CHAPTER SEVEN
The child was running. He was as surefooted as a mountain goat. The grass in the field he was in was up to his knees. He was running to the shade of a tree where his elders were.
They were all standing around the body of a dead lion. This primitive tribe of Africans was probably one of the last indigenous tribes on the continent. Technology hadn't yet caught up with them.
The child reached the group of men standing around the lion. They were all talking in their own dialect, convinced that the gods were angry with them. They had never seen a lion killed like this before.
It's chest was burst open, the ribs bent outward like it had exploded from the inside.
A grass field, invaded by USM marines. They were in an arrowhead formation, pulse rifles almost lazily resting on their arms. The forest line was about 200 meters in front of them.
An APC was rolling along behind them, providing artillery support. It was an overcast day. The marines were looking hot and sweaty. The temperatures were above average for the time of year.
And then it sounded. The motion tracker beeped. The marines had begun to dread the sound of the motion tracker as it often heralded a battle. A battle the marines usually lost.
The marines dropped to the ground as one of them said, 'Movement at eighty-five meters. Twelve o'clock.' The marines had begun to expect just about anything as the war with the bugs went on. The bugs could not be predicted. There were no real good strategies to fight them. The bugs were capable of adapting to just about any situation. And they were always relentless.
'Sixty meters,' the marine called out. They were tense, eyes searching the horizon for any sign of movement. The marine kept calling out the distance, a little too quickly some thought. Then again, these bugs could move.
'Fifty, forty, thirty.' His voice was rising in pitch everytime he called out the distance. 'Where the hell is it?,' one of the marines yelled in terror. Eyes were wide in terror as the marine was calling out the distance. 'Twenty. Fifteen.'
And then one of the marines saw a shadow. It was on the ground kind of like a bird's shadow. He looked up to see an alien flying. It was flying right towards him. He screamed as he raised his pulse rifle to fire at it. He was too slow.
The alien reached down and plucked him from the ground to carry him off to be a host. The rest of the marines didn't have time to panic as more of the flying aliens began swooping down, attacking them while they tried to blast them out of the sky.
A few marines were lucky enough to take a few of them out. Unfortunately for some unlucky marines, it began raining acid.
A sergeant was yelling. 'Fire, goddamn it, fire!' Rifle fire could be heard for miles. A squadron of marines was using a burnt out shell of a car for protection as they laid waste to the aliens charging them.
They had retreated to this point and were afraid to retreat any further for they had nowhere else to go. There were six of them left and they were giving the bugs all they had. They feared it would not be enough.
'I'm out,' one of the marines said signifying that he had run out of ammunition. He now had to rely on the others. In the distance, people were fleeing having heard the battle that was raging in their own backyard.
The marines started backing up as the bugs were getting to close. It was a good thing they did because the car they had been using for a shield suddenly exploded as it was hit by something the marines had never seen before.
The explosion killed, or rather destroyed, any aliens that were too close. The sergeant felt rather then saw a presence leap in front of the marines. The aliens started attacking the presence, which the marines could now see as a semi-invisible form.
The form started hacking away at the aliens with what seemed to be spear. The aliens were getting sliced and diced to bits, the acid somehow never seeming to go anywhere near the humanoid form.
The marines just stared in disbelief. They had to back up because the fight was coming closer to them as the predator swung its spear with deadly accuracy. And then it became visible, the marines getting a good look at it.
One marine got to close and he was decapitated before any of them realised. 'All right marines, we're leaving,' the sergeant ordered. The marines, taking one last look at the predator and aliens, turned and ran while one of them was yelling into his mike requesting immediate evacuation from the dropship flying nearby.
'Sir we just got another report of the new xeno's attacking one of the bugs nest,' a marine informed the General. 'Thank you,' a tired looking General replied. He didn't know what was happening. It was all going from bad to worse and he knew he was partly responsible for it. Responsible for the deaths of so many lives.
'Is Presario back yet?', the General asked. A marine looked up from his clipboard. He was responsible for keeping track of the men in the field. The important men anyway. 'Not yet sir.'
Presario entered the room, Ryder right behind him. 'I am now.' The marine with the clipboard said, 'Strike that sir, he's here.'
Presario and Ryder had to fight their way through the melee and turmoil to get to the General. 'God damn it Presario what's going on out there. We're getting reports in from all over the goddamn place. What's this I'm hearing about another xeno?'
'It's true. I saw one of them myself.' The General stood a little straighter, crossing his arms, looking at both Presario and Ryder. Finally he said, 'Well, can you describe it, give me anything to go on?'
