The Eternity Legion, Book Two: The E-Files
By J.C. Lords
Author's Note: One more chapter to go, and this baby will be finished. Thanks again for all your comments. I should have the last one done before the end of the year.
Disclaimers: See Chapter One.
Chapter Five
Unnamed Facility, Montana
9:12 p.m., Day Four
Colonel Alan Schaeffer had been in his new position for three days now, more than long enough to realize he was in over his head.
At first, he had been too involved in doing his job to notice. He had spoken with the security team of the base – all ex-military, two thirds of them American, the others an assortment of European and South American mercenaries. They were tough and well-trained, but they and their facilities were not up to the mission. One look at the things they were supposed to keep in was enough; the reports that a Predator had been sighted in Chicago, and that more might be on their way here, made it doubly important that the base was secured.
At least, his employers didn't seem to have any budget constraints. When he presented the smoking man with a shopping list that included Claymore mines, the best night-vision equipment in the market, high-powered Barrett sniper rifles, and motion detectors, the only reaction had been a cursory nod. A day later, the equipment had arrived to the base. Now, the gap between the two fences as a no-man's land of mines, sniper positions, and concealed traps, designed to catch both enemies trying to infiltrate the area and prisoners attempting to escape.
Schaffer hadn't expected the prisoners to include innocent humans, however.
They had started arriving a day ago, helicopters laden with shuffling men and women. They were wearing clean jumpsuits, but they had the worn and haggard appearance of homeless people, drug addicts, alcoholics. They had been herded inside, and Schaeffer's questions about them had been met with stony silence. Something was going to happen to those people, something unpleasant, and Schaeffer was now an accomplice. And he realized now that he was as much a prisoner here as those people.
Colonel Schaeffer lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and he started planning to escape from the armed base he had helped set up.
****
The project manager had doctorates in half a dozen fields from as many top-notch universities around the world. He had come close to winning the Nobel Prize twice in his career, a near-miss that had left him bitterly disappointed. His work for the government could have earned him any number of Nobel Prizes, but he would never be able to publish any it. For that matter, his use of human subjects for lethal experiments would probably not go over well with the scientific community. No matter. The stakes were far higher than prestige. It was, quite literally, a matter of life and death for the whole planet.
Telling himself that last part helped him sleep at night.
So far, fifteen subjects had been infected with alien organism. Their deaths had been gruesome; after the first few "hatchings," the scientist had stopped watching then. It was truly regrettable, but necessary. And he was making progress.
The aliens' physiology was the epitome of natural selection. It was incredibly resistant to all forms of infection, including the dreaded black oil that the other alien species used to propagate itself. Isolating antibodies from the monsters' highly corrosive blood had not been easy, but he and his team had managed to do so in record time. All the research the conspiracy had done to help spread the black oil now served them well in devising a countermeasure.
At last, they had found a perfect antidote.
The researcher sat back, alone in his office. It was over. He had run two computer simulations long after everybody else had gone to bed, to confirm the findings. The gene-engineered virus carrier would infect humans and then subtly rewrite their DNA, just enough to make them produce the antibody to the black oil. The new virus would be spread through bees and corn at first, as per the original black oil plan. Later, it would be introduced in a hundred different ways. It would cost billions of dollars, but at the end of the process, 99% of humankind would be immune to infestation.
The sound of a door opening startled the scientist. He turned around and saw "cancer man" -- a nickname nobody used whenever he was around -- not holding a cigarette for a change, standing silently in the office.
"I didn't think you were here tonight," the scientist said. "But you might as well be the first to know. We have succeeded."
"I know," cancer-man replied. "And you're right. I'm not here tonight." He stepped towards the scientist, hands outstretched.
"What…" the scientist's question was choked out by a strangling grip as Cancer Man grabbed him by the neck. His attacker twisted his head around, and there was a sickening snapping sound.
Cancer-man's face and body shifted form as he lowered the lifeless body onto the ground. He became larger, with an impassive, merciless face. He still looked human, a useful façade for his activities.
The alien bounty hunter stepped over the corpse as he planned how best to destroy all the dead man had accomplished.
This assignment was special. This was the first time he had done work in this planet under a different employer, one whose identity was somewhat mysterious. The bounty hunter's travels had covered dozens of worlds, and his knowledge of galactic society was vast. For example, he knew that the Predators were responsible for seeding this world with the Clawed Plague, the egg-laying monsters being now bred in this facility. His erstwhile employers, the Colonists, would have paid well to destroy this project. Unfortunately for them, he was not working for them now.
