Chapter Seven
Barbarians At The Gate
"Oh give me mercy for my dreams
'Cause every confrontation seems to tell me
What it really means
To be this lonely sailor
And when the sky begins to clear
The sun it melts away my fear
And I shed a silent weary tear
For those who mean to love me"
Ready For The Storm: Rich Mullins
The weary and demoralized group gathered in operations to take stock of their grim options. Vasquez, Castle and Hudson had just set down the last of the scorched and dented packing cases culled from the APC, which Bishop and Vasquez had dragged back with one of the heavier trucks left in the motor pool to replace the two heavy tractors blocking the main entrance.
Esposito indicated their remaining inventory of weapons, lying on a table with a flick of his wrist.
"This is all we could salvage. We've got six pulse-rifles with about fifty rounds each. Not so good. About fifteen M-40 grenades, enough to reload each rifle once, and two flame throwers less than half full...one damaged which we can cannibalize to get a single working one."
Newt reached out curiously for one of the grenades, but Ryan, snatched it out of her reach.
"Don't touch that, honey, it's dangerous okay?" Ryan whispered, suddenly reminded of Sarah Grace when she was that young, not wanting to think that his own little girl would be discovering boys soon. He winked at Newt and lowered his helmet onto her head with a wry grin, earning a smile from her as she struggled to keep the helmet on her head, the grenade completely forgotten.
"We've also got four robot-sentry units with scanners and display capacity, three are intact, we'll use its ammo to fully reload the pulse rifles." Esposito continued, after rolling his eyes at Ryan's antics. He opened one of the scorched cases to reveal one of the high-tech servo-actuated machine guns.
"We can cross connect the sensor package from the broken one to the APC's chain gun targeting system to hold the main entrance and set the others up at strategic choke points. They might just be the force multiplier we need to hold out. If nothing else, they'll warn us if our new friends come knocking.
"How long after we're declared overdue can we expect a rescue?" Castle asked.
"With our drop-ship and APC down for the count, we don't have a comm array strong enough to penetrate the atmosphere," Esposito replied, "Captain Gates will declare us officially missing in about three days. The way things stand right now, with nobody left aboard who can pilot the other drop ship in those storms, it will likely be about seventeen days before any help can arrive."
"Seventeen days?" Hudson whined, "we're not gonna last seventeen hours! Those things are gonna come in here just like they did before, man... they're gonna get us long before..."
"Hudson!" Kate spat harshly, "This little girl survived longer than that with no weapons and no training." Kate nodded at Newt, her tiny head swimming in Ryan's helmet, who saluted Hudson smartly.
"Well maybe we should put her in charge!" Hudson spat back.
"Look, Hudson, you've had your little pity party," Kate snapped, "but this is the tactical situation and you better just start dealing with it... because we need you and I'm sick and tired of your bullshit."
Kate waved her hand around the operations center, then pointed at Hudson and Ryan, clearly taking charge of the situation.
"I want you and Ryan to get back on those terminals and call up some floor plans. Check the construction blueprints, maintenance schematics, anything that shows the layout of this place. I want to see air ducts, electrical access tunnels, subbasements, every possible way into or out of this wing big enough for those things to fit through."
Hudson looked over to Esposito, who nodded, quietly acknowledging Kate as a civilian authority and giving his assent to her plan of action. Hudson shrugged his shoulders and gathered himself, thankful for something to do.
"A-firmative," he stated grimly, "We're on it."
Ryan slapped Hudson's shoulder and the two of them turned back toward the terminals they had abandoned earlier in the day.
"Kate, you and Espo seem to have things firmly in hand here," Castle said, nodding at Newt, who was clearly fascinated with everything going on in operations, then met Kate's eyes again, "I'm gonna go see how things are progressing in medical."
"Okay, give Alexis a kiss for me too, babe," Kate whispered with a quick peck to Rick's lips while Newt was distracted by what Ryan was doing.
When Castle stepped into the infirmary, it was clear something had changed. The auto-doc platform was cycled out and lay empty with neither Bishop nor Dietrich anywhere to be seen. Castle's penchant for the worst case scenario went into overdrive, his imagination filled with screeching aliens and blood on the walls. He paced the room, images of doom clouding his thoughts until Dietrich emerged from one of the patient isolation rooms. Castle was on her within seconds.