'It was invisible,' Presario started before the General cut in with an understandable comment. 'Invisible. What do you mean invisible?' Presario looked around the room at the soldiers and tried to keep his voice low. 'Well not invisible exactly, it was semi invisible. Like a silhouette. But when it was visible I could see that it had skulls strapped to it.'
The General raised an eyebrow. 'Skulls. What kind of skulls? Human?' Presario kept looking around the room. 'Yes. And bug skulls. It also had dreadlocks and a spear. It looked to be wearing a mask.'
The General was lost in thought. 'Skulls?', he
asked again. Presario nodded. Presario watched the General who was
obviously deep in thought. 'General?'
The General looked at
Presario. 'There's something familiar in your description. I'll
have to go and check on something. I just can't place it but it
sounds familiar.'
'Ok,' Presario answered. 'You'll
let us know as soon as you find out anything won't you?'
'Yes
of course. Now if you'll excuse me.' The General went off to look
for whatever he was going to look for.
'What was all that about?', Ryder asked Presario. Presario watching the Generals retreating back answered, 'I don't know. But I'm sure we'll find out.'
Presario was seated at a table, head down reading some files. He was studying the files put together by Franks on Ripleys encounters with the aliens, hoping that it would give him a clue as to how to kill them.
He was flicking pages that had photos of people. Kane, Dallas, Hicks, Hudson. And then he saw one that made him stop.
It was a photo of Ripley. Ellen Ripley. She was young. If only she were here he thought, then she would save them all. Yeah right, as if Ripley could save Earth.
Just then Ryder walked into the room and stood close behind him looking over his shoulder. 'Ellen Ripley,' she said. 'So that's her.' Presario looked around at her. 'Yep, that's her. One very strong lady.'
Ryder sat down next to him and looked at him, trying
to read his mind. 'What are you doing?', she asked.
'Asking
her a few questions,' Presario nodded towards the picture of
Ripley. Ryder raised an eyebrow. 'Is she answering?' Presario
turned to look at Ryder, a look of sadness crossing his face. 'I
don't know. But I have an idea.'
The General came into the room quietly. Almost whispering he said, 'I think you two better take a look at this.
They were all in a conference room viewing a tape. What they were seeing was the aftermath of a massive explosion. The General was talking as they watched.
'We've come across these other xeno's before. The last known contact we had was back in the 21st century. There were two major incidents that we know of but most likely there were more. One was with a United States guerilla outfit and the other was with a special unit within the FBI. In each incident, there were only one of these creatures.'
'What you're seeing is the aftermath of the first incident. A major by the name of Dutch Schaffer actually fought one of these things in hand to hand combat.'
Just then a picture of a man came onto the screen with the caption 'Major Dutch Schaffer.' Presario and Ryder took in his details. He was by no means a small man. He obviously spent much of his time in the gym.
'We have very detailed accounts from the major, and from the special FBI unit. These incidents happened ten years apart. Now what makes it interesting is that on both accounts, the reports strongly suggests that the sole xeno was more like a hunter, or predator. It went to great lengths not to be seen, including semi invisibility. '
Presario looked at the General. 'There you go,' he said before turning back to the video screen. The General kept talking as a picture of another man came up with the caption 'Lieutenant Michael Harrigan.'
'This man here found the xeno's ship and entered it. What he saw was what he liked to call a trophy case.' It was Ryder's turn to look over at the General. Fearing the answer she would get she asked, 'What was in the trophy case?'
The General looked at them both, pausing before he answered her question. 'Skulls. I think it's safe to assume we're now dealing with the same creature.'
'One thing I don't
get,' Presario began, 'why now do we seem to have armies of these
things?'
The General shook his head. 'I don't know. All
we've got to go on are these files that are hundreds of years old.
Nothing seems to make sense anymore.'
Presario saw his chance. 'I think there might be a way to find out,' he said. The General looked back to him from the video screen. 'How?' Presario looked between Ryder and the General. 'Genetic memory.'
Ryder
looked a little confused. 'What.' Presario didn't like the idea
but it was the only real chance they had of finding out what they
desperately needed to know. 'Genetic memory,' he said talking
more to the General. 'The scientists on the Auriga, they cloned
Ripley to get the bug. They found out that the cloned Ripley could
remember everything.'
The General grasped what Presario was
saying. 'Yes, yes you're right. With the genetic memory not only
could Ripley remember her past, but she may have been able to
remember the bugs past as well.'
Presario nodded. 'That's
right.'
The General kept talking. 'If so, maybe we can find
out where these things originally came from.'
