The Hunter set the ship's destination for the Vidar and placed it on auto-flight before striding to its onboard armory. Blades and guns lined the walls. A workbench stood in the center of the room, its obsidian hue and crimson symbols forming a sacred centerpiece. The Hunter discarded its armor piece by piece, placing them onto the workbench. Its claws stroked the many dents, gouges and claws marks its armor had accumulated over the centuries. So many hunts. So many planets. That this armor would no longer suffice was almost painful to accept. It needed the other one.
The Hunter's helmet stayed adorned as it strode around the workbench and toward the rectangular panel at the back of the armory. It eyed the weapons on the walls as it passed. The dual-ended glaive sharper than obsidian. The whip that could slice through bone with one strike. The shuriken bigger than its own hand. Yes, yes, they would do.
The Hunter paused before the panel and pressed some symbols on the side. The panel split and parted to reveal a hollow big enough to step inside. The Hunter stepped inside. To wear this suit, a suit designed only for the deadliest, most biohazardous of hunts, was an honor unto itself. The Hunter stepped inside and allowed the panel to close over its helmeted face, leaving itself in darkness.
In that darkness, it saw the Abomination's eyeless face. Teeth bared and tusks flared, acid blood pouring down its face. A prophecy, perhaps? The hollow glowed red as the assembly began.
Nick had to say it. He just had to.
"Well, that escalated quickly."
The glare Bogo sent his way might have blown a hole in the airlock.
The escalation had happened a couple hours after they returned to the Vidar. Bogo had barely greeted the marines guarding the ship before he and Nick strode straight the second umbilical, the long tunnel connecting the ship to Minerva's lab. When they reached the outer airlock on the other side, they found themselves locked out.
Nick considered that the first clue that things had stopped going in the favor. The second clue came when he tried to contact Judy, only to find the signal jammed. The third happened when they stormed back to the other airlock to get reinforcements and found that locked as well.
Two hours they'd spent trapped in the umbilical. Bogo split his time between trying to force the outer airlock open and cursing viciously at an empty room. Nick sat to the side out of Bogo's way, growing more frantic with each failed attempt to contact anyone outside the umbilical. What was going on? Was Judy okay? Were Ben and Flash okay? Why wasn't Flash trying to fix this? What if he'd had really a bad episode this time? What if…
What if Flash was behind this?
Since those Xenomorphs had come into the picture, the android had stopped acting like his usual self. Or maybe it was the other way around. Maybe, Nick thought as a pit formed in his stomach, he hadn't known the guy as well as he'd thought…
He hadn't had much time to come to terms with that before the Vidar'sairlock opened, hacked by, of all people, a team of five Corporate Security goons who promptly placed them under arrest
Their bullshit excuse? Breach of Company Data and Corporate Data Theft.
Okay, maybe not so bullshit.
Which led to where they were now, pressed against the wall with guns aimed at their faces while the goons began applying their hack tool to the crime lab's outer airlock.
Sharla Ewetani stood between the airlock and their new prisoners with folded arms, the black sheep grimly gazing upon the pair.
"Don't give me that look. I warned you there'd be consequences." She said.
"For you." Bogo grumbled.
"No, sir. She's right." Nick said. Even Ewetani blinked at his defense. "It sucks not having a choice, believe me."
"Just… just don't do anything stupid." She muttered.
"About that…" Nick swallowed.
The robotic voice of Minerva coldly cut him off with an explosion of alarms.
"Danger. The emergency destruct system has been activated."
"Who the fuck-" one of the Corpsecs cursed. Nick felt the blood in his heart freeze.
"The vessel will detonate in T-minus ten minutes."
"GET THAT DOOR OPEN NOW!" Ewetani shrieked.
"The option to override automatic detonation expires in T-minus five minutes."
Nick couldn't believe what he was hearing. Flash… why, buddy…
Thirty-three seconds felt like three minutes as they completed the hack and opened the outer airlock. They charged through the short chamber to the inner airlock and spent another precious minute forcing that door open. They saw a world of flashing lights, screaming alarms and hissing steam.
The boar who'd been barking orders since the beginning bellowed out another. "Murray, Lurch, shut off that self-destruct NOW!"
The bull and cougar charged through the inner airlock and disappeared into the mist. The boar and his other two men kept their guns on Nick and Bogo.
The Hunter stood at the bridge, observing the Vidar and the two vessels attached to it: a white corporate ship bearing the great W symbol and an oval vessel that didn't look like a ship. That must be the research facility the marines had spoken of. A marine dropship floated nearby, disconnected to make way for the corporate one.
