AlienX: A Time for War

Chapter 1: Making Plans

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Don't own, you know

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Somewhere deep in human space: Ellen Ripley, Captain of the United Star Ship Vendetta, was training in the starship's gymnasium. The entire gym itself was the product of "solid hologram" technology supplied by the Displaced, the innumerable aliens who'd escaped or been rescued from their home worlds after those worlds had been overrun by the xenomorphs, creatures that implanted their embryos within living beings, with the larvae gestating within and being "born" violently by chewing through the host's body and emerging. Countless worlds had been infested with the creatures, who reproduced at a phenomenal rate, soon overrunning even heavily populated worlds and swarming those planets. In those cases, the only hope for the remaining beings was to escape into space, on board star ships, cargo ships, even wooden crates, as long as those crates would hold atmosphere and could be towed. So many worlds, regardless of their level of technological development, had fallen to the monsters.

The survivors had grouped into fleets, diverse, ragtag fleets that migrated through space, rootless, planetless, essentially nomads, but often possessed of formidable technological prowess. It hadn't saved their worlds, but their combined resources had served to produce the Vendetta, perhaps the most scientifically advanced starship in known space. The Displaced had redesigned and repurposed a large pleasure craft donated by some wealthy beings, beings who'd requested, before their deaths, that the ship be used for one purpose: the destruction of the monsters that had taken so much from them. It was a request the Displaced had eagerly set to fulfilling.

The ship itself had been a very sleek, and very large, ship even in its civilian life. Its previous owners' predilection to own the biggest and most expensive toys had proven to be a genuine godsend.

And so, in the very middle of the technological dreadnought they'd created, Ripley trained. The gym's solid hologram system had provided her with suitable opponents, though these were faceless humanoids, rather than the eyeless creatures she would have preferred. But the ship's semi-sentient computer had been right about it: at this point in her training, setting her up with xenomorph opponents would have been too hasty.

I know I couldn't go hand to claw with those things, not with that acid blood, but it would be satisfying to crack some eyeless skulls, even if they were fake. As it was, she dove and weaved, the light padding she wore hardly impeding her movements, as she executed one complex fighting maneuver after another. And to think, not all that long ago, she hadn't had the faintest idea of how to fight.

The Colonial Marines they'd rescued had provided her with some of the advanced knowledge and fighting skills taught in the military, and the ship's computer had accessed some files from martial arts of other humanoid beings, to design a course specifically for her that would train her to the utmost of human perfection. Already, she'd earned a brown belt; she expected the black one any day now.

One by one, her opponents fell, each "kill" fading out conveniently, leaving only the "live" ones for her to face. Even though they surprised her by ganging up on her, none of them were able to land a truly disabling blow, and soon they joined the others back in the ship's databanks.

Ripley sat on the bench to one side, breathing heavily. This was work! Back in the life she'd known before the xenomorph had been let loose on the old Norstromo, she'd had some minor street fighting skills, but nothing like she now possessed. But it didn't come without a price.

Right now, she was feeling that price as each and every muscle seemed to ache. A good soak in the Jacuzzi would be most welcome right now.

Someone signaled for entrance. "Enter," she said, wiping the sweat from her face.

It was Corporal John Houston, late of the Colonial Marines. He and his company had had a very narrow escape on a planet far from here, when the xenomorphs had swarmed them. The xenomorphs had, by that time, acquired sufficient human military technology to knock out their ship, the Perseus, stranding them on the planet. Had the Vendetta not come along, each and every one of them would have been either killed or, worse, implanted with larvae. "Cap? Got a minute?" Although Ripley had never been made a true captain, at least not by the standards of the human tradition, everybody on board the ship acknowledged her as such.

"Sure," she said, wiping sweat from her face. "What's on your mind?"

He came over and sat by her on the bench. Ripley had a moment of self-consciousness; she knew she was sweaty, and definitely needed a shower. And the feminine part of her flinched at the notion of the attractive (and dare she think it, hunky?) Corporal sitting so close, but she firmly banished such thoughts out of her head. She had far bigger concerns. "First thing. I've been speaking with the Vooorm, in Engineering. You remember, you asked him to come up with something that could take out the xenomorphs without also taking out the whole planet?"

