And if anything- Glen would sooner let himself perish to see her safe.
There was only one light that was in that dark pit of his inner person- and that was Mariah, if that light went out- the darkness would have him. Glen didn't want that- he most assuredly couldn't live with himself if Mariah died and he didn't.
It was so comedic, in a philosophical and spiritual sense- that he felt this strongly for one of the creatures that firstly ruined his very life, and in his eyes- HIM as a person.
Glen always grinned whenever he thought about that particular twist of fate- but all he could do was shut his eyes in a quick inhale in compensation for a sigh- as, deep breaths hurt. Sirens and shouting muffled outside the containment unit- he heard the repeated metallic rattling of a pulse rifle discharging.
"-M-Mariah? A-Are you alright...?" He drawled. "Mariah... Hey...?"
"I'm fine. Pinned." She struggled to communicate, sounding stressed, obviously. "Hang on."
Glen lowered his head and started praying for her.
She could NOT die instead of him. He cursed at whatever higher powers existed- he became angry, and thought forceful things he did not entirely mean.
You kill ME. Me. Not her.
If there's one to die- it is ME. I won't let you take her. You kill ME.
Glen didn't want either of them to die.
But if it came down to a moment of sacrifice... He wasn't going to hesitate to take that fall.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Pas,
Every now and again, these big honkin' gates on the westward flank of the fortress would creak, groan, and part in blasts of steam and noisy metal- and from within the depths of the facility, a Crawler Buggy would drive out into the sands to begin its daily sweep.
What exactly the Company was so worried about in its patrols here was beyond him- but if Glen didn't know any better- he'd sooner say these extra security activities were specifically for him and Mariah.
It was too bad- that no matter what Weyland did- he would make their lives hell.
So- the Buggy would leave the base- one of those commercial models that had been in manufacture almost since the colonization of space began- modernized with retrofitted military computers, optics, and a heavy pulse turret mounted in a cupola on the top rear.
The vehicle and its three man crew would drive rounds all over the outskirts of the base- and the cycle would repeated every day. Glen knew that the mercs and Company guards had different shifts- such so that there were different staffs of soldiers at night, than at day.
It allowed Glen to start digging through some of the security files he hacked from both the drone, and a close uplink to the fort's patrol garrison command centers deep within the walls.
They were unbelievably lucky so far in that no one in the entire area had spotted them yet, and that no suspicion had been raised. Lucky for them that Mariah was as good as she was at being quiet- and that he knew where to hang out for the right amount of time.
They set up a bait for one of the passing Buggies- using a helmet and pulse rifle from the guards they had claimed victim days earlier- Glen stuck the gun through the dusty red sand by its barrel- laid the helmet on top of the butt.
Undoubtedly- someone saw it in one of the Buggy teams- and so the sleek, open-topped vehicle swerved off of its route, and started beelining for the items they'd placed.
Hiding behind a crag of rocks- Glen squinted under his helmet's foldable visor as dust whipped about and tinted everything tan/red. Wisps of sandy, airborne tendrils caressed from the tops of the rocks they hid behind, over their heads.
"-They saw it." He said down to his hip- where Mariah crouched- looking up at him.
"You think they'll actually get out of the Buggy?"
"Let's hope..." Glen sat back down- nodded at her. "Alright, let's do this."
Vanishing in a blur of black motion- Mariah scrabbled up the rocks to his immediate left- like a ramp, using them to hide in a overhanging perch of the formation's tallest face.
Rocky pieces drew like lain arms all over the desert terrain- this one had been tall enough at its flank, that they found it perfect for an ambush point. Scouting around and examining the desert for the last few days had highlighted some sights for them.
Using what they had determined as appropriate- Mariah was going to jump into the Buggy from above, when Glen gave off the confirmation to attack- by killing anyone who exited the Buggy.
And Glen was going to do that, with an old tool of war he owned.
Reaching to the magnetic sling over his back- Glen drew a long, wooden-stocked gun from its place there, and yanked back an outdated loading bolt to slide in a blocky clip of rounds.
He smiled down at the rifle- because this was the same Proton Hunting Rifle he had first used in his makeshift anti-gang wars as a teenager.
The weapon held strong for him for decades- now, worlds away, years away- he was using it as a professional soldier. Amazing, at least to himself.
