Level 3 was quiet as the grave as the four men crept along the cold, dark corridor, except for the rhythmic blip of the colonel’s motion tracker as he led them deeper into Delta. Louie felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature. A sinister chill that made him want to turn and run, even if that meant dying. There were a lot of ghosts buried down here. Their silent screams a mute testament to the horrors they had endured, and this was only Level 3. Level 4 would be worse. Worst of all, he knew all of their names.
Why him? What made him so special? So many people. Cut open, stitched back up, and cut open again, over and over until their bodies gave out. Every single one of them was now dead, but not him. Not “Triple L”. For no reason other than luck. A “statistical anomaly”. A cosmic rounding error. The unluckiest man in the universe, turned luckiest man in hell. Fate sure had a sick sense of humour. But he pushed on regardless, flashlight in hand while the old man took the lead with the tracker, and Van Der Beek brought up the rear.
“Left here,” whispered Yau.
“The stairs are this way,” the colonel gestured with a nod.
“I need to get a few things first,” insisted the doctor.
“That wasn’t the deal, Doc,” growled the colonel, who stopped and turned to face Yau. His pulse rifle wasn’t pointed at the doctor, but it wasn’t exactly pointed away either. He had already caused one delay by insisting on retrieving files from his office, Louie guessed they were for “insurance” in case Weyland-Yutani had second thoughts, and that had led to a tense standoff that he had only managed to diffuse by convincing the colonel they could spare the time. He didn’t think that would work twice, however.
“Medical is this way,” said Yau, unflustered. “Level 4 has what I need to remove it, but he’ll require extensive aftercare.”
Sanchez glanced at Louie, then back at Yau. “Fine, but stay behind me.”
Louie knew this level of Delta. Knew it wasn’t far to Medical. But the corridor seemed to go on and on forever as they advanced. A never-ending stretch of cold blackness, and the only sound the constant blip, blip, blip of the tracker.
Beep.
Everyone froze as the tracker made a single, shrill chirp, but it had already resumed its dull metronomic blip as the colonel stopped to inspect the device. Louie felt the gooseflesh tighten on the back of his neck. Was it one lone xenomorph, or dozens? Was it far, or lying in wait just ahead of them? The not knowing made it worse. He was no soldier. He didn’t know how to read this stuff, but he felt reassured by the fact that both the colonel and Van Der Beek seemed more perplexed by the reading than concerned.
“False alarm?” asked Van Der Beek.
“Unknown,” said the colonel quietly. “It was ahead of us. Maybe a breeze rustled some paper. Maybe not. Keep your eyes peeled and stay frosty.”
There was no breeze down here, Louie thought to himself. Together, they moved down the corridor, and after a few dozen metres the beams of their flashlights all came to rest on the slightly open door to Medical. The colonel went first. His tracker emitting a protesting “beep” as he pushed the door fully open and slid inside. Louie followed while Van Der Beek moved to secure the other end of the room. His carbine pulled tight to his shoulder as the barrel swept back and forth in a wide arc.
The place was in even worse shape than when he had last been here. Upturned chairs, scattered paper, broken equipment that looked to have been purposefully trashed, and despite his best efforts to walk softly the sound of crunching glass under his feet was unsettlingly loud. This hadn’t been a xenomorph. This was the work of human hands. Whether panic or rage, he could not say, but something about the destruction seemed…deliberate.
“Psst. Psst,” whistled Van Der Beek without lowering his weapon. “Louie, don’t go too far.”
He nodded, but something was drawing his attention. Pulling him towards the far corner. Barely audible, it sounded like it was coming from the other side of a bank of lab tables near the pharmaceutical storage room. He did his best to ignore that as he drew closer, focusing his attention on the origin of the noise. He could definitely hear it now. A low, sad whimper. Armed with his flashlight he rounded the tables, and his heart sank.
Beep.
Sitting on the floor, her back against the cabinets, coveralls pulled down to her waist and leaving her exposed except for a plain, functional brassiere, and bleeding from a hundred pinpricks that covered her arms, chest and neck, was Angel.
*
Used syrettes, dozens of them, lay scattered about the floor. Three doses in rapid succession would put a large man in a coma. Four would stop his heart. Yet here she was, alive, crying as she bled from a hundred angry red marks where she had desperately torn at her skin with dose after dose. Then he saw it. Only a few metres away. Its sickly yellow carapace glinting in the torchlight, clawed fingers contracted in a death pose, was the fresh corpse of a facehugger. She finally turned to look up at him, shielding her eyes with one hand as she squinted through matted hair and tear-streamed cheeks. Her low, painful wail as recognition dawned chilled him more than any xenomorph hiss ever could.
