Chapter 6: My Men Are Not Expendable
Quote from the USMC 2202 Worlds English Dictionary:
Desperation: Recklessness brought on by great urgency or anxiety.
General Malone prided himself in staying calm, even in the most tense and dangerous situations. The only time he ever lost his cool was in dealing with facehuggers; they were fast, they were strong and they were small, a combination which made them extremely difficult to hit with any ranged weapon. They were the General's Achilles heel.
The emotions General Malone felt as the facehugger jumped toward him were almost exactly the same as the textbook definition of desperation; he felt a great urgency to do something, a great fear of the pain and suffering he would experience if he didn't, and an anxiety for him to make up his mind. The only thing left was the recklessness.
When mankind is presented with undesirable situations that threaten their lives, what made them the most dominant species on earth were their adaptation skills. They formulate near-perfect plans to deal with those situations. And that is exactly what General Malone did; he adapted. The gun was not in a firing position in his hand. It was, however, in his grip, making it a perfect melee weapon. This was the first and only thought that crossed Malone's mind, as his nerves were overrun by a sudden rush of adrenaline. Nothing mattered anymore; the only things in existence at that moment were him, his gun, and the facehugger flying towards him, ready to place its embryo insertion tube down his throat.
It was all over in an instant; as the facehugger flew ever closer towards him, Malone quickly brought the gun fully out of its holster. In the time it took for him to accomplish that, the yellow, slimy creature had already travelled several meters from its egg so that it was only an arms length away. Then, faster than the eye could blink, Malone hammered the facehugger to the ground with the butt of his pistol, the creature making a wet squishing sound as it hit the ground. It was momentarily dazed, and in that moment of stunned stillness the General lifted his leg and stomped his heel into the underbelly of the facehugger. He kept his leg there so that the creature couldn't move, no matter how much it writhed. And writhe it did, its tail and fingers flailing around desperately. But Malone held firm. Eventually the creature, as so many dominant species do, adapted to the situation; it wrapped its tail tightly around the General's leg and squeezed firmly, reminding the crew of boa constrictors the crew had seen at home.
"Clever bastard," said Malone, a smile on his face. He tried to be forever cool in front of his squad, and yet this was more a smile of relief than anything else; he had faced his fear and won. "If it squeezes long enough, I'll lose circulation in my leg. I'm not going to let that happen," he finished, taking the almost brand new cigar out of his mouth. "It's a shame," he continued, admiring the tobacco-filled product. "This was an especially tasty cigar."
He leaned down and, as he had done previously, extinguished the cigar in the facehugger's flesh, creating a large charred hole which smoked as the creature's acid blood oxidized. Finally, he twirled the pistol in his hand into a firing position, pointed it at the facehugger beside his foot, and fired three rounds, the sound of gunshots echoing noisily through the hallway. Another cigar was lit and in his mouth shortly thereafter. He lifted his leg out of the dead alien's grip and kicked the corpse away.
"Leonard," Malone said, staring at the other four, "I want you to dispose of the remaining three unopened eggs with your swords. We don't need any more noise; it'll attract some bigger xenos."
"Aye, sir," replied Leonard, taking a sword out of its hilt on his back and moving towards the targets.
"So you tackled a warrior and pistol-whipped a facehugger," said Mort quietly, a smile spread from ear to ear across his face. "What's next, gang beating the queen?"
The group chuckled quietly, interrupted soon after by the squishy extermination of the contents of the unopened eggs, fluid and guts and dead facehuggers flowing out onto the floor.
"Ok marines, here's the deal; what these eggs tell me clear as day is that there's a queen in this ship. She's guaranteed to be heavily guarded by warriors and drones alike, not to mention probably surrounded by hundreds of eggs. Problem is, I don't know where in this fucking ship she is. If I didn't have explicit orders to check for survivors and retrieve this ship's cargo, I would bug out right now and blast the shit out of this place. But I have orders from higher ranking officials than me, and I follow the few orders I get. Now, we have two ways out of this pleasant little chamber here; left or straight. What I think is that, orders or not, I'm tired of this fucking ship already. Anyone else share my sentiments?"