"I should've named it 'Old Ironsides' or something..." He muttered- standing, his smile fading.
Pluming a thick limb of tan, globular smoke from its rear- a pair of fat, rubberized tires drew a wavering path of uneven teeth through the course, red sand towards their hiding spot. The vehicle bucked and hopped over rolling dune faces- one of the crew was hanging out in a tensed lean over the pulse turret in the rear.
Glen licked his lips- and coughed a second later when the tinge of soil hit his tongue.
"-Ugh- this place is HORRIBLE." He grumbled.
"Perfect waste-dump for a crazy maniac to set up shop?"
"Yes." Glen said. "You ready?"
"All I have to do is jump, land, and start tearing- it'll be easy."
"Keep it careful."
"Yes I will."
"Wait for my shot."
Glen chanced keeping his head elevated above the crag of the rocks- from where he was, in relation to the rifle and helmet setup- he was almost a half-mile from where the Buggy was to pull over, and, that was assuming that the crew did what they WANTED them to do.
When it came to killing people- it was never as quick and efficient as the action vids, or the holo-books, or the stories made it seem- things went off course, not according to plan, and it got messy really fast the longer it drew out.
Having the reaction timing and the ability to make choices in the seconds that they unfolded- were essential to keep that racing game of whose clock was turning faster, on top for your side.
Glen should've put it this way-
If the soldiers in the Crawler Buggy did what most people who sighted something on the side of, say, an urban road would do- they would pull up next to it, and someone would get out- or at least lean out, to look at it.
Thus- the vehicle was in such proximity now- that Glen could hear the engine growling, and the internal suspension squeaking with each rise and fall of the terrain.
He bit his tongue lightly- reached up, and slowly drew his finger over a folded reticule tab that was bolted into the top of the gun's main bulk- right before the start of the barrel.
Hunkering down as flat as he could- Glen lined up the passenger side opening of the vehicle- remembered the turret cupola with a raised brow- and instead lined up the guy behind the pulse gun as a last ditch target.
-If he couldn't kill one of the operators- he would at least be able to take out the heavy weapon, and that would help them greatly if this turned into a firefight.
If this went their way, though- they would kill all three of them quickly, and would be able to get what they wanted before lots of shooting- and lots of noise -happened.
vvvvvvvvVVVVVVVVVVMMMM- CRRK
-The Buggy drove through a last swathe of sand, bucked to a stop right before the trophy display he'd made- causing a final tendril of dust to belch out from under the front, armored bumper, the wheels loosing trails of sand from their ridges and hubcaps.
The Company- or, maybe it was all the mercs' -that had retrofitted this thing were certainly skilled engineers, or had skilled engineers in their employment.
The commercial vehicle was up-armored with wrapping sleeves of synthetic plating over the quad-arches that covered the cabin and front seats- a windshield made of chemically fused- 'Hydrolumia'- essentially, translucent aluminum- bulged over the front of the Buggy.
Duckbill links were worked in patterned strips over the rubberized tires- ceramic additions painted gunmetal had been built into and around the titanium bumper- and the cupola was surrounded by a thin bubble-half of hydrolumia sheet- and it was sponson mounted, which meant the gunner could turn in a 360' degree angle to fire the bulky turret.
The whole thing was painted over gray drab and gunmetal- it looked like a nasty infantry support piece.
Glen watched the turret operator from his distance- and from the looks of it, the boy looked more concerned with keeping sand off his helmet's combat visor than the attention given to the gun and helm outside the Buggy.
A soldier got out of the passenger side- unfurling from the internal hold of the Buggy like a shadow person to contrast against the tan backdrop and dunes. His black colored armor moved about with stiff motions as he grabbed the upper rung of the passenger arch- and hopped out into the sand.
His boots left oval-shaped imprints in the dusty ground- a small sliver of tan whipped away in the wind each time his heels rose from their falls.
He had a blocky sidearm in his left hand- and he was radioing something in via internal uplink- Glen could hear him faintly talking.
The soldier walked over to the rifle jutting from the sand, stopped his walk- and nudged it with his foot- grunting when the helmet leaned on top of it fell off with a kick into the dust.
Glen had the man lined with his iron sights- and then, he saw the driver lean out from the cabin, and call out to his buddy still hanging by the bait.
Glen found himself catching his sights in between the two men.
