Maberry / Kupperberg / Abnett Aliens: Bug Hunt

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78565-445-9
Verlag: Titan Books
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 384 Seiten

The premiere short story anthology based on the movie ALIENS, featuring the Colonial Marines in deep space, doing what they do best-hunting bugs! When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it's what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt-kill or be killed. Here are eighteen all-new stories of such 'close encounters,' written by many of today's most extraordinary authors. Set during the events of all four Alien? films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe's most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing- One way or another.

JONATHAN MABERRY, creator of Joe Ledger and Rot and Ruin, is a New York Times best-selling, five-time Bram Stoker Award-winning author, editor, playwright, content creator, teacher and lecturer.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Maberry, Jonathan

Kupperberg, Paul

Abnett, Dan

Leseproben

CHANCE ENCOUNTER

BY PAUL KUPPERBERG

“Double or nothing they don’t get the tub off the ground before the next shift,” London said.

“No bet,” Gilmore said, only half paying attention to her E.V.A. companion.

“Okay, you call the time.”

“Leave me alone, London.”

Gilmore picked up her pace, springing ahead of him in slow motion arcs through the thin atmosphere and less than one-quarter Earth gravity, keeping an eye out for ground obstacles in the tall rust red tree-like growths and brown grasses through which they tromped.

One of the disadvantages of a full-suit extra-vehicular excursion was that no matter how far ahead of London she pulled, she couldn’t escape his voice buzzing in her earpiece. And listening to London was a waste of time. London just liked to talk. She didn’t know if it was a nervous habit, the natural patter of the confidence man, or because he loved the sound of his own voice—probably all of the above—but most of the crew aboard the USCSS Typhoon knew to tune out or avoid conversation with the Navigation Officer. At least those who planned to end this tour with any cash left in their jumpsuits.

“C’mon, what’s the big deal, Gilmore? Double or nothing.”

Except when forced down on an unexplored low gravity, bio-diverse planet in the Zeta2 Reticuli system for emergency repairs and paired with him for a recon to gather data for the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. It was S.O.P.; explore for exploitable resources, an order the company backed with substantial financial incentives and a call London never failed to answer.

“Double or nothing what?”

“One of us gotta owe the other for something,” he said. “When have I ever gambled with you?” she said, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

London thought about it. “Never,” he said. “Whatever. Just trying to keep things interesting.”

“Thanks, but this is interesting enough for me.”

Gilmore came to a stop at the edge of the pale grassy plain. Ahead, the grasses began to give way to a forest of impossibly tall, thin trees that rose even more impossibly high through the crystal clear air into the cloudless sky. She checked the sensorpad strapped to the forearm of her suit. Lines of many colors rose and fell and numbers flitted across the screen as the device measured and recorded every sort of environmental and atmospheric condition. Of course, none of it meant squat to the Warrant Officer, but it was all being transmitted back to the Typhoon where Science Officer Jepson would analyze it at her leisure.

Confined by her suit, Gilmore had to lean backwards to follow the lines of the great trees into the sky. “Get a load of these things, huh? Bet they’re at least twice as tall as the giant redwoods on Earth.”

“How much?” London said.

“Shut up, London.” She took a few low-gravity leaps to the nearest tree. It was a little more than a couple of meters wide, but the same low-gravity that made it possible for her to cover many times the normal distance with each step allowed that slim structure to grow to almost a thousand meters tall.

Gilmore pushed at the tree. It bent easily under her touch. “I don’t think these are trees. More like a species of giant grass. You getting a sample?”

London had already unhooked a tool and sample bag. “Ten-four. Imagine the size of the tomatoes they’re gonna be able to grow once they crack this genetic code.”

Gilmore switched the view on her visor to telescopically scan the area. “Crazy world,” she said. “Twenty-two percent Earth-grav, but it’s got an atmosphere, oxygen, water, developed flora, probably fauna.”

London carved a sliver of the rust red stalk into the bag. “Surprised there’s anything at all. Planets with gravity this low don’t usually hang on to much atmosphere.”

“Jepson said they’re rare. Something to do with orbits, rate of rotation, magnetic field, the escape velocity of oxygen… but you know, once she starts explaining, you better have a Ph.D or forget it. Hey, London! Check it out.”

London turned to see Gilmore pointing into the distance, at the forest. “Holy crap.”

They looked to be some form of aquatic life, part jellyfish, part squid, great gray and rust behemoths floating through the thin atmosphere from the cover of the giant stalks like creatures deep beneath an Earthly sea. The oversized scale of the surrounding landscape, made it difficult for Gilmore to gauge the creatures’ size by eye, but her visor read-out tagged them at sixty meters and more. There were too many to count, all moving at a good clip, their trailing tentacles emitting wispy puffs that propelled them along.

“Look at them go,” Gilmore said in awe. “They got to be doing eighty, ninety klicks.”

“Yeah, they’re sure in a hurry. What do you think can scare something that big?”

“Something bigger?”

“I hope not.”

Gilmore started to say maybe this was their normal migratory or grazing behavior when the giant stalks behind the floating creatures began to shudder and sway. The creatures responded to the disturbance by picking up speed and starting to scatter.

A black form a fraction of the size of its prey exploded from the forest, springing into the air on massively muscled hindquarters on a trajectory for one of the Floaters. The behemoth was struggling to gain altitude, its tentacles throbbing with the effort, but it was too big a target to miss. The black thing, its long tail trailing behind it, landed on its back, anchoring itself with great claws dug into its rust-colored flesh. Almost immediately, the giant thing faltered in its escape, starting to collapse like a balloon losing air. The attacker was obscured by undulating mounds of flesh, but there was no mistaking the contrails of blood and viscera that followed the great creature in its slow, spiraling descent.

Through her helmet, Gilmore more felt than heard a high-pitched vibration that made her wince. She could only imagine it was the Floater’s death wail.

“Jesus,” London whispered.

“Yeah,” Gilmore said, breathing heavy. All of a sudden, this lightweight world no longer seemed so much interesting as dangerous. “Come on. Let’s get back to the ship.”

* * *

By the time Jepson was done synching the raw sensor data with the feeds from Gilmore and London’s bodycams, the Typhoon’s Science Officer had clear images of the alien life forms and theories about both. She brought them up on the screen in the Mess, where she sat with London, Gilmore, Captain Lawford, and Executive Officer Katz.

“Let’s start with the Floaters,” Jepson said. “There’s nothing like them in the E.T. database, but the odds of there being many low-grav planets capable of sustaining an atmosphere and life at this scale are pretty damned slim.”

“I’ll give you twelve to one,” London offered to a chorus of groans.

“They’re significantly higher than that,” Jepson said, then turned her eyes on the grinning Warrant Officer. “Besides, you still owe me from last week’s poker game.”

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” the Captain said.

“I’ve worked out their mass, specific gravity, and I have some educated guesses on their chemistry, means of propulsion, etcetera. Nothing about the Floaters’ physiognomy suggests that they’re in any way aggressive. In fact, everything points to a species that evolved in a relatively benign environment, with no need to develop defensive capabilities. I suppose the low gravity favors the lighter, weaker species against an aggressor species with what one would assume would be a necessarily heavier structure to support its biological armaments. Genetically speaking, it’s…” Jepson said, starting to wander off down a speculative path before the Captain brought her back on point by saying, “You say the Floaters evolved without any natural enemies. What do you call the thing that attacked one of them?”

“An alien,” the Science Officer said. Jepson tapped her pad, changing the image on the screen from the graceful behemoth to an enlarged freeze frame of the Leaper. “It’s big by our standards, anywhere from five to seven meters, but tiny in comparison to the Floaters, and ninety-nine percent certainly not native to this planet.”

London whistled. “Man, the odds just keep getting better, don’t they?”

“Where did it come from? How did it get here?” Katz said.

Jepson shrugged. “Beats me. Tissue samples would go a long way to answering that.”

“Well, unless the Leaper ate that entire Floater, we know where we can get a sample of at least one of ’em,” Gilmore said.

“And the Leaper might have left some of its genetic material on the corpse,” Jepson said, sitting up in her seat with excitement.

Engineer’s mate Knutson stuck his head through the hatch and said, “Got a message coming in on the company comm, boss. Scrambled and urgent.”

“What...