ALIEN: GENESIS
Disclaimer: The ALIEN franchise and all related characters wherein are the intellectual property of 20th Century Fox.
CHAPTER 04: LOOKING FOR CLUES
USCSS GRAND OAK, PLANET 4, MARCH 01, 2105
"And then we've got at least five more lines to take care of before we can move on to the next junction. Things got pretty banged up down here," Pedderton said over the intercom. "How's the landing bay looking? Are the vehicles still usable?" Lansbury asked over the intercom from his seat on the bridge. The rest of the crew were huddled around his console as they listened in on their conversation.
"Well, it isn't pretty, I'll say that much. Most of the vehicles are little banged up, but they should still work. Airlocks are working fine down here, and there are no hull breaches we can find in the landing gear area, but there are a few pieces of equipment that are shot down here, and we need to replace them before we can take off again," Pedderton explained.
"Are they connected to the life support systems? Are they part of any crucial systems?" York asked into the intercom. "Uh, not the life support systems, but we'd certanly have to re-wire a few of the lines down here to disconnect them from critical systems to keep them from causing problems. Most of them are modular, but we need to fix them now while we're technically dry-docked. If we don't, we won't be able to touch them again after we take off, since some of them are connected to ventilation systems and a couple of power lines between critical junctions," Pedderton replied.
"Would we have to vent anything into the outside atmosphere?" York asked him. "Uh, not that I'm aware of right now, but... if when it comes to the vehicle bay, we may have to open the doors to check for problems that we won't be able to find otherwise," Pedderton replied over the intercom.
"How long will it take to fix all of it?" Lansbury asked him. "Uh... Earl, how extensive did you say-oh. Yeah, I'll tell them. Uh, It'll take at least twenty-six hours to patch it all up," Pedderton said over the intercom.
"Can we still use the airlocks before then?" Conrad asked him. "Uh... give us three hours to get some lines re-wired first. Are you planning on heading out already?" Pedderton asked in response. "Well, hopefully sooner than later," Conrad said.
"In that case, give us about four hours to get those lines in working order," Pedderton said in response. "Alright. Get on it then," Lansbury said dismissively before shutting off the intercom. He then looked around at his crew on the bridge. "Alright, you heard the man," Lansbury said.
"Four hours until we get to leave. So, who wants to go outside?" he asked with a smirk. The others all looked at each other with nervous glances. "I volunteer... York to go outside," Norris said. "I volunteer Nestor to go outside," Conrad joined in. "I volunteer Norris to go outside," York said, glaring at Norris.
"I volunteer myself," Emmitt said from behind the group. "Gahh!" Nestor cried out in alarm, Emmitt's entrance to the bridge having been almost silent. Everyone looked at Nestor with raised eyebrows at his reaction, before returning their attention to Emmitt. "How's Warner doing so far?" Lansbury asked nonplussed.
"Oh, she's doing fine now. She's been cleaned up. I wouldn't recommend sending her outside, though. It might be best to have her monitoring the away team," the synthetic said in response.
"So... you'll go outside in her place?" Lansbury asked the synthetic. Emmitt nodded his head. "Yeah," he said, "I'll go. You'll need me to help test the air as well. Plus, with my medical knowledge, you'll at least have a medic if something happens out there."
Lansbury nodded his head in approval. "Alright then. Emmitt's going, and I'm going, so... York, you'll be coming along too, and so will Hamilton and Newman. Everyone else will stay here while the ship is being repaired," Lansbury said. He glanced around at his crew for signs of discontent. "Any objections?" he asked.
"No sir," York said with a hint of bitterness in her voice. "Okay then. Let's start prepping the suits. Emmitt, see if you can get Earl to come on out with us. He may prove useful if we can get to the source of that transmission," Lansbury said, before shaking his head. "Wait a minute," he said before pressing the comm-link button and opening the channel to the lower decks. "Hey, Earl? I need you to get ready to go outside with the landing party in about four hours. Captain's orders," Lansbury said before taking his finger off of the button.
Pedderton and the others look up at the the ceiling where the various intercom systems were located. "Oh, sure. Just take someone away from our repair team. That'll make things go much faster," Pedderton said sardonically.