"Where's my daughter? Is she okay? Please tell me where she is!" Castle pressed in a panic.
"Mr. Castle," Dietrich said, falling back on military formality, "Please come with me, sir."
When they walked into the patient room, Castle relaxed at the sight of his daughter lying in the bed, resting.
"As I said before, sir," Dietrich said, "it was a very near thing. We got to her just in time. She isn't one hundred percent, and I'll feel better when we can get her back to the Sulaco so Dr. Parish can give her a full workup, but she should make a full recovery."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" Castle exclaimed, tears pricking his eyes.
Dietrich was completely unprepared to be swallowed up in the full bear hug Castle hit her with. It took her a moment to recover from the shock of it to stiffly pat him on the back twice before he let her go. Even then, she wobbled on her feet from the force of it, noting that he was a much bigger, stronger man than any of them had given him credit for.
Castle grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the bed, taking Alexis' hand in one of his as he ran his fingers through her terra cotta locks, sweeping her bangs from her forehead and planting a kiss there. She was twelve years older than he remembered, and far older than the child in his mind's eye, but this was still his little girl, and he felt keenly the guilt that she'd been hurt because he hadn't been there to protect her from the monsters.
"Daddy?" Alexis' voice was a hushed whisper, like she wasn't sure he was real.
"Yes pumpkin, I'm here." Castle whispered.
"Where's Rebecca?" Alexis asked, her voice increasing in pitch with the panic only a mother could feel when her child was missing. She tried to rise from the bed, eyes growing wide, "Where's my daughter?"
"Shh," Castle soothed, easing her back into the bed, "It's okay, she's with Kate, Ryan and Esposito in operations, she's safe enough."
With assurances she would only have accepted from her father, Alexis sank into his embrace as her arms wrapped around his neck and she began to break down, sobbing in his arms.
"I thought you were dead... everybody thought you were dead," Alexis whispered between sobs, "Grams died...and... there was nobody to chase the monsters away..." Alexis completely fell apart, likely for the first time in years, as she trailed off into heartbreaking sobs against his broad chest.
"I know, pumpkin, I know. I'm so sorry," Castle whispered, running his fingers through her hair and rubbing her back, doing what he could to soothe the hurt he couldn't help but feel he had caused, heartbreak his daughter had been carrying around for over a decade. "I'm here, Alexis, I'm here. I've got you."
Though his heart broke for Alexis and everything she'd been through while he was gone, something in Castle hardened. A deep darkness in his soul that only surged within him when his child was in danger bubbled to the surface. A darkness he'd only ever witnessed in men like Jerry Tyson, Scott Dunn... and his father which he had worked his entire life to purge through his novels. A side of himself he had never wanted Kate or anyone else to see, which he was both ashamed and afraid of. The side of him that could torture, maim and kill without remorse, which he only let out of its box to protect his own.
These things had nearly killed his little girl, traumatized his granddaughter, threatened his family and he would live to see them exterminated. To that end he would give in to that darkness in the depth of his soul gladly and God help anybody who got in his way.
Back in Operations, Kate, Vaughn, Hudson, Ryan and Esposito stood around the map table while Hudson once again paged through the schematics of the facility, while Newt hopped from one foot to the other trying to see what was going on.
"This service tunnel must be how they're moving back and forth." Kate said, pointing to a spot on the screen.
"Yeah," Ryan replied, "according to the records it was part of the original underground complex before the atmosphere was stabilized. Back then, it was the only way to get from operations to the processing station without pressure suits." He traced a finger along the abstract ground plan for emphasis. "It runs from the processing station right into the sub-level of the operations building, right here."
"All right," Kate replied, "There's a fire door at this end. The first thing we do is set up a remote sentry gun in the tunnel and seal the door from this side.
"We gotta figure on them getting into the complex, though," Esposito added.
"That's right," Kate agreed, "So we re-secure the barricades at these intersections," She pointed at the intersections she had in mind on the schematic, "...and seal these ducts here and here to funnel them down these two corridors and set up the other two sentry guns here and here to nail the coffin shut."