Kill the driver? Or kill the guy out in the open?
Glen made one of his infamous split-second choices here. He weighed the two.
-Kill the guy out in the open, and render the turret gunner and the driver able to react, and those two controlled two of the essential pieces in this engagement. If the Buggy got away- they could kiss their stealthy advantage goodbye. If the turret opened up on his position- he'd be pinned and unable to help Mariah if she engaged.
-Kill the driver- render the Buggy dead in the water, leave the gunner exposed for Mariah- as, she NEVER missed a mark when it came to leaping or jumping- and only have to worry about the exposed foe shooting at his covered position with a pistol at long range.
Glen chose for the latter option. He'd rather deal with a handgun than a turret and a moving anti-infantry vehicle.
Closing his left eye- he moved the sights of his gun up- found a mark, settled, and fired.
CLENK
-The heavy charged Proton round whipped out in a small flash, and the driver of the Buggy- literally 'Flapped' as Glen would later recall- from the driver's compartment, with a visible string of crimson trailing from his head.
Glen almost snickered at his luck. Headshot.
When the shot rang out- the two other soldiers stood dumbfounded- the guy by the bait spun around, saw his driver flopping dead on the sand outside by the side of the Crawler- and held up his pistol.
The turret operator obviously had either better sense- or perhaps better eyes- he jabbed a finger over the hydrolumia sheet on the cupola for Glen's boulders- and yanked back the loading mechanism for the pulse turret.
Glen went wide eyed- and the soldier out in the open turned back with the pistol raised, and flaring.
CLK CLK CLK
"-Shit!"
CWM CM FLK
-Three plumages of dust burped from the edge of the rock as he got his head down in a crouch behind the stone.
Noting the lack of turret support- Glen stood up to return fire- and smiled when he saw a onyx-colored shape careen from atop the rocks nearby- and land directly dead-center the top of the Buggy's cupola.
The gunner screamed and hollered, and the Crawler shook violently for a second- he could see Mariah's sharp tail finish trailing inside the vehicle after her like a serpent whipping back down into a cave opening.
Another pistol round flew nearby- and Glen saw the soldier had fallen to a crouch- unloading the rest of his magazine- fruitlessly, of course.
The effort was laughable- Glen aimed down the sights of his Proton rifle lastly-
CLK
-And a shining, miniature comet flew out- the man kicked back with a hand by his helmet's visor- convulsed once in the sand, and died with a 'Dust-Angel'-like disturbance in the course dune around his body.
Blowing out held in breath- Glen stood up and grabbed hold of the rock's ridge with his gloved hand.
"-Mariah?" He asked, hopping over the rocks, and sliding down a indent of sand towards the Buggy. "Mariah, answer me- you alright?"
"...I'm covered in blood AGAIN." Her mental speech trailed- agitated. "I want a bath this time. The operation can wait- the female needs a damn bath."
"...Ha..." Glen breathed, jogging up to the dead soldier he had shot- and nudging the corpse with the barrel of his gun. "-Guess I can't come between a girl and her hygiene."
Mariah unfurled from the top-rear cupola, sitting on the rim of the opening, she held up her claws in exaggerated dismay to her face- her tail uncoiling from inside the Buggy, to whip behind her.
"I look terrible."
"You hit his jugular or something?"
"I just tore him up. Does it MATTER where I used the claws?"
"Yeah... Good work."
"Nice shot, before."
"Thanks."
"The plan now?"
"We got our facility specs."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Pres,
Here was an interesting 'Loop Hole'- if you will- that Glen had found.
Whoever the armed contractors were that the Company had hired for their little projects of bionic human experimentation on Epsilon-Candis- had divided the men they had stationed here in a division-grade scale.
There were- on paper, at least- two entire companies of recon Buggies, and two more companies of infantry, followed by a heavy weapons attachment. It was good advice to take it as these boys meant business- but what bothered Glen was that they were a group he had never heard of before.
Actually, Glen couldn't even trace a name of the organization- all the information pointed to Weyland Yutani itself- and unless the Company was indeed building themselves an entire army, there was no way that they would be able to tote around this much equipment without the Navy seeing it.
Of course- there was always the horror in assuming, that the Company had someone, or several people, in the Navy bought out- which, with Weyland's credits, could be done to prey upon people's greed, and if Glen had learned anything from the Navy- it was that they were as much prone to corruption as anyone else.