'We might be
able to find out more than that General. We could find a way to kill
them.'
The General nodded, warming to the idea. 'Ok I'll get Franks and his team to start the cloning process using the techniques they used on the Auriga,' he paused. Turning back to Presario he asked, 'Who do we clone. It'll have to be someone that has been impregnated.'
'How 'bout Perry. We should
still have his blood samples lying around the place.'
'Right.
I'll tell Franks to get on it right away.'
The alien was dead. It was in a specimen jar after just being surgically removed from Perry's chest. Presario and Ryder and the General were all there watching Perry as he sat on the table looking at everyone.
'Now he probably can remember,' Franks began,
'but it maybe difficult to get it out of him.'
'What do you
mean?', the General asked.
'To be honest, I don't really
know what I'm dealing with here. He may not remember anything or he
may only remember certain things.'
'Can you give me a straight
answer?'
'Look,' Franks said trying to be patient, 'my
guess is that it may resemble what we call repressed memories. If
that's the case I could try hypnosis.'
'You do whatever
you can Franks.' The General stepped closer to Perry who just
stared back. 'Perry, do you remember me?'
'Yes. I remember
you. You sent me to my death.'
The General looked a little sad.
'You're right I did. I'm sorry but we're beyond that now.
Right now we're trying to save mankind. We're trying to save
Earth.'
Perry looked away from the General to Presario. 'What do you want me to do?' The General started to speak but was cut off by Perry. 'I wasn't talking to you. Persario?'
Presario stepped forward. 'We need to know everything you know. You know the bugs have genetic memory, we believe that you may be able to remember something of their past. Maybe it will help us in our fight.'
Perry looked from face to face. 'I'll do my best.' The General sighed in relief. 'Thank you Perry.'
The look Perry gave the General would have melted ice.
The General, Presario and Ryder walked into the command centre to the tune of war. Radio messages going back and forth, people running around with important messages and officers screaming orders across the room.
The three of them stopped. 'General,' Presario said, 'I think it's time we started to rethink the evacuation idea.'
The General turned to Presario. 'Presario I know it's looking bad.' He was cut off in mid sentence by Ryder. 'With all due respect General it's gone to #. If it looks bad that's because it is.'
Presario jumped in. 'She's right General. We have two different alien species out there that are fighting each other on our soil. We couldn't even contain the bugs and now we've got a sophisticated intelligent life form out there that to me looks like they were born to fight.'
The General was looking between the two of them. He knew it was over. He just didn't want to admit it. He didn't want to admit that he had lost Earth to an alien invasion.
'Maybe you're right,' he said. 'If only we could mass eliminate the bugs, then maybe the humanoids would leave. They only came here after the bugs had overrun the planet.'
'I know General,' Presario sympathised, 'but we've got to worry about us now.'
The General turned away from them both. Shaking his head, he looked out over the chaos that was taking place in the room. He turned back to Presario and Ryder. Looking at them he just nodded.
'Thank you General,' Presario said as he put an arm on the Generals shoulder. The General reached into his pocket and pulled out his asthma spray. He put it to his mouth, pumped the spray and breathed in. He coughed twice.
When he looked up he saw Ryder staring at him in a
strange way. 'What?'
She looked at Presario who had a curious
look on his face. 'I know how we can kill them.'
Presario
and the General looked at each other. 'You do, do you?' Ryder
looked at them with excitement. 'Gas.'
'Excuse me?'
'Gas.
The gas that Ripley used on the Narcissus.' Looking at bewildered
faces she explained further. 'Ripley said in her statement that she
used a gas to get the alien out from the pipes so she could zap it
into space.'
Presario understood. 'That's right,' he said turning towards the General. 'Sir, that gas that Ripley mentioned wasn't gas exactly, it was a combination of disinfectants. The disinfectant was manufactured to kill specific bacteria. It's not harmful to much else. We could rig some ships with this stuff and spray the surface without doing anymore damage to peoples homes or to the environment.'
The General was shaking his head, not believing it. 'But do we know that this stuff will kill the bugs. Every chemical attack we've made against them has had utterly no effect. Ripley said that the bug screamed in anger when she hit it with the gas.'
Ryder nodded. 'Yes, but couldn't it have been screaming in pain.' Presario and Ryder looked at the General in hope. The General looked between them.
'Alright. Presario, I'll leave you to sort out the details. I want you to co-ordinate with anyone that's still alive. We'll need more then one ship to do this. Get as many ships as you can rigged and ready to go. We will use this as a last resort only. I still want to explore other options because I'm not entirely convinced that your idea will work.'