"Yeah. Has he?" The Vooorm—she didn't even know if he had a personal name—was the ship's scientific and technological genius. It was largely due to him that the Vendetta had the capability of high-speed FTL travel, something human-designed ships only had to a much smaller degree. The Vendetta could travel farther in an hour than the fastest known human ship could in a week. And he had also come up with a good deal of the ship's more advanced weaponry, as well as the shields that, she firmly believed, could probably take on anything in human space and perhaps beyond. She counted herself—and the ship—as being lucky to have him.

"Some, but not as much as he'd like. Part of that comes from not having a whole lot to go on with regards to the creatures' biology. I understand some of the Displaced races were able to capture a few of the drones, but only for brief periods of time." He shook his head. "The things aren't stupid. Usually, when they realized they'd been captured, they'd somehow contrive to break their own carapaces, and use that acid blood to burn an escape. Or, if more than one of them were in the same cell, they'd turn on one, and disassemble it, again using that acid blood. So he doesn't have a lot to go on.

"But from what he's telling me, biological agents are a no-go. They've been tried. They work briefly, but then the things adapt. Turns out that acid blood isn't their only circulatory fluid. They also possess something closer to what we'd call real blood, that carries nutrients and oxygen. But the acid serves to carry what might best be described as biological nanobots. Any injury, the acid dissolves any foreign object—and this includes bio agents-and the bio-nanobots go to work repairing the damage."

"I had wondered about that. Aside from its use as a defense, I couldn't think of anything that acid blood would really be useful for. But that answers some questions. Damn. How did these things evolve, anyway?"

He shrugged. "No clue there. But he has had some luck—he thinks—with sound waves. Infra or ultra sound. Adaptable as they are, they're still subject to the laws of physics. And his weapon—which, of course, remains untested—would serve to destabilize, maybe even shatter that carapace of theirs, letting that acid circulatory fluid into other parts of the body not equipped to handle it. At least, that's the theory so far."

"Well, this is good news. Why do you say, 'not so much'?"

"Too much is untested. He'd like to get hold of a live drone or two to experiment on."

Ripley shook her head. "I don't see how that's possible. We certainly know where to find them—that isn't the problem. But getting to one, and one only, would be. Most of the planets they're on are aswarm with the things. How would we get just one? I'm not willing to risk the lives of any crewmember to go down and kidnap one, so to speak."

"He thought you might say that. He's suggesting finding an pod, and hatching it."

"Hatching it?" The things only "hatched" inside living beings…well, no, the facehugger mode did hatch on its own, but… "But it would need a life form to gestate in. Wouldn't it?"

"He's trying to come up with some way to clone a mindless body. You know, the same way we feed this whole crew: tissue samples grown in a nutrient bath. His thought is to grow a homunculus, alive in every sense but without a mind, you understand, but close enough biologically to serve as a host."

She thought for a moment. "I'll take the matter under consideration. We do need more info, and we don't have it. I wish," she mused, a finger to her chin, "that we could access Weyland-Yutani's files on the damned things. They knew perfectly well what we'd find on LV-426; they sent us there, knowing full well most or none of us would be likely to come back. We didn't know, at the time, about the monster, or that the android—hell, we didn't even know Ash was an android-was programmed to bring it back… I can't help but wonder what else they knew. Or where they might have found it."

Houston studied his feet, not completely sure how to continue. "So…you're accepting the alien's message to you…as true?"

Ripley's eyes focused back on the here and now, and she nodded. "Yeah. Much as I'd like to deny it….but it does answer some…questions I'd been having lately."

The quite talkative xenomorph they'd destroyed, that had killed the entire crew of the Norstromo except for Ripley, had told her, moments before that final battle, that both she and it shared common memories, their minds having been altered by Ash, acting on behalf of Weyland-Yutani. According to what the creature had said were files it found on board the Norstromo, Ripley herself had been grown artificially, and genetically engineered to be a superior specimen of the human race, whereupon she was bonded, psychically, to the xenomorph. Thus, under command of whoever would be controlling her, whatever she was mentally compelled to do, the xenomorph would also be compelled to do. The alien had "proved" this by demonstrating to her that she, Ripley, was unable to press the firing button that would launch the graviton pulse towards the Norstromo. According to it, the reason for this was that Ripley herself was not suicidal, and her subconscious recognized her inhuman "twin." For a long time, Ripley had simply refused to believe that….