Maybe- just maybe, this WAS as bad as it looked.
If these mercenaries weren't hired- but actually employed by Weyland Yutani- that meant that they were stepping up their game. There were signs all over this facility that the Company assets here were preparing for what appeared a war of some kind.
Lances of bionic soldiers? A personal army? Division levels for that army? All that was missing were self-reliant logistics and aircraft. Who knew- those things might have already started, and they just hadn't seen it yet.
So far the only aerial equipment Glen had laid eyes on were supply haulers- and some of them, not shockingly, but still disturbing all the same- were marked with logos and callsigns of commercial and industrial enterprises on the border colonies towards the south of the Forlorn Strip.
-Some of those corporations weren't even military related... There had been a hauler from 'AnsigCo. Farms'- and, what the hell were a bunch of organic food distributors doing at a Weyland facility?
Things like that showed all the more why the Company needed to be exterminated.
Bad shit.
-But on that loophole with the divisions that the soldiers had made for themselves.
Glen had found that there were 'Hq' Radio vehicles headed in pairs at the center of the recon Buggy battalions- and they carried long range communications stations that were uplinked to all the Buggies in that respective unit at once, AND back to the fortress base.
Glen had found- that using his hacking terminal on long range communications could actually extend the range and reduce 'Noise' to draw suspicion from firewalls when he was hacking into opposing data streams.
Glen wanted to see if he could hack at least a schematic- and if time and circumstances allowed, maybe even a data file on the activity reports inside the fortress.
When he had climbed into the driver side of the Buggy- he was made to crinkle his nose in distaste to the dead turret gunner having been shoved and clawed to death in the back of the Buggy- his throat was a big, crimson trench that dug away into his collar, and there were drying contrails of brownish-red fingering all down the rear cupola's inside rim.
Mariah had a sneer on her features as she sat in the passenger side- and waited patiently as he got out, and dumped the body outside the Crawler's flank.
Huffing from the effort- Glen rolled a last trailing leg out of his grasp- and clapped his gloves together, standing over the small pile of three dead they had created. He left them behind a few tall rocks- stepped back up the Buggy, and crawled in under the top rung on the driver's side.
"-Hopefully we'll be gone by the time someone finds 'em." He said. "There's nowhere else to put them."
"Speaking of," Mariah had a angled tone to her mental speech- it SOUNDED like she was sneering in her mind too from all the blood on her. "What are we doing with the Buggy, after?"
"We should destroy it."
"Can't we use it?"
"There's probably a tracker on this thing- I just want to hack the signal, and I want to burn it. Then we need to relocate."
"They'll know we're here."
Glen mulled on that.
...Well, they were going to find out sooner or later, might as well have them find out by the time they learned vital information.
It was better than being discovered without a plan even.
"Yes. They will."
"Okay." The Xenomorph leant back into the passenger rubberized seat- she pressed her head back, and made a sighing sound, folding her claws over her lap. "This heat is horrific."
"Good thing we have cooling gel in the suits than. See? Technology isn't all bad." Glen laughed- having unfolded the laptop console over his legs- he typed diligently, reached up to the back of the computer, and unfolded a bipod-like antenna that pointed straight for the dashboard of the Buggy's driver cab.
Mariah watched him silently, with a bit of intrigue- he got into the connection with the radio uplink, and fooled the recognition programs into thinking it was establishing antenna connection with the fort.
Glen typed quietly and diligently for several minutes- Mariah becoming bored, and crossing her ankles together- her tail made plastic-like thuds as it jerked a few times in quick sways behind her in a curl over the seat's rear.
"I'm in." Glen grinned. "Got past the firewall- I'm connecting to... Something..."
"Something?" Mariah chuckled. "You don't know what it even is?"
"Unknown data stream. Could be important, like a direct connection to another Company base out there- or completely worthless, like an infinet connection a guard on break setup to look at porn."
"...Porn?"
"-Right. Don't ask. It was just a joke."
"...That's, that dirty stuff you told me about, right?"
"It's bad for you, forget I ever mentioned it."
"Wouldn't we be technically... DOING porn?"
"-Uhm- I guess," He shook his head with a nervous laugh. "-If we were filming it- which, ISN'T happening, dear."