Esposito noted where Kate suggested for the sentry units' deployment and contemplated her game plan, satisfied that it was sound.
"Outstanding," Esposito stated, finally seeing the Kate Beckett he remembered, the woman he'd have followed into hell once upon a time. "All we need now is a deck of cards."
He turned to the others in the room before issuing orders, "All right, time's wasting let's move like we got a purpose."
"A-firmative." Hudson replied, saluting smartly before he, Ryan and Vasquez turned to go to work.
"A-firmative!" Newt copied, holding Ryanm's helmet on her head with her left hand as she saluted with her right. Esposito winked and snapped to full attention to salute back smartly before getting to work.
On the other side of the fire door leading to the access tunnel, Vasquez had just finished setting up the first sentry gun. The tunnel was rather narrow, just wide enough for two people to walk through comfortably. It was lined with conduits, and even when lit seemed to go on forever. The heavy tripod of the sentry gun took up nearly the whole width of the tunnel with just enough room on either side for the weapon to traverse left and right.
"Fire in the hole!" Vasquez shouted as she threw a wastebasket down the tunnel into the gun's programmed field of fire. The sentry gun swiveled smoothly allowing the wastebasket to bounce once then promptly riddled it with two quick bursts of exploding ten millimeter rounds, reducing the wastebasket to dime-sized shrapnel.
Vasquez switched out the ammo drum with the full one from the damaged sentry gun, then retreated behind the heavy steel fire door and hit the button to roll it closed on its track. She set down the ammo drum and began sealing the door to its frame with a portable welding torch as Esposito paced nervously until Hudson came on his headset.
"A and B sentries are in place and keyed," Hudson reported.
"Vasquez is sealing the tunnel," Espo replied, get the barricades the colonists used re-sealed then report back to operations."
Castle and Beckett were hard at work covering the last of a series of air duct openings with metal plates scrounged from the vehicles outside and welding them in place, showering sparks in the dark corridor.
Behind them Vaughn and Newt were occupied moving back and forth with a hand truck, stacking packages of food in the operations center.
When everything seemed to be ready, Esposito approached them and handed Castle and Beckett each a set of portable tracking beacons about the size and shape of wristwatches.
"Here, put these on," Esposito said, "we all have them. This way I can I can locate you anywhere
in the complex on this," He indicated a tiny tracker hooked to his battle harness and shrugged, self-consciously. "I have ones for little Castle and mini-little Castle, too."
Kate paused for a moment, regarding him quizzically, before strapping hers on and handing the others to Castle.
"Thanks, Javi," she whispered.
Two hours later, Castle carried an exhausted, but defiantly awake Newt through the interconnected rooms of the medical wing with Kate following right behind. Newt had cried herself out after a tearful reunion with her mother, but Alexis had insisted she stay with him and Kate for her own safety, obviously not trusting herself to keep her daughter out of danger. Both Rick and Kate hurt for Alexis, knowing how deeply she internalized things, blaming herself for circumstances which she'd had no control over.
They reached an operating room they had claimed for themselves for some privacy. The room was small but sturdy. Three metal cots had been set up, displacing O.R. equipment which had been shoved into one corner. Newt's head was resting on Castle's shoulder, barely awake as Kate turned down the blankets on one of the cots and Castle laid her down to tuck her in.
"You're exhausted, Newt, you need to get some sleep." Castle whispered.
"I don't want to," Newt moaned, her eyes wide in fear, "I have scary dreams."
Kate could feel the fear rippling off the girl, even from the other side of the cot before she knelt down next to her, inspecting Casey in her hand.
"I'll bet Casey here doesn't have bad dreams." Kate whispered, lifting the doll's head from Newt's tiny fingers to look inside, before handing her back. "Nothing bad in there. Maybe you could just try to be like her."
Newt rolled her eyes, clearly mimicking Kate. "Kate, ...she doesn't have bad dreams because she's just piece of plastic," a little bit of Castle smart-ass shining through her weariness and fear.
"Oh. Sorry, Newt." Kate replied, feigning being chastened.
"Mommy always told me that there were no monsters." Newt whispered, "No real ones. But there are. I've seen them. They hurt her."
