THE TRAVIS HICKS DIARIES
CHAPTER 3
ENTRIES 11 THROUGH 15
TO: COLONEL EMERY
FROM: WEYLAND/YUTANI FRONT OFFICE
SUBJECT: IN RESPONSE TO YOUR DISCOVERY ON LV-212
THE PATIENT IS TO BE KEPT IN ISOLATION FOR NOW, UNTIL A MEDICAL TEAM CAN ARRIVE TO FURTHER ASSESS THE SITUATION. EXPECT THEIR ARRIVAL TO HAPPEN WITHIN THE NEXT 48 HOURS. IN THE EVENT THAT ANYTHING CHANGES IN THE PATIENT´S STATUS BEFORE THAT TIME, IT IS TO BE KEPT ON A NEED TO KNOW BASIS ONLY. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO NEUTRALIZE THE XENOMORPH YOURSELF, UNTIL EXPRESS PERMISSION TO IS GIVEN DIRECTLY FROM THE FRONT OFFICE. NO ONE ELSE HAS THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE THE FINAL DECISION ON THIS MATTER.
Entry #11:
May 1st, 2194
Giger Mobile Space Complex
LV-212
To say that things around here are tipping the shit-scale lately would be the same as calling the climate on this hostile rock in the middle of nowhere, nothing more than a minor inconvenience. The entire unit that found the survivor have all been put into quarantine by orders of the Colonel himself and it´s made rumors run rampant that they brought something horrible with them back here that they weren´t supposed to. As of right now, they´ve closed down the entire med-bay to keep them separated from the rest of us, along with all of the medical personnel we have on site here. Not that we saw all that much of them on a daily basis, but every little bit helps to fuel the paranoia, that´s becoming almost like a religion around here lately.
As for the twenty soldiers, who gave themselves up, it´s our job to make sure that they don´t attempt to make a run for it, though even if they managed to escape, it would only be to die in the desert instead of in here. One of them, a Japanese woman, keeps speaking in tongues in her own language about a demon, that will come to kill all of us. She´s clearly lost her mind and I´ve met enough victims, who were traumatized by war to know that they often tend to imagine things that aren´t there, even long after their initial ordeal is over. That said, coupling her ramblings up with what we saw at the Syndicate base makes for a frightening cocktail, to say the least.
(Updated, later that same day)
As if things weren´t weird enough, we´ve now been told to report it to our superior officer immediately, if we see a small Xenomorph crawling around here. It sounds like even those in charge don´t have any control over what´s going on anymore!
Entry #12:
May 2nd, 2194
Giger Mobile Space Complex
LV-212
I know that it´s only been a day since my last entry, but with how quickly things are changing right now, I may have to start writing one each day of these from now on. Late last night, an orbiter arrived with a group of six scientists, who have already started changing the rules here. From now on, everyone is to undergo a daily body scan, for which purpose they refuse to tell us. We are to stay in our own quarters at all times, except for when we´re let out for bathroom visits, lunch and dinner and if anyone asks questions why this is the case, they´re threatened with arrestation. Not that a jailcell would be all that different from the quarters I share now with Glau, a favor for her that Corporal Biehn managed to push through as a reward for her performance in the boxing tournament. I´m at least glad it´s her, I have to talk to and not someone, who barely speaks the same language as me, like it is for half of those here.
With that much time alone on our hands all of a sudden, we´ve had the chance to talk about everything that happened in our past and I finally told her the truth of how I ended up in the same situation, she´s in. She told me not to feel too bad over it and that if I hadn´t chosen those five to live, then they probably would have killed all of them and only left me alive. I know that she´s right and knew that she wouldn´t be one to judge me, but the faces of the dead that I see in the night won´t go away, just because she tried to console me. She also told me more of her own life stury, how her mother was only a child herself, when she had her and how she had to learn to fend for herself at an early age in the various group homes and government institutions, she happened to inhabit at the time. The one good thing about those places, is that all of those there learn to read and write, which is more than you can say for most of the world´s population these days, but they also make it clear to them from the time they´re old enough to understand it, that the army is the one and only way to a decent life for them.
Had this been a better world, then someone like her could have done great things with her life and probably would have. However, in this one, she´s stuck here on the edge of the known universe in an 8 by 8 foot room, that smells heavily of sweat and dirty laundry, with your´s truly. Part of me feels bad for her, but at the same time, she´s given me a more tangible reason to live again and for that I´m selfishly loving having her here. I´d give my life for her and I know she would do the same for me, if I´d let her. Not that anything in this whole blasted universe could ever get me to allow her to do that for me. In that case I´d rather try to take on the whole damn Syndicate by myself, if it meant that she could live on for another day. Is that love? If it is, then I guess I´ll have to admit to myself that I´m in love with her, only this is a love that goes far beyond wanting to sleep with her. A tiny bit of me wants to bring up the topic of us making love, if nothing else because I know happy it would make her, if we were to do it, and it´s not that I don´t get the same urges, everyone else here does. For now, though, I can still control them and as long as that´s still possible for me, I feel like what her and I have should stay pure, like it is at this moment, where she´s snoring away in her standard issue army bed a few feet away from me.