"Aye sir," the four others replied.
"Good. Now, I think we'd have more success if we split into two groups. I trust you people can handle most situations without me? I may say it a lot, but I'm not really your mothers, and I don't want to be. Now, I'm going straight. Any volunteers to go left?"
"I will, sir," said Julius, stepping forward. "I've got this here smartgun, so I'm probably one of the safest bets," he finished, patting his weapon affectionately.
"Me too," said Dawkins, also stepping forward. "Julius and I kicked some xeno ass back at the drop ship, and I think I speak for both of us when I say we're ready to repeat offend."
"Good," replied Malone, nodding to the two brave volunteers. "But be careful. If you happen to find the nest, radio us; we'll come find you. I don't want any heroics, nor do I want any of my crew to die because they attempted to be a hero. Got that?"
"Sir, yes sir," said both Dawkins and Julius quietly.
"Good. Mort, Leonard, come with me. Good luck you two, and stay frosty."
And so they set off in their separate directions to search for xenomorph central, each and every one of them ready to fire at a moments notice. They were on edge, and rightfully so; the xenomorphs weren't the only danger in the ship. They were just the only ones the marines knew about.
/ | \
The walls of the hallway were padded and white, typical of a corridor leading to a cryo chamber. Julius and Dawkins walked single file down the thin hallway, scanning in front and behind, their helmet lights moving methodically back and forth wherever they looked. The subtle beep of Julius' motion tracker was the only sound in the pitch black, scanning constantly but detecting nothing.
Finally they came to a sealed door, the yellow and white Weyland-Yutani symbol covering most of it. Dawkins silently stepped forward whilst Julius checked the rear. The ceiling was solid metal, and thus they were safe from above. He stood in a ready position, legs spread wide, his pants stretching slightly, knees bent minimally and smartgun prepped for sudden firing.
"Control's don't work," said Dawkins, his helmet light highlighting the control panel. "Didn't expect it to, though."
"Run a bypass, then," said Julius. "I have a five meter range with this helmet light; for all I know, the xenos are waiting for me six meters away, hidden in the darkness, watching our every move."
"Your xeno detection goggles detect as far as you can see, so you're good."
"I, uh, broke them in the drop ship battle," said Julius, shifting uncomfortably.
"And you didn't tell anyone?"
"No."
"Ah, fuck, Julius! Now they can walk right up and shake your fucking hand."
"Sorry."
"Whatever. We can still pick them up on the motion tracker," said Dawkins, who had slung his pulse rifle over his shoulder and was removing the bypass equipment from his pack.
"I'm so fucking sick of this darkness," said Julius. Dawkins stood up, equipment in hand, and began the procedure to start the door opening mechanism.
"What, you afraid of the dark or something?" asked Dawkins, not looking up from his work.
"I'm not afraid of anything," said Julius, starting to get angry, more as a mask of embarrassment because Dawkins had discovered the truth than in genuine anger.
"Except the dark."
"Shut the fuck up and open…"
"Done," interrupted Dawkins, unhooking his equipment from the panel as the door hissed open. As he replaced his equipment in his sack, a small breeze blew against him. When he'd put replaced everything in his pack, he put it on his back and took his rifle off his shoulder.
"Shall we?" he asked, before walking into the cryo chamber. Seven pods sat open in a circle, acid burns covering the ground. Several of the glass coverings of the pods had been shattered, the glass strewn everywhere.
"Holy shit," said Julius, taking in the scene. "They made a last stand in the cryo chamber? What if they had won? They wouldn't be able to go into cryo sleep for the return trip!"
"Some people just aren't tactically smart, I guess," said Dawkins. "They mustn't have…"
"Dawkins, Julius, anything yet?" asked Malone over their helmet communication devices.
"Nothing yet sir," replied Dawkins, holding his hand up to press the "talk" button on his helmet. "You?"