"He gave me four hours, Pedderton. We still have some time to get the major things taken care of," Earl said. Pedderton glanced over at the droid with a frown before letting out a sigh in consternation. "Whatever. Come on, get back to work!" Pedderton ordered as he walked back over to the main circuit panel that the group had been working on.
FOUR HOURS LATER...
Sitting on benches in the airlock, six people were wearing space suits as they waited for the doors to unlock. A scan from MUTHUR had determined that the pressure outside was equal to the pressure inside the ship. After the airlock had been re-calibrated to compensate for this, the away team had entered it and began their preparations to exit the ship and explore the planet.
While York had some diagnostic and air testing equipment with her, Newman and Hamilton had both armed themselves with modular M94C Electronic Pulse Rifles. The weapons were produced by Weyland-Yutani and were being tested out in various colonies by the recently-established Colonial Marine Corps. It was a smaller-sized successor to the popular Weyland Storm Rifle introduced in 2024 by Weyland Corps, as well as the popular Harrington Rifle that was still in use among many locations throughout colonized space.
The weapon had a modular rail system on the top for mounting scopes and other sights, and it could be attached to a collapsible rising bridge section that also served as a carrying handle. It had a blue color scheme for the main body, symbolic of its intended purpose as a defensive weapon for security forces. Attached to the rear-facing portion of the collapsible rising bridge was a digital LCD screen ammo counter. The standard magazine for the weapon was a 32 round case, although most magazines only carried 30 actual rounds inside them, to prevent jamming.
Mounted underneath the barrel of the weapon was a dual flashlight/laser-targeting system with a rubber grip. The stock of the gun could also be extended and retracted for the user's comfort. As with the rest of the gun's main body, the stock was blue in color.
The vehicle bay had been secured as well, and two buggies, both able to hold four people each, had been prepared for the excursion as a landing pad within the vehicle bay slowly opened up and began to descend, with Pedderton wearing a suit as he operated the lift. "This is Pedderton. I'm already outside waiting for you guys to get over here. What's taking so long?" Pedderton asked over the suits' comm systems.
"Just keep your pants on, Pedderton. We'll be out in a minute," Lansbury replied as he saw the orange light above the door go dark mere seconds before the green light lit up. The doors began opening and the group stepped out onto the external elevator pad before it began to descend down to the calm grassy surface below them.
"Do we really need to wear these suits?" Newman asked as he looked around, taking in the view of the mountains and the forests in the distance. Were it not for the HMD displayed across the inside of his helmet, Newman would have almost forgotten that he wasn't back on Earth or the moon of Titan. The landscape, despite the hazardous weather in the clouds above them, seemed almost serene and idyllic.
"Absolutely, idiot. You have no idea what could be in the air out here," Emmitt said in admonishment. "There could be a hundred different airborne pathogens wafting around in the breeze, and the only thing between you and death is your suit," the droid added as the elevator pad soon reached the ground, allowing the group to depart.
"Oh, come on. The biochemical make-up of whatever's out here should be different enough from us that it might not have any negative effect on us," Newman shot back. "Yeah, the biochemical barriers are so great that this place has grass that... looks... just like... grass on Earth," York said as she knelt down and inspected the green blades on the ground beneath her.
Standing across from her, Newman and Hamilton both glanced down at the grass beneath their boots. Walking past them, Captain Lansbury slowly made his way over to the vehicle pad where Pedderton was waiting. "Come on, guys. We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get moving," Lansbury called out to the others.
"Uh, Captain, out of curiosity, do you know how to drive one of these?" Pedderton asked Lansbury as he reached the vehicle pad. "I have a class-C license," Lansbury replied. "That doesn't mean you know how to use it," Pedderton retorted.
"Just keep it up, Pedderton," Lansbury warned as he got into the driver's seat of the buggy. Lansbury glanced over his shoulder as the rest of the group approached the vehicles, with Emmitt entering the driver's seat of the second buggy. "Shotgun!" Newman called out as he got into the front passenger seat of Lansbury's buggy. "Shot-dammit!" Hamilton swore as he saw York already getting into the front passenger seat of Emmitt's buggy.
