XVII
For the next twenty minutes or so, I simply sat at my desk in silence, wondering what my strange dream could have meant. I mean, was I going mad? Surely it wasn't normal for me to… 'fantasise' over a Xenomorph, was it? I'd like to say I wished it was all a dream, but sadly it was all a dream. That was exactly the problem. I could come up with a variety of excuses, of course. Perhaps I was going space-crazy through homesickness. Perhaps a year in hypersleep really had impacted my mental wellbeing. Then there was the craziest, and perhaps most terrifying, theory of all. Perhaps I was genuinely in love with Xena. The more I thought about it, the more insane it seemed. Not to mention what might happen if I said anything to the crew. No, this was definitely not the kind of thing that I wanted anyone to find out about.
The next time I looked up at the clock, it was quarter past seven. I sat up, deciding to stop feeling sorry for myself and do some work. I had bigger fish to fry, right now, after all. Whilst one Xenomorph was weighing heavy on my mind, another was roaming around the ship, searching for its next victim. I grabbed the chain gun that still lay on the floor beside my bed, then, after a quick glance at the rota on my desk, I set off for the briefing room. As it turned out, I was the first to arrive, so I slotted my timecard into the machine by the door and sat down to wait for the rest of the crew. This gave me yet more time to think about the events that had unfolded in my dream the previous night, although I deliberately tried to distract myself from thinking about it for as long as possible. It was… unnatural, to say the least. I simply had to put it from my mind.
It was about half past seven by the time somebody else finally showed up at the briefing room. I was almost drifting back to sleep, bored out of my mind with solitude, when a loud click suddenly resounded through the room from the thick metal door. It slowly grinded open, revealing Nathan standing in the corridor, toting a loaded energy-burst cannon.
"Ah, morning Nathan." I said, as cheerily as I could manage under the circumstances. But Nathan's face was far from happy. It was clear from his facial expression that he was rather distressed, and for a few moments, he didn't say a word. When he eventually did, his voice was filled with clear emotional turmoil, although he spoke as calmly and steadily as possible.
"You'd better come with me." He said, almost a whisper. Then, he walked away, without so much as a second glance.
Getting to my feet, I walked out into the corridor to follow Nathan, wondering what might have happened. Judging by his expression, it was bad news. But how bad? Nathan was a doctor, after all. He'd seen some shit in his time, so it had to be something pretty bad to warrant his grim facial expression. There were only two other crew members still alive on board the Archimedes, though: Alan and Ryan. 'It must be one of them,' I thought to myself. I tried to question Nathan, but he ignored every word that I said. He was moving at quite a pace as we reached the stairwell, almost tripping a couple of times as he attempted to skip every other step. Once we reached the bottom, he slowed down a little, but only to give me time to catch up. Eventually, we reached Science and Medical. Nathan walked straight in, shutting the door behind us without hesitation.
"Ok, Nathan," I asked, as the disheveled doctor marched straight towards the medpod in the centre of the room. "Are you going to tell me what's going on now?" He still refused to say a word as he loomed over the capsule. Ryan and Alan stood at either side, staring down into the pod in similar dismay. Still, nobody said a word. Instead, Nathan merely gestured towards the medpod. I stepped closer, sensing the tension in the atmosphere. As I reached the edge of the pod, I was reluctant to look down into it. When I finally did, I was met with a sight that was perhaps more horrific than anything else I'd encountered so far. More gruesome than what had happened to Cara. More disgusting than what we'd found on the XH-12's shuttlecraft. There, lying motionless in the open pod, dismembered and grotesquely mutilated, was 2nd Technician Bradley Nicholson.
It was a truly nauseating spectacle, that was for sure. It made everything else I'd seen look like a walk in the park. There were limbs missing. There were huge gashes in what was left of the upper body. Almost half of the head had been torn away, leaving behind a mess of bloodstained hair and greying skin. I had to look away.
"What the fuck is this?" I asked Nathan in a whispered tone, turning myself away from the medpod.
"Alan and Ryan found him in a vent by the upper engine deck." Nathan replied, in an equally hushed voice. "It, uh… it looks like it didn't kill him straightaway. He could have been crawling through the ducts for hours before…"
"Before he died a slow and painful death." I said bluntly, having the courage to say what everybody knew was the truth.
"There was nothing we could have done, Jones." Alan said solemnly. "We opened the vent and… and there he was."
"What are we going to do with the body?" I asked, still desperately attempting to avoid looking into the medpod.
"Same as Cara." Nathan told me. "We'll take him home and make sure he has a decent funeral. It's the least he deserves." I nodded slowly, knowing that Nathan was right. After all, what had Bradley's true purpose been on our mission? Nathan, Alan, Cara and myself had all played integral roles in the seeding operations performed by the Archimedes. But Ryan and Brad? They were just technicians, here to keep everything shipshape. They didn't have advanced medical knowledge or superior navigational skill. They were just innocent civilians, bystanders in the greater picture of Ashbridge Industries International. Neither of them deserved the fate which Bradley had ultimately received.
For the next few minutes, I sat silently in a chair by the door of Science and Medical. I slouched forwards in my seat, head in my hands, still trying to comprehend what I'd seen. I mean, I already knew that Brad was dead. We all did, didn't we? But actually seeing him there, lying motionless, half of his body ripped up and taken away by his Xenomorph killer? It was truly harrowing. It made me realise just how lucky the rest of us were. To still be alive, to have avoided death up to this point. Then again, if we were really lucky, we'd never have received the XH-12's distress call in the first place. But now was certainly not a time for 'what ifs'. It had happened now, and that was that. All we could do was try to move forward.
"We need to kill these things as soon as possible." Alan eventually said. This was the first time since arriving at Science and Medical that I noticed the condition of his left arm, which was now bandaged just above where the elbow should have been. Despite his injury, he was still rearing to go, and even managed to lift his heavy energy-burst cannon with his remaining hand. Ryan and Nathan agreed, and readied their weapons in a similar fashion. Attention then turned to me. I grabbed the chain gun beside me and stood up from the chair. Everyone in the room now had a look of determination on their faces. Seeing Bradley dead had truly woken us up. We would survive this. We would get back to Earth. And we would eliminate the Xenomorphs that were terrorizing our ship. 'Xenomorphs,' I thought to myself again. 'Xenomorph…s."
My mind suddenly focused once more on Xena. She wasn't a killer. She wasn't heartless. Both Bradley and Alan had been attacked by the other Xenomorph. But nobody would believe that, would they? Nathan, Alan, and especially Ryan, would never accept that Xena was no more than a harmless, frightened creature, trying to keep herself safe. I remembered what Alan had said. 'We have to kill these things as soon as possible." The other crew members were of a similar view. And who could blame them? After they'd seen what one of these creatures was capable of, it was understandable that they wanted both of them dead. They genuinely believed that these creatures had no right to live. But I knew better. And now I was faced with a dilemma. How could I keep Xena alive without the others knowing that I was protecting her?
My train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the sound of grinding metal. I looked over at the door and realised that the others were now leaving. It was time for another 'hunt'. The three men had a clear and definitive mindset right now. They intended to find and kill the Xenomorphs that roamed their ship. Both of them. I followed suit, wandering out into the corridor, but I deliberately separated myself from the group to allow me time to think. I thought about Xena, and the dream I'd had last night. I thought about Bradley's body, and the possibility of one of us going next. As I walked along quietly towards the engine bay, I felt my heart racing. I was frightened of the killer Xenomorph which still roamed the ship. I was distraught over the discovery of Bradley's body. But most of all, I was worried about what might happen to Xena.