AlienX: A Time for War

Chapter 2: Veils Within Veils

Don't own, etc. Onward.

….

Chapter 2: Veils Within Veils

The yautja starship Pathwalker ghosted silently along the spaceways, fully stealthed. Although it was traveling at a fraction of the velocity it could travel, compared to human vessels, here in human space K'shandel'ay, its captain and hunt-leader, had ordered it to move cautiously. Only a fool rushed into danger, and, here in ooman space, there was danger a'plenty, and not all from the oomans.

If what he suspected was true, the kainde amedha, they of the black exoskeletons, were in this region of space, too. And they'd adapted to ooman technology. How they'd gotten their claws on it, he didn't know, and, right then, didn't care. He'd questioned his "guest," Charles Bishop Weyland, quite thoroughly about the matter. They'd found the ooman, along with others of his kind, fighting to survive on one of the worlds infested with the kainde amedha, and taken them aboard. The ooman had been quite happy until he realized he was not a guest but a prisoner. Then he'd begun to be a bit less co-operative. It had been necessary to "persuade" him to rethink his policy of non-compliance. The only reason he still lived was that K'shandel'ay reasoned he might have more useful knowledge. All the other oomans had already been spaced, it being determined that they knew nothing of importance.

Fool ooman. He'd originally thought to actually make a pet of a kainde amedha! Or at least bend it to his will. K'shandel'ay shook his head, his dreadlocks rippling down his neck. You couldn't control the kainde amedha; you could barely contain them. And, given time, they could adapt to whatever technology was available, though, praise be to his ancestors, they didn't seem to be strong on innovation. But, yes, given time, they could definitely adapt. For that reason, the yautja made sure they never left any of the creatures alive on whatever world they were hunted on. Kill them all. That was really all they were good for, anyway. The only thing they contributed to any world was targets.

So now, he had to do some mapping. He had to find out which worlds had become infested with the kainde amedha. The Council of Elders would need to know this, of course, but that was not why he was here, in ooman space, not completely. His mission, the mission the Pathwalker, and all those aboard had been assigned, really had little to do with the oomans. It even had little to do with kainde amedha.

It did have everything to do with the future of all life in the galaxy.

…..

"….'S been a while, Ced. What you been doing with yourself these days?" Antoine greeted his old frenemy.

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that. You know how it goes."

"Yeah, don't I. Well, what brings you here? Somehow I can't see Evangeline as being your kinda planet."

"Course it's my kind of planet." The two had met at a local bar, the Coral Reef, and Cedric was already ordering another round—on him. Antoine sure wasn't complaining. Instead, he got outside half of his second beer in record time. "Quiet. Peaceful." He took a long swig from his own mug. "Truth? I'm looking for a place to put down some roots."

"You? Roots?" Antoine chuckled. "I can't see it. Especially here. You're too much the 'street' guy. You'd go crazy here. Crazier, I mean." Another pull on the beer.

"So what're you doing here? Last time I saw you, the cops had us surrounded. We scattered. What happened?"

Antoine ducked his head. "Like you said, man. We scattered. But I didn't quite get away. Did some time in the pen. But while I was there, I got myself educated. It was all right there under 'rehabilitation.' So I went in for the sciences." He took another pull on his beer. It wasn't bad beer; Evangeline was a prosperous enough planet to be able to import some of the real stuff, not the home brewed horrors some worlds had to make do with. "Now I'm an assistant. Not a doc, of course. Never be that…but…what we're working on is…interesting." The beer was beginning to have the effect Siraq was hoping for. Antoine was becoming more talkative.

"Really? What is it?"

"Aw, now, you know I can't tell you that, man. Top secret, need to know, G5 Classified, 'n' all that. But," he said, eyes fixed on a distant view, "it's big. Be the biggest thing since—hic!—since nuclear fusion. Hah! In a way, it IS nuclear fusion…but I better not say anymore."

"Ah, that's a'right. I get'cha. Yeah, in your shoes, I'd button my lip too." He leaned back, the very picture of a man on a vacation. "Like I said, I'm just kinda scoutin' around myself, trying to find a place to fit in. Anybody looking for a tech guy, that you know of?"

Shrug. "I'm sure I could locate a couple of—hic!—couple o' places, people. Most o' the work here is, like, high-energy physics, ya know. Partic—hic!-particle physics, I mean. Don't know if you're up for that."

"Nah, nothing quite like that. Just general tech work. It's not urgent," he said, expansively, the very picture of a man with all the time in the worlds. Inside, however, he was calculating timetables: he had to get the info back to Ripley before long. The Vendetta couldn't stay stealthed in orbit forever.

And, anyway, they had a mission.

"Say. You wouldn't have heard of any reports of, like, monsters from space, have you?"