Entry #13:
May 6th, 2194
Giger Mobile Space Complex
LV-212
After four days in lockdown we were finally let out today to what are more or less normalized conditions. We still have to get scanned, but only if we feel symptoms that something is wrong and we only have to stay in our quarters during the nightly hours. Some of us, me and Glau included, were sent out on a volunteer basis to see if we could find any trace of the Xenomorph that got loose here. From what they told us, it´s rather small and not easy to find, so I don´t think they were all that surprised, when we came back empty handed. Still, it was a chance to do something that felt useful with our time for once, and that alone made it more fun than just sitting around, waiting to be told what will probably be another lie, about where we exactly stand. No one has even mentioned the word Syndicate in days, so whatever it is, has to be almost as important to the company, as the war they´ve been fighting for years now.
Corporal Biehn is great at keeping up our morale and his stories from his long past in the army, along with the many battles he´s fought in, helps to keep all of us entertained. My favorite (that he´s already told me three times at least) is one that took place during the early years of the war, where his unit was surrounded by the enemy, so they had to make their escape by crawling through two miles of air ducts, until they finally made it to safety. Whenever he talks about the soldiers, who fought for him and died in battle, it´s obvious that he cared about all of them, almost like they were his children. I can´t imagine what it would be like then, to have seen your children get slaughtered in front of your eyes by the dozens, thanks to a mistake you made. Everyone in our squadron is either haunted by or trying to run from their past. In his case, my guess is that it´s a little of both.
(Updated, later that same day)
We were just woken up by what was unmistakably a scream from a woman coming from the med-bay. Hopefully, they´ll start telling us the truth tomorrow, because their stories that nothing is out of the ordinary here, aren´t coming close to fooling anyone anymore.
Entry #14:
May 7th, 2194
Giger Mobile Space Complex
LV-212
Early this morning, we were all woken up and told that we needed to attend a general assembly headed up by Colonel Emery himself. This is basically what he told us: Loose on the base is a Xenomorph (maybe the same that was on LV-426, who knows?) unlike any other that any of us have ever encountered. It´s around nine feet tall, is fast as hell and twice as deadly. It´s blood is an extremely powerful molecular acid, that can burn through both skin and bones, for anyone unlucky enough to get it on them. To make it worse, they believe that it could be capable of signalling (through what they called a "Hive Mind") all of the others of it´s kind, that took out the soldiers on the Syndicate base a week ago. I know that I wasn´t the only one, who took in this news with an open mouth and a look of confusion on my face, but it soon became clear to all of us grunts that they weren´t kidding in any way, shape or form.
After this, we were split up into our squadrons and each squadron was handed out a section of the base, that we had to search. Ours were the med-lab and the medical personnel quarters and I´m not sure I´ve ever been more nervous (and that´s counting all of my time on LV-89), than every time I had to push another button to open the door to another room. It seems kind of silly, doesn´t it, being so scared of pushing a button, but it was the thought of what could be hiding behind those doors that had both me and Glau scared shitless the entire time. Thankfully, all we found were a few bloodstains here and there, but as we would find out after our sweep was over, not everyone had been as lucky, as we were.
The 82nd (who had trained side by side with us back on Earth) had been assigned to search the air hangar and when they didn´t return after several hours, two more squadrons were sent to search for them, headed up by Emery himself. Say what you will about the old, grumpy bastard, but going into battle himself clearly isn´t something that scares him any more than getting a haircut from a new barber would. What they found had all of them coming back with faces, that looked like they were made of stone. None of us needed to ask what they had found, that could be read clear as day on those shocked faces, as they passed by us. Whatever the hell this damn thing is, we need to find it and take it down quickly, before it takes out more of us, in which case I´m seriously worried, that things will soon devolve into anarchy here. If that was to happen, then we might as well go outside and start digging our own graves already now.
Entry #15:
May 10th, 2194
Giger Mobile Space Complex
LV-212
It´s been a few days since I´ve had the time to write any entries, days where we´ve either been on duty or sleeping. The scientists and all other non-essential personnel have been evacuated, so it´s only us DPW´s and Emery, who are left here. I´m sure they offered him a chance to get out with the rest of them, but it appears on him, like he wants to do this one last thing, before he dies. Either that or he´s out his mind, which I can´t claim myself to be entirely unsure of. Then again, that could be why he´s chosen to stay with us until the end. We´re the ones, he feels like he fits in with now, more than any of those who haven´t seen the things, that man has seen.
The fear that it has called in more of it´s kind appears to be true as well, since we´re seeing attacks happen in separate places at the same time now. One of them was bad enough, but more of them? Already, there are only a few full squadrons left and our squadron hasn´t been free of seeing victims to our ranks either. Dixon and Hanson, the two best friends I mentioned in one of my first entries, met their demises together in the west wing, where no one is allowed to go to anymore, unless they have the Colonel´s personal permission to. Mendoza was with them and only barely escaped with his life and since then, all of the cockiness seems to have gone out of him. Haraldsson and Waldau, our two representatives from Iceland and Denmark respectively, disappeared that day and none of them have been seen or heard of since, so we all assume that they´re dead too. That leaves six of us left, out of the "Dirty Dozen" that started out on this journey together. I don´t know whether I should feel honored or horrified by that fact.
ONLY ONE TO CHAPTER TO GO!
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