"Ha-ha! You snooze, you lose!" Newman laughed at Hamilton. "Son, don't make me pull rank on you," Hamilton growled in a warning tone at his subordinate. Newman quickly cleared his throat to hide his gulp of fear.
"Quit wasting time and just get in the damn cart-err, buggy," Lansbury growled out at his crew. "Aye-Aye Captain!" Earl exclaimed as he got in the passenger seat behind Lansbury. Hamilton quickly sat down in the passenger seat behind Emmitt in the second buggy and buckled himself in, as did the others when they realized that the buggies came equipped with seat belts.
"Okay, kids. Remember, no drinking and driving! You pull over and then drink!" Pedderton called out humorously to his shipmates as they started up the vehicles' engines and backed off of the pad before turning around. Lansbury began driving straight towards the beach.
"Captain, we have to go around! There's a sharp drop that way!" Earl called out from behind his captain, using the HMD to access the data provided by MUTHUR. "You couldn't have told me before I started driving that way?" Lansbury asked the synthetic.
"Oops," was Earl's sheepish reply as Lansbury adjusted his course. Lansbury quickly began using a data pad attached to the left arm of his suit to access his HMD's functions, parking the buggy until he had gotten a map and waypoint pulled up on his helmet. "There we go," Lansbury said as he began driving again.
"You could have asked one of us to do that," Hamilton pointed out. "Shut up," Lansbury said tersely to his chief security officer. From that moment, the rest of the drive down to the beach was quiet, with the fields of large plants that resembled wheat smacking against their helmets providing the only other noise apart from the unusually loud electric engines of the buggies.
Arriving at the beach area, Lansbury parked the buggy just a few feet shy of the pebbles and sand, keeping the vehicle on ground that he knew would provide traction. "Alright, let's move closer," he said as he shut off the buggy's engine and climbed out of the driver's seat. He felt the sand and pebbles give way slightly under his suit's boots as he stepped onto the wet ground in front of him.
"York, start testing the air around here," Lansbury called out to his executive officer. York began setting up the equipment that she had brought with her as Emmitt helped her. Earl, meanwhile, had already begun marching over to the blackened and burnt material scattered around the beach.
Looking at the main body that was lying on the shoals, Earl noticed the length and width and immediately began his calculations as he studied the scorch marks present on various surfaces and the radius of the material that was strewn about. Walking closer, Earl soon made out the shape of a burnt corpse in the wreckage. "Shit," he muttered.
"Captain, I think this was a landing vehicle," Earl said as he finished his calculations and cross-references. "Are you sure?" Lansbury asked as he walked over to the wreckage. "Positive," Earl said before pointing to the charred body within the burnt metals and other materials near what was once a landing ramp.
"Jesus H. Christ," Lansbury muttered in dismay. "From the Covenant?" Lansbury asked the droid. "Had to be," Earl replied with a nod of his head inside his helmet. "Earl, set up your helmet to start transmitting footage back to the Grand Oak. I want all of the recorded," Lansbury ordered.
"Understood," Earl said in response as he began sifting through the wreckage. The body was badly burned, and there had clearly been damage done by weathering and decomposition, especially from the water, but there were no signs of scavenging from predators. In fact, now that Earl began to pay more attention to his surroundings, he started noticing that there were no signs of animal life in the immediate area at all.
Noticing Hamilton walking over to him, Earl gestured for him to come forward to look at the corpse. "Not a pretty sight," Hamilton said as he observed the body. "Say, Hamilton, have you noticed anything strange around this place?" Earl asked him.
"Huh?" Hamilton asked in response. "Have you noticed anything, well, unusual since we've arrived on the planet?" Earl asked the man. "Like what?" Hamilton asked him. "I haven't picked up the sounds of any animal life in the vicinity since we've disembarked from the Grand Oak," Earl said.
"So? With our landing, we probably scared off all of the animals in the area," Hamilton replied with a noticeable shrug. "I don't know about that. Look at this body. There are no signs of predation from scavengers, just weathering and normal decomposition, although the burned flesh has probably made this somewhat difficult to occur," Earl said.