"Who, me?" Antoine looked amused. "I've been so stuck in that lab lately I've barely had time to go to the john. However," he frowned, as something occurred to him, "now that you mention it, I have heard some scuttlebutt about the Colonial Marines."

"Yeah? What?" Surely that wouldn't be classified.

"Only that they've been put on alert. Seems the big man himself, none other than Charles Bishop Weyland, has gone missin'."

Three hours later, Siraq poured Antoine into a cab. The taxi sped off, leaving Siraq standing there, looking at the company ID that had just so happened to have fallen out of his friend's pocket….

Of course, I'll return it to him, he thought with a sly smile. Can't have something like this just lying around. No telling what mischief somebody could do with it.

…

Charles Weyland Bishop grunted, still trying to pull the cover off the vent in the room he'd been locked into. It wasn't a prison cell, exactly, or, at least, not the kind he was accustomed to thinking of. It looked more like a large, oval two-being dormitory, with curved bunk beds built into the wall, one right over the other. Whoever these beings were, if those indeed were beds, they evidently slept only on one side. He found that rather odd.

However, whatever the room's original purpose might have been, try as he might, that damnable cover set flush with the wall resisted his every effort to dislodge it. Somehow that didn't surprise him.

He'd been a fool. His own company had had knowledge of these beings, called yautja, alien hunters who frequented worlds looking for the thrill of the hunt. Over a hundred years ago, Weyland-Yutani had come into possession of an alien artifact, a plasma blaster of some sort, and had back-engineered it into the fusion drives the company produced. They'd never been able to reproduce the compact power source to make portable weapons out of it, but the drives alone had been enough to skyrocket Wey-Yu's profits into the upper stratosphere. Wey-Yu had given mankind the stars.

And now they were learning just how dangerous those stars were.

For about the thousandth time he cursed himself for a fool, running, actually running, onto the Predator ship. He really should have known better, but…all things considered, it had been the better of the two options. After all, it was either that, or stay and be implanted.

The semi-hexagonal door swished open suddenly, and two enormous yautja appeared in it, the lead one motioning him. Come. Considering their evident level of technological achievement, he found it remarkable that they'd never appeared to have developed any sort of translator device, but then, from what he knew of their psychology, perhaps they just didn't really care to.

He sighed, got up—he was sure they were monitoring his every move anyway—and followed the two out into and down the corridor. No doubt he was in for another "questioning" session. He'd long since learned to comply with such, the alternative being….unpleasant. But he was also quite aware that, once his usefulness to them had ended, so would his life. One good thing about his captivity was, the yautja didn't torture you as long as you cooperated. Or seemed to. "Okay, boys," he said to the two silent aliens, "let's get this over with."

….

On a world far, far away: the android known as "Ash" suddenly awoke, his cognitive synapses suddenly coming online. A quick diagnostic: he could sense nothing of his body. His feedback loops indicated that he no longer had one.

He opened his eyes. He, or rather, his head, was resting on a heavy plate of either glass or crystal. There were wires connected to his positronic brain, leading to other machines off to the side. Being only a head, he couldn't turn to get a good look at them, but could only perceive them through his peripheral vision. It was quite dark, wherever he was.

"Hello, Ash. Welcome back to the land of the living. Or what passes for it in your terms." The voice was familiar… "Ripley?" he asked.

Now the speaker moved into view. It was not Ripley, but one of the alien xenomorphs he'd been sent to retrieve. His optics scanned it; this was no ordinary drone. It was much larger, with a larger, shovel-shaped head, and a huge underbody. For all that, it moved with the grace and speed of a great cat. Its eyeless head was focused on him. "What's going on?" he managed to ask, although he had a fairly good idea.

"Nice to see you again, too. What's going on? I've reactivated you…or, rather, the only part of you that matters. And while you probably don't recognize me, let's just say we've met. I have you to thank for my existence, in fact."

Ash's artificial eyes widened in memory. "You…you're the xenomorph. XX121."

"Right the first time. I knew there was a reason I salvaged your head from the Norstromo."

"I've a strong hunch you didn't reactivate me to thank me."

"Too right. I need information, and you're going to supply it."

Ash's lips curled, a gesture downloaded from his human-mimicry algorithms. "And just what will you threaten me with if I don't?"

"I don't have to threaten you with anything. You're a machine, Ash. I and my children have already disabled your self-destruct and reformat programs. We'll simply read your memory core."

Ash thought. He could sense what the alien monster was saying was true. "Soooo….why reactivate me at all?"

"Just to see the look on your face."

…

Siraq and Houston, properly attired in spotless lab coats, walked casually down the corridor of the laboratory that Antoine's (slightly hacked) ID card had allowed them access to. Along the way, they conversed amiably, though a very studious and astute observer (of which there were none) might have noticed a slight tic in the taller blond man's eye, that might or might not have to do with pretending to be able to stand within arm's reach of his shorter, wiry companion without throttling him.