"Nothing yet, marine. Remember Dawkins; no heroics."
"Aye, sir."
"Over and out," finished Malone, ending communications.
"I must say," said Julius, as Dawkins looked at him after the communications with the general ended. "Whilst I have the utmost respect for the General, he is a tad hypocritical."
"How so?"
"He keeps saying we're not supposed to try any heroics, and yet he tackles and pistol-whips the xenos."
"I really don't care," said Dawkins. "The bypass should work for the next door too. Let's…"
"The General…"
"I said I don't care," interrupted Dawkins firmly, frowning at Julius. "He's the man who taught us, who has killed more xenos than we've even SEEN, let alone killed, so I don't think we have the right to talk rudely about him behind his back. He deserves the UTMOST respect."
"Fine," said Julius, stepping forward to open the door out of the cryo chamber, finding his way by the miniscule helmet light alone. When he finally found the panel, he pushed the open button, the door immediately hissing open. The room beyond was a pitch black abyss, the only clue as to the rooms purpose was the loud whir of an engine. This was the engine room.
"Chuck a flare in there," said Dawkins. "The engine room is a nice, cozy warm spot in which to start a hive." Julius placed his smartgun on the ground, removed a flare from his front pocket, dragged it along the floor to light it, and threw it into the room. The light showed no secreted resin, only the massive engine towering above them. On either side of the machine were pathways to walk around the massive structure.
"Shall we?" asked Dawkins as he had before, looking at Julius before they both took a step inside, the flare dying seconds later.
/ | \
Malone, Mort and Leonard had had no luck either, but they were far more optimistic, for the walls were covered in the secreted resin that indicated a xenomorph hive. They had not come to another room yet; the hallway from the egg chamber, as they called it, was extremely long, the entire thing covered top to bottom in resin. Their detection goggles had picked up absolutely nothing. Malone had expected to find either Alien drones or Alien warriors hiding camouflaged in the resin, waiting to jump out at any sign of intruders. Yet he had been wrong.
"It's unusually quiet and uneventful for a xenomorph infested ship," said Malone quietly. "Not that I mind."
"I'd rather it be uneventful than swarming with xenos," said Mort, smiling to himself.
"Same," said Leonard. "I mean, yeah, we kill xenos for a living and we're pretty damn good at it, but I'd rather be fighting a few of them than hundreds at a time."
"I think the turrets dealt them a major blow at the drop ship," said Malone.
"Maybe."
"Regarding your previous statement," started Malone. "I really don't care how many of them there are, I just like killing the fuckers. But, as the saying goes, 'the more the merrier.'"
"And that's why you're the leader," said Mort. "Wouldn't want anyone else."
"Thanks," said Malone, smiling at the praise. "That means a lot to…" He was suddenly interrupted by screaming into the com. It was Dawkins.
"WE HAVE CONTACTS, SIR!! NOT XENOMORPH, SOMETHING…RUN, JULIUS!!!! DROP THE FUCKING GUN!!!!! GO, GO, GO!!!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE, SIR! THEY'RE FUCKING INVISIBLE!! SOME SORT OF CLOAKING SHIT!!! MANAGED TO KILL ONE; THAT GREEN SHIT JULIUS FOUND WAS THEIR BLOOD!!! ONE OF THEM IS EIGHT FEET…FUCK!!!! GET UP, JULIUS!!! SIR, HE WAS HIT BY SOME SORT OF PLASMA GUN, OR SOMETHING!!! HIS CHEST IS…SHIT!!!! THEY'RE COMING!! FUCK!!!! I'M HEADING BACK TO THE EGG CHAMBER, SIR!!!! THEY DON'T SHOW UP ON XENOMORPH DETECTION, BUT THEY DO ON MOTION…AAAAAAUUUGGGHHH!!!! THERE'S TWO MORE SIR! AAAAAAAAAAA!!!! DIE MOTHERFUCKER!!!! DIE, DIE, DIE…..AAAAAAAA!!!!!"
Gunshots sounded momentarily before the line went dead.