Kate's expression sobered as she turned to Castle, her eyes saying "fix it, fix it, please" through her dampening eyelashes as she brushed Newt's hair back from her forehead.
"Yes, there are," Castle replied quietly, refusing to lie to her.
"Why would mommy lie to me like that?" Newt whispered, a deep undercurrent of betrayal in her tone.
"Most of the time, it's true," Castle replied, "It was when I told her that when she was as little as you."
His heart sank like a stone with the knowledge that his granddaughter had witnessed firsthand how terrifying the real world could be. That Newt's childhood had been scarred forever by nightmare creatures far scarier than anything a child's subconscious should be able to manufacture. He could tell that Kate felt it too, as she buried her face in his shoulder to hide her tears, with the knowledge that there was nothing that could ever set this right for her.
He knew that Kate had been plagued by similar nightmares, centered around events that took place after he'd been incapacitated by Ash which he had no knowledge of, events she swore she could not remember, and he believed her. That he had been unable to stand with her when she'd needed him most magnified his guilt exponentially.
"Does my mommy have one of those things inside her?" Newt asked.
Castle pulled the blankets up, tucking them in around her tiny body. "No, Newt, Private Dietrich looked and so did the auto-doc. Kate and I know what to look for and there isn't one there. I promise."
Castle reached for a portable space heater sitting nearby, slid it closer to the bed and switched it on. It hummed as it warmed up, gradually emitting a cozy orange glow.
"Kate and I are going to go check on your mommy," Castle whispered in her ear, "make sure she's comfy and safe, then we need to talk to Ryan and Esposito. We will be right in the next room, okay?"
Castle switched off the light and started to rise, but Newt grabbed his arm.
"Don't go!" Newt begged, her voice a plaintive thing in the dark "Please."
"We'll be right in the other room, Newt, I promise," Castle whispered, "I'll be able to see you on that camera right up there."
Castle pointed to the security camera over the door, watching as Newt noted the red light, indicating it was active. He took out one of the tracking bracelets given to them by Esposito and wrapped it around Newt's tiny wrist, cinching it down so it wouldn't fall off. "I can find you anywhere with this." he whispered in her ear. "But would it help if I check for monsters before I go," Castle asked, "just like I did for your mommy?"
Newt nodded and watched as Castle dipped low, even though his knee screamed in protest and looked carefully under the bed. Then set Kate to checking behind everything in the room.
"Nope, no monsters under there," Castle promised, "Now go to sleep...and try not to dream."
Newt rolled onto her side, hugging Casey, gazing at the hypnotically pulsing function light on the bracelet and listening to the space heater humming comfortingly nearby until she finally succumbed to sleep, before Castle and Beckett slipped quietly from the room.
A short time later, after Castle had painstakingly searched for monsters under Alexis' bed like he'd done for Newt, Castle and Beckett walked through medical and stopped to watch Bishop and Dietrich as they were bent over Gorman. The lieutenant's eyelids were wide open like those of a corpse, but his eyes were very much alive, tracking erratically. The only sign he was in there.
"How is he?" Kate asked, standing over Gorman, lying motionless on the examination table.
Bishop looked up from his instruments nearby, the light of a single goose-neck lamp giving his features a macabre cast as he exchanged looks with the Marine Corpsman.
"I've isolated the neuro-muscular toxin responsible for his paralysis. It seems to be metabolizing quickly so he should wake up soon.
"Let me get this straight," Kate said, starting to build theory, "The aliens paralyzed the colonists, carried them over to the AP station and cocooned them to be hosts for more of those..." Kate stopped to point at the stasis cylinders containing the face-hugger specimens for emphasis.
"Which would mean lots of those parasites, right?" Castle added, picking up Kate's lime of reasoning almost immediately "One for each person...over three hundred at least."
"Yes, that sounds reasonable," Bishop replied, the only person they had ever met not to be taken aback by their shared brain theory building mind-meld thing.
"But these things come from eggs," Kate jumped in again, "so what's laying all of these eggs?"
"We could assume a parallel to certain insect forms with similar hive-like organizations," Bishop offered. "An ant or termite colony, for example, is ruled by a single female, a queen, which is the source of all new eggs."