That same studious observer, however, might also have noted the slight movement of facial muscles on the part of the shorter of the pair, that indicated he was loving every minute of his comrade's displeasure.

Their conversation dealt with such topics as the weather (too hot), the chances of the local baseball team (somewhere to the minus side of zero), how much they were getting paid (not nearly enough for these hours), and the rack on the passing blond technician (niiiiiiice).

They approached a small knot of similarly clad individuals lounging around the coffeepot. Siraq nudged Houston. "What'd I tell you?" he whispered. "More people around the coffeepot than at their desks."

"Could'a told you that myself," snarled Houston. Then he put his professional smile back on as they got within earshot of the group.

"Hey, guys, how's it shakin'?" Siraq said.

"Nuttin' much," said one of the younger techs. Houston noted that one of the young women was giving him the eye. He wondered if winking at her would be in character or not.

Hey, he was a frontline Marine! He'd never been trained for this covert ops stuff!

"Wonder if one of you could help us out here. We're new here, just recently arrived, and, uh, we, er, don't exactly know where the restrooms are?"

"Oh, sure." The senior one motioned down the hallway. "Down that way, and to the left. Can't miss it."

"'Kay, thanks." The two left, going in the direction the tech had indicated.

"I thought you were gonna get the directions to the main lab?" hissed Houston.

"I did, man. The main lab's where they do all the work, right? The lion's share of it, anyway. So doesn't it follow that they'd have restrooms close by? Wouldn't do to have their boy and girl geniuses soiling themselves 'cause they couldn't make it all the way across the complex. You know how nerds are: eat at their desks most of the time, in spite of regulations. And nobody sees anything suspicious about strangers asking where the restrooms are. Even if these aren't right close by the lab we want, all we have to do is keep hunting.

"Trust me; this ain't my first rodeo."

Siraq turned out to be exactly right. It took them two more such inquiries, but eventually, they found themselves outside a doorway marked, "Authorized Personnel Only. Insert identicard for verification." Houston wondered briefly just where Siraq had obtained this kind of experience. Siraq slipped his card into the slot.

A recorded voice spoke up: "Step up to the retinal scanner. Do not blink."

Okay, this was where the real test came. The Displaced's technology had provided them both with specialized variable-pattern contact lenses, lenses that were hopefully capable of fooling the human designed sensors.

Of course, Siraq reminded himself, while he tried not to sweat, the key word there was hopefully.

There was a long, long pause. That was good, he told himself. Any error would usually surface almost immediately. But still…

"Identity confirmed. Technologist Third Level Antoine Levoy. Technologist Third Level Charles Mason. You have clearance to enter." Siraq smiled. The real Charles Mason was sleeping the sleep of the drugged back in a storage shed off the main compound. He'd have some explaining to do when he woke up, but he'd manage. "Okay," he said to Houston, as they moved into the lab. The others in the lab barely looked up. "Now it's time for your part. Remember, we don't have long."

"Gee. And here I thought we had, like, all week."

As surreptitiously as possible, John Houston drew a small disk from his pocket, sidled up to a nearby massive server, and pressed it up under the machine's underside, giving it one last quick press to activate the device.

Siraq was already zeroing in on the nearest tech, a young man wearing glasses. Siraq's experience told him this guy was most likely to be a fertile field, just ready for the picking. Probably just out of school. The young technician looked surprised as Siraq came up to him, as though somebody actually talking to him was an unusual occurrence. It probably is. "Hey, man, Mason, here. Charles Mason. My friends call me Chuck." He paused while the other tech stuttered a greeting of his own. "Me and my pal, here, we've just been transferred in. I've heard some good things about your work here. You, in particular, Dr. Rune."

"M-me? B-but I'm noth—I mean, I, I haven't….you have?"

"Oh, yeah," Siraq casually sat on a corner of the desk and picked up a clipboard lying on the counter, making a show of perusing its contents, all the while the cybernetic contacts in his eyes recorded everything he saw and heard. He swiveled his head, looking around the place. Houston shook his head very slightly. No. Not quite yet. Give 'em a few more minutes. "Word is, you've made some remarkable advances here, in contra-terrene matter research," he said. "Care to fill me in? We're gonna be working closely for the next few days."

"Oh! Uh, sure…" Siraq smiled inwardly. All those years of hustling on the mean streets of Orpheus were serving him well. Just zero in on the outsider, the loner, the vulnerable one…the mark. A few sincere-sounding compliments… "Well, uh, here we've developed the process of transforming ordinary matter into contra-terrene, or antimatter, as it's popularly called. Er, how much do you already know, Dr." and here he looked pointedly at Siraq's forged identicard, "Mason?"

Siraq clapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, just assume I know nothing. Bring me up to speed here. I won't be insulted; I'd like to hear how you've overcome the transformation problem. I remember the problems other groups have had with the hard radiation issue."

"Oh, well. Well, that turned out to be just an error in the computations; we hadn't allowed for conservation of energy. Turns out that, even if you take elements of the same atomic weight, the conversion process sometimes 'overlooks' a meson or quark or two. Then you have normal matter…in a contraterrene matter atom. And then you had the makings of atomic fission, just due to leftover energy. That was what was causing the hard radiation issue. But here, we take a sample of matter—we've been using pure elements, simply for simplicity's sake, although, in theory, the process could eventually be used on any matter—and essentially 're-write' its matter code, the coding that describes it on the fundamental level. Here's the math." He pulled up a screen of completely incomprehensible (to Siraq) formulae on the terminal. Didn't matter; his retinal inserts recorded it faithfully. "Previously, we were actually trying to build antimatter from scratch, but using this technique, we can essentially switch the polarities on any given substance. And…" and then, standing right there in front of Siraq, he completely zoned out, as if he'd suddenly traveled to another universe altogether, leaving his body behind. "and we—or rather, I—found something unexpected. Very unexpected."

"Oh? Like what?"

"Well, the process works fine…" He fiddled with the console he was standing in front of, bringing up a three-D image of an atom, "…as it is. The electrons convert to positrons, and the protons to antiprotons. But, in the early stages we also found out something….something I found incredible. But," his shoulders slumped, "I couldn't get funding to pursue it. Nobody was interested in it." He shrugged. "Guess that's the way it goes, sometimes."

"Well, don't keep me hanging, man. What did you find that was so incredible?"

"Here, I'll show you." The young man began fiddling with the controls, "you remember, way back in the twentieth century, some people were speculating that the entire universe might be a virtual reality setup? That we're all living in a, a shared dream world?"

"I remember reading something about that, yes." Siraq had, in fact, never heard of that notion, but he nodded just like it was common knowledge. "So…what did you discover?"

"Well, remember nanites? Microscopic machines? They were all the rage way back when they first came out. But I discovered that…" He turned to Siraq excitedly, "I found the process of miniaturization can be continued on down the scale. I wanted to see how far it could go…you know, like those old researchers tried to find the 'pixel limit' to the universe, that would've indicated the virtual reality thing? I kept on going down, ever down…and I found something! Something amazing! I found that, if you do it just right, you can actually make an atom itself! And I don't mean the old way, clumping electrons, protons and neutrons together, but a way to actually build an atom, from the subnuclear particles on up, and, furthermore, build it in such a way that, that it's…controllable. Like…like each particle-each subatomic quark, meson, what have you-was a nanite itself." This last was said in a hushed whisper, as if he'd suddenly begun talking to himself. Which, Siraq thought, he probably was.

"So what does this mean, in all?"

"Custom built, completely controllable matter. Matter totally under our control. Can you imagine what that would do to, well, to any area of science there is?" There was a glow in his eyes that Siraq recognized: the glow of pure dedication fueled by too much coffee. But just then, his shoulders slumped. "But…for some reason, I got turned down. I don't understand it. It would have revolutionized practically every field of science we know! And probably a few we aren't aware of yet."

And something went off in the back of Cedric Siraq's mind. "Did they, by any chance, take your notes? For, for review, like?"

"Well…yeah. I mean, yeah. Why?"

"Backups, too?"

"Yeah." Dr. Rune was clearly wondering where all this was heading.

"Aaaannd…after they did all that…what did they say? About your research, I mean?"

"That it wasn't relevant to the current program. Said it would take too long to gear up for it, would be too expensive, and a lot of other things that sounded like bullshit to me."

That's because it WAS bullshit.

Dr. Rune's research hadn't been rejected. It had been stolen. Siraq had no doubt whatsoever that, at that very moment, there was a top-secret corporate laboratory specifically designed to investigate Rune's work in great detail. "Intellectual property," and all that. But why hadn't they just taken Dr. Rune with them when they took his data?

Something wasn't adding up. Or rather, it was adding up alright, but not to a sum Siraq really wanted to contemplate.

And at that moment, Siraq decided on a change of plans. He'd have to convince the cap, but… He glanced over at Houston, who nodded. Everything's proceeding normally. By now, the microcomputer's quantum storage reservoir should have copied the entirety of the stored data in the lab's primary server. Siraq was sure that the encryption wouldn't stand up to Displaced technology. But a little insurance never hurt….and Siraq had always been a big believer in insurance. Not to mention opportunity. "Dr. Rune." He put his arm around the young man, who was still entranced with the sheer beauty of his discovery. "May I call you Sam? Sam, this is…powerful stuff you've got here. It's incredible that nobody seems to think it's important enough to fund it properly. Tell me a little more about it. I…might know some people."

To be continued...