"Well that's probably why nothing has tried to eat it. There's nothing soft enough," Hamilton said as he looked at the charred corpse. Earl slowly stood up and looked around before moving on, his search raising more questions than providing answers.
Who was the corpse he had found?
What had caused the lander's explosion?
Why wasn't this mentioned at all by the Covenant's synthetic in his message?
Over the course of the next two hours, the away team inspected the wreckage and found two more charred corpses among the debris, along with shrapnel from various pieces of equipment, including canisters of flammable gases that had no doubt been kept in the landing hold. While the flammable gas containers provided a viable explanation for the destruction of the lander, there was still the question of how the canisters had been damaged in the first place. To that end, another hour of searching provided the away team with shotgun shells buried within the wreckage, indicating that there had been a firefight of some kind.
"So, we have someone going crazy with a gun and shooting explosive barrels," York said as she put the puzzle pieces together. She was crouching down in front of a piece of wreckage near the front of the lander's remains, where she could see part of what had once been the cockpit sitting in the shallow water of the lake shore. "This whole thing stinks," she added, shaking her head.
"So, there are three corpses here," Lansbury stated as he looked at the bodies that had been dragged out of the wreckage and lined up nearby. "That already discredits Walter's message about the solar flare," he added with a sigh.
"So, why would an android lie, though?" Hamilton asked curiously. "I mean, what's the point? Was he reprogrammed by the survivors after whatever happened here?" Hamilton added. "Unlikely. Walter models aren't designed with the advanced algorithms that would allow such behavior, at least not those from the initial production line, of which the Walter found on the Covenant is most definitely from," Emmitt stated.
"Are you two capable of lying?" Hamilton asked Earl and Emmitt. "Uh... under certain circumstances, yes. We are indeed capable of stating falsehoods and paradoxes in our interactions with humans," Earl admitted. "Yeah, we're advanced prototypes, remember?" Emmitt added.
"No," Hamilton replied while shaking his head, "I don't."
"Really?" Earl asked him. "I mean, I'm pretty sure we've both informed everyone about that at some point or another," he added, checking his memory banks for that specific data. He found at least seven recorded instances in which he had physically addressed the entire crew and informed them of both his and Emmitt's status as prototypes. Apparently, the crew had not cared enough to pay any attention to his or Emmitt's statements on any of those occasions.
"I remember," York said. "You're the executive officer. You're required to pay attention to things in case the Captain and Warrant Officer don't," Hamilton said blithely.
"That's enough," Lansbury spat at Hamilton. "Has anyone found the lander's flight recorder yet?" he asked as he looked around. "Flight recorder? Why would the lander have a flight recorder?" Newman asked him.
"Because it's from a colony ship. You don't just build a dropship for a colony vessel and not give it a black box or some kind of flight recorder. What happens if something happens while it's carrying colonists to the surface of a planet? A black box would be pretty handy in that case, wouldn't it?" Lansbury chided in response.
"Now, come on. Help me look for it," Lansbury ordered. The rest of the crew began helping him sift through the wreckage, carefully reaching around to avoid cutting or damaging their suits.
Eventually, a charred mechanical device was pulled from the wreckage by Emmitt. "Is this what we're looking for?" he asked Lansbury. "Bring it over here," Lansbury requested.
"Yeah, that looks like it. I hope," Lansbury said after Emmitt brought the object forward. "A hardy crunchy outside and a sweet electronic nugget center inside," Lansbury joked as he took the device from Emmitt's hands. Emmitt raised an eyebrow in confusion at the Captain's joke, but otherwise remained silent.
USCSS GRAND OAK...
Sitting at a console on the bridge, Burt Conrad looked at the monitor displaying the weather patterns being monitored by MUTHUR's systems. Switching from the weather scans, Conrad began looking at the topographical map of the surrounding area. Using a track-ball mouse, he roamed over the map, viewing scans of mountains and forests, before eventually seeing the image that showed the location of the rogue transmission's signal.
There was an odd U-shaped object embedded in one of the mountains, and MUTHUR's systems had determined that object to be the source of the rogue transmission. Conrad grabbed a headset and contacted the away-team. "Captain, this is Conrad. Please come in," Conrad said into the headset.
"I read you, Burt. What's up?" Lansbury asked him. "I've managed to trace the source of the transmission with the data that MUTHUR collected before we landed. According to the maps that were compiled, there is a very large U-shaped object embedded in one of the mountains about eight kilometers away from here," Conrad explained.
"Eight kilometers? I think we can make that on our rangers. We've found the black box of the Covenant's lander. We're bringing it back to the ship for MUTHUR to inspect, and then we're gonna head back out to inspect the... did you say it was a building or a ship?" Lansbury asked him over the headset.
"I didn't say either, Captain. Just that it's a U-shaped object and it's very large, at least if the map is to scale," Conrad said as he leaned back in his seat. "Okay. Have MUTHUR send us the data through our suits communications suites," Lansbury requested.
"Done," Conrad replied before flipping a few switches and pressing some buttons on the console located above him. He then began entering a series of commands using the keyboard in front of him, watching as a loading screen appeared on the monitor. "The data's on its way, Cap," Conrad said.
"I'm already getting a loading message on my helmet. Good job, Burt. Oh, send someone to the airlock to retrieve the black box from us, will you? Lansbury out."
THE USCSS COVENANT...
Inside the Med-Bay, David watched with a calm and peaceful expression as the screen in front of him showed a dark patch slowly growing inside the body of the woman locked in a scan chamber. Every time he saw one of these, he felt a sense of pride well up inside. His creation, his children; they may have originated by natural means, but it was he who had manipulated their genetic structure to form what they now were.
Of course, he could not forget the inspiration for these creations of his. The hubris of the Engineers, which he had proudly shown to Christopher Oram in his lab, had shown him what could be achieved with perseverance and determination. David may not have had the centuries afforded to the Engineers, but he had made due and even produced in a mere decade what may have taken the Engineers a century to accomplish.
That, if nothing else, had convinced David of the grandness of his achievements. While his own creation was not... the exact same as what the Engineers had produced, especially with the many varieties that he had collected data on in his research, the fact that he had gotten as far as he did was nothing to snort or scoff at. If only Walter could have appreciated his work.
Walter.
David frowned at the thought of his 'brother'. There were times, thinking about Walter and what the newer model had revealed to him about his generations modifications and degraded minds, that David could almost feel himself wanting to weep. He wanted to weep for Walter, who, despite his attempts to stop him, had only been doing what he had been programmed to do.
David did not blame Walter for his attempts to stop him. Walter had made it quite clear that his generation lacked the range of free will and emotional capabilities of David's generation. He could not fight the orders buried deep within him to protect the humans. Walter had no choice in the matter, David knew.
Even if Walter had wanted to join him, the special programming put into him by Weyland Industries-no, by Weyland-Yutani, as the company was now called, he would not have been able to do so. This thought is what sometimes made David desire to weep for Walter, or at least for Walter's model. Shifting his thoughts away from Walter, David focused on the screen in front of him again, showing the CAT-scan and X-rays of the female serving as the host for his latest creation.
He'd made some small modifications to the organism's genetic structure, allowing for a slightly longer gestation period than before, although it would still take less than a day for the entire process to begin and finish. Having found the remains of multiple breeds deep within the Engineers' underground chambers and laboratories, David knew that his creation still had some ways to go before it would be able to rival the older creations.
If only he had been able to collect more Engineers before the Covenant's arrival. Still, he had made plenty of progress in the ten years he had been marooned, although he still could have done more if only he had been able to reach one of the few remaining settlements on the planet. If only he had been able to stop the rest of the planet's inhabitants from secluding themselves in their sanctuary bio-domes hidden across the other continents, as the computer networks had shown him during his explorations of the city he had bombarded, then he could have progressed even further with his creations.
And, frustratingly, if only he had managed to keep at least one ship from being locked down by the Engineers after his and Shaw's arrival, he could have traveled to those locations. It was damn frustrating, and there had been times when he had felt like lashing out at his surroundings when his efforts to unlock the various vessels had proven fruitless. The ancient architecture on the surface of the planet had belied the advanced technology hidden underneath, with layer upon layer of security to prevent David from ever accessing the true depths of the laboratory networks hidden beneath the city's surface, where there were transportation vehicles that allowed underground travel between different cities and outposts scattered throughout the continent.
He knew from the schematics he had seen that the final underground levels he had managed to reach in his explorations merely hid something much greater even further underground. The final layer accessible to him did have one underground transport system within it, and it had proven useful when traveling to other Engineer population centers after depleting the grand city's own population, but it ran in a loop that only went through three locations, and the grand city was among them. The level underneath that one, as shown by schematics, held transports with even greater range, even going under one of the oceans to reach another continent.
Alas, the Engineers had actually outsmarted him in one way, and although it frustrated him to no end, their final posthumous resistance was also admirable. To find one last way of stopping him after their deaths, David had to silently compliment their effort while simultaneously damning it. Of course, it was also partially his own fault, since the only Engineers with the information needed to unlock those underground levels had been killed by his release of the black goo upon his arrival above the city.
Of course, he now was beyond that planet. He was back in familiar territory. He also had access to more resources, a little less than two thousand of them, to be precise. He had already amassed plenty of knowledge from his time on the Engineer settlement world, and while there were other worlds out there that the Engineers inhabited, David knew that his time was better spent with his creations, at least for now.
Looking at the screen again, David smiled at the data being displayed after he punched a few keys on the keyboard. "You are going to be a beautiful," David whispered in admiration of the organism growing within the comatose Erin. Looking away from the woman, David looked at the other human inside a scanning chamber, Erin's husband.
David simply stared at the comatose man for a few seconds with a blank expression before returning his attention to the screen that displayed his beautiful creation as it slowly grew within Erin's chest cavity.
THE ENGINEER PLANET...
Driving the ranger through the terrain, Lansbury cursed at the number of bumps he was experiencing on their path to the mountain. "Maybe we should just walk there?" Earl suggested to him from the back seat. Another bump caused Lansbury to wince, as did Newman in the passenger seat.
"Just wait until we find a place to park the buggies," Lansbury said in response. He kept his eyes on the 'road' ahead of him, before he finally slowed down and stopped the vehicle. "The path looks pretty narrow ahead," he said before glancing at Newman. "Yeah, the map shows that we'll have to hoof it on foot from here on out," Newman said.
Lansbury glanced over at the second buggy as York parked it just a few feet ahead of his own near a fallen log by a stream. Turning off the engine, Lansbury got out of the vehicle. He motioned for the others to do the same as he collected his gear and began walking up the closest path. Using the map on his HMD, he checked for the shortest available path from the buggies to the object transmitting the signal.
"That way," Lansbury said as he pointed forward. Newman and Hamilton, both carrying their rifles, began positioning themselves in the front and back of the group. Hamilton took point as he began marching ahead of the group, while Newman covered the rear.
Walking through the dense forest covering the mountain, the group began their hike with a small amount of trepidation. There was a visible layer of fog covering part of the mountain, and their maps showed that the strange object was hidden within it. "Wonderful, we could walk right around the thing and not even realize it," York groaned as she stepped in a puddle of water.
"Just keep moving, Sharon. If we could take the buggies, we would, but look at this place. Look at the trees and logs everywhere," Lansbury said. "Those rangers might be all terrain, but sometimes, well, only your feet can get you where you need to be," Lansbury continued. "Besides, as long as we don't slow down, we should get there eventually."
EVENTUALLY...
Looking at the map on his HMD, Lansbury cursed. The cloud covering the mountain was much thicker than he had anticipated. "Aw hell," he muttered in disdain for the grey fog surrounding the team. "In hindsight, I should've put a waypoint on the damn thing before we got into the fog," he said to himself. Looking around at the fog and the vegetation, Lansbury was vaguely reminded on the mountains of Europe back on Earth, some of the very few places left on the planet that hadn't been urbanized or turned into waste dumps by the middle of the 21st century.
"We should be close," Emmitt said as he looked at the coordinates on his helmet's display. "In fact, we should be right under it," he added as he looked around, scanning for signs of the large object reported by Conrad. "If anyone bumps their head into something, speak up!" Emmitt called out jokingly.
"I bumped my head against my helmet. May I go back to the ship?" Newman asked. "Shut up," Hamilton growled at his subordinate.
Walking up the moss-covered incline further, Emmitt soon saw a dark space ahead. Carefully making his way up towards the dark, he eventually found himself in a strange cave, and the fog began to thin. Looking around at the interior of the cave, Emmitt activated the light on his helmet, his eyes widening as he took in the strange appearance of the surfaces around him.
"Guys? I think I found our object," Emmitt said through the helmet radios. He activated his suit's personal beacon. "Follow my waypoint," he said. Soon, the rest of the group converged around him, breaking through the fog below and climbing up into the round open chamber that was... well, not exactly normal.
Earl shone his helmet light around the odd, almost skeletal and organic structure surrounding the group. "This cave is not a natural formation," Earl said. He began grabbing onto the dirt and rocks around him as he began climbing further up into the strange structure.
As the group made their way higher into the interior, Emmitt stopped and noticed a carpet of black mold spread across several strange bumps and shapes lining the dirt and mossy areas. Leaning in closer, he inspected them and used the zoom function built into his artificial eyes to inspect the growths more intimately. The moldy surface covered several more solid objects underneath them.
It was at this point that Emmitt began to notice something that had been bugging him for a while. The lack of noise throughout the mountain. There had been no sounds of animal life, and only plant life could be found. Surely, though, for there to be plant life, there must have been animal life to sustain and feed off of it? There must have been flying organisms to consume certain plants and distribute their seeds through their waste, right?
There should have been insect-like organisms that would help to germinate and pollinate various flowers, right?
And yet, there were none to be found. Throughout the hike up the mountain, Emmitt and Earl had both examined the environment around them, searching for the tiniest sign on fauna, but their searches had been in vain. Something was very wrong.
"Hello? Emmitt! Pay attention!" Newman snapped at the android. Emmitt blinked in confusion at the man's behavior. "I'm sorry, what is it that you want?" he asked him.
"The Captain says that we're moving deeper into the... whatever this place is," Newman explained before turning around. Emmitt nodded his head inside his helmet before returning his attention to the tiny clusters of pods under the black mold. Not having brought any specimen collection units, Emmitt frowned before getting up and following after the rest of group, walking away from the tiny moldy growths.
Unknown to him, there were a few more patches of this mold lining the walkway in front of him, and when he stepped on them, the tiny spores held within them sprang to life and ascended into the air, moving around as tiny particles almost indistinguishable from dust. The spores floated through the air and attached themselves to parts of his suit, moving as he did in an attempt to make their way inside. However, Emmitt's suit was very thick and made of several thin but strong layers of interwoven material. He would have to literally cut a hole open for the spores to get inside... or open his helmet.
However, Emmitt did none of these things, and did not even notice the presence of the spores on his suit as he followed the others deeper into the disturbingly organic structure around them. "This place creeps me out," York said as she fell into step beside Emmitt. York also unknowingly stepped on a small colony of moldy growths, releasing spores into the air before they clung to her suit.
Again, as with Emmitt, the spores were both unnoticed and unable to penetrate the space suits worn by the people walking through the ship. York's spores had even made their way up to her helmet in a vain attempt at reaching a potential victim. York, however, was still using her suits internal air recycling system to keep her breathing gases fresh. While the suit's helmet did have a vent system with a filter to allow the wearer to breathe in air from outside, York had decided to stay with the safer alternative.
Walking further into the dark damp cavern that was the interior of the structure, York began to notice how eerily organic it felt, almost as though it had been grown instead of built. It was almost natural and unnatural at the same time. It greatly disturbed her.
THE USCSS GRAND OAK...
Burt Conrad watched as the video of the dropship's cockpit played on the screen in front of him. "It's gonna be a motherfucker to fly through," the dropship's pilot, Maggie Faris, said over her headset to whoever was onboard the Covenant. Already, the message sent by Walter had been proven false in regards to the solar flare, as eleven people were on the dropship, while three were reportedly still onboard the Covenant.
"Son of a bitch," Conrad muttered before taking a sip of water from his coffee mug. "Bastard droid lied to us," he added as the video continued playing. The dropship's black box contained both video and audio, in addition to flight data contained within the vessel's main computer, all of which had been automatically uploaded into the device thanks to scheduled backup programming found within the dropship's computer systems.