“No…” she cried softly. “No, no, no, no.”
“Louie, what the hell—” Van Der Beek cut himself off as he saw what they had found. Louie knelt, unzipping and removing his jacket to cover her. Much like himself, he imagined she didn’t feel the cold, but he did it anyway as the two older men joined them.
“Angel? Angel, look at me,” he said quietly, placing both hands on her shoulders.
“I can’t. I tried. I tried. I keep using and it doesn’t work. I can’t,” she continued half-muttering, half-chanting to herself, barely acknowledging the others.
“What is she talking about?” demanded Colonel Sanchez.
“She’s impregnated,” answered Yau. “You could pump her with enough opiates to kill an elephant, and she will not feel even slightly intoxicated.”
Louie gritted his teeth, disgusted with the doctor’s lack of tact. “Angel, look at me. Where is the gestacyn?” he asked, carefully enunciating each word. If she still had it, it would buy them enough time for two surgeries. For the first time, she looked straight at him.
“It’s gone. I’m sorry, Louie. I’m so sorry. I took it all. I couldn’t stop it. I was never like you. You were always the strong one,” she said with a weak, sad smile.
“Will that work, Doc?” he asked, not taking his eyes off her.
“No,” said Yau flatly. “Gestacyn has no prophylactic effect.”
Without realising, he withdrew the dose of gestacyn from his pocket. His last one. Would a single dose buy them enough time for two surgeries? He ran through the mental arithmetic, but no matter what, he came up short. They needed two doses. He poked at it with his thumb. One of them would live, and he would have to decide which…
“That won’t work,” Yau seemed to read his mind as he interrupted his train of thought. “She’s already Stage 3.”
Louie closed his eyes as he inhaled through his nose. “Goddammit, Doc. She’s been gone less than five hours. You know as well as I do, it doesn’t happen that fast.”
Yau sighed like an exasperated parent trying to explain a simple concept to a slow child. Louie did not think he had ever hated him quite so much as he did in that moment. “Ordinarily, no. But the concentration of opiates in her system has accelerated its gestation. The embryo will be immune to the suppressive effects of gestacyn at this point. I would estimate ten, perhaps fifteen minutes until the eruption phase begins.”
“Get the fuck out,” he snapped, glaring at the doctor.
“Come with me, Doc,” said the old colonel, leading the doctor outside. Only Van Der Beek remained, keeping a respectful distance as he stood guard.
“He’s right, you know,” said Angel, clutching her chest. “I can feel it moving. It’s coming.”
“He also said we’ve got fifteen minutes. We’ll think of something,” he protested as he stood. Surely there had to be a way.
“I already tried that. It doesn’t work. Oh God, Louie, it’s going to tear its way out of me. I can’t die like that. Please don’t let me die like that. I know I hurt you. I know I have no right to ask but please…I need you to do it,” she cried.
“What are you asking?” It was stupid. He knew exactly what she was asking, but he could not bring himself to say it.
She stood, and looked at him with pleading eyes. “I need you to shoot me.”
“No…” he muttered reflexively. He was a lot of things, none of them good, but “killer” was one line in his miserable life that he had managed not to cross.
“Please, Louie,” she pleaded, the desperation in her voice seeping through.
“You can’t ask me to do that,” he snapped back.
“I’d do it myself, but I can’t. I mean, I don’t think I can…oh God. I can’t die like them. I don’t want to scream like that,” said Angel, and he could see how it took every ounce of strength she had left to hold it together.
He closed his eyes and sighed. Forcing his churning stomach to settle itself by sheer force of will. What did he owe her, really? She had fucked him over, just like all the others. If not for the old man strong-arming Yau, it would be him asking for the bullet. So what if she got what she deserved?
“Okay,” he said quietly. “Okay, I’ll do it.” Steeling himself, he opened his eyes and looked at her, and the look of relief on her face threatened to undo his resolve then and there. “Jansen, could I borrow your sidearm?”
The big man, who had been silent until now, placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “No, I’ll do it.”
Louie didn’t argue as the merc cleared a space on the lab table and gently placed a guiding hand on Angel’s back.
“Lie here,” he said softly.
If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Louie grabbed a seat cushion from an overturned chair to use as a headrest as Angel lay down on the table. He did his best not to look at Van Der Beek, who had waited until he was out of her field of view before drawing his gun. Wrapping his hand and the weapon in a lab coat to make an improvised silencer.
“Louie?” whispered Angel.
“I’m here,” he said, taking her hand.
“Can you forgive me?”
“Always,” he said without hesitation. “You know me, Angel. You don’t even have to ask.”
“My name is Anna,” she said, smiling weakly. Taking a breath, she exhaled loudly. “Okay, I’m ready. On my three?”
“On your three,” agreed Van Der Beek, still careful to position himself behind her as he took aim. “Close your eyes.”
She shut her eyes, inhaling sharply as Louie felt her grip tighten. “One…”
The shot rang out, muffled by the lab coat, and he felt her hand go limp as the muted echo quickly faded and died.
*
No one spoke. A funereal mood had fallen over the group as they picked their way through Level 4. Louie couldn’t tell if it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn that faint rotting smell still hung in the air. This part of Level 4 was on the other side of the facility from the room where he had first woken up, and was in far worse shape. Acid blood had eaten through the floor in spots, and a gruesome bloodstain on the wall confirmed at least one human casualty. This was the path the xenomorphs had taken during their rampage out of the lower levels. Passing over him like a wave while he lay unconscious.
“We’re here,” said Yau quietly, bringing the group to a halt before a large set of reinforced double doors before punching a code into the keypad.
The doors opened with a gentle “whoosh” and Louie felt the slightly warm air washed over him, accompanied by the faint whiff of antiseptic that sent his heart racing as the soft orange lights flickered to life.
“I thought the power was off?” asked the colonel with a hint of accusation.
“Certain high security areas, Surgery, Implantation, Cryo-storage, run off of their own, closed-loop power systems,” explained the doctor.
Surgery was pristine. Untouched by the xenomorphs, it looked like it had never been used. It was larger than he remembered. Being able to walk through it, rather than strapped to a gurney, was messing with his sense of scale. Multiple theatres, examination rooms, observation, it had all clearly been intended for a much larger program. In three years, he had never known there to be more than a dozen live test subjects at any one time, including himself. This facility was clearly meant for considerably more. Had Wey-Yu originally established Delta with grander plans only to scale them back? Had LV-784 been nothing more than a backwater all along?
“Here” said Yau, pointing to a door. The colonel went first, motion tracker at the ready, repeating its reassuring blip. He flicked on the lights, bathing the surgical theatre in an orange glow. It was small. Just large enough for one patient and a small surgical team, with a stainless-steel operating table and ceiling-mounted scialytic lamp dominating the centre of the room. Yeah, he had been here before.
“I need to scrub in,” said Yau. “Mister Lafayette, you may want to get ready.” With that, he left, and the colonel went with him, clearly unwilling to let the doctor out of his sight even for a moment.
Louie stripped down until he was stood bare-chested before the operating table, and he could feel the silent presence of Van Der Beek standing behind him. “If Yau can’t remove it, promise me you’ll take care of it.”
“Yeah,” said Van Der Beek. “But you need to promise me, it won’t come to that.”
“You know I can’t.”
“Yeah.”
He hopped up on to the table and lay back, allowing the familiar feel of the cold metal to calm him. Lucky number thirteen.
“Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”
*
Van Der Beek was sweating. Hours of four warm bodies trapped in the confines of the operating room had turned it into an oven. It had been pleasant at first, after two weeks of sleeping with one eye open while freezing his balls off, but now it was suffocating. Still, he did not dare remove his armour, and stood vigil near the door. His rifle held at low ready, the colonel’s motion tracker slung over his shoulder, blipping away. The colonel himself, being older, had opted for a chair, but still sat upright and alert. His own carbine held steady across his lap. The old man didn’t talk much, and that suited Van Der Beek just fine. He wasn’t the conversational type either, and after what had happened on Level 3, he was even less in the mood for chitchat.
Yau worked in almost total silence. His back turned, ignoring everything else as he remained fixated on the task at hand. Not that there was much to see. Louie had been draped in a surgical curtain that obscured everything except his head.
“Mister Van Der Beek, I require your assistance,” demanded Yau without turning.
“I’m not sterile,” he countered. He wasn’t a doctor, but he knew that much.
“It’ll be fine,” insisted Yau. “Just…put on a surgical mask and don’t touch him.”
He spared a quick glance at the colonel, who nodded and moved to take his place guarding the door. Carefully placing the motion tracker and carbine on a tray table, he donned the mask and approached the table. Standing over Yau, his curiosity getting the better of him, he leaned in to see a surprisingly small, precise incision. Probably not even large enough for his hand, and remarkably bloodless. He turned to Louie, a joking remark on the tip of his tongue, and he froze.
Louie was looking right at him. Eyes wide, and staring.
“Eh, Doc, you noticed his eyes are open?” he asked, unsure.
“He’s fully conscious,” said Yau.
“What the fuck…” he muttered. This is what they did to them? “Jesus Christ, you didn’t think to put him under?” he hissed. His shock transforming into anger.
“He can’t feel anything, if that is your concern. But we can’t use general anaesthesia. If his heart rate drops too low, the embryo may interpret that as danger. It could trigger a premature eruption,” explained Yau without looking up. “Think of it as…trying to extract the cheese from a mousetrap without setting off the trap.”
“Fuck me…” he snorted, shaking his head.
“Mister Van Der Beek,” snapped Yau. “If you would, please. I’m ready to extract the embryo. Stand there and hold that portable cryostasis unit open.”
He resisted the urge to say something else as he moved around the table so that he was facing the doctor. The unit itself was a tube a bit over two feet long. White laminated metal and thick, solid glass. The damn thing weighed a ton, and he grimaced as his cracked ribs flared in protest at the effort. Made sense, he decided, considering it had to hold something capable of breaking through a human ribcage from the inside. He watched as Yau drew his scalpel across the purple-red membrane, exposing the bloodied yellow carapace.
“Holy shit…” he murmured.
“Yes, that’s quite a big one,” agreed Yau as he gently coaxed the head free of the sac. He stiffened slightly as the embryo’s lips peeled back, exposing tiny, silvery teeth that glinted under the bright light, but it gave no further reaction to being disturbed. A quick snip, and the doctor severed the umbilical. Working quickly, he carefully slid the embryo out of Louie’s chest with both hands. A long tail snaking behind it, it finally cleared the wound, and Yau gently placed the sleeping creature in the containment unit and closed the lid. There was a loud click as the locks snapped into place, followed by the hiss of gas as the glass turned an opaque, icy white.
“You can put that down now,” said Yau. “But please, be careful.”
Van Der Beek breathed a long sigh of relief as he set down the cryotube.
“Don’t celebrate just yet,” said Yau. “I still have four layers of suturing to do before he can be safely moved.”
“How long will that take?” asked the colonel from the doorway.
“About two hours,” said Yau.
Van Der Beek nodded, turning his head to look down at Louie with his one good eye. Louie was still staring straight at him, unable to form expressions, but he could see the lines around his eyes had relaxed ever so slightly, and he reminded himself not to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
“Hang in there. We’re almost done.”
*
He checked his watch again. It had been a little over an hour since they had removed it, and Van Der Beek had given up standing sentry by the door, and now sat slumped against the wall. His ribs hurt, his face hurt, and his lack of depth perception was mildly nauseating. To top it all off, the incessant blip of the tracker made it impossible to tune it all out. No one dared turn it off, though. Another hour, by the doctor’s estimate, and they would be able to start heading back. Maybe then he could finally get some damn sleep. The doc continued to work with near mechanical efficiency, and almost seemed to use the tracker as a metronome, timing each suture to the rhythm of the pulse. Louie had his eyes closed, but he could tell he wasn’t sleeping. He wondered if he was having more success tuning it out than he was. One more hour.
Beep.
The tracker emitted a high-pitched chirp. Van Der Beek snapped back to full awareness. The colonel was already on his feet. Even Yau halted his suturing and all three men stared at the tracker as it lay on the instrument trolley.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“It’s him. Weapon’s check,” ordered the colonel as he ejected, checked and reloaded the magazine. Van Der Beek did the same while Yau picked up the tracker.
“It’s not the yautja, Colonel,” said Yau, staring at the tracker readout. “We have multiple hostiles.”
“You set us up, you son of a bitch,” Van Der Beek roared as he grabbed the doctor’s collar with his free hand.
“I didn’t. I swear!” protested the doc, dropping the tracker and holding up both hands.