No, his new employers -- a species he did not know, although their communication systems were advanced, and their wealth was quite impressive -- wanted him to release the Clawed Plague unto this planet, much as the Predators had originally intended. The Colonists might be forced to give up the planet, especially if the Predators advanced forth a claim to make it into a hunting preserve. The Colonists would be quite angry, their Rebel enemies only less so, since humankind, no matter who won the conflict, would be wiped out. In fact, the bounty hunter suspected that his new employers were primarily concerned with the eradication of the human race. That puzzled him a little. Humankind was somewhat special -- technological species were extremely rare in the galaxy -- but, in the galactic scheme of things, nothing but a minor race, barely able to crawl up to the lower reaches of their planet's gravity well and to toss small trinkets some minor distances beyond that. Their knowledge of the true laws of physics was pitifully incomplete, their survival skills questionable. The Colonists were slated to wipe humans out. The Clawed Plague would do it more quickly and with more finality. In either case, the bounty hunter's current shape would be discarded altogether, as there would be no more humans to emulate.
A few minutes on the computers told him what he needed to know. Then, assuming the shape of the scientist he had murdered, he walked out of the office.
Merril's Motel, Indiana
9:30 p.m.
"We got 'em," John Connor said triumphantly.
The satellite photo -- courtesy of the Lone Gunmen via the Internet -- on his laptop screen showed a fenced compound, heavily guarded. After a week of legwork, false leads and a couple of narrow escapes, they had found the facility where the aliens were held. Agents Mulder and Scully had been invaluable in helping them narrow down their search. Now the team members were gathered in a cramped motel room, poring over their findings.
"We're just ten minutes away from it," John continued.
"The facility is heavily guarded," Mulder observed. "It's going to take an army to get in there."
"I think we'll manage," Sarah Connor replied.
"Their problem is not keeping people out," Ripley added. "It's keeping the aliens in. I'm surprised they have managed for this long."
"It won't last," Call said. "All it takes is one mistake. The aliens have managed to escape from facilities at much higher technology levels."
"So what exactly do you propose to do?" Scully asked.
"We need to infiltrate the facility and terminate the alien organisms," the Terminator said. "Team One will provide a diversion. Team Two will force an entry and use explosives to destroy the organisms in their containment facilities. Human casualties should be non-existent, barring alien action."
"The appearance of the new group of aliens -- the "hunter types" -- has lowered the chance of creating a non-congruent energy signature," Call said. "This gives us more leeway to use advanced technology weapons."
"What she is trying to say is that since the fugly aliens had ray-guns, now we get to use ray-guns, too," John translated. Call gave him a mock glare, not very effective since she was half smiling.
"Like I was saying, we can now use these." Call pulled out several plastic devices that looked a little bit like remote controls. "They are phaser guns. We can use the Stun setting, and up to Six lethal setting, with little risk of increasing our temporal signature."
"What happens if your temporal signature gets too high?" Mulder asked.
"Like we told you before, there is a war going on in the very far future," Sarah explained. "The Enemy is less capable than us when it comes to leaping from timeline to timeline. They can detect energy releases that don't match the normal ambiance of the timeline -- a nuclear explosion in 1890, for example, or electrical power during the Middle Ages. When they do, they move in and attack in force."
"Have you ever had to deal with such an attack."
"No. The Adversaries have powers that can only be described as godlike. They could cause the sun to go nova by an act of will. If one of them comes calling, then one of our patrons will move in to intercept."
"If such a confrontation occurs," the Terminator added. "The odds that the Earth will survive are less than 1%."
"Are you sure that those ray-guns are necessary? Sounds like it's not worth the risk."
"We should be safe enough," Ripley said. "And we need all the help we can get dealing with aliens. You haven't fought them before. I have. My ideal way of dealing with them would be saturation bombing with thermonuclear weapons."
Mulder's eyes widened a little. "You don't go for half measures, I see."
"Half measures will get you killed."
Call put a hand on Ripley's shoulder. Ripley briefly squeeze the hand, then turned back to Mulder. "I'm sorry. I've just seen to many people die because they underestimated the aliens."
"It's okay."
He was about to say something more reassuring when the lights went out.
****
"Sniper three ready."
"Weapons free," Krycek whispered into his headset radio. The kill team was in place, twelve highly trained assassins. They had the motel surrounded. End game, Mulder, Krycek thought. It had been a long and convoluted road, but it would go not further. Mulder and his newfound friends were too much of a threat. Termination with extreme prejudice was the only solution. Krycek was acting as the command and control officer from an unmarked van. Five snipers were in position, and an assault team was ready move in with sub-machineguns. The murders would be make the news as the work of a militia group, striking at two Federal agents. The patsies had been selected, the news stories carefully prepared. Now all that was needed to finish this stage-play was to perform the actual killing.
"Kill the lights."
The power went out in the motel. The snipers' high power rifles were equipped with thermal sights that allowed them to see through the thin walls of the motel as if they weren't there. They had targets assigned.
"Go, go, go!" Krycek barked into the radio. He glanced into the rearview mirror.
And, in its reflection, he saw a triangle of laser dots on his head.
A trained killer, Krycek had superb reflexes. He threw himself down. A ball of light buzzed right through the space he had just vacated, crisping the hair on the back of his head. The energy blast blasted a dinner-plate-sized hole on the side of the van.
As Krycek rolled out of the van, he heard one of the snipers scream in agony over the radio and then fall abruptly silent. An explosion roared to his left, and he glanced up just in time to see the tree where another sniper had been perched flare up in flames. Burning pieces of the sniper fell off it.
His team had been ambushed. But who..?
Krycek reached into the van and pulled a set of IR goggles. He put them on and scanned the night. One of his snipers was shooting at something big. A blast of energy temporarily blinded Krycek; when the light returned to normal, the sniper was clearly dead, his body beginning to cool down. The size of the killer left no doubt. It was an E-3 alien, a Predator type. Krycek had been briefed on them; he knew enough to know that he and his men were likely all dead.
The assault team was running in all directions, shooting blindly. One of them was on the ground, neatly beheaded by a spinning blade that had come flying out of nowhere.
Krycek hugged the ground, held his gun tightly, and prayed to a God he didn't believe in for a miracle he didn't expect.
****
When the lights went out, the Eternity agents sprang into action like Olympic runners hearing a starter pistol. Call knocked down Mulder; Sarah did the same for Scully as the Terminator stood up and offered himself up as a target. Only one shot came into the room, and missed. Outside the motel room, pandemonium erupted, gunfire, screams of rage and terror and energy discharges all mixed into a discordant rendition of Hell.
It looked as if the attackers were having a falling out with each other.
Unaffected by the chaos, the Terminator reached into his valise. He pulled out an M-60 machinegun and calmly strode out. Ripley grabbed a phaser and somersaulted out a window.
Sarah had ended up on top of Scully, their faces almost touching. "Stay down," she told the FBI agent, and rolled off towards another weapons bag. John Connor stayed down and readied his phaser. Mulder freed his service pistol and started crawling out. Scully, disregarding Sarah's advice, followed him.
The Terminator ran into two members of the assault team who, fleeing the Predators had been running towards the motel room. They bounced of him and fell down, stunned. Ignoring the humans, Terminator's sensors looked for the real danger. Behind him, Sarah Connor knocked the two agents unconscious with a couple of well-aimed shots of her phaser.
A Predator firing from the tree line by the parking lot targeted the Terminator. Cyborg and alien fired at the same time.
The Terminator's four round burst hit the Predator square in the chest. The armor-piercing bullets did their job, and the alien hunter dropped to the ground, its fluorescent green blood staining the ground.
The energy blast hit the Terminator full in the chest. The Eternity Legion force field flared in blindingly bright colors as it reflected some of the energy away. The cyborg was knocked down a step, and his leather coat and shirt were seared away, but was unharmed. The energy field collapsed under the strain, however; he was no longer protected, and his sensors told him a direct hit from the energy weapon had a 73% chance of disabling him, and 45% chance of utterly destroying him. On the other hand, the Predator would not be getting up.
A dozen yards away, Ripley saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She dodged, and a wickedly sharp spinning disk barely missed her. She tracked the movement, saw a blurred figure in the dark, and snap-fired her phaser. She was rewarded with a deafening, inhuman scream of pain.
Something large and heavy landed next to her. Ripley started to swing the phaser around, but a heavy fist knocked her hand aside. The third Predator stabbed her in the pit of the stomach, hard enough to punch through the force field and into her flesh. Ripley grunted and staggered. The Predator grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back for the finishing stroke.
Ripley kicked the Predator between its legs.
It had the same effect as it would on a human. The Predator doubled over and its descending face met Ripley's rising knee. Its face-mask crumpled under the bone-crushing impact. Ripley punched him once, twice, three times in rapid succession, each blow hard enough to deform metal or shatter stone. The Predator managed to land a blow of its own, but Ripley rode the impact, countered with a rapid combination of short punches, and put a choke-hold on the sagging alien.
"I'm so sick of aliens," she hissed, and snapped its neck.
****
The motel parking lot looked like a war zone. The Predators' energy blasts had ignited the gas tanks of two cars, which were burning merrily. Mulder gingerly walked out, crouched, his gun ready. He saw two semi-conscious men in assault armor; after kicking their guns away, he moved on. Somebody was crawling from under a van. Mulder walked closer.
As the man stood up, Mulder's eyes narrowed in recognition.
"Krycek!"
The assassin and Mulder aimed their guns at each other. Standoff.
"You have made some strange friends, Mulder," Krycek said.
"Those aliens were no friends of mine. They were here to kill us. Same as you."
"I guess they don't like competition," Krycek said. He sounded terribly tired.
"Put the gun down, Krycek."
"You don't know what you're doing, Mulder. We are on the edge of winning the war, and you are going to spoil it."
"I know you are selling your soul to yet another devil. Haven't you figured out you'll never get anywhere that way? Now put the gun down."
"You know I can't do that, agent Mulder."
"For the last time, drop the gun!"
Krycek seemed to relax for a moment, and then he fired.
Mulder's return shot was almost simultaneous.
For a long heartbeat, both men faced each other. Krycek smiled.
Blood started dribbling out of the corner of his mouth. He fell to his knees. Mulder walked over to stand over him.
"I know I hit you," Krycek gasped.
"A friend of mine gave me this," Mulder said, pointing to a ring on his index finger. "Better than Kevlar. You really should have dropped your gun, Krycek."
"Always were… too smart… for your own good, Mulder," Krycek gasped. He collapsed.
It was funny. Revenge was supposed to make you feel good. Mulder just felt an aching emptiness.
A hand on his shoulder. Scully.
"You okay?"
"I think his shot cracked a rib. These force fields don't really make you bullet-proof."
"And everything else?"
Mulder gave a last glance at the corpse at his feet. "It's over. This part of it, at least." In a way, he had murdered Krycek, protected as he was. He wondered how he would live with that knowledge.
****
He was a Hunt Master. In thirty-seven worlds, he had pursued his prey, and had always brought back valuable trophies. Never had he lost an entire hunt pack. And he had thought he had been cheated when lots had been drawn and his group selected to go after this prey. Surely the egg-laying Clawed Ones and their human captors would be better sport! Instead, after an initial success ambushing a group of humans trying to kill the prey, his hunters had been killed to the last man, and he was cowering in the darkness like some pathetic animal. He quivered in rage. This dishonor must be avenged!
His shuttle ship was camouflaged not too far away. All he had to do was give a short command, and it would take to the air and lash the area with a fury of plasma bolts. All the prey would be killed. It would be dishonorable, killing prey in safety, not discriminating between those who wielded weapons and the helpless who should be spared. But it would be just as great a dishonor to flee from the enemy. He started to give the command.
A click behind him made him pause.
"Go ahead," said the emotionless voice of the artificial organism that had killed his fellow hunters. "Make my day."
The Hunt Master lunged for the control.
The .454 Magnum revolver barked once.
"Hasta la vista, baby." The Terminator wasn't sure if using the same taunt was bad form or not, but the dead Predator didn't seem to mind.
Unnamed Facility, Montana
9:47 p.m.
The phone rang, snapping Colonel Schaffer from his reverie. "Schaffer here."
"Colonel, we have a problem," said the cigarette-smoking man on the other side.
"Why don't you come tell me in person?" Schaffer said irritably. He had seen the man come through a checkpoint less than an hour ago.
"What are you talking about? I'm on a helicopter, half an hour away from the facility."
"But… You have been on base for an hour!"
There was a pause. "Colonel, the base has been infiltrated. The man you've seen is an impostor, and not human. He can only be killed by a shot or puncture wound on the back of the neck. You must seal off the facility and prepare to deal with the infiltrator and with a possible attack from outside. Did you get all of that?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'm on my way. You must hold at all costs."
Schaeffer hung up and rushed to the command center. As he entered, startling the night shift commander, alarm sirens came on, and red emergency lights started to light up everywhere.
Except Schareffer hadn't had a chance to sound the alert.
"What's going on?"
"All the cameras in the containment units have gone dark!" his subaltern reported. "And the cages are opening!"
"Shit." There were contingency plans for this, but they weren't good. They had to flood the lower levels with nerve gas, an agent that had been found to work on the aliens. Without hesitation, Schaeffer punched the button that would do that.
Nothing happened.
"We have a saboteur on base," Schaeffer said. "The gas is not being released. I'll lead First and Second squads down there with flamethrowers, to deal with the aliens personally."
"Sir, you'd better look at this first."
It was one of the perimeter cameras. As he looked at it, Schaeffer realized that several of the outside cameras had just gone dark.
At his insistence, all cameras now provided infrared feed as well as standard visual. The standard visual display revealed nothing; the thermal display showed a large, athletic figure bound over the outer fence in a fifteen-foot somersault. The size and speed were unmistakable. A second later, a second figure followed suit.
And then the camera went dark.
Predators outside. Aliens running loose inside. Schaeffer wasn't the kind of man that panicked, but he came dangerous close for a few seconds. "Very well. First and Second squads will contain the aliens. Everyone else, you are with me." A part of Schaeffer wanted to head down below ground and face the acid-blooded aliens rather than the Predators. Another part was itching for a rematch. He had beaten one of them before, although he knew it had been a matter of luck and the Predator's own contempt for his victims. Schaeffer didn't think highly of his chances this time.
But he had to try.