Synthetic Horror.

Weyland-Yutani chairman, Louis Collins, sat in his office with several of his cabal. They were part of the group who'd long wanted to take custody of a xenomorph egg. For a long time, Weyland-Yutani had struggled to get their hands on an egg, or even a strand of DNA from one of the aliens. They were the perfect organism.

Many people who were part of the cabal believed the aliens could be used to simply wipe out insurrections or launch pre-emptive attacks on any enemy. Others were more far-sighted and believed that by reverse engineering xenomorph DNA, they could discover new alloys, new vaccines, and new cures to diseases which they could sell to make millions.

Louis himself was a mixture of both sides. He could see the benefits of weaponising the xenomorphs, but he saw the more long-term benefits. But he didn't know which camp the group he was with served. He didn't care.

Taking out an old, prized bottle of bourbon he kept for special occasions, he poured each member of the group a small measure. For decades, the Company had tried and failed to get its hands on xenomorphs. The first time was a disaster, ending with the death of the creature. The loss of the ship Nostromo and its crew and the tonnes of unrefined ore was regrettable but they were expendable. So were the colonists on LV-426, and the Marines sent there to 'rescue' them. All the Company had wanted was information and an embryo, but it failed. The last gambit involved a penal colony, but the xenomorph queen born from the damned Ellen Ripley had been killed.

For the last 20 years, Weyland-Yutani had struggled to find an egg or a clutch of them. Now they'd found what they were looking for. But the Company had learnt from their mistakes. Sending marines or crews was a mistake, and the last thing they wanted was a new Ellen Ripley appearing. The plan was to send in synthetics, programmed to bring the xenomorphs to a research colony rather than bring them back home, to Earth.

"We're close now," Julie Masterson whispered. "I can't believe it."

"I know," Bishop, not the android line, but had the misfortune of being named like them, said taking a sip of his bourbon and smacking his lips in enjoyment. "Finally we've got them."

Mina looked at Collins archly. He had never liked that about her. It always made him feel like she felt she was better than he was despite their differences.

"Have we received word from the synthetics, yet?" She asked.

"They contacted us to let us know about the alien embryos they'd retrieved. They picked up at least 16 of them, and all of them are in cryogenic suspension," Collins replied.

"When will they get to the colony?" Bishop asked.

"They've gone through four shunts," Collins made a mental note to have Company scientists look into finding a more efficient way of travelling faster-than-light, but the tachyon shunt drive worked by folding space and time on itself 'jumping' ships from one place to another, but the range was limited. "They should reach the colony at the end of the month."

"I'm just disappointed only a few of the embryos were collected. The plan was for every member of the synthetic crew to be carriers of the aliens, and bring them to the colony for analysis," Vance spoke for the first time.

"I am too, but the fact remains we have the embryos. That's a start, and besides, there are still enough eggs on that planet. If all goes well, we can simply get new ones," Mina interjected.

Collins took a sip of his bourbon for a moment, his mind full of visions of what they could do with the embryos. "I'm already arranging for several outposts to be prepared, and similar ships with synthetic crews being sent out."

Vance shook his head and made a little frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "I never understood the reasoning behind the second time we tried capturing one of these creatures, sir. I can understand Burke's orders to the colonists on LV-426. We only set the colony up to gather the aliens in the first place before Ripley's shuttle was found and she unknowingly gave us a good place to look. But once the colony was infested we should have just sent in a squad of synthetics to go in, study the creatures and bring some back instead of relying on a bunch of hot-headed marines, and that bitch."

Everyone agreed with the assessment. Collins included. "Unfortunately the Marine Corps received the distress call. They forced the issue and it would have been suspicious if we didn't do something to support them. And we didn't have any loyal synthetics to go in with them and secretly gather the creatures."

"Burke had the future in mind, but he made too many mistakes," Mina sneered. "But what's done is done. We've learnt from our mistakes, and now we can rectify them."

Everyone raised their glasses in a toast.

But in the future, they would look back on this moment…and think of how wrong they'd been.

Xxxxx

To the surprise of the cabal and many on the board of directors of Weyland-Yutani who were in the know about the synthetic's mission, the ship carrying the synthetics and their precious cargo did not arrive on schedule.

Instead, they came to Earth.

"What the hell is going on?" Collins growled as he stood in the control room of Gateway station. Right in front of him, seen through the windows, was the flying brick of a ship.

"That's the synthetic ship. It's heading straight for Earth."

"What?" Mina's usually cool manner was thrown out of the window, and a look of fear crossed her face.

"They're heading for Earth," a technician replied, worried about the tension in the control room and worried about what was going on. This ship wasn't even scheduled to come to Earth. "Wait, we're getting a weapons spike."

"What?" Collins heard the word, but he didn't realise it came from him. "What the hell's going on?"

"The ship's opening fire," from the window they saw a number of missiles streak through the skies.

"STOP THEM!"

"We can't! It's too late!"

"Wait, the missiles are exploding in the air," someone said in confusion. But any further speculation was finished quickly when the synthetic ship exploded.

Xxxxxx

"Son of a bitch!" Collins shrieked with rage as he looked at the newspapers on his desk, each one of them demanding answers or saying things about the Company. It had been 5 days since the missiles exploded in the air above the Earth when the synthetics went mad. All of their attempts to find out what happened to the damned fucking androids had failed.

The Company had been forced to pay millions in damages and because so many people had been scared by the unexpected fireworks party. Only a few places had been destroyed by the missiles, but the damage was enough to grab attention. Governments worldwide were demanding answers that the Company were in no position to answer.

"Please tell me," Collins had to force the words out before he had to gasp and get some self-control back, "we have found a root answer and cause to the attack."

He didn't care if he was begging.

"No," Mina replied simply.

"We tried accessing the ship's black box from the various transmissions and routine communiques, but there's nothing. But as you know, a month ago the ship simply stopped transmitting and we had no way of finding out what the problem was," Vance said.

"I don't understand what the point of those missiles was," Marlon Pryce said. Like the others, he was part of the cabal, but he was more than aware there were other sources of vaccines and alloys in the galaxy. "Why would the synthetics launch them only for them to blow up like that?"

That was the question that worried them and they knew those missiles had a purpose. Synthetics were highly intelligent and were anything but stupid. There had to be a reason for their insanity.

Suddenly Collins' communications unit shrieked urgently. "Yes?"

"Director Collins, check out the news quickly, sir!"

Collins frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"People are dying on Earth!"

A terrifying thought began occurring to Collins, and with one look around the room he saw that everyone else in the office had thought the same thing he did. Switching over to the news channels, Collins and the others watched in horror as one chaotic scene after another showed itself on the screens; black creatures with long heads and razor-sharp tails leaping and shrieking at people, people screaming in terror….people screaming as their chests exploded outwards…

Collins and the others watched in horror as the infestation unfolded before their eyes. Somehow the synthetics had created a weapon which spread millions of alien eggs through the atmosphere, infesting millions of people who were killed without any discrimination.

"How the hell did they do this?" Mina whispered, her usual cool manner leaving her as the panic and horror set in.

But nobody could answer.

The only answer came from a shriek as an alien appeared.