….but she couldn't deny that it had been true. Had their "guest," Cedric Siraq, the monster's former employee, not been present on the bridge at that time, her hesitation on the matter might have cost them the victory.

"Well, if we can come up with a practical way of putting the snatch on one, perhaps. There's got to be a better solution to this, rather than blow up the whole planet."

"Yeah, about that… It seems he's detected evidence of just that sort of thing happening. We've detected heavy neutrino activity coming from a region of space in the general direction of one of the worlds the Norstomo visited…" Cedric Siraq had been duped into planting the xenomorph eggs on a number of worlds, not knowing what they were. "It's considerably higher than the background norm. He thinks it's from a localized antimatter burst. Somebody's been breaking things." They both knew that antimatter didn't occur naturally, at least not in sufficient quantities for the neutrino burst to be an accident. "The only question is, who?"

"We might need to find out." She paused, thinking. "You know, much as I hate to admit it, that monster was right about…a number of things."

"Such as?"

"I don't have any clear memories of growing up. I know the names of my parents, but I can't recall what they looked like." She sighed. "If what the thing told us was true, I guess I have no biological parents. And…the rest." The xenomorph had told her the reason she had no clear memories of growing up, no memories of adolescence, was because she had actually never done so. According to it, she'd been grown, artificially, and implanted with enough memories to allow her to function in human society. She shook her head. None of that was really important. "But, more importantly, mission-wise, it mentioned those alien hunters we encountered. I've a hunch they've got the tech to blow up a world. Of course, Weyland-Yutani might, just might…no, on second thought, I can't really believe they'd have that sort of tech."

He moved a little closer. "The thing about you…is it bothering you?"

She shook her head. "Bothering me? Not…really. But it is an…annoyance, I guess you'd say. I wonder what else I don't know about myself."

"Well, personally, I haven't seen anything that might pose a problem, logistically. As to personal matters…well, there I couldn't say."

She nodded. "Yeah, well, I guess I don't need to ask for trouble. What's the ancient expression? 'Sufficient unto the day', or something like that? But," and here she frowned in concentration, "I wonder if the Vooorm could scan me for possible psychological problems. Like, some sort of hidden programming or something." While there were telepaths among the diverse crew of the Vendetta, telepathy appeared to be a species-specific thing. No alien could read a human mind, and vice-versa. Hence the need for the translator-floor.

"You may be out of luck there. The human mind is something they have even less experience with than the 'morphs."

"You're right. Which means I might need to plan for a failsafe."

"Failsafe?"

"Some way of…preventing me from doing harm. Though exactly how that would work, I'm not sure."

Houston thought. He could understand her concerns. In the Marines, there were certain guidelines; if an officer overstepped certain boundaries, or acted in a way inconsistent with established policy, then a subordinate, usually under medical direction, was supposed to step up, and relieve that person of command. But here? The situation was too fluid; there were no real guidelines to go by. "Well, you're the Captain. And I'm not trying to flatter you when I say I've seldom seen anyone more capable. So, I'm sure you'll come up with something. Perhaps we can figure out some way."

"'We.' That's another thing. Perhaps I need to see about getting you and your friends back home. After all, you, at least, have a life to get back to."

Houston snorted. "Not sure about that. I can't speak for all the others, but I'm not sure there'd even be a Marine Corps to get us back to, by now."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"When we left, there was a lot of talk about 'privatizing' the Corps. Essentially decommissioning the entire Marine Corps, officially dissolving the whole organization."

"What! But that's insane! Who'd enforce the law? Who'd protect the colonists? I always thought that was what the Marines were for?"

He shook his head. "From the standpoint of the big-money types, it makes all the sense in the world. They can afford to hire whatever muscle they need, and no worries about having to obey any annoying laws. And if a colony is profitable enough, they'd be happy to send in boatloads of troops, to protect their investment. And if a colony wasn't profitable enough…well, too bad, people. Maybe you'll up your production by next quarter.

