Prologue 8 page

In the front of the room, alongside her podium, was a table where the big shots in the mission sat, ready to support her in her explanations. Grant. A few of his scientists. Some crew members.

"These killers, these reprehensible aliens, have just got their claws and their blood and their teeth and their incredible powers of survival as weapons..." She paