Chapter Ten.
Lexa Warren, twenty-two years old and not really the most attractive of young woman. Her eyes always seemed to be looking down, always slanted. With a nervous twitch her head would shake violently to the right every few minutes making her dirty blonde hair look like it had been tossed into the eye of the tornado. Yellow teeth and an unattractive stench of her breath would bring a green tear to anyone standing close bye or those who would be in a conversation with the woman. Lexa from what anyone knew about her was a very intense woman, the scars on her face showed her to be rather hands-on and would go into any situation without really knowing what was involved. Sadly this made her morbid and always searching for her peers.
When she had joined the marine-core three years earlier she had not realised what it would involve, and after many assaults upon alien hives she would soon lose faith in what she was fighting for, earth was no longer her home, everything and everyone she knew was gone, until one day a voice would soothe her nightmares, and the realisation of her life would become the end of her search for her so-called peer.
Each night her eyes would close and her dreams would fade into her mind. She would be running down the dark alleyways of her once home city Manhattan, knowing that something was following her. The shadows around her would dance as the wind howled, hissing would follow her wherever she would run. Each turn would lead her deeper into the maze of back streets and sewer like alleys, not even seeing a single rat in the stench of thick fog that covered her view. Her cold breathe would crystallise as she gasped for one last breathe of dirty air. It was close.
She ran as fast as her young aching feet would carry her, from shadow to shadow she would try and find sanctuary from her demons. The hissing now became a quiet echo around her head, it was the sound of clanking armour that now would bounce around the alleys almost deafening her, crying sounds throughout her world as the footsteps became louder in her ears. Screams of pain would try and shriek over the sounds of the marines coming her way, yet as she heard their coms activate and the cries down their ear pieces, that is when the calm sound entered her dreams. No longer could she hear the clanking metal of the marines armour, she was now at peace with the sound of the hissing monsters ripping their claws into the blood gargling humans.
Following the sounds of human death she walked around the corner, almost expecting what she was about to see, only one of the demons was now standing, holding his carbine at the shadowy figure that would soothe her nightmares. The marine raised his carbine ready to fire but before he could aim the creature was already almost dancing around the already dead marine, blood gushing, spraying over the dirty, graffiti covered alley walls. Her eyes could not believe what she was witnessing, and in her heart she was not afraid of what she was watching, even as the black creature moved like wind close to her, its top lips quivering as its breathe crystallised over her sweat covered face. Smiling in return to the hissing, the alien that she was looking upon reached out its blood covered arms, and she raised her own. Her saviour.
The warm embrace ended as her eyes opened, she was waking from her soothing nightmares. He last image of the dark alien relaxing her, making her wish that she could still be in her dreams holding her true calling, sadly she was awake and the alarms were sounding, she had to get ready for her daily tasks, her job as the marine she grew up to become, and again she would think back to her dream, she knew her destiny and it was not armour-clad with a carbine, it was with her own kind, her alien brethren.
. . .
"Wake up and get moving Warren, this is not a Sunday sleep-in, get your fat ass to the command deck pronto!" The squealing sounds of Commander Fischer once again calling loudly down the com for his favourite slave. She had no choice but to do as he commanded, and each time she heard his voice she was almost repulsed by the image of his face that would creep into her thoughts, and as she gagged she buttoned up her top pant button, and with a brown hair-tie she was ready to rush to her cringing pathetic high-ranking officer. To the door switch she headed, not looking were she was going and before she knew it, her face was hitting the floor.
"Warren! Get here now you bitch...!" The voice still causing a lot of sheering pain in her head, and now with the metallic taste of blood in her mouth all she could do was sit up, slanted against the wall. "Warren, this will be the last time I tell you to get here."
"I am on my way you fat fucking piece of horse shit!" And there was no reply, she laughed to herself knowing that everyone in the command room would of heard her. Wondering to herself what her punishment would be, in all honestly she did not care as she stood up licking the last drip of blood from her finger and corner of her mouth. Pressing the blue button on her door she walked through and headed towards the elevator. She would take her time and get herself a warm cup of mocha, or as the machine would give her, 'a cup of brown crap'.
No one had ever spoken to Commander Fischer with such disrespect in his entire life, so it was only natural that he would be more than angered by her words, but right now he would have to let it pass, he had more important matters to discuss with Lexa. It seemed that someone had been messing with the central control and he knew that Lexa could find out who it was. For some unbeknown reason everyone seemed to like Lexa, but he could not see why, he knew that she was two-faced trouble maker, but everyone thought him to be the one that would make an issue of something less trivial to the fact that she was friendly to everyone but him.
With his face burning red the androids sitting at the com-units, he was glad that they did not understand the reckless use of humour that Lexa was portraying with the lack of taste. It was the hidden smirks of the humans positioned at the lab desks that would cause him to try and keep his head from lowering in shame, and he was fighting the urge to hide really well, he was not really the strongest of men, but he made up for it in his ability to act like someone else when the time was needed. Sometimes he would wish that the people of the Sector Command would see him as the person he truly was, not the person he had to pretend to be, his late wife was the only one who would see him as the warm hearted soul.
"Back to work, the commotion is over. One sound of a chuckle and you will be dismissed to the brig just like Corporal Warren will be headed unless I believe otherwise. Do you understand that?" No one would reply, they kept their eyes on their work and carried on with it trying to forget the last few minutes that had been playing in their minds. At the moment they knew that Lexa would be in some kind of trouble. "Good."