"You're saying one of those things lays all the eggs?" Castle asked.
"If these creatures are insect based, the queen would likely be physically much larger then the others." Bishop postulated, "A termite queen's abdomen is so bloated with eggs that it can't move at all. It is fed and tended by drone workers and defended to the death by the warriors. She is the center of their lives, quite literally the mother of their entire hive."
"Could she be intelligent?" Castle and Beckett asked simultaneously.
"Hard to say," Bishop replied, "It may merely function on blind instinct...attraction to warm places... but she did choose to incubate her eggs in the one location where we we couldn't destroy her without destroying ourselves in the process. Providing she exists, that would be an elegant sign of intelligence I think."
Both Castle and Beckett looked at each other, pondering the ramifications of Bishop's analysis.
"I want those specimens destroyed as soon as you're done with them, Bishop," Kate demanded, her voice dangerous, "No samples or traces of them get off this planet, understood?"
Bishop glanced at the creatures pulsing malevolently in their cylinders.
"Mr. Vaughn gave instructions that they were to be kept in stasis for return to the company labs," Bishop replied, "He was very specific."
From the barely controlled fury burning in Kate's irises, it was clear that she'd had just about enough of Eric Vaughn as she spun on her heel and stormed from the room, the fabric of her self-restraint tearing at the seams.
Kate tracked Vaughn down to a small observation chamber separated from the med lab by a glass partition, where she cornered him about his orders to Bishop.
"Vaughn, what part of 'those things need to be destroyed', do you not understand?" Kate hissed. If the corporate suit had known her as well he thought he did, he would have known how much danger he was really in. This was Kate Beckett in full on chase down her mother's killer mode. More focused even with nearly her entire family in the cross-hairs.
"Kate, those specimens would be worth billions to the bio-weapons division." Vaughn shot back. "We can all come out of this as very wealthy heroes. Enough money for everybody here to be set for life."
"There's no way you're getting a dangerous organism like that past ICC quarantine." Kate spat back, anger in full bloom, "Section 22350 of the Commerce Code specifically states..."
"You've obviously done your homework, Kate," Vaughn interrupted, his tone condescending, "but they can't impound what they don't know about."
"But they will know, Eric." Kate shot back with venom in her tone, "From me. Just like they'll know how you were responsible for the deaths of the three hundred and eighty three colonists here!"
"Now, wait a second..." Vaughn began, but Kate cut him off, by stepping into his personal space, her hands in his lapels, pushing him against the observation window.
"You sent them to that ship!" Kate raged, her frustration and rage finding a target to focus on."I checked the colony log... the directive was dated shortly after my inquest, signed Vaughn, Eric J.! You sent them there and you didn't warn them what they'd be walking into, you son of a bitch!"
"I couldn't be sure the creatures you described even existed at the time," Vaughn explained. "If I'd made it into a major security issue, the Administration would've stepped in and there would have been no exclusive rights for anybody! It was a bad call, Kate," he shrugged dismissively, "that's all."
Kate snapped, slamming Vaughn bodily into the glass partition so hard that it cracked the glass, sending spiderwebs flaring from the spot where Vaughn's shoulders struck it, surprising herself and him with her raw display of violence. Unlike Vulcan Simmons, however, Vaughn did not grin maniacally at her, in fact he betrayed no emotion at all, which made Kate even angrier.
"Bad call?" Kate shrieked, "Those people are dead! Three hundred and eighty three men women and children, you son of a bitch! The Commerce Commission is gonna nail your hide to the fucking wall for this when we get back and I'll be holding the hammer for them when they do. Remember your old life, Eric. Savor it, because I am going to take it all away."
Kate shoved him back once more before she stepped back, shaking, eyeing him with utter loathing, the depths of human greed far more horrific a revelation to her than any alien xenomorph.
"I expected better from you, Kate," Vaughn muttered almost sadly, "I honestly thought you would be smarter than this."
"Sorry to disappoint you." Kate hissed at him sarcastically, wondering how she could ever have believed a word that had come out of his mouth as she released him and turned away to stalk out.
Vaughn stared after her, his shoulders aching, his mind a whirl of options.
On her way back through operations, Kate heard a security alarm and broke into a run. She arrived in operations to find Hudson, Vasquez and Esposito already there.
"They're trying the tunnel." Esposito explained.
The sentry gun in the main tunnel spat short bursts of explosive tipped death, sending acid spattering in all directions, pitting the underground tunnel and seeping into the bedrock below to little effect. Then with just as little fanfare the weapon fell silent. The counter on the display reading only two hundred rounds had been expended.
"Must be pretty smart, they stopped before the ammo ran dry." Ryan quipped.
The intercom buzzed, startling them all.
"Bishop here," the synthetic began, "I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."
"Well, that's a switch." Ryan muttered sarcastically.
Everyone, including Bishop, crowded at the window twenty minutes later, intently staring out at the AP station's dim silhouette in the distance. Suddenly, a column of flame gushed upward from the complex at the base of the cone-like structure.
"That's it. See it?" Bishop pointed out. "Emergency venting."
"How long until it blows?" Kate asked, not certain she was going to like the answer.
"I'm projecting total containment failure in a little under four hours with a core breach and nuclear chain reaction equal to a ten megaton fusion bomb less than an hour after that. This facility will be well inside the projected thirty kilometer blast radius.
"We got problems," Esposito stated flatly.
"You think?" Ryan muttered.
"And it's too late to shut it down?" Kate asked.
"I'm afraid so," Bishop replied, "The crash did too much damage, a core overload is inevitable at this point."
"Oh, man," Hudson moaned, "I was gettin' short, too! Four more weeks and out. Now I'm gonna buy it on this fuckin' rock. It ain't fair, man!"
"Hudson, give it a rest," Vasquez snapped, "this kinda sucks for all of us."
They watched another gas jet light up the fog-shrouded landscape before Bishop resealed the storm shutter. Kate struggled to organize her thoughts.
"We need the other drop-ship from the Sulaco." She said finally "Can't we bring it down on remote?"
"How?" Hudson snapped at her, "Our transmitter on the APC's wasted."
"What about the colony transmitter? The up-link tower down at the other end of the complex?"
"I checked," Bishop replied, "The hard wiring between here and there was severed during the colonists fight with the aliens, it's what brought us here in the first place."
Kate paced back and forth, wracking her brain for what to do, her mind spinning out one scenario after another, before she reached the only viable alternative. "Somebody's gonna have to go out there with a portable terminal and plug in manually, then. It's the only way."
"With those things out there crawling around," Hudson snapped at her, "No way, you can count me out!"
Castle could see the wheels turning in Kate's eyes, he'd stayed silent for most of this exchange, but was about to intervene when Bishop spoke up quietly.
"I'll go." The synthetic volunteered.
"What?" Kate asked.
"I said I'll go," Bishop said, "I'm the only one qualified to remote-pilot the ship, so I'd have to go anyway. Believe me, I'd prefer not to. I may be synthetic but I'm not stupid."
"All right," Kate said, finding just a little respect for the synthetic person in spite of herself, "Let's get on it. What will you need?"
About an hour later, they had been able to find in the blueprints a sub-floor conduit leading almost directly to the up-link tower which had been exposed by acid damage from the colonists' siege. Bishop crawled into the opening, reached up for the portable terminal which Kate handed over and he pushed it into the constricted shaft ahead of him. She then handed him a small satchel containing tools and assorted patch cables, a service pistol which he promptly handed back and a small cutting torch which he slipped into the bag.
"This duct runs almost to the up-link assembly," Bishop stated coolly, "One hundred eighty meters. I estimate, say forty minutes to crawl down there. One hour to patch in and align the antenna. Thirty minutes to prep the ship, then about fifty minutes flight time."
Kate looked at her father's watch.
"It's going to be close," Kate whispered, "You better get going. The aliens should ignore you for the most part, Ash... the synthetic from my ship figured they don't see synthetics as either a threat, food source or potential host. You should be safe enough."
"See you soon," Bishop replied cheerfully as Kate lowered the curved piece of steel cut from the conduit back into place. "Watch your fingers."
He squirmed down the shaft, pushing the equipment along ahead of him, the diameter of the conduit barely larger than the width of his shoulders as Vasquez began to spot weld the conduit closed. Bishop looked back and sighed fatalistically before squirming forward once more. He had work to do.