"You're right, it is not happening. -Hasn't happened for months." She noted with a bit of venom. "Just putting that out there- seeing as our only company is a few corpses nearby."
"This REALLY isn't the time to be talking about this." Glen grumbled- suddenly getting a vibe he used to experience with melo-drama as a young adult when it came to school crushes.
"I don't know when else I can get to talk about it." Mariah said factually. "All we do is sleep, eat, piss, spy on people, kill people- then spy some more, and the cycle repeats."
"-C-Can this, please, PLEASE wait?" Glen was becoming angry- trying his best to burn holes in the laptop screen as he finalized the uplink. "I promise I'll hear you with this later- but this is important."
"...That's what you always FUCKING say..."
-Glen wasn't so sure that that bout of mental speech was directed at him, he kind of just heard it- like someone would hear someone mumbling in the next room.
The connection between their minds was pretty established and strong by this point. Sometimes, when Mariah wasn't purposefully reading his thoughts- (Which she did every so often- thus, Glen had many embarrassing jokes mounted against him) -she would think to herself, and Glen had found he could hear bits and pieces of it.
Since he had gotten so used to hearing her voice in his head- the random times a mutter or a little word or two to herself would pop up, didn't peak his concern anymore than, as exampled before- hearing a relative mumble to themselves nearby.
-But with that newfound ability he had gathered- whenever they disagreed, it was almost impossible to think something different than what they were saying- seeing as, in their conversations- saying and thinking were the same thing.
Glen was rubbing the chin of his helmet as the uplink finalized- and he pulled up a search in the scanning protocol.
He typed in random codes he remembered from other Yutani specs he had hacked- and eventually, after a few empty results, he came across a single tab- it was hardcoded, and was actually a fragment of a larger database.
Glen opened it- and was shown exactly what he was looking for.
A architectural schematic popped up- black background, green lines tracing all the shapes and walls- he snapped his fingers, and wailed on the 'DOWNLOAD' key on his laptop with a laugh.
"Ha! I got it, you bastards! They are SCREWED." He turned to look Mariah- who was now more preoccupied glaring out the side opening of the passenger compartment, than too him. "-I got the layout, Mariah."
"Mm."
"That's good."
"Yes. Now are we attacking this instant, or later?"
"...I have to scan through this stuff first-"
"-Meet you back at the cave. Take the buggy out for me, will you?"
FWM-CRK-CRK
-Mariah vanished out of the side of the Buggy- she did so fast enough that the vehicle nudged back and forth lightly.
Having his eyes glued to the dead-looking dunes that shown through the oval-like open side of the chassis- Glen drummed his glove's fingers on the laptop's sides, and slowly turned back to finish his hacking.
He scrounged up a report on a large hangar bay in the schematics- and the equipment total showed inventory of three M-88 'Hydra Fiends', which, were old as dirt, obsolete tanks that had been used by the Navy nearly eighty years ago.
Glen had discovered what he was hoping for- and the days of anxiousness were now met in relief, with little relief at all. His grin died as soon as it appeared, and he started staring angrily at the laptop screen whilst his emotions flared his temper.
He cut the link quickly, before it could be analyzed- and shut the computer.
Sighing- he crawled out of the Buggy- stood in the sand outside the cabin, and fumbled about is belt until he found an all-too-familiar plasma explosive hung with the assortment of weapons down there.
He activated the rune- underhanded it lazily into the rear of the vehicle, where it vanished inside with a few clanks and hollow tunes.
Stepping down the dune- Glen was still grim, and un-phased when the Buggy jumped in a green burst of light, and shrunk down onto its belly a flaming, black-belching mess.
I have to apologize to her. She's right. I'm becoming something I'm not.
Glen frowned and felt a dreadful pit when he thought of his mother and father's faces- a blackened strip of metal landed in a small wave with a PWK- inches behind him. A tan wave of sand flurried over the rear of his armor suit's legs- and Glen didn't even notice any of it.
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Pres,
Mariah was always the best when it came to acrobatics, speed, agility- there wasn't an obstacle course in the galaxy, or a test of fast travelling through terrain on any world- that she could not pass with flying colors.
Mariah had used vines to cover terrain over jungles- rock overhangs as bridges over blazing hot deserts and crashing oceans- she'd jumped from rooftop to rooftop in urban settings, and had even leapt from falling pieces of debris to reach certain places.