He headed towards his office, not looking at the technicians as he passed them, wondering to himself when they would be finished with the main computer terminal, he wanted it to be secured as soon as humanly possible, knowing that if something was to cease functioning there would be major problems in the base. The thoughts of what could happen would delve into his thoughts for hours, remembering the stories of what happened to the prior station command unit that lost its main central computer system. The massacre would be remembered for many years after the event, so much life was lost and why, because of a stupid fuse blowing.
. . .
It had been a typical day on the base, no problems had occurred in the past few days and the aliens attacks had been in few numbers, in fact there had not been an attack in days, coming up to almost two weeks. Even the weathered had calmed, the atmosphere since the aliens had arrived grew a new scent, not of oxygen or smog, but of acidic aroma. Many had grown accustomed to its bland fragrance, but on the whole humanity did not wish to smell such a rancid egg-like smell.
Smithy did not really know what to do with himself, the sun was shining down and his sweaty shirt had been thrown over the rail half-an-hour earlier. The passing grey clouds did not bother him or stop him from sunbathing, and the com unit in his ear had not sounded for nearly an hour. Nothing could be better in the world, especially now that they had defeated the alien threat and the world had gone back to its normal way of living, only the lasting effects of the aliens seemed to be in memory, the clouds and stink of the air.
Yet his mind would continue to wander off, taking him away from his duties. When he would close his eyes and allow the warm beams of sunlight hit his body, he knew he would not burn, with the clouds now and again covering the sun from view. He did not notice the alarm flashing behind him it had seemed to be on silent running. So he did not notice the movement just in view upon the mountainous horizon, more interested in relaxing. Admitting to himself that it was getting pretty hot, but glad that he was not pulling guard duty in the lower levels of the base, it went from boiling to freezing from time to time and the vents were always picky.
Ignoring everything that was happening around him he placed his headphones on and cranked the volume to full power and pounded his head with the heaviest of hard-rock that any person could humanly stand, and he again relaxed in the heat with his tunes and a smile on his face. Not only was he not watching the dark shadows moving towards him, the perimeter alarm had somehow been deactivated and was not sounding loudly around him, he could only hear the music and his own singing.
Before he could act he sensed some movement around him, and as he opened his eyes he could see it, on the thick blast-glass above him, but before he could act the black creature had already cracked the glass enough to fits its claws into the watch towers booth. Smithy could not believe his luck as the talons could not reach him, then he reached for the base alarm switch to warn everyone of the aliens that had approached the base, sadly he did not notice as the aliens arm sliced itself upon the glass, and only then did he feel the burning sunlight hitting his body.
His screams could not be heard by anyone, he had not activated the com unit in time to turn on the alarm, as he looked upon his chest he could feel it burning through him from behind as his body arched over, the last thing he saw was the dark shadow of the creature and the hole that was once his chest. And as the song in his ear echoed around the booth ended, it was over.
Aliens were quick in their attack, the base really had no chance especially with the sudden surprise of the aliens crashing through the ceiling grates. From day one of the aliens coming to Earth, every single marine knew one thing that would keep him alive even for a few moments, 'always have your carbine ready to fire', but on this occasion before they could even turn off the safety they were all dead. Normally the aliens would come in and save most of the humans for hosts, sadly not this time, it was a massacre, only warm blood would be left in the marines wake. No hosts were needed, only food.
. . .
According to the command log that was found on the base, there had been no survivors, it was just an alien attack upon a inhabited colonial marine base, the main command bunker for the army, and Earth's only protection at the time. The log was badly encrypted, and when the program was finally broken, they had found that there was one survivor, a young woman, who had only just joined the unit.
"Come in." Lexa Warren walked into the Commanders office with a heavy grin on her face. "I see that it does not bother you that you disobeyed a direct order yesterday evening!" Lexa's smile faded into an emotionless expression. Fischer had hit her with that one, knowing that she had not been on her post when she should have been, that was a brig offence, but even Lexa knew that the Commander would not do anything about it. Looking at the commander her disrespect was erased as she threw him a friendly smile and salute.
"I do apologise Commander. After your briefing yesterday I thought it would be a good idea to go straight to the problem area." Still looking at Fischer, knowing that she could feed him any shit, it was all good enough to get her of his bad side, especially with him believing that there was a traitor somewhere on the base. Watching as he blinked heavily she knew that Fischer had no clue that it was actually her that was causing so much sabotage on the base, stupid bastard. "I know a young woman that has been talking about certain sectors of the base, I believed leaving my post and confronting her would get me some trust, disobeying the Commander would gain me strong trust with almost any man and woman on the base."
She was right the Commander thought, but he did not want anyone to know that the senior officers were onto the traitors trail. "I understand Warren, but still, you should of run it through me first. Right now I have the security terminal up from my computer, I am the only one who can run the certain programs to keep this base safe from any xenomorph threat. If anyone gets the hold of my security clearance, the entire base and everyone in it will be at risk." He looked up towards Lexa who did not seem to be paying attention. "And this mornings disrespectful attack upon me disturbs me greatly Corporal."
"Again I can only apologise Sir. You should not of given me the knowledge of your security clearance Sir. If anyone was to try and get any information out of me, I do not believe I could fight any chemical attack on my body or mind. So why did you tell me Sir?" Maybe right now was her time to act as she looked upon the Commander relaxing, then lifting his head and eyes into her direction.
"Honestly Warren, I may not really have complete trust in you, but I can see that you would not want any harm to happen to his base. I have read your file and your past involvement with the xenomorph threat is somewhat promising, that is why I have enough trust to share with you my security plans for the station." He smiled at Lexa, and even though she seemed two-faced, she was on his side. "Now go to your command and I will see you back here at 1500hrs." He nodded for Lexa to leave and with her salute and smile she turned and walked out of the office.