An alarm suddenly blared through the complex, making Kate jump.
"Beckett, they're trying the main entrance." Esposito said over her headset
"On my way."
Kate sprinted for Operations with Vasquez as the loud staccato chatter from the broken APC's chain guns echoed through the whole complex. When the two women arrived, the others were gathered around the main console, mesmerized by the images from the external surveillance cameras. The muzzle flashes from the APC's chain guns lit up the darkness, revealing alien figures moving outside the complex. The chain guns hammered away, driving streamers of tracer fire into the swirling mist and an inhuman shrill screeching can be heard between bursts of thirty millimeter cannon fire.
"Twenty meters and closing," Ryan reported, "Fifteen... ten... five..."
The chain guns stopped firing abruptly, and the video image dimmed to a swirling wall of smoke. Small fires burned, glowing dimly in the mist. Black, twisted shapes and body parts scattered at the edge of visibility, but nothing else emerged and the motion sensor tone cut off.
"They retreated." Kate whispered, "The guns stopped them."
"There's got to be more to it than that," Castle added, stating the one thing nobody want to admit. "Look at the pattern, they seem to be deliberately probing the defenses, looking for weak points to exploit, there's a definite intelligence at work here."
Esposito had long since learned that absurd theories aside, Castle was pound for pound one of the best out of the box thinkers he had ever met. When it came to a menace that was a combination of an alien invasion and a zombie apocalypse, Richard Castle would be the man with the plan.
"Vasquez, Hudson! I want you two walking the perimeter." Esposito ordered, "I know we're all in strung out shape but stay frosty and alert. If Castle is right, these things are smarter than they look."
"Vamos," Vasquez whispered, thumping Hudson's front armor as they head for the corridor.
Kate sighed as she picked up a cup of cold coffee, draining it in one gulp, looking more worse for wear than Castle as they leaned close together.
How long since either of you slept?" Esposito asked, "Twenty-four hours?"
Kate looked soul weary, drained by nearly forty-eight hours of nerve-wracking tension with little sleep.
"I'm not going to wind up like those others." She responded, her voice distant and detached.
"If it comes to that," Castle whispered in her ear, "I'll do us both, babe. Let's see that it doesn't"
Esposito tossed a pulse-rifle to Castle, "Here, I'd like to introduce you both to a close personal friend of mine."
He picked up another pulse-rifle, then with the casually precise movements snapped open the bolt, hit the eject lever, dropped out the magazine and handed it to Kate.
"This is the M-41A 10mm pulse-rifle," Esposito stated, "and 30mm pump-action grenade launcher."
Kate hefted the weapon, finding it heavy and awkward compared to the pistols she was used to, but, that weight also filled her a sense of security in its lethal steel lines. She raised the weapon clumsily.
"What do I do?"
Though it was clear that Castle was in his element with his own pulse rifle, having long ago mastered the civilian variant, Kate had the stock of her M-41A snugged up to her cheek awkwardly trying to keep up with Esposito's instructions. She had used her share of shotguns as a uniform, but had shied away from rifles even before she'd been shot by a sniper. Other than looking down the scope of the very rifle used to shoot her, she hadn't so much as touched one since... until now.
"Just pull it in tight." He said, aware of her hesitation and the cause of it, "It will kick some. When the counter here heads zero, hit this..." He thumbed the release button and the magazine dropped out, clattering to the floor and handed her another. "Just let it drop and get the other one in quick."
He watched as she slid the new mag in, and corrected her technique, "Just slap it in hard, lock and load."
Kate snapped back the charging lever and let it go, with an oddly reassuring "ker-chak!" as the bolt snapped back in place with a round in the pipe.
"You're ready again." Esposito encouraged, wishing he had been able to get Kate over this hump after the sniper case when he believed it might have done her the most good.
"What about the grenade launcher?" Castle asked, his own rifle at the ready.
"You probably don't want to mess with that," Espo replied.
"You started this, Javi," Kate scolded. "Now show us everything."
A short time later, Castle and Beckett walked down the corridor, carrying their newfound artillery just as Gorman stepped out of the med lab, looking weak but sound with Vaughn right behind him.
"How do you feel, Gorman?" Kate asked, pointedly ignoring Vaughn.
"All right, I guess," Gorman replied, except for one hell of a hangover."
He paused for a minute, struggling to find the right words. "Look, Beckett... I..."
"Forget it, Gorman," Kate replied, "I've been there, it's never pretty."
She shouldered past the two men into the med lab with Castle close behind. They are both far too tired for this shit.
When they disappeared down the corridor to the room they shared with Newt, Gorman turned to see Vasquez staring at him, her eyes cold spiteful cinders.
"You still want to kill me?" Gorman asked.
"It won't be necessary...sir" Vasquez stated coldly, the look in her eyes told Gorman she really meant to say "cur" but military protocol would not permit it. She was well aware that every set of hands would be needed on the line. If he faltered again though, she would not shed a tear if he ended up as a victim of friendly fire.
Castle and Beckett crossed the deserted lab, through the annex to the small O.R. where they had left the sleeping Newt. After stopping to check on Alexis so Castle could straighten her blankets and press a kiss to her troubled brow, they entered their darkened room and looked around but Newt had vanished. On a hunch, Kate knelt down and peered under the bed to find the girl curled up, fast asleep clutching "Casey" jammed as far back into the place Castle had deemed safe from monsters as her tiny body could reach.
Kate stared at Newt's tiny face, angelic in sleep despite the demons that haunted her dreams and waking hours equally, nightmares not substantially different from Kate's own. They had both been separated from people they loved by violence to be cast adrift during a time of great trauma. Both of them were now suffering for it, and by extension, so were the people who loved them.
Kate nodded to Castle who slipped his arms under Newt and lifted her from her hiding place without waking her, slid her onto the two cots they had pushed together for their use and curled up under the covers with the girl between them, their rifles and pistols on either side of the bed within easy reach.
Newt's face contorted and she turned in her sleep, tormented by a nightmare and crying out quietly. "Sssshh," Castle whispered, soothing Newt's fears as he had Kate's more than once, "It's all right. Shhh, I've got you." Newt gradually settled and the three of them were all soon huddled close together, fast asleep.
Bishop knelt, hunched against the base of the telemetry tower, taking shelter from the wind and rain. He was hard at work with the patch bay open and the portable terminal patched in, his jacket draped over the keyboard and monitor unit to protect them from the elements as he typed frenetically.
"Now, if I did it right..." the synthetic muttered to himself as he punched the "enable" key.
The silence of the Sulaco's empty flight deck was suddenly broken by an alert klaxon. Hydraulic motors whined to life, setting lifters into motion, moving the second drop-ship along its overhead track and into the drop bay cradle as service booms and fueling couplers moved in automatically around the hull.
On the bridge, the systems control officer jumped from her seat.
"Captain!" she sang out, "Drop ship beta is powering up and transferring to the launch cradle!"
"On who's authority?" Captain Gates replied, her eyes boring into the young ensign.
"Authorization code Bishop alpha two three niner." The ensign responded, "Retinal scan confirmed, along with a text only message from Mr. Bishop sir."
"What is the message, Ensign Sato."
"Hostile xenomorph infestation confirmed. Heavy Marine casualties sustained, Colony total loss. Atmosphere processor fusion reactor building to critical mass. Immediate evac required. Level three decontamination procedures recommended upon retrieval."
"Thank you ensign," Captain Gates responded. "Alert Dr. Parish to prepare Sick Bay for patients,"
Gates hit the direct intercom to engineering on her chair, "Mr. Sulaco, see if you can find a way to expedite the drop ship remote launch procedure."
She barely waited for his terse "Yes, sir," before switchin intercom channels to give an order that had not been needed since the time of sail, hoping it would not be necessary. "Master Chief Halsey, Sergeant Major Breckenridge, gear up and report to the flight deck ready room, full arms. Stand ready to repel possible hostile boarders. Condition one is in effect throughout the ship."
Whatever threat materialized, if any, Captain Gates was determined that the Sulaco would be ready to meet it.
**Author's Note** Things certainly seem to be coming to a head don't they?
Side note, Internet trolls will still not be tolerated. Learn to critique properly please or go back to obscurity.