“We’re three hundred metres below ground. How the fuck do they know we’re here?” he demanded, and watched as the doctor’s eyes darted back and forth, frantically searching for an answer before going wide.
“The embryo…” muttered Yau as realisation dawned. “It knows something is wrong. It’s calling for help.”
“The hell it is. The fucking thing is in cryostasis,” growled Van Der Beek, tightening his grip on the doctor’s collar.
“Not that one. The other one. The one in the woman,” said Yau.
“Merc, I need your help over here,” barked the colonel as he slammed the door shut and struggled to move a heavy metal cabinet into place.
Van Der Beek dropped the doctor. His ribs screaming in protest as he helped the old man move the cabinet to block the door. A pathetic barrier. He knew it would not hold for long. Not against a xenomorph.
“Doc, check the tracker. Bottom of the screen. Give me a range readout,” demanded Sanchez.
“Twenty metres and closing,” said Yau.
“Short controlled bursts, merc. We need to make the ammo count,” he ordered. Van Der Beek nodded as the sound of approaching claws on metal reverberated through the thin door panel.
“Ten metres,” said Yau.
“That’s right outside the door. Safeties off. This is it,” barked Sanchez. “Hold your fire until they break the door. Let’s not make it any easier for them.”
Van Der Beek dropped to one knee, pulling his carbine to his shoulder in a firing stance.
“Five metres.”
The door shook and buckled as something heavy slammed into it. A piercing scream of alien rage set Van Der Beek’s teeth on edge. Another slam, and a hairline crack appeared. Another, and another. The hairline crack quickly becoming an inch wide gap, and long, jittery yellow fingers began to reach through.
Crack. Crack. Crack. The gap widened enough that the facehugger was able to squeeze its body through. Almost closing the four metres between the door and Van Der Beek in one powerful leap before being torn to pieces in a hail of bullets. Acid blood spraying dangerously close. A second one was right behind it, bounding towards them with terrifying speed. The colonel blasted it. His aim dead centre. Three more poured through the growing hole, and were immediately blown apart. Acid blood dissolving the door as the room filled with burning, acrid smoke. A fourth dodged the initial volley and skittered across the floor towards him like a spider, but was cut down a split second before it could pounce.
“Where the fuck are these things all coming from?” he bellowed.
“Egg Storage. Someone disabled the freezer,” cried Yau.
It had been rhetorical, but now his mind raced. How many eggs were in storage? They sure as fuck didn’t have enough bullets for them all.
The door exploded inwards. The melting metal cabinet collapsed into the floor and the adult xenomorph filled the doorway. The creature’s elongated head scraped under the doorframe. Hissing, its pharyngeal jaws thrust forward. Both men unloaded a burst of rounds into it. Its chitinous carapace exploding in a shower of acid blood. A second one was not far behind, bouncing from wall to wall and completely undeterred by the death of its fallen comrade. Van Der Beek lost it in the smoke and rifle flash. The shrieking beast lunged through the haze, closing the distance before the next burst tore it apart. Its smouldering corpse landing mere feet from him. Too late he saw the leaping form of the facehugger as it flew through the air and smashed into the colonel’s face. Its tail wrapping around his throat. Dropping his carbine and grabbing at the creature with both hands, he fell to the floor. Thrashing violently, then his body went limp.
“Doc, grab his gun,” bellowed Van Der Beek, struggling to hear his own voice as he kept up a steady stream of fire, turning one facehugger after another into chunks of bubbling chitin as they relentlessly scuttled forward. The horde frantically clambering over their own dead without fear or hesitation. The doctor took one step forward, but before he could reach the rifle a pair of black taloned hands reached down from the ceiling, burying their claws into the doctor’s shoulders and effortlessly dragging his kicking, screaming form up into the shattered vent. His rifle roared, obliterating another half dozen facehuggers, before it clicked empty. The tracker was still screaming, and though the smoke stung his remaining eye and he struggled to see any movement, he instinctively sensed his chance.
Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he darted over to Louie, who lay staring up at him in mute, wide-eyed terror. Throwing a sheet over him, he slid his arms under his neck and legs. Ignoring his screaming ribs, he scooped up Louie’s limp body. One last glance down the hallway confirmed it was as clear as it was going to get and, bounding over alien bodies and pools of roiling acid, he took off. His legs pounding as the tracker wailed behind him.