The Hunter considered its options. To use the cannon, it would have to lower the cloak. It had one shot before its cover was blown. Each target came with risk. It would find the pathogen's host in the oval vessel, which meant destroying the laboratory was out of the question. Destroy the Vidar? That would risk destroying the laboratory as well. No matter what, the host had to be intact when the Hunter reached it. The more intact they were, the quicker it would be to take a sample of its blood, destroy the body and get out. The Hunter seldom questioned its orders, but the thought of bringing the pathogen to the mothership made the back of its neck tingle. But then it thought of the knowledge that could be gleaned from a dormant pathogen. They could succeed where their ancestors had failed. Reverse engineer the inoculation that until now had been deemed an impossibility.
A plan formed in its troubled mind. The Hunter stepped up to the control panel and began turning the cannon toward the target.
The boar barked into his headset, demanding an update.
"What's going on, Manson?" Ewetaini pleaded.
"They've found the main lab, but that's locked, too!" Manson snapped. "Just get back to the ship! If we don't get that self-destruct called off in time, we'll have less than five minutes to get the fuck out of do-"
The world started spinning in an instant. Ewetani screamed as they tumbled around the umbilical like it was a tumble dryer as the sound of explosions filled the tunnel. The sudden chaos left Nick too disoriented to understand what happened before his face hit a ceiling light
When he came to seconds later, he was floating. Floating? Yep, literally floating as blood seeped from his eyebrow like bubbles underwater. He heard a thud and looked up. Hovering upside down, Bogo the wall to turn himself upright. Ewetani had ended up near the Vidar's airlock in a state of shellshock. Manson had lost his gun in the chaos.
Another artificial voice, the voice of the Vidar's own computer, echoed from the direction of the ship.
"Attention. The ship has suffered catastrophic damage. All personnel please evacuate via the shuttle immediately."
The artificial gravity restored itself. Nick would have hit the floor headfirst if Bogo hadn't grabbed the scruff of his neck.
Bogo got down on one knee as he set the fox down, his other arm stretching down to the floor. "You alright, Wilde?"
"Peachy, sir."
Ewetani picked herself up, coughing from having the wind knocked out of her. Manson his men looked less banged up, but no less livid.
"What the hell happened?!" He turned his wrath on Bogo. "What did you bastards do-"
He stopped dead when Bogo held up the Type 88 Heavy Assault Rifle, the one Manson had lost, right between his beady eyes. His two men aimed their own weapons, but didn't dare fire. Bogo glared back at the boar with a fire of his own.
"Wilde, get our weapons back."
Nick obeyed quickly, retrieving the heavy gun and his own flamethrower from the floor when they'd been forced to kick them away. He passed a shaking Ewetani on his way back to his superior.
With a rifle in both hooves, Bogo gave a nod towards Manson's helmet. "I suggest you ask your own men what happened before pinning it on me."
The boar wisely obliged. "Horseinberg, this is Manson. What just hit us?"
He listened to the frantic response on the other end. The way his face changed said it all.
"Believe me now?" Bogo asked.
Manson cursed under his breath. "Something just blew up my ship and it wasn't your people."
Ewetani covered her mouth and collapsed against the wall.
Like some twisted punchline, Minerva gave another update.
"The option to override automatic detonation expires in T-minus three minutes."
"Oh boy." Nick said.
"That signal jam. That was you, wasn't it?" Bogo asked.
Manson nodded, still listening to his headset.
Nick realized what that meant and tried his communicator again. "Carrots, can you hear me?"
"Nick! Thank god!" Her beautiful voice came through at last. "It's Flash, he's-"
"Carrots, I know. Where are you?"
"Flash locked me in the main lab. He's performing the extraction procedure right now!"
"What's she talking about?" Ewetani asked.
"We'll trade notes later. Where's the self-destruct?"
"In the system core. You take a ladder next to the morgue to get to it."
Nick turned to Manson. "Tell me your guys are handling it!"
"I would if they'd fucking respond!"
"Then I'm going in." Bogo grabbed Manson's gun by the barrel and held it out to the boar. "My men on the dropship will have seen what happened. I'll call them in to evacuate the ship, but only if you cooperate. Got it?"
Manson hesitated. After a brief battle between pride and submission, he took back his weapon. "I'm going with you. Burrow, Mutthias, head back to the Vidar and help Horseinberg disconnect the wreck."
The badger and wolf obeyed their orders and took off.
No time left to argue. Ewetani stuck by Manson's side as the four of them strode through the crime lab's airlock.
The crime lab, the place Judy had once called her home away from home, had become a dark, hostile world. Yellow and blue alarms flashed from the ceiling with a bewildering rhythm. Bogo and Manson barked orders through their respective headsets as they ran through the countless spurts of steam escaping the pipes. The air itself appeared to vibrate under the heat of the overloading core.
Bogo finished ordering the dropship pilot to commence evacuation and stopped in front of Nick, making the fox stop dead. "Wilde, find Hopps and get her back to the Vidar. We'll go on ahead."
"You go with him, Doctor." Manson said.
Ewetani almost gave herself whiplash looking from Manson to Nick then back to Manson. "What?"
"If something happened to my men, I want you nowhere near it! Just go!"
Bogo gave one last order to Nick before they parted ways. "If you see Flash, you know what to do."
Judy's shoulder hurt from the tumble she'd taken when gravity had been restored. That didn't stop her from fiddling relentlessly with the door's control panel, fighting back tears as the self-destruct system continued its merciless countdown.
"The option to override automatic detonation expires in T-minus two minutes."
"Minvera, you can't let this happen!" She wailed.
"The self-destruct system must be deactivated manually."
"Fuck!"
"My sixteenth attempt to restore the control panel to factory settings have failed."
"You think?! Just unlock the door!"
"All attempts to directly open the door lock have failed."
"FUCK!" Judy punched the door, her anguish dulling the pain. When she lifted her head, she found herself face to face with a small orange light.
"Minerva, what happens if the door doesn't have power?"
"With your authorization, Miss Hopps, I can shut off power to the door entirely. That will deactivate the door lock and allow you to open it by hand."
Judy wiped her eyes. "Will I be strong enough to open it?"
"Your upper body strength as a grey rabbit is insufficient."
"But my lower body strength?"
"Based on your last physical exam, that should suffice."
"Then you're authorized, Minerva! Turn the door off!"
"Miss Hopps, if the option to override automatic detonation expires, I must divert myself to the cryochamber for evacuation. I will no longer be able to respond to your commands once the upload begins."
"Understood, Minerva. Wish me luck."
"Good luck, Miss Hopps."
Judy watched, heart pounding like a jackhammer, as the door lights shut off and something dawned on her. "So that's what he's up to…"
She'd tell Nick once he got here. In the meantime, she propped her full body between the doorframe and a thick groove in the door. Her legs began to shove.
Bogo opened the cryochamber door. He didn't have time to go inside. From the doorway he saw Ben, still in his glass coffin. A metallic device sat in the tube between his legs. That device was connected to Ben via tubes on both arms. Flash wasn't in the room with him.
Bogo closed the door, vowing that disconnecting that device would be the first thing he did once the cooling system was restored. Manson had already ordered his men on the Vidar to disconnect what was left of the company ship from the umbilical to make way for the dropship. Bogo dreaded to think how many of his own men had been injured, assuming they were still alive. Manson's crew had no reason to harm them, but God help him if they did…
They found the ladder at the end of a corridor of exposed pipes near the morgue, just like Hopps said. Manson slid down first. Bogo went down after him. The steam was worse on the bottom deck, engulfing them with damp heat. They ran down dark corridors sporadically lit by alarms, stopping at a sealed door. Hopps had told them all the codes they needed during their race through the upper deck. Bogo typed the first of them. The door rose.
Manson roared. "NOOOO, YOU FUCKING ROBOTIC BASTARD!"
They found bodies on the other side. Murray and Lurch left in dead heaps on the floor of the last hallway before the system's core. Bogo saw no bullet holes or other wounds, but he did smell an ugly scent in the air. The vessel's fire suppression system. Lethal to fire and especially lethal to mammalian life. Of course, something as intelligent amoral as a machine would set up such a malicious trap.
In any case, the air didn't feel so toxic now. "I'll go on ahead! You stay here in case the synth tries to stop us!" Bogo said.
"I'll blow his bolts out if I see him!" Manson snarled and turned his gun on the path behind. Bogo kept going, taking short breaths to avoid taking in too much chemical. He used the code on the door on the other end. Minvera announced that one minute remained before their fates were sealed.
"The option to override automatic detonation expires in T-minus one minute."
Nick arrived at the main lab to find Judy wedged between the door and frame, steadily pushing it open with her legs. "Carrots?!"
"Don't just stand there!" She snarled through gritted teeth.
Nick rushed forward and helped her pull the door just enough for her to squeeze through. She jumped down and leapt into his arms.
"Did he hurt you?!" Nick asked.
"No, he-"
Hard fingers gripped the back of his collar. Nick flew across the hallway before he could react, the resulting impact blasting the air from his lungs. Ewetani shrieked. He looked up through double-vision to see a hunched shape lunge at Judy with xenomorph-like speed.