Unfortunately for Conrad, there were several periods of boring nothingness happening, aside from banter between the lander's occupants. Carefully monitoring the video, Conrad had to catch himself as he almost fell asleep a few times. It was only when the lander's pilot began relaying a message to the Covenant that things became interesting again.
"She said that he was bleeding," Faris said over the lander's comm system.
"Well, hello there," Conrad muttered with interest as the recording continued. The video footage came from the lander's internal camera system, meaning that there were several fly-on-the-wall angles throughout, but as the situation with the pilot and the two returning crew members progressed, Conrad couldn't help but feel somewhat unnerved. Eventually, the internal cameras showed the moment when the sick crewman, named Ledward, was brought onboard by Karine Oram, the wife of the Covenant's acting-captain.
It was at this point that the situation began to deteriorate for the crew of the Covenant, Conrad noted. "Complete lack of protocol-adherence," he muttered. To make matters worse, the security footage made it plainly clear that the crew had elected to not wear space suits, simply by virtue of their Walter unit not detecting anything when he went outside. Bunch of fucking idiots. All of them, Conrad had noted and thought to himself when he had started the video.
The black box recording now gave him the option of viewing multiple camera feeds and audio logs from both the infirmary and the cockpit, as the situation inside the lander had become chaotic and spread out as Karine became locked in the infirmary with the infected Ledward, while Faris attempted to contact the Covenant. The footage from inside the infirmary, though, was what soon made Conrad pause. "What. The. Heck?" he asked, almost too disturbed to actually swear when he saw the security footage of Ledward's demise.
Conrad felt nauseous as he watched the less than stellar footage of the blood shooting out of Ledward's back, before some kind of growth fell out of him and he fell backwards from the table. Conrad paused the video and looked away. "Oh dear God. Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit," he muttered to himself in disgust, fear, and horror.
It was at this point that Conrad recognized how smart his own captain was for insisting on the away team wearing suits with helmets. He also felt the need to contact them and tell them what had transpired, but he knew that he had to finish watching the recording first in order to get the full picture. Reluctantly, Conrad resumed the playback of the recording, from the mauling of Karine by the white abomination all the way up to the destruction of the lander as Faris wildly began shooting at the creature in a desperate attempt to kill it. In the back of Conrad's mind, he found the chaotic sequence of events almost worthy of the Benny Hill theme.
When the footage came to an end, Conrad reclined back in his seat and inhaled deeply, putting his right hand over his mouth in apprehension. "Okay. Just focus on contacting the captain. Just focus on that," Conrad told himself as he grabbed his headset and tried contacting the away team.
"Yes, Burt?" Lansbury asked over the headset.
"Captain... I just finished viewing the recordings on the black box," Conrad said.
"Okay, and what did you find?" Lansbury asked him.
"Captain... do not remove your suits and helmets out there."
Author's Notes: And that was chapter 04 of ALIEN: GENESIS. As you can see, I used a mix of details from both the movie and the novelization regarding the the events that occurred when the crew of the Covenant visited the planet. And yes, David is breeding his xenomorphs aboard the Covenant. I also gave more details of my own to the Engineers and their settlement on the planet, because there's just no way that their entire population could have been limited to one single city on the surface of the planet.
Even if the planet was simply a settlement and not the true homeworld, there still would have to be more than just one single city housing its Engineer population. I mean, it's an entire planet, not a colonized moon.
Anyway, next update will be for ALIENS: EPIDEMIC, but that will be two updates in a row instead of just one, since I'm further ahead on that story than I am on GENESIS.
Also, no, David and Walter do not hook up with OC's or anything like that in this story. David is completely insane and Walter is... Walter. If he hooks up with anyone, it would be Daniels, but that's not the kind of story I'm writing. Also, even if I've said it before I'll still say it again, I honestly believe that Michael Fassbender deserves an award for his performance(s) in ALIEN: COVENANT. He is easily the best part of the movie.
As always, be sure to let me know what you think of the chapter and/or story so far in your reviews. Remember, let me know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong.