Predator: If It Bleeds E-Book

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Over the centuries, extraterrestrial hunters of the Yautja race—also known as the Predators—have encountered (and stalked) humans on Earth and in the depths of space. Offered here are sixteen all-new stories of such hunts, written by many of today's most extraordinary authors: Kevin J. Anderson Jennifer Brozek Larry Correia Mira Grant Tim Lebbon Jonathan Maberry Andrew Mayne Weston Ochse S. D. Perry Steve Perry Jeremy Robinson John Shirley Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Holly Roberds Peter J. Wacks and David Boop Wendy N. Wagner Dayton Ward Inspired by the events of the original Predator movies, graphic novels, and novels, these adventures pit hunter against prey in life-and-death struggles where there can be only one victor.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

READ ALL OF THE EXCITING PREDATOR™ AND ALIEN™ NOVELS FROM TITAN BOOKS

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

INTRODUCTION by Bryan Thomas Schmidt

DEVIL DOGS by Tim Lebbon

STONEWALL’S LAST STAND by Jeremy Robinson

REMATCH by Steve Perry

MAY BLOOD PAVE MY WAY HOME by Weston Ochse

STORM BLOOD by Peter J. Wacks and David Boop

LAST REPORT FROM THE KSS PSYCHOPOMP by Jennifer Brozek

SKELD’S KEEP by S. D. Perry

INDIGENOUS SPECIES by Kevin J. Anderson

BLOOD AND SAND by Mira Grant

TIN WARRIOR by John Shirley

THREE SPARKS by Larry Correia

THE PILOT by Andrew Mayne

BUFFALO JUMP by Wendy N. Wagner

DRUG WAR by Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Holly Roberds

RECON by Dayton Ward

GAMEWORLD by Jonathan Maberry

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

IF IT BLEEDS

READ ALL OF THE EXCITING PREDATOR™ AND ALIEN™ NOVELS FROM TITAN BOOKS

THE RAGE WAR

by Tim Lebbon

PREDATOR: INCURSION

ALIEN: INVASION

ALIEN VS. PREDATOR™: ARMAGEDDON

THE COMPLETE ALIENS VS. PREDATOR OMNIBUS

by Steve Perry, S.D. Perry, and David Bischoff

ALIEN: OUT OF THE SHADOWS by Tim Lebbon

ALIEN: SEA OF SORROWS by James A. Moore

ALIEN: RIVER OF PAIN by Christopher Golden

THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATIONS

by Alan Dean Foster

ALIEN

ALIENS

ALIEN 3™

ALIEN: COVENANT™

ALIEN: COVENANT – ORIGINS

ALIEN RESURRECTION by A.C. Crispin

ALIENS: BUG HUNT edited by Jonathan Maberry

THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS

VOLUME 1 by Steve and S.D. Perry

VOLUME 2 by David Bischoff and Robert Sheckley

VOLUME 3 by Sandy Schofield and S.D. Perry

VOLUME 4 by Yvonne Navarro and S.D. Perry

ALL-NEW TALES FROM THE EXPANDED PREDATOR UNIVERSE

IF IT BLEEDS

EDITED BYBRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT

TITAN BOOKS

PREDATOR™: IF IT BLEEDS Print edition ISBN: 9781785655401 E-book edition ISBN: 9781785655418

Published by Titan Books A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: October 2017 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

™ & © 2017 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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TITAN BOOKS.COM

For Kevin Peter Hall, the original Predator… and Jonathan Maberry, for friendship

INTRODUCTION

BY BRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT

In June 1987, Twentieth Century Fox launched a new science fiction thriller franchise about alien hunters coming to Earth to hunt humans—Predator was born. A vehicle for rising star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had already starred in such iconic roles as Conan and the Terminator, the film netted six times its budget and a franchise was born. Soon a sequel was in the works as well as a comic book line from Dark Horse Comics. Eventually there would be novels, crossovers with Fox’s popular Alien franchise and more films to come, all aimed at satisfying the growing enthusiastic fanbase.

The stories in this volume are intended to celebrate the franchise’s 30th anniversary as fans anticipate future developments featuring the Predators. We have worked from prior materials, including the previous three Predator films, the Dark Horse Comics, and various novels, and sequels or prequels to those are among the stories included here. Previous contributors to the universe, such as Tim Lebbon, Kevin J. Anderson, Steve Perry, S. D. Perry, and John Shirley, have all returned with new stories for us, plus we have new stories and new authors, as well—including some great adventures that document the intergalactic hunters’ activities throughout human history, beyond even the future or our own contemporary age.

There are sixteen action-packed new adventures here stretching from future societies to the Vikings, ancient samurais, and even the American Civil War. And historical figures as well as familiar characters make appearances in many of them. The goal here was fun adventures that give fans what we have come to expect and love about Predator stories: lots of action, interesting twists and tactics, and human ingenuity vs. alien intellect and superior technology.

As a Predator fan myself, it was a blast putting this together. And so I hope my fellow fans will have an equal blast reading it. For me, one reason I love Predator is the sophisticated culture, language, strategies, and ethics the hunters choose to live by which make them far more interesting and even challenging than many alien opponents we often see. And the novels, comics, and films have all helped to expand that mythos in interesting ways. These stories do as well.

Whatever the case, this book celebrates both the past and the future of this exciting fictional universe. We hope it evokes old memories and makes new ones as we look forward to exciting new chapters in our favorite saga. If we write it, they will come.

If it bleeds, we can kill it.

Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Ottawa, KS, January 2017

“IF IT BLEEDS, WE CAN KILL IT”

—Dutch Schaefer, Predator (1987)

DEVIL DOGS

BY TIM LEBBON

Halley knows that this is a dream, but still the pain bites in, stabbing into her back as the dropship spins and rolls, out of control and plummeting toward the planet below. In reality the ship was pulled from its dive and they landed safely. But in this dream she is the only passenger, and she is loose in the dropship’s belly. With each twist she’s thrown against the bulkheads, with every turn she bounces from floor and ceiling, limbs snapping and ribcage cracking with the impacts, skull crumpling. It’s her back that gives her the most pain. And it’s the face of her mother she sees in her final moment, both sad and angry at the decision her daughter has made.

“If you go into space, you’ll die there.”

* * *

Halley snapped awake. She was sweating and panting in her narrow cot, bedding twisted around her limbs. She reached for the bottle beside her bed and popped two more phrail pills. She’d already taken six before going to bed. It was ironic that being addicted to painkillers brought her more pain than anything in life before.

She sat up and held her head, trying to blink away that final image of her sad mother. Her words had followed Halley into space, through the Colonial Marine academy, and into the dropship accident when she’d smashed the disc in her back. Being prescribed phrail had eased the back pain but introduced her to agonies of another kind. And her mother’s sadness haunted her still.

The comm unit beside her bed buzzed. She jumped. It was silent in here, alone with the dregs of her nightmares. Sometimes she wished that holding a high rank didn’t mean isolation from the rest of her troops.

“Captain Halley, you’re wanted in Command.”

“Who wants me?” she asked.

A slight, telling pause.

“The Major and someone else.”

Halley pushed two hands through her knotted hair. “On my way.” The comm hissed off and she stood, staring into the mirror over her small sink. She looked like shit. Three minutes to sort that out.

* * *

They gave Halley a Sleek-class destroyer for the mission, the Doyle. She knew the pilot, Corporal Jane Hanning, but the four marines were unknown to her. She’d requested that she choose her own troops, but the Major had told her that time was short, and that the team was being assembled even as she was being briefed. Her one comfort was that they were all from 39th Spaceborne, more widely known as the DevilDogs. She knew that anyone from her regiment would be a good marine.

The briefing was truly brief. She knew hardly anything, other than it being a rescue mission of some kind. The mission wasn’t logged, and there was no flight or call number. Hanning would be sent coordinates once they were a thousand kilometers out from Charon Station, and everything else would be relayed en route.

The civilian passenger meant it was far from normal.

“So what’s your story?” she asked the man beside her. They were each strapped into control seats on the flight deck. The Doyle had room in her hold for up to fifty troops, but with only seven of them on board, Halley had insisted they all sit up front. The big sergeant, Tew, acted as co-pilot to Hanning, seated to her left. At the comms station sat Rogers, the small French woman with the burn across her cheek. Next to her was Shearman, one of the tallest men Halley had ever seen, brash and confident but with too many battle scars to count. Behind them, seated close to the flight deck’s rear bulkhead, Rosartz hummed a tune that bugged Halley because she was sure she knew it. Perhaps she’d get to ask her.

“I already told you my name,” the man said.

“Kalien.”

“Del to my friends.”

“So what’s your story, Kalien?”

“My story’s nothing to do with your mission,” he said. He tried to appear charming and calm, and give her the impression that this was actually her mission, not his. But she could see through him. He was ex-military. There were no outward signs, but she recognized his bearing, his confidence, and the glint in his eyes. He’d seen things. Maybe he’d gone indie, but it wasn’t like the Major to deal with mercenaries, no matter how highly sanctioned. Could be that he was a Company man now, ArmoTech perhaps. But she thought not. She’d met Company men and women before, and they oozed a particular smarm, and a derision for those in uniform, that was not easy to hide.

“So you’re Section Seven.” Akoko Halley hid a smile. Kalien’s brief flash of anger was almost comical. “Hey, don’t mind me,” she said. “I’m just curious.”

“Far as the rest of your unit knows, I’m a science observer,” he said.

“You think all grunts are stupid?” she asked.

“Let’s just wait until your orders come in, shall we?” Kalien unstrapped and pulled himself out of the seat, drifting across the flight deck to surprised glances from the Colonial Marines. They were still only minutes away from Charon Station, and grav wouldn’t be turned on until they’d set coordinates and accelerated to cruising velocity.

Halley didn’t worry about the man’s safety. He knew what he was doing.

“Three minutes until thousand kilometer marker,” Hanning said, glancing back at Kalien, then at Halley.

Halley nodded. “Hit it.”

With the gentlest of vibrations the Doyle pulled away from Charon Station, the main Colonial Marine base in orbit around the Solar System.

“Oooh, that tingles,” Shearman said, squirming in his seat.

“You’re disgusting,” Rogers said.

“Not what you said last night, mon ami.”

Rogers gave him the finger over her shoulder. “For the record, Captain, Private Shearman has shared his privates with no one on this ship.”

“Only in my dreams,” Shearman said.

“Dream on,” Hanning said from the pilot’s seat.

Shearman threw Halley a feigned look of distress. “Captain, I’m being picked on.”

“You look like you can take care of yourself,” Halley said.

“I’ve had to save his ass more than once,” Sergeant Tew said. “He might be big, but don’t let that fool you, Captain. He faints at the sight of blood.”

“Only my own,” Shearman said.

Halley smiled. She enjoyed the banter, and as these troops were mostly strangers to her, it would be the best way to get to know them. The ship wasn’t prepped for a long journey, so their destination must be only a couple of days away. Whatever waited there for them, she wanted to ensure that she and her squad were as tight as possible when they arrived.

She wished the Major had let her bring her own choice of marines. She guessed Kalien had something to do with that.

If he was really Section Seven, this was a Company mission. Section Seven were a group of ex-marines serving the Company’s Thirteen, their main corporate board. Feared and disliked in equal measures, she’d never had any involvement with them. She wished that were still the case.

“Incoming transmission,” Rogers said. Kalien pulled himself across to her station and took control of the comms unit. He paired his comm-implant and listened, head tilted. Appearing happy with the message, he flipped on the flight deck speakers.

Halley knew the voice she heard. Gerard Marshall, one of the Thirteen. She’d seen him in broadcasts and holos, but had never spoken to him before. He was very businesslike.

“Contact has been lost with the ArmoTech research station Trechman Two, ten billion kilometers beyond Pluto orbit. You’re to proceed to the station, board, and investigate the cause of comm silence. My personal representative Del Kalien is your point of command, and Captain Halley is next in the chain. This is a military undertaking, but covered by Company jurisdiction. Del Kalien has final say on all decisions. Is that understood?”

“Crystal clear, sir,” Halley said.

“Good. Any questions?”

“What’s the Trechman Two’s security designation?” Halley asked.

After a small pause, Marshall said, “Highest.”

“And its purpose?”

“I told you, Captain, research and development.”

“Military.”

“ArmoTech, yes.”

“So what are we likely to be facing?”

“Del Kalien has all the information you might need,” Marshall said.

“And how many crew members are on board?” she asked.

“Crew members?” Marshall sounded almost surprised that she’d express a concern about the people they were going to rescue. Which made her suspect this wasn’t a rescue mission at all.

“Thirty-two,” Del Kalien said.

“Good luck,” Marshall said.

“Thank you, sir.”

The connection broke with a hiss, and Kalien pushed across to Hanning.

“Coordinates,” he said, pressing his palmtop to the pilot’s holo frame.

“How long?” Halley asked.

Hanning consulted the holo as a flight plan resolved. “If I pump us up to point-one, sixteen hours.”

“Okay, let’s roll,” she said. “Once we’re at point-one, grav on, then everyone to dining. We’ll eat and get to know each other.”

She unstrapped and pushed off, approaching Kalien.

“I need to know what we might be facing out there,” she said.

“We’ll know when we get there.”

“And that’s it?”

He shrugged.

“You fucking Company guys,” she muttered so that no one else could hear.

He smiled. “What’s for breakfast?”

* * *

As they approached the space station Trechman Two, Rogers hailed on open channels. There was no response. Two kilometers out Hanning put them into a slow orbit that matched the station’s spin, and they gathered on the flight deck.

“Scans show hull integrity is intact,” Rosartz said. “Life support is functioning, power’s on.”

“Any lifeboats been launched?” Halley asked.

“No,” Shearman said. He was standing beside Rogers at the comm station. His quips and jokes had stopped now that they were geared up and ready to go. Halley liked that. She’d only been with this squad for half a solar day, but she could already tell that they would make a tight unit. Some had fought together before, and although no one had been upfront about it, she suspected they’d fought for Kalien.

Even so, she knew they were first and foremost marines. Working for the Company was just part of the job.

“And two transport ships are still docked,” Shearman continued.

“Shall I take us in closer?” Hanning asked.

“No,” Halley said. She was aware of Kalien’s look of surprise but she continued staring through the windows, across the dark nothing of space to the dead space station. “I don’t like it. No visiting ships apparent, and none of the station’s vessels are missing. Send a drone.”

“Roger that,” Hanning said. She played her hands across the pilot’s desk and a soft hiss sounded from elsewhere in the ship. They watched the drone flit toward the Trechman Two.

“We’ve got to get on board,” Kalien said.

“If and when I’ve declared the place safe,” Halley said.

“There’s research on that station we need.”

“Nice of you to tell us now that we’re here,” Halley said. “Please, be quiet. Now’s the military part of this operation. Let us work.”

Kalien did not reply. She thought she heard a heavy exhalation from Shearman that might have been a laugh. Halley kept her eyes on the drone.

“Screen down,” Rosartz said. A holo-screen dropped and formed from the ceiling, drifting above the nav desk and increasing in size according to Rosartz’s signal. The image flickered for a few seconds before resolving into an image from one of the drone’s on-board cameras.

“Okay, give me a steady sweep anti-clockwise,” Halley said. “Sensor suite on.” As well as visual indicators, the drone would be checking for radiation leaks, atmosphere emission from damage to the hull, heat signatures, and other signs of damage or activity.

They watched in silence as the drone performed a full circuit of the Trechman Two. Hanning adjusted the controls and steered it around the structure in the opposite plane. Ten minutes later they’d all seen a full transmission of the space station’s exterior. There was no sign of damage or trauma.

“So now are we going in?” Kalien asked.

“Wait a minute,” Tew said. “Captain, can we swing by the central hub one more time?”

Halley nodded to Hanning. “What did you see, Sergeant?” she asked.

“Something…” He shook his head. He looked troubled, even scared.

“Sergeant Tew?”

“Just let me look.”

They all checked out the screen as Hanning steered the drone for another pass.

“Closer to the windows. The third one along, then hold there.”

A dark window reflected starlight.

“Lights,” Tew whispered. A light speared on.

Tew cried out and stumbled back, and he’d have fallen if it weren’t for Shearman holding him up. Rogers gasped and swore. Kalien drew in a sharp breath.

Teeth. Dappled wet skin. Tusks. The thing was back in the room, sitting almost motionless yet looking directly at the window. Watching them, watching it.

“Yautja,” Halley said. Of everything she’d been expecting to find here, this was the least likely.

“That’s it,” Tew said. “They’re toast. We blow the station to hell and—”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Kalien said.

“You’ve got history,” Halley said to the big sergeant, firm yet caring.

Tew only nodded.

“There’s no ship,” Hanning said.

“It didn’t come here,” Halley said. “It was brought. This is a research station, remember.”

Kalien was frowning, staring at the image of the Yautja sitting in the darkness inside the Trechman Two, watching them.

“So what’s the plan, Captain?” Rosartz asked.

“Stairway,” Halley said.

“Huh?”

“‘Stairway to Heaven.’ The song you were humming earlier.”

Rosartz beamed. “Damn, another fan of real music.”

“The plan is, you do your military part of this operation,” Kalien said. “You board the Trechman Two, retrieve the computer core, sweep for survivors, and kill that thing if and when it attacks.”

“In that order?” Halley asked. “Survivors second?”

Kalien stared at her. His silence spoke volumes.

“Nuke it,” Tew said. “There won’t be survivors. Nuke it and get the fuck home.”

“There’s research on that station that—”

“Screw your research!” Tew said.

Kalien moved quickly. Tew was a good foot taller than him, but the civilian still lifted the marine and shoved him back against one of the flight deck chairs. It rattled in its mounting.

“Are you a marine?” Kalien asked.

Tew struggled in his grasp.

“Then be like a marine! Take orders and do your job. Or walk home.” He let go and stepped away, straightening his clothes.

He could have killed Tew with one hand, Halley thought. She’d heard about some of the things Section Seven did. She didn’t want to see them.

“We need a full structural plan of the station,” Halley said. “Floor plans, service routing, location of the computer core.”

Kalien held up his palmtop. Halley nodded at Hanning and he lobbed it her way.

“Now listen,” she said. She felt a coolness descending, and behind that coolness was a driving need for a hit of phrail. Outwardly she presented a stony face, but inside she was quaking, nerves jangling as she anticipated the first hit.

When I get back, she thought. When this is all done. That’s my treat.

“If you go into space, you’ll die there.” She almost heard her mother’s voice out loud.

“Now listen,” she said again. “There’s six of us, fully armed, well trained, and six against one is—”

“About even odds,” Tew said. “I’ve seen one of these things in action.”

“Then you’re useful to us,” Halley said. “You all know the drill. You’ve all been instructed and trained to combat Yautja.” She looked to Kalien. “Will this one be weakened?”

“It’ll likely have been drugged,” he said. “But I can’t guarantee you anything. Somehow it’s escaped containment, so it’s not easy to say what’s happened in there.”

“Plans are up,” Hanning said, enlarging a 3-D image in the main holo frame.

“Right.” Halley nodded. “We go in three by three. Two teams. Team one is Tew, Hanning, Rogers. Team two is me, Shearman, Rosartz. Kalien, you’re staying here.”

“Fine by me.”

“Survivors. Computer core. Then out.” She stared at Kalien, daring him to not put the search for survivors first. He looked ready to speak, but said nothing.

That coolness within her grew even colder. Ice around her heart. Soon, she thought. When I’m back. Soon.

“Let’s arm up, then take us in,” she said.

Hanning set an approach vector on autopilot, then they trooped down to the hold to prepare. As the long docking arm extended from the Doyle to the Trechman Two, Halley made her troops double-check each other’s suits and weapons.

The nerves and fear were palpable.

She wished she’d popped one more phrail tab before suiting up.

* * *

There was still atmosphere. All life support systems were green. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, other than the fact there were no people to be seen, and there was a Yautja loose somewhere on the station.

They all wore full combat suits with protective skin-masks and status readouts. The suits were flexible, but could also harden into armor. The combat rifles they carried could fire plasma bursts, laser sprays, micro-dot solid munitions, and explosive nano ordnance.

They should have felt confident.

“Stay on open channel,” Halley said. “It knows we’re here.”

“No movement readings,” Tew said. His voice was higher than usual, on edge.

“Don’t trust your instruments,” Halley said. “Eyes front. Okay, two teams head out.” She watched Tew, Hanning, and Rogers break right, then led Rosartz and Shearman off to the left. Her team would reach the station’s computer hub first, but on the way were several labs and the habitation pod.

She threw movement and heat feeds onto her visor, but always kept one eye focused ahead. She’d never confronted a Yautja, but she knew that they were born warriors, and their advances in tech often took surprising leaps. Their familiar invisibility suits were understood now, but no one could figure out how the beasts could sometimes evade motion and heat detectors.

“Sarge?”

“Clear,” Tew said. His voice was smooth, almost in her ear.

“Stay cool,” Halley said. She felt a pang at her choice of words. Someone had once told her she was cold, and the accusation bit hard. Phrail chilled her blood and numbed her senses. She’d hate to think it would leave her cold forever.

The silence was disconcerting. The stillness felt like the calm before the storm. Her heart hammered. Her suit gave a soft warning chime in her ear and fed her some calmer to settle her nerves.

They edged along corridors, checking every open and closed doorway, pausing at junctions and using suit drones to view around corners. They moved with caution but speed, aware that the longer they were on board, the more likely it was they’d make contact with the Yautja. It wasn’t a large space station, but it was big enough to get lost in.

Halley hoped the Yautja was injured. Or perhaps it had seen them come aboard and had sloped away to hide, knowing when it was outnumbered.

Yeah, right, she thought. Everything she knew about Yautja told her that it would welcome such a challenge, not shy away from it.

“Lab on the right,” Rosartz said.

The lab door was closed, but there was a large smear of blood around and on the handle. It was dried, flaky.

“Shearman,” Halley said. She and Rosartz held back across the corridor, weapons aimed at the door, while Shearman pressed up against the wall and rested his hand on the handle. Halley prompted her suit to project a countdown onto their visors, and at zero he threw the door open.

Halley held her breath, finger squeezing the trigger. Nothing moved. But there were things inside the lab that had moved, once.

“Fuck me,” Shearman breathed.

“Keep it down,” Halley said. “Kalien, you getting this?”

“Yeah.” His voice crackled in her earpiece, as if he was very far away. He might as well have been.

The lab was twenty meters square and filled with tables, pods, and sample storage cases. Some of the sample jars contained weird specimens—biological, mechanical, and strange mergings of the two. Blood was sprayed across almost every surface, and hanging from the ceiling were several bodies. They had once been human. They were badly mutilated, hanging by their feet from holes punched in the ceiling panels, spines torn out, bodies spewing insides to the floor and surfaces beneath them. Each swayed very slightly with the change of air pressure from the opened door.

“Six down,” Rosartz said.

“Tew, anything?” Halley asked.

“Bodies,” Tew said into her ear.

“How many?”

“Er… don’t know. I’d guess… a dozen.”

“Okay, we head to the computer hub,” Halley said. “If we find survivors on the way—”

“There won’t be any survivors,” Kalien said.

“Radio silence from you, Kalien,” she said. “Don’t confuse the issue. This is a combat situation, and you’re not involved.”

They moved out, closing the door behind them. Halley wondered briefly about who those people were and what their families must be going through. Best they don’t know the truth, she thought. Company can tell them their loved ones died in an accident.

“Movement!” Rosartz said. “Level two, zone four.”

“Tew!” Halley said. “Got movement coming your way. Can you see—”

“Holy shit!” Hanning shouted. Then the shooting began.

Halley switched visual feed into her visor from her squads’ bodycams, so she saw everything that happened next. Confusion, chaos, shooting, horror. And blood.

Hanning from Tew’s point of view, sweeping her com-rifle up and around and unleashing a hail of laser fire, peppering the bulkhead and blasting electronics into a starscape of exploding points.

Rogers ducking down and rolling beneath the laser burst, then rising and being pinned to the wall by something penetrating her chest. Her suit hardened into protective armor, but not fast enough. She opened her mouth to scream and blood filled her visor.

Tew staring, open-mouthed, terrified, as Hanning closed on him and passed by, shouting over her shoulder for him to hurry, focus on her, run so that—

Hanning’s vision blurred as she was plucked from the floor and smashed into the ceiling. Her bodycam flickered, then focused again as she struck the ground. Above her, a shimmering shape manifested as if from nowhere. It stood astride her chest, raising one foot and bringing it down onto her face, again and again.

Her bodycam gave out.

Tew saw, and through his point of view, Halley saw as well. The Yautja was huge, head brushing the ceiling even as it stooped and stomped on Hanning. Sparks of white light sizzled across its armor. It wore bandages around its upper arms and wide thighs, and its traditional helmet was missing, revealing deep welts across its cheeks and around its throat. Tubes hung from these wounds. Its forehead was dotted with sensor points.

If it was sick, it didn’t appear to care.

Tew raised his weapon, and at the last second Halley saw on his readout that he had selected plasma.

“Tew, no, you’ll take out the entire—”

He fired. Halley’s visor grew dark against the glare, and when she prompted it to access Tew’s bodycam feed once more, there was only darkness. No vision. No sound. Nothing.

“We have to help!” Shearman said. “Level two, there’s a staircase at the end of this corridor.”

“They’ve gone,” Halley said. It was not the first time she’d lost a marine on a mission, but it was the first time such a loss had felt so hopeless, so wasted. The Yautja had crushed the three of them, like grinding insects beneath its feet.

“The plasma blast must have killed it,” Rosartz said. “Right, Captain?”

Halley wasn’t listening. An alert was chiming in her suit, and the computer translated it from the Trechman Two’s systems.

“Hull breach,” she said. “Blast door on Level two, zone four has closed. Anything in there has been sucked out into space.”

“No,” Shearman said. “No.”

“Let’s get this finished,” Halley said. “Computer core, back to the ship, then we’ll blast this shithole into atoms.”

“You sure our scientific advisor will like that?” Rosartz asked, dripping sarcasm.

“He can eat me,” Halley said. “Stay sharp. Move out.”

Every instinct was screaming at her to abandon the Trechman Two and get back to the Doyle. The whole place was compromised, with a dangerous alien on board and a hull breach. Even now she could feel a growing vibration through her feet as the superstructure strained under the tension. Fault lines would be spreading, pressures building, and internal blast doors were never designed to provide a permanent barrier between atmosphere and vacuum.

Time was ticking.

Halley led the other two past more closed doors. She knew they should be checking each room so that their retreat was covered, but they had no time. Now, they had to trust in speed to get the mission done.

She could mourn the loss of three marines and agonize over what she might have done differently later, when they were back aboard the Doyle. She’d have some questions for Kalien then, too. Like just what the fuck were they doing experimenting on a Yautja.

“Station’s computer core ahead,” Shearman said. “Security door sealed.”

“Rosartz, get to it,” Halley said.

Rosartz shouldered her rifle and got to work on the door mechanism, while Halley and Shearman covered the corridor in either direction. She tried to maintain her cool, but found that she was blinking rapidly, and sweat slicked between her face and visor. The suit removed it efficiently, but she was not handling this well.

Her vision was blurry. The distinction between her body inside the suit, and the outside, felt wide, as if the suit itself was much more than simply a thin layer of complex, hi-tech material. Halley felt apart from the action, and that would not do. Not now. Now, she had to be in the thick of it. Her two remaining marines depended on her.

“No movement,” Shearman said.

“Yeah, nothing on sensors,” she said. “It’ll be coming, though.”

“We’re in,” Rosartz said. The door whispered open and they backed inside, closing the door behind them. Rosartz keyed in a code and the door clunked locked.

“Kalien, we’re in the computer core,” Halley said.

“We need the hub and any backup devices,” he said.

“We’ll carry what we can without compromising our safety,” she said.

“The Yautja’s still with the dead marines,” he said. Halley froze, glancing at Rosartz and Shearman.

“But they must have been blasted out into space when the hull went. All of them.”

“Just telling you what sensors are telling me. It must have survived, dragged their bodies to safety.”

“Why?”

Kalien remained silent.

“I’ll check,” Halley said. “You two get what we came for.” While they worked, she tried switching her feed back to the fallen marines’ bodycams.

She gasped, then turned away so that Rosartz and Shearman could not see her reaction.

Viewed from Rogers’ damaged camera, she saw the Yautja butchering Tew’s corpse. She knew that the creatures often took trophies from the bodies of their victims, but to see it happening to someone she knew…

She switched off the feed. “We need to hurry,” she said. “Done yet?”

Rosartz was prying a small unit apart with her combat knife, while Shearman loaded several circular objects into the belt around his waist. The backing sprung from the unit, and Rosartz reached inside and tore out an obsidian cube, about the size of her fist.

“We’re done,” she said. “Let’s go.”

As Halley approached the door, her suit warned her of movement on the other side. She glanced around the room and saw no other means of exit. She caught Shearman’s eye. Nodded. Signaled to Rosartz.

Rosartz dropped the cube into a big pocket in her suit and aimed her palmtop at the door.

“As soon as it starts opening,” Halley said. “Micro-dot. Fill the corridor and blast it to shreds. On three.” She started the countdown.

As the seconds ticked down, she frowned. The movement looked odd. Too small.

Reaching one, Rosartz signaled the door to open.

“Wait!” Halley said.

“Thank God—” a new voice said.

Shearman fired. A score of micro-dot munitions powered through the growing gap between door and frame, and Halley had a split second to see the woman standing beyond. Her white suit was grubby and stained with smears of dried blood. Her face was pale and drawn, as if she hadn’t eaten or slept in days. On her collar, the familiar Company symbol.

Her eyes were wide with a terrible forlorn hope.

The munitions exploded and tore the woman apart. As the door was blown all the way open, the ceiling behind Halley smashed down and a heavy shape dropped to the floor.

She fell forward and rolled, coming up and bringing her rifle to bear.

The Yautja was already on its feet, heavy hand piercing Rosartz’s stomach, holding her up in mid-air, blood dripping as her suit failed and peeled back. She was convulsing, com-rifle shaking in her right hand as she attempted to bring it to bear.

Shearman swung around, eyes wide in realization of what he’d done.

The Yautja threw Rosartz’s ruptured body at the tall marine, pivoting on one leg as it did so, a movement almost balletic in its grace and simplicity. It spun around and brought its other leg up, catching Shearman in the stomach and dropping him. Rosartz fell on top of him.

They were out of Halley’s sight, beyond the Yautja and a bank of computer cabinets.

Shearman screamed, and she couldn’t tell whether it was fear or agony.

The Yautja stared right at her. She had never seen anything so alien, yet in its eyes was a calm, startling intelligence. It tilted its head as it looked at her, then crouched down and hissed, mouth open wide, fangs glistening and curved. The wounds on its throat shimmered with a bright green fluid that might have been blood, and the sensor pads across its face and head shamed Halley. The shame surprised her.

We did that, she thought. Humans did that.

She backed into the wall beside the door and lifted her gun, signaling the suit to switch the weapon to laser spray.

Behind the Yautja, Shearman stood. He was covered in blood. Some of it was Rosartz’s, but he also had a terrible wound in his stomach where the Yautja had kicked him. His suit had hardened and was already applying med-packs to the wound, but Halley could see coils of what should have been inside poking out.

In his hand, Shearman held a plasma grenade.

Halley slid along the wall and fell backwards from the door. As she fell she fired down at the creature’s feet. The shot struck the floor. The Yautja had already jumped at her.

Halley closed her eyes.

The suit darkened and hardened around the blast, but she still felt the white-hot shove of the plasma grenade’s explosion. It tore her senses apart. The last thing she saw was a humanoid shadow leaping over her, ablaze, shrieking, thrashing.

And then there was night.

* * *

The pain bites in, scouring into her back as the dropship rolls and spins. This is a dream. Halley knows, but she can’t pull herself out of it.

Every time the pain begins to spread, the phrail beats it back. It buffers her against the agony. It tortures her and makes her less than she could be, yet here and now it is saving her.

Here? Where? And now? What’s now?

She struggles to open her eyes. She smells death, hears burning, feels a terrible warm wetness where her suit has been burnt away. Perhaps it’s herself, insides turned out and the phrail giving her a few moments’ grace between life and death.

“If you go into space, you’ll die there.”

It’s not her mother’s voice.

* * *

“…die… there,” Halley said. Her teeth felt cold, lips hot and sticky with blood.

She opened her eyes.

The corridor ceiling and walls were deformed by the terrible plasma heat, still flowing in places as they cooled and reformed. She felt the heat on the air as she breathed, and around her where she lay.

She raised her head, looking into the computer hub. Fires roared. Black, greasy smoke rose from burning flesh, spiraling away as the station’s emergency systems came into play. A sprinkler sputtered above her, spilling a trickle of water that hissed where it struck.

Halley sat up and reached for her gun. She’d fallen with it clasped to her side. Around her lay the scorched remains of the survivor they had killed.

Slowly, painfully, she got to her feet. Her suit was already addressing her wounds, and she felt the kiss of phrail entering her blood. It was in proper doses, small and targeted, not the heavy pills she took. Still it flushed through her system and reminded her of who and what she was—a captain in the Colonial Marines, and an addict.

She laughed. It came out as a croak.

Along the corridor were scorched patches surrounded by bright green splashes of Yautja blood.

“…in! Halley…”

A voice in her ear. For a moment she thought it was a surviving marine, but then she recognized Kalien.

“Halley… hear me?… happened to the…”

“Kalien,” she said. “I’m coming back to the ship.”

“Do you have it? Halley, do you have the computer hub?”

She glanced back into the computer room, at the merged remnants of cabinets and structure, and two melted marines. She shut him off.

Walking hurt. She looked down at her wounds and wished she hadn’t, but her suit was maintaining her at a level of functionality for a while. It wouldn’t last for long. She needed to get to the Doyle’s medical bay.

She knew that she’d probably never make it, but she had to try. She had to prove her mother wrong, one more time.

Phrail chilled her blood and numbed her wounds. She would not have been able to function without it. She walked without caring, turning corners and crossing junctions without checking what might be beyond. Her visor was still operational, but it hissed in and out of focus, its information only readable intermittently.

Reaching the airlock lobby, she looked behind her and saw a trail of blood. She frowned. It wasn’t all her own. Some of it was green.

The lobby was circular, and across from her, huddled against the wall, was the Yautja. It was shivering, curled into a ball at the base of the wall. Green blood poured from a dozen wounds. Burns wept all across its back, and many of its long hair-like tendrils had sizzled away, blackened nubs all that remained. One eye was gone, along with much of that side of its face.

It lifted its head to stare with its one remaining eye.

“Halley!” Kalien called. Halley frowned. She’d turned off the suit comm. Then she realized that she was hearing his voice for real, from past the open airlock doors and along the extended docking arm linking the Trechman Two to the docked Doyle. “Halley, do you have it? I can’t let you on board until you do.”

She looked toward the airlock entrance. The angle prevented her from seeing along the docking arm, but she knew what she would see. Kalien, standing there with a gun. They were expendable, and if he didn’t get what he wanted, there was no way she was getting home.

Fine.

The Yautja turned from her and looked at the airlock door.

Halley slumped down against the wall and lowered her gun as the Yautja pulled itself upright. It must have been in terrible pain, but it made no sound. When it took its first faltering step toward the airlock, it left parts of itself behind.

“I’m coming,” Halley said.

“You got what I want, Halley? It’ll go well for you if you do. Promotion, rewards. You get what I want?”

“Yeah, Kalien,” she shouted, and the Yautja paused beside the airlock entrance. “You’ll get what you came for.”

“Good. Come on through, then. I know you’re injured. The med-pod is—”

The Yautja stepped into the airlock, and Halley heard heavy wet footsteps as it started to run.

“What the hell…” Kalien said, his voice just audible.

The alien roared. A laser pistol opened fire.

The man from Section Seven screamed.

With a grunt of pain, and another cool flush of phrail from the med-packs in her suit, Halley rose to her feet and pulled the plasma charge from her rifle. She primed it to blow, then linked it to her suit so that she could detonate remotely.

She lobbed it into the airlock, saw it tumble into the beginning of the docking arm, then slammed her hand on the airlock activation pad.

The doors slammed shut. She looked down the long docking arm, frowning, trying to make out what was happening in the Doyle’s airlock fifty meters away. She could not quite tell.

“Goodbye,” she said, and she signaled the plasma charge to blow.

The thudding impact on the doors was heavy, but they held. The muffled blast was soon silenced by the sudden exposure to space, and when she looked through the viewing portal again, the docking arm was coming apart in a million pieces. Beyond, the Doyle was already drifting away from the Trechman Two, shoved by the sudden blast. Its open airlock door spewed air and debris, and then she saw two figures coughed out into space, locked in an awful, eternal embrace.

Halley rested her head on the airlock door and prompted the suit to give her more phrail. But its supplies were used up.

She sank down to the floor. The pain would come in soon, and then she’d have to see if the station’s med bay was still functioning. If it was, she might have a chance to make herself well enough to take one of the lifeboats and plot a course back toward home. If she sent a distress signal, a Colonial Marine rescue ship would come to pick her up. Her own DevilDogs would fly to her rescue.

Before that could happen, she had to get her story straight.

* * *

Halley knows that this is a dream, but the pain is assaulting her with wave after wave, burning into her very soul and chilling her to the core. The pain of injury is bad enough, the pain of addiction worse. In her dream rescue will never come, and she’ll be resigned to existing forever in a state of perpetual, terrible need.

In reality, they will be here soon.

“If you go into space, you’ll die there.”

Maybe, Mother. But first I’m going to live.

STONEWALL’S LAST STAND

BY JEREMY ROBINSON

1

CHANCELLORSVILLE, VIRGINIA MAY 2, 1863

“If I look back and don’t see your face looking the enemy in the eye, I will put a bullet in the back of your head myself.” General Stonewall Jackson of the Confederate States looked over his men. They were lean and poorly dressed in patchwork gray uniforms. They carried an array of rifles, revolvers, and sabres. No two were alike, but the men were unified by the thing that bonds all soldiers—fear.

And that could be dangerous.

Disastrous.

A single man running in the wrong direction could undo an army. That was why Stonewall dealt with them in the harshest terms possible. Their enemy would be no less merciful, and Jackson wasn’t about to let a bunch of Yankees take potshots at his soldiers. But he couldn’t just make threats. He’d lose their respect. So he submitted to his own authority and declared, “Same goes for me. You see me running away from the enemy with fear in my eyes, it means I’m no longer your general.” His index finger tapped his forehead. “Put a bullet. Right here.”

He walked a few feet, eyes on the mud squelching up from under his boots. After several days of rain, the sun had returned with an unseasonable vengeance, pulling a good portion of that moisture back into the air, making it thick and sticky. There wasn’t a part of his uniform that wasn’t clinging to his body. He used the irritation to fuel his final words.

“Come morning we’re going to give those Yanks a fight they won’t soon forget. Next we speak, good ol’ General Joseph Hooker’s army will be retreating up the Potomac and straight into the Devil’s asshole!”

The exhausted men rallied, letting out a rousing whoop. It spread through the ranks, a wave of sound rolling back through men who couldn’t even hear the words. Didn’t matter. His speech would be repeated in whispers throughout the night. Everyone would have their own version of the Devil’s asshole speech. As long as they weren’t thinking about their impending deaths.

“Now, eat well and sleep hard. We wake with the sun.” Stonewall gave a wave of his hand and turned his back to glare at the dark woods separating his army from the open field, where many of these men would die. They had flanked Hooker’s men. The plan laid out by General Lee was audacious, but perfect. But Stonewall wasn’t about to commit his men to a battle without first seeing the battlefield for himself.

“Goose,” he said, and the man was at his side a heartbeat later.

“We’re ready, sir.”

Goose knew the drill. He and his men were the best Stonewall had seen. Ruthless, skilled with both musket and blade, and sneaky. Before the war, he had little doubt that these were hard men. Criminals, most likely, and not just because they looked the part. They also protected their names, choosing nicknames for themselves. Including Goose. But on the field of battle, all men were equal, and the four gentlemen standing with Goose had more than made up for any past grievances.

Without another word, the six men strode toward the treeline, Goose by Stonewall’s side, the others close behind, weapons at the ready. In the thick woods, Goose took the lead.

The spring’s new leaf growth was already thick this far south, blocking what little light the stars provided. The moon, nowhere to be seen, had retreated like their enemies soon would. Goose paused, listening, his ears sharp. Wind shushed a course through the trees. It was followed by the hiss of falling water, shed from the shaken limbs. The rest of the night was still. Even the birds seemed to have fled.

There are killers in the forest, Stonewall thought. The birds were wise to leave.

“Lantern?” Goose asked.

“Just one,” Stonewall said. “Keep the light small.”

“Cotton,” Goose said. The tall, wiry man slunk up next to them and crouched. After a few seconds of tinkering and a half-dozen whispered curses, a light flared, and then shrank down to almost nothing. But in the pitch-black night, it was plenty, and it would keep them from tripping over obstacles. Kept low, the light would be hard to spot, but a man falling on his face, that could be detected in any direction by anyone with a pair of ears.

“Remember…” Stonewall said, taking the lantern so the men could carry their weapons.

“We move in silence, observe the enemy and kill only when necessary,” Goose said.

Stonewall couldn’t see the man, but was sure he was showing his tooth-gapped grin.

“Or when fun,” Cotton added and the others chuckled.

“Save that for the morning,” Stonewall said, and then struck out into the forest’s depths, eager to complete their mission, and if he was honest, hoping to drop a few Union soldiers before the night was over.

Twenty minutes later, he got his chance.

2

“I’m sweatier than the underside of Johnny Boy’s momma’s teat in mid-July,” Cracker Jack whispered. He was the largest of Stonewall’s recon team and said pretty much anything that came to mind, without fear of reprisal. Not because the others feared him—bullets paid no mind to muscles—but because this was how men such as these bonded.

“My momma’s milk is the sweetest moonshine south of the Mason Dixie,” Johnny Boy replied. He was Cracker Jack’s opposite in every way. Short, fast, and sneaky. And while Cracker Jack was most likely to strangle an enemy barehanded, Johnny Boy could stick a man a dozen times and bleed him out in half the time. He was also shameless.

Stonewall winced at the image. He’d never met Johnny Boy’s mother, and reckoned he wouldn’t want to, but his imagination never conjured a pleasant image whenever she and her various secretions came up in conversation. Johnny had a weasel’s face and severely blemished skin. His mother was either a saint for copulating with a similarly built man, or equally unsightly.

“Quiet,” Goose said.

At first, Stonewall thought Goose was just keeping the men in line. While on recon missions with this crew, Stonewall let his subordinate rein the men in. Kept their rebellious urges from targeting the general. But the stillness of Goose’s body and the raised rifle in his hands meant he had actually heard something.

The men ducked down, breath held. Listening.

After a minute of nothing, Gator asked, “Sure you done heard sumptin’?” Gator had lived in the swamps of Florida. Didn’t mind the heat, or the moisture. Seemed born and bred for it. Not much of anything scared him, not even, he claimed, “the twenty-foot gator I done killed with a hatchet.” He wore the beast’s long tooth around his neck as proof. Aside from his smell, Gator’s weakness was his impatience.

He stood from their hiding place behind a thick mound of brush, shrugging his hairy arm out of Goose’s cautionary grasp. He spun in a circle, eying the darkness. “Ain’t nothin’ out dere.”

And then, a voice. “Momma’s milk.”

The garbled words were distant, but unmistakable. Someone had been close enough to hear their conversation and was now mocking them with the words.

Without needing to be ordered, the men readied their rifles and waited for orders. Stonewall gave Goose a nod and the man stood. “Two one two behind me. You know the drill.”

Goose moved out from hiding, leaning forward, making himself a smaller target. Cotton and Cracker Jack followed, then Stonewall, and finally Johnny Boy and Gator. While Stonewall was willing to share the dangers of battle and recon with his men, he was no fool. His life and mind were far more important to the cause than those he served with. He would fight with them, but at times like this, any bullets flying toward them would most likely find another’s body, before they found his.

“Low and tight,” Goose said and then struck out toward the voice’s source, guided by the oil lamp’s paltry illumination. They were headed toward a trap, no doubt, but Stonewall needed to see what was hiding in these woods before he sent his army marching through it at first light.

The skill with which his men snuck through the darkness made him proud. The Yankees might know a handful of Confederate boys had ventured into the woods, but they’d never see them coming.

Goose paused to listen again, but it wasn’t necessary. The Union men were announcing their presence with a boldly lit torch. There were three of them. All of them talking at once. Women in a kitchen, talking pies. But laced with fear and something worse, typically reserved for when a battle reached its end—desperation.

“Sumpin’s got ’em all riled,” Gator observed.

“Likely they know who we are by now,” Cracker Jack said.

While Goose and his men had a reputation among the Confederate ranks, it was doubtful that reputation had reached the Union, primarily because when they encountered the enemy, they killed them.

Dead men don’t tell stories.

“It ain’t us,” Goose said. “Listen.”

In the silence that followed, the enemy’s panicked voices slipped out of the night.

“I’m telling you, I looked right through ’im.”

“His eyes glowed. The Devil himself lives in these woods.”

“Wasn’t the Devil. And it wasn’t a beast.” This voice remained calm. “It was a man. In the dark. Now, collect yourselves.”

Just bits and pieces of conversation, but it was enough to start building a picture—one that Stonewall did not like. Not one little bit.