Seeing Flash's claws around her throat sent adrenaline surging through the fox. Unable to use his flamethrower, he pulled out his sidearm. He managed to shoot Flash's torso twice before the sloth turned on him. With a hardened look he slashed at the fox. The blow knocked the gun from Nick's paw and opened up two cuts in his forearm. Flash grabbed the fallen weapon before Nick could retrieve it.
"Who are you, Flash?!" He yelled over the alarms.
With one hand still pinning Judy to the half-open door, Flash smiled blandly. "I am an employee of Weyland Ewetani. That's all you need to know." He turned to Ewetani. "Dr. Sharla Ewetani. Do you know Special Order 937?"
Ewetani shook her head.
Flash's smile twitched. "Your aunt can explain later. Please stay where you are while I remove this obstacle."
"29… 28… 27… 26…"
Bogo found the open floor panel in the center of the control room overlooking the reactor. Bogo didn't even glance out the window as he raced to the panel to find the four raised cylinders surrounding the glowing keyboard.
"25… 24… 23… 22… 21… 20 seconds…"
Bogo had forgotten his glasses. He squinted to read the paragraph in the corner of the information board that loomed over the device. Massive heart pounding behind his armor, he punched in the first code.
"19… 18… 17… 16… 15…"
The cylinders descended slowly. Too slowly. Bogo had to restrain himself from starting the next step too early. What was the Company thinking when they designed such a convoluted system?!
"14… 13… 12… 11… 10 seconds…"
The cylinders stopped. Bogo opened the little compartment in each cylinder and pressed the red button within. One… two… three.. four… He thought of Ben, deep in cryosleep, blissfully unaware of this nightmare.
"9… 8… 7… 6…"
He punched in the last code. He scrambled across the room to the two red levers, the ones that operated the cooling unit. The last step. He had to make it.
"5… 4… 3… 2… 1…"
The first lever was gone. Wrenched from the wall by synthetic hands.
"The option to override automatic detonation has now expired. MINERVA is now diverting to the cryochamber for extraction. The ship will automatically destruct in T-minus five minutes."
"No…" Nick saw Ewetani's lips form the word and felt his own despair take hold. "You happy now, you son of a bitch?!"
"I will be once Clawhauser is back planetside." Flash aimed the gun at Nick's head.
"Flash, no!" Ewetani cried.
Flash ignored her command. "I know what you're up against, Nick. Your chances were never that high to begin with."
Dangling from Flash's grip, Judy lifted her full body and wrapped her legs directly over his elbow. One downward kick forced the elbow down and broke his grip. Judy attacked instantly, kicking Flash square in the face. He barely staggered, but Nick had the opening to grab the arm holding his gun. He tried to wrestle it back. Flash was too strong. He tried to force the gun up, toward Nick's soft belly. He was succeeding.
Judy grabbed the sloth's arm at the wrist and began pulling it away, teeth bared from the exertion. Nick pushed as she pulled. Flash trembled as he fought against them. Nick felt Flash's struggles slow as another episode set in, but still he fought with hydraulic strength. The fox and rabbit fought back. The sheep stayed back, too scared of the gun to intervene.
They forced the gun upward. Nick didn't hesitate. Three rounds went straight into the sloth's face.
Flash collapsed between them, one eye gone, milky fluid bleeding from all orifices. He twitched and gurgled on the floor. Nick grabbed his flamethrower. He thought of all the conversations. Every personal detail Nick had confided in the sloth whenever they could catch up. All the while Flash had bided his time, waiting for Xenomorphs to show their ugly faces again, happy to throw Nick at their feet if that was what it took.
His blood boiled and he pulled the trigger. The heat seared the fur on his face as he lit the robot like a campfire. He couldn't bring himself to enjoy the sight.
"The odds weren't in your favor either, pal." He muttered.
Ewetani turned to the wall and pressed her face to her forearm, holding back sobs. Nick felt tears in his eyes as well. For the first time, he thought of the mammals on the Vidar. All those people…
"Carrots… this is all my fault…" His lip trembled. The gun fell from his paw. "I… really thought we could pull through this."
When he brought himself to look at her, Judy's eyes showed no tears at all. In fact, she showed no anguish at all. "No, Nick. Too many people have died for us to give up now."
This isn't it, Ben! I won't let this be it!
Bogo charged through the hissing steam and opened the cryochamber door. The dropship. It would take two minutes to connect to the umbilical. Maybe a minute tops to get everyone onboard. Less than a minute to disconnect and get as far away as possible. Bogo hoped that would be enough. That hope was all he had left. That and one other thing.
He ran to Ben's tube. The cheetah lay still in his cocoon, mercifully oblivious. Bogo hoped he wouldn't wake until after they escaped. He couldn't let his beloved wake up to this. He bent down to begin the deactivation sequence.
"Bogo!"
Bogo spun, gun raised, but it was Wilde, Hopps and Ewetani in the doorway, Manson towering over them.
"Sir, is Ben okay?"
Bogo nodded weakly. "We're getting him out of here."
Manson spoke brusquely. "What about the sloth?"
"Down for the count."
"Wish I could have done it myself, but good work." Manson stepped away from them to speak into his headset. "Horseinberg, this is Manson! Tell me the dropship is ready!" He paused, his frown deepening. "Horseinberg, do you copy?"
Footsteps. Dozens of them, enough to be heard over the blaring and hissing. Bogo strode to the doorway, gun aimed over the heads of the smaller mammals. A group of mammals, twelve or thirteen, marine and corporate merc, burst out of the mist and came to a stop in the hallway. The wolf, Mutthias, was at the front of the group.
"Mutthias, what the hell?!" Manson shouted. "Why aren't you a-
"The umbilical!" Mutthias panted, his eyes wide with shock "Something else boarded! It fucking kill-"
Somewhere behind the mist, someone screamed over Mutthias's response. Then the mist stopped, the alarms fell silent and the hallway turned dark.
Everyone turned, guns raised, taking their positions within the hallway. Bogo and Wilde aimed at the abyss alongside them.
Another set of footsteps. Heavy and certain. They stopped at the other end of the hallway. The next sound was one from another nightmare. A hideous chittering. Bogo's hide tingled with fear and his blood surged with rage.
In the darkness, a pair of blank eyes flashed. As if on cue, the alarms turned back on, yellow and blue lights flashing upon the massive form of the Hunter.
"OPEN FIRE!" Manson bellowed.
They fired all at once. Bogo aimed straight at the Hunter's heart. Nothing on Earth or any planet could survive this onslaught. Kill it! His mind screamed at him. Destroy it! Get Ben off this bomb!
The Hunter pulled out a dual-bladed glaive and advanced, not even noticing the sparks flying off its body. It looked nothing like the alien killer he had brutalized weeks ago. Its new form was difficult to describe in the darkness. The alarms flashed over thick armor covering its entire body. A suit. A bulletproof suit.
With the glaive spinning in one hand, the hunter pulled out a bulky firearm with the other and fired. A jaguar flew into the wall and stuck there, skewered by a barbed black spear. The Hunter reached the group and started slicing. Black blood splatted the pipes.
"Get back!" Bogo barely heard Judy scream. He didn't see her pull Ewetani back into the cryochamber.
Bogo bellowed furiously as he watched two marines get bisected in one slice. Guts littered the metal floor panels. A bull took a spear to the eye. Their own rebounding bullets took down three others.
Wilde ran out of bullets, leapt out the way of the rhino who'd just taken a spear to the heart, and retreated.
Manson stopped firing, clutching spear protruding from his own abdomen as he turned to Bogo. "Get inside. Get the doctor out of here."
Bogo couldn't block out the screams of dying men. "How?! It's a dead end!"
Another scream. The Hunter pressed on through the bloody corridor, letting a severed arm slide off the glaive. It was ten feet away.
Manson coughed blood in Bogo's face. The sudden action startled him, giving the boar the opening to shove the buffalo backward into the cryochamber. The door sealed itself between them.
Above his head, Minerva gave another damning announcement, one that was drowned out by Manson's final scream.
"You now have one minute to abandon ship. The ship will automatically destruct in T-minus one minute."
The Hunter knew then that it was over. The promised inoculation would have to wait, assuming they'd ever get another chance.
It retracted its wristblades, dropping the last corpse to the floor, and ran, passing the blazing form of a false sloth along the way. It returned to the Vidar and kept running, nearly leaping over the blood and the body parts, heading straight for the umbilical. Once it was back on its own ship, it pressed the button to break the connection.
The computer's voice echoed in its helmet.
"T-minus 30 seconds… 29… 28… 27… 26…"
The ship took off at full speed, past the ruined dropship and the frozen bodies floating amongst the wreckage.
"25… 24… 23… 22… 21… 20 seconds…"
When the ship was at a safe distance, the Hunter inputted the controls to bring it to a stop.
"19… 18… 17… 16…"
The Hunter activated the ship's shield, just in case.
"15… 14… 13… 12… 11… 10 seconds…"
The Hunter observed the view from the window. The Vidar was so far away that it was indistinguishable from the stars.
"9… 8… 7… 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…"