She could scale anything- but she couldn't DODGE everything. Especially if the thing she was trying to dodge, was technologically designed to make a person's speed obsolete.
Wincing from a flare by her right arm- she uncovered her claw and hissed at the neon green coating her palm had- she glared at a small fissure that drew in the green illumination down her upper arm in a horizontal groove.
The pulse round had grazed her- and she had been lucky, because her armor had warded off three other hits beforehand when she had been caught in the open.
She was on a raised level in the passage's interior- there were bulkheads lining the hall she stood in down both ways- and, compressed to the front of a thick console railing- below her was the lower hall adjacent to this one, and there were at least six mercenary grunts covering her position from down there.
The pulse rounds had stopped licking off the railing, and she could hear shuffling movement- she didn't take advantage of the slacked fire because they probably had their sights trained on her position- if she moved they'd get good aimed shots at her.
Glancing upwards- she saw the piped, wire-laden panel ceiling above- and there were tons of nooks and crannies thick in metal enough that she could be safe from the pulse rifles- the problem was, she had to reach them before she got hit.
The longer she sat here, she knew- the more of a chance something like-
PLNK
PLNK PLNK
-Like THAT would happen.
Mariah's angled head snapped wildly to fixate on a metallic, rounded object that landed on the decking right before her.
The armed fragmentation grenade sat still for no more than a millisecond- before the blade of her tail lashed out, and flicked the explosive over her head, and over the railing in scooping motion.
'-Oh shit!' -Came from the lower level before the grenade went off.
CLAK
-SSSSSSH
-That sound bursts of fire made, she HATED that sound as much as the actual clap- when the explosion receded, and smoke and burnt ozone was all that remained.
She took the moment to leap for the ceiling- and within seconds, her tail had just finished clambering up past a shaft tube when a couple of rounds flickered away in her vacant space.
Clawing to hold onto a rounded pipe- Mariah found a leverage point for both feet and palms- she 'Doggy-Paddled' through the wires and block-structuring- keeping quick glances down at the soldiers who had lost sights on her.
She was utterly quiet as she traversed the structure of the ceiling- her mind was blared on red thoughts, anger, absolute rage.
These freaks had destroyed hers, and Glen's lives- and now, they had been torturing him for... For who KNEW how long.
She was going to kill every single one of them.
There were no survivors here- all walking dead men.
Snarling- she drew back her chops and bore the array of sword-like teeth in her mouth. Looping over a last branching pipe- she descended from above- and coming closer to her vision rapidly was not only the chrome floor- but the head of the soldier in the rear ranks on the lower level.
She landed with a clattering of synthetic and ceramic- the guy screamed terribly, and it drowned away in a snapping crackle of wet chokes.
His buddies spun around and sprayed the whole area- but Mariah was already a black blur crawling back up to the ceiling via wall. The pulse rounds punched everywhere- they shredded the still twitching body of the man who had had his throat torn out- they specked the floor and the wall and the ceiling.
The Xenomorph hybrid was gone as fast as she appeared.
The soldiers tried to group themselves together- they huddled in the center of the hallway- it proved to her, as she shook her claws a few times to fleck some crimson from them- that the Company was starting to develop tactics against HER specifically.
-Another thing she and Glen had caused- infantry reformation. Maybe these Company soldiers, and the bionic soldiers- were less about creating a new army- but a new security force to stop THEM.
Having her train of thought interrupted- she hissed lowly when the flaring pain by her arm slithered into her nerves again- hiding in the ceiling vents.
When she had cut Glen's pod down- the scientists in the room hadn't been the problem- but, as she finished ending the last white-coat- a whole security team barged in and started shooting anything that moved- including a pair of scientists that scrambled away from her, towards them.
She bolted- got wounded, and now they had pushed her a whole hallway back.
She wanted to kill them- by the almighty powers she wanted to KILL them...
But if the doctor came back for Glen while he was vulnerable like that...
-No-no. Glen was more important than her need to kill the Yutani mercs. She breathed heavily once- sighing. Her tail lashed out- and a grated panel was eviscerated in two peeling halves with a flicker of sparks.
No sooner did she slip inside the shaft- did pulse rounds pummel the shaft entry and the panels around.
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