"And it would have the side effect of preventing any of the colonies from getting too uppity, demanding too much from Big Mister. And the CEO's would get to check military assistance as a tax write-off.

"What it would amount to, basically, is turning the entire Corps into mercenaries. The old guard wouldn't go for it, of course, but many of the younger recruits, enlistees, they'd not hesitate, especially since it'd mean a significant pay increase. Mercenaries get paid pretty well by comparison. Health care sucks, but they get paid pretty good."

Ripley shook her head in disbelief. "Sometimes I think the entire human race has lost its collective mind. Would the Senate go for that?"

He waved his hand, dismissively. "More than half the Senate's owned by the big corporations. Yeah, they wouldn't have any choice.

"So, aside from those who have families to get back to—and I'll ask around, but last time I checked, most of us that're left don't—this is as good as anything. Better than some places. Besides," he said, with a grim smile, "we've all got some…unfinished business." Ripley didn't need the translator-floor to tell her that a lot of that "business" involved spilling xenomorph blood. Every single Marine had lost someone to the monsters. Sometimes more than one person.

Some, whole worlds.

"What about you?" she asked. Funny; they'd never actually had any personal conversation not "work-related."

He shook his head. "No family. Dad was in the military…he died on Esperanza, during the uprising, when I was three. Mom tried her best, but…well, let's just say things didn't work out for her. She…died when I was still pretty young; I barely remember her. Got passed off to some relatives, who, frankly, had better things to do, if you get my drift. So I had to go to work at a young age, just to survive. Where I was living, it was the streets or the Corps. I chose the Corps. Lied about my age, but I never looked back anyway."

"Well, see if any of the others want to return to human society. I guess you've probably already figured out I'm gonna go after these things regardless."

"Yeah. You said as much. And Butch and I, at least, are with you one hundred twenty percent. Siraq, now…" He scowled. The xenomorph had hired the mechanic to do repairs and upgrades on the Norstromo, and he'd proved to be good at his job. Almost too good. The alien had posed as Ripley herself, and, never allowing a visual of itself, its vocal imitation had deceived him into thinking he was working for a human being. It had been an enormous shock for him when, there at the last, he'd actually confronted his "Captain Ripley" on the main viewscreen on the bridge of the Vendetta. To his credit, he'd been the one who, in Ripley's moment of hesitation, had leapt forward to press the "fire" button on Ripley's console, sending the powerful gravity-distortion pulse hurtling towards the Norstromo. That had ultimately won them the battle, but there were still some who mistrusted him, even though he'd volunteered to remain and attempt to undo some of the damage he'd unwittingly caused.

"I'll decide about Siraq. From talking to him, I get the distinct impression he's sincere. But if he's going to be a divisive element on board this ship, we don't need him."

"I agree. So. I'll ask around, see if anyone wants to return. Anything else? Or perhaps I should say, what are your orders, Captain Ripley?"

She laughed a little at that. It wasn't an official title, but if what he was telling her was accurate, about the Marines being dissolved, it was as legitimate as any other title. "Well, I've got one, though it's not an order."

"I'm all ears."

She got up, got a pair of boxing gloves from a receptacle, handed him a pair. "Here. Spar with me."

"Spar with you?"

"Yeah. Don't tell me you have a thing about hitting a woman, do you?"

"Hell, no. My first combat instructor was a woman. Built like a brick. I stepped into the ring with her, and that's the last thing I remember until I woke up in the infirmary. So, no, no problems there." He put on the gloves, closing the Velcro straps with his teeth. "Anytime you're ready."

She feinted, ducked, threw a solid left. He dodged, weaved, drove a right in towards her face. She blocked it, swept it aside, landed a body blow on his lower torso. He staggered, caught himself, brought in his left for defense, and shot a right straight for her face….

He came to seconds later, with her bending over him, a concerned look on her face. "C'mon, I didn't hit you that hard!"

He sat up slowly, feeling his jaw. Nothing broken; good. "It was a good solid blow, cap. I sure didn't see it coming, and I was watching. But you know what? It might be a good idea to make sure the ship's autodocs are fully familiar with human anatomy before we do any more of this. It'd play hell with my lifestyle to have a broken arm mended into an extra leg."

They both laughed at that. "Maybe you're right," she said, helping him up. "Anyway, I've got things to do." She threw her towel around her shoulders and walked with him out into the corridor. Most of the ship now had the translator-floor feature, so that the various races—some of whom didn't even use sound to communicate-could converse with each other. It also served, in a pinch, as a kind of shipwide intercom, though Houston hated the slight, back-of-the-skull headache it always gave him.

"Ripley. There you are," said a familiar voice behind them. They turned to see Cedric Siraq, the former mechanic for the refurbished Norstromo, hurrying up behind them. Ripley couldn't help comparing the two men: Houston was the ideal of the Colonial Marines, tall, blond, square jawed, clean-shaven. Siraq was a slightly shorter man, wiry, with a short, closely-cropped beard. He was never seen without his duster, which reached almost all the way to the floor. Siraq might not have been as combat savvy as Houston, but the way he moved told Ripley he was no stranger to violence. Born on a planet whose economy had been nuked by Weyland-Yutani, he'd had to turn to the streets just to survive. The fact that he was alive at all was a testament to his street-smarts. What Ripley knew about him bespoke of a man who'd learned street-fighting the hard way. She didn't want to think about the horrors he'd seen on his home world. "I've been looking for you."

"Well, here I am. What's on your mind?"

"I was wondering when we might be getting back into human space." He slowed his pace to match theirs.

"Tired of us so soon?" said Houston, sarcastically. He'd made no secret of his dislike of the mechanic, and he still hadn't totally forgiven him for the role he'd played in turning many planets into anterooms of Hell itself, replete with monsters Salvatore Dali couldn't have imagined.

"Hell, no. I just…had some business I thought I might attend to. Some…purchases to make."

"Oh?" Ripley's eyebrow went up.

"Yeah." He seemed to think for a minute, then. "I notice the air scrubbers here, in the human-ready parts of the ship, could stand some improvement. I know where to get good deal on a replacement set, bargain price. And I notice you could use some up-to-date autodocs. The ones here are superb, yeah, but they're not really designed for humans, specifically."

Ripley raised her eyebrow even further. "Oh?"

"Yeah. I thought I'd get 'em." He noticed their looks. "Why not? You both know credits aren't a problem with me, not at the moment."

"Yeah," began Houston, savagely, "And we know how you got those credits…"

Siraq raised a hand. "I know, I know. Geez. But I'd think that'd make you all the more eager to use 'em for that.

"After all, can you see any better revenge than to use the credits that monster paid me to annihilate its brood?" Houston scowled even more, but said nothing.

"So, Mr. Siraq," said Ripley, still wiping sweat off her face. When was she going to make it to the shower? "You're volunteering to acquire needed items for this vessel? Does that mean you're in this for the long haul?"

"I am, and it does. And, if the Vooorm will let me—which, now that I think about, I kinda doubt—I'll be glad to work with him on installing them. Take that load offa him. I am, after all, a pretty good mechanic."

"Yeah." Houston's scowl hadn't let up. "You installed a C-plus cannon on that monster's ship…"

"Enough," said Ripley, tiredly. Truth was, she was coming—perhaps against her better judgment—to respect and value Siraq's technical expertise. If he indeed wanted to use his ill-gotten gain to upgrade the ship that would hunt down the xenomorphs, why not? "We'll be heading towards some human worlds, anyway. I want to investigate those antimatter explosions. As you say, John, they don't seem to be natural occurrences. Perhaps we can pick them up somewhere nearby."

"That brings me to something else," said Siraq, hesitantly. "I notice this ship's got a set of railguns."

"That's right."

"That's fine and dandy. I like railguns; they're reliable and easy to feed. But…last I heard, human scientists were on the verge of coming up with a way of mass-producing antimatter. The idea was, it was to replace the old fusion drives. But I can think of a much better use. Can't you?"

"Hm. I'll say." Ripley had a brief and extremely satisfying image of railgun projectiles made of magnetically-confined antimatter. "Yeah, that…but that tech would be heavily guarded. It wouldn't be on anyone's 'net."

Siraq smiled. "That's where my…special talents come in." He smiled broader, a genuinely delighted grin. "C'mon, cap. It'll be fun."

To be continued…