1 Chapter 1
1.1 Sergeant Alexander Wallis stepped of the transport onto the stale, flat, scentless space station, preparing himself mentally and physically for what was to come.
He looked about him at the sterile walls, his suitcase floating beside him, banging into his leg. He was tired, incredibly tired, from the long sleep in space. They should make the stasis tubes more damn comfortable.
A small man, with a mousy moustache, approached him and a wide belly with the same lab coat that he was wearing, showing that the man was the head officer on this heap of junk. And, from the way he walked, damn proud of it.
"Welcome, Sergeant, welcome!" He shouted out heartily, slapping him on the back. "Have we got some studies for you! I'm telling you, there is no possible way that you could find more exciting work elsewhere!"
The sergeant tensed, knowing full well what they were both here for. The man that now led him to his quarters, hand on his shoulders and chatting jovially, was here for the research, and he was here, with his platoon, for the protection. Since he was the only one with brains on his outfit, he was the man who would be accompanying the professor in having his head roll if anything went wrong, as well as helping him on the project. And the subject?
Company Aliens. He shivered.
They had been stolen off a planetoid not too far from here just before the planet blew up, and brought to a company on Earth. Of course, the government had found out and had taken them off their hands. He still didn't know why the damn creatures were alive. The company had been researching them or something…
"…horrible, absolutely horrible you know, I can't believe the company used them like that…"
"What?" said the sergeant, exasperated.
"Hmm? Oh, I was just saying that the Aliens were used for entertainment. They were forced to fight each other to the death. Barbaric, what?"
Only what they deserve, the sergeant thought to himself.
***
In a lab farther down the corridor, an Alien woke from sleep. It's scars from its own birth mates were stretched thin as he searched for the reason of his awakening. He grinned widely as he found the source. Outside the confines of his cell, an understanding mind was walking slowly his way…
"Whoa!" The small man next to him exhaled loudly as a technician ran out of one of the doors and slammed into the sergeant.
"What's going on here? And what do you think you're doing, running into a sergeant like that?"
"Sorry, sir," the young man squeaked, "but the… special one is going nuts. You'd better come see."
"This better be good," the sergeant grumbled, and gasped as a dark, ant- like face was pushed in front of him. It grinned, and saliva fell off its teeth. He looked straight at them, then started bouncing around the room. It looked crazed, scrabbling all over the walls. It's black claws flashed as it scrabbled away, and then pounded back to the window and started slicing at it with its tail.
"Don't worry, Alex, he can't get through," the man said at the look of horror on his face.
"Shock him," he said to the assistant.
"But, but sir…"
"NOW, Damn it!" The man roared.
The man depressed a small red button, and the room beyond filled with lightning, emitted from two constrictor lasers, he saw. The drone dropped from the ceiling, where it had been banging his head against it. The drone dropped to the floor with a sickening thud. It just lay there.
"Don't worry, Alex," he said again, seeing the look of horror again on the mans face, this time mixed with fear. "Do you really think I would be stupid enough to kill one of the Army's trained pets? No, he's just stunned. Look, he's coming around now."
He looked into the closed-off area, and saw the drone lift itself off the floor and shake its head. The drone growled, and reached its tail up and scratched the glass. The Alien then snorted, turned its head and settled down to sleep.
"Well, that's that. That Alien is sub-sample one, taken from Earth during that dreadful takeover incident. We found it, all by itself, hiding under the hulk of a spaceship. It must have been abandoned by its company."
"How many did you lose?" Alex asked. The major scratched his chin.
"Well, that's the funny thing there, Alex. The thing didn't even attack us. He just sat there and looked at us, even as we put a restraining collar on him." He leaned closer to the sergeant.
"Tell you summat," he whispered, "It was almost freaky when we brought him in. He pulled towards the meat locker, and then, just as we try to get him in a cage, he actually unlocks the restraining collar, slips out of it, runs straight out and down the corridor, scaring shit out of the crew, and runs into the meat locker. Now you know them locks, they're as hard to break out of as ten inches of titanium, and their locks are even harder to understand."
"Oh, sppoooky," Alex muttered.
"That wasn't the spooky part," the sergeant said. "The spookiest part was, when he was finished, he was back in the cage. What I mean is, we were all in a frenzy, looking for him, of course, and we had all gone to command centre and looked at the cameras. And there he was, just sitting there, a wide open door in front of him, and he hadn't taken the opportunity to get out."
"Whoa," the sergeant gasped, and looked at this strange thing. It was asleep now, (or as close to sleep as it could get), as it had it's head in its paws. It didn't seem anything special.
"Oh, don't you get the 'oh, its so bloody smart', routine, or I'll shoot you. We all know an Alien is one of the stupidest, dumbest creatures in the universe, and this one," here he pointed at the Alien, who had reared its head, "is a prime specimen!"
"Calm down, now, Charlie, we've all lost someone."
"Screw you, Alex."
"Well, um, sir?" asked the technician. Alex blinked. He had almost forgotten about the technician.
"What?!" the major screamed.
"Well, um, he kinda doesn't like being called, um-"
"DO YOU THINK I CARE!?!? THE STUPID THING CAN-"
The sentence was silenced by a fist punching through the glass. It was black, and covered by an exoskeleton.
Oh, god, oh God!! were his first thoughts, as the major was slammed against the glass, once, twice, then finally pulled through it. The jagged glass shattered even more, and the major was chucked onto the floor of the cage by the hand.
"What happened to 'it can't-" He was interrupted by the technician quickly pulling out a gun and firing it, directly through the glass, all six rounds. There was a pause, and then there was a shocked silence as the technician dropped his weapon. The Alien crawled through the glass, clinging to the ceiling, then dropped to the floor, scattering more glass. His long arms brushed the floor, and he grinned that long toothy grin, the one that murderers get before they have committed the crime. He advanced toward the technician, who, with his gun spent, was backing up against the door, which was naturally automatically locked from the outside. The Xenomorph opened his jaw, and his inner jaw extended…
This was the moment the sergeant had been waiting for. He quickly unhooked his magnum and stood in front of the technician. Before the Xenomorph had time to react, he shoved the gun between its teeth. It froze.
That in itself was frightening, as no Alien just stopped after having something put in their mouth. They bit down, or they ripped the arm off of the owner, but this gun had been modified by the sergeant himself, and the Xenomorph seemed to know that. The gun had a trigger mechanism, for when even the slightest pressure was put on the guns barrel, the gun went off. The other mechanism was, when it wasn't in its holster, an automatic heat- sensor was activated. If there wasn't any of the sergeants own DNA on the gun at all times, the gun went off. The arm could still be ripped off, but the most likely thing to happen was for the gun to be flung from the arm and then – BOOM!
The Alien was still frozen, with half of the barrel down its throat. It seemed intelligent, so he took a chance, with the technician cowering on the floor.
"Okay, you listen to me you," he muttered, staring the murderous, relentless, killing machine in where its eyes would have been if it was human, "I think you know what this weapon is. It's a magnum, and even if it wasn't jammed down your throat, it could still put a sizeable hole in you in the space we have. It would probably kill me, but that wouldn't matter, because I would have sent you with me. Now, these men here," he nodded his head in the direction of the technician and the Colonel, down in the cage, screaming his head off and crying, his legs probably broken, "happen to be good friends of mine, so you leave them alone. Now, why don't you get back in your room before the marines arrive with their pulse guns rifles, or before I blow out the back of your head with this?" He waved the gun threateningly.
The Alien, stood still for a moment, then twisted its head to one side. It pulled its head back off of the gun, and then turned towards the window. The sergeant sighed and drew a hand across his forehead, which came away glistening with his sweat. He lowered the gun in his good hand.
Big mistake. The Aliens tail whipped up and knocked the gun out of his hands. He blinked, saw the gun in his hand one second, and the magnum flying through the shattered window the next. It landed in the room below, clattering, the sound followed by a loud report. The Alien twisted, hissed, then jumped past him and ripped off the grille to the vent behind him. Before this action had even registered in his mind, the Alien had slid into it and was gone.
1.1 Sergeant Alexander Wallis stepped of the transport onto the stale, flat, scentless space station, preparing himself mentally and physically for what was to come.
He looked about him at the sterile walls, his suitcase floating beside him, banging into his leg. He was tired, incredibly tired, from the long sleep in space. They should make the stasis tubes more damn comfortable.
A small man, with a mousy moustache, approached him and a wide belly with the same lab coat that he was wearing, showing that the man was the head officer on this heap of junk. And, from the way he walked, damn proud of it.
"Welcome, Sergeant, welcome!" He shouted out heartily, slapping him on the back. "Have we got some studies for you! I'm telling you, there is no possible way that you could find more exciting work elsewhere!"
The sergeant tensed, knowing full well what they were both here for. The man that now led him to his quarters, hand on his shoulders and chatting jovially, was here for the research, and he was here, with his platoon, for the protection. Since he was the only one with brains on his outfit, he was the man who would be accompanying the professor in having his head roll if anything went wrong, as well as helping him on the project. And the subject?
Company Aliens. He shivered.
They had been stolen off a planetoid not too far from here just before the planet blew up, and brought to a company on Earth. Of course, the government had found out and had taken them off their hands. He still didn't know why the damn creatures were alive. The company had been researching them or something…
"…horrible, absolutely horrible you know, I can't believe the company used them like that…"
"What?" said the sergeant, exasperated.
"Hmm? Oh, I was just saying that the Aliens were used for entertainment. They were forced to fight each other to the death. Barbaric, what?"
Only what they deserve, the sergeant thought to himself.
***
In a lab farther down the corridor, an Alien woke from sleep. It's scars from its own birth mates were stretched thin as he searched for the reason of his awakening. He grinned widely as he found the source. Outside the confines of his cell, an understanding mind was walking slowly his way…
"Whoa!" The small man next to him exhaled loudly as a technician ran out of one of the doors and slammed into the sergeant.
"What's going on here? And what do you think you're doing, running into a sergeant like that?"
"Sorry, sir," the young man squeaked, "but the… special one is going nuts. You'd better come see."
"This better be good," the sergeant grumbled, and gasped as a dark, ant- like face was pushed in front of him. It grinned, and saliva fell off its teeth. He looked straight at them, then started bouncing around the room. It looked crazed, scrabbling all over the walls. It's black claws flashed as it scrabbled away, and then pounded back to the window and started slicing at it with its tail.
"Don't worry, Alex, he can't get through," the man said at the look of horror on his face.
"Shock him," he said to the assistant.
"But, but sir…"
"NOW, Damn it!" The man roared.
The man depressed a small red button, and the room beyond filled with lightning, emitted from two constrictor lasers, he saw. The drone dropped from the ceiling, where it had been banging his head against it. The drone dropped to the floor with a sickening thud. It just lay there.
"Don't worry, Alex," he said again, seeing the look of horror again on the mans face, this time mixed with fear. "Do you really think I would be stupid enough to kill one of the Army's trained pets? No, he's just stunned. Look, he's coming around now."
He looked into the closed-off area, and saw the drone lift itself off the floor and shake its head. The drone growled, and reached its tail up and scratched the glass. The Alien then snorted, turned its head and settled down to sleep.
"Well, that's that. That Alien is sub-sample one, taken from Earth during that dreadful takeover incident. We found it, all by itself, hiding under the hulk of a spaceship. It must have been abandoned by its company."
"How many did you lose?" Alex asked. The major scratched his chin.
"Well, that's the funny thing there, Alex. The thing didn't even attack us. He just sat there and looked at us, even as we put a restraining collar on him." He leaned closer to the sergeant.
"Tell you summat," he whispered, "It was almost freaky when we brought him in. He pulled towards the meat locker, and then, just as we try to get him in a cage, he actually unlocks the restraining collar, slips out of it, runs straight out and down the corridor, scaring shit out of the crew, and runs into the meat locker. Now you know them locks, they're as hard to break out of as ten inches of titanium, and their locks are even harder to understand."
"Oh, sppoooky," Alex muttered.
"That wasn't the spooky part," the sergeant said. "The spookiest part was, when he was finished, he was back in the cage. What I mean is, we were all in a frenzy, looking for him, of course, and we had all gone to command centre and looked at the cameras. And there he was, just sitting there, a wide open door in front of him, and he hadn't taken the opportunity to get out."
"Whoa," the sergeant gasped, and looked at this strange thing. It was asleep now, (or as close to sleep as it could get), as it had it's head in its paws. It didn't seem anything special.
"Oh, don't you get the 'oh, its so bloody smart', routine, or I'll shoot you. We all know an Alien is one of the stupidest, dumbest creatures in the universe, and this one," here he pointed at the Alien, who had reared its head, "is a prime specimen!"
"Calm down, now, Charlie, we've all lost someone."
"Screw you, Alex."
"Well, um, sir?" asked the technician. Alex blinked. He had almost forgotten about the technician.
"What?!" the major screamed.
"Well, um, he kinda doesn't like being called, um-"
"DO YOU THINK I CARE!?!? THE STUPID THING CAN-"
The sentence was silenced by a fist punching through the glass. It was black, and covered by an exoskeleton.
Oh, god, oh God!! were his first thoughts, as the major was slammed against the glass, once, twice, then finally pulled through it. The jagged glass shattered even more, and the major was chucked onto the floor of the cage by the hand.
"What happened to 'it can't-" He was interrupted by the technician quickly pulling out a gun and firing it, directly through the glass, all six rounds. There was a pause, and then there was a shocked silence as the technician dropped his weapon. The Alien crawled through the glass, clinging to the ceiling, then dropped to the floor, scattering more glass. His long arms brushed the floor, and he grinned that long toothy grin, the one that murderers get before they have committed the crime. He advanced toward the technician, who, with his gun spent, was backing up against the door, which was naturally automatically locked from the outside. The Xenomorph opened his jaw, and his inner jaw extended…
This was the moment the sergeant had been waiting for. He quickly unhooked his magnum and stood in front of the technician. Before the Xenomorph had time to react, he shoved the gun between its teeth. It froze.
That in itself was frightening, as no Alien just stopped after having something put in their mouth. They bit down, or they ripped the arm off of the owner, but this gun had been modified by the sergeant himself, and the Xenomorph seemed to know that. The gun had a trigger mechanism, for when even the slightest pressure was put on the guns barrel, the gun went off. The other mechanism was, when it wasn't in its holster, an automatic heat- sensor was activated. If there wasn't any of the sergeants own DNA on the gun at all times, the gun went off. The arm could still be ripped off, but the most likely thing to happen was for the gun to be flung from the arm and then – BOOM!
The Alien was still frozen, with half of the barrel down its throat. It seemed intelligent, so he took a chance, with the technician cowering on the floor.
"Okay, you listen to me you," he muttered, staring the murderous, relentless, killing machine in where its eyes would have been if it was human, "I think you know what this weapon is. It's a magnum, and even if it wasn't jammed down your throat, it could still put a sizeable hole in you in the space we have. It would probably kill me, but that wouldn't matter, because I would have sent you with me. Now, these men here," he nodded his head in the direction of the technician and the Colonel, down in the cage, screaming his head off and crying, his legs probably broken, "happen to be good friends of mine, so you leave them alone. Now, why don't you get back in your room before the marines arrive with their pulse guns rifles, or before I blow out the back of your head with this?" He waved the gun threateningly.
The Alien, stood still for a moment, then twisted its head to one side. It pulled its head back off of the gun, and then turned towards the window. The sergeant sighed and drew a hand across his forehead, which came away glistening with his sweat. He lowered the gun in his good hand.
Big mistake. The Aliens tail whipped up and knocked the gun out of his hands. He blinked, saw the gun in his hand one second, and the magnum flying through the shattered window the next. It landed in the room below, clattering, the sound followed by a loud report. The Alien twisted, hissed, then jumped past him and ripped off the grille to the vent behind him. Before this action had even registered in his mind, the Alien had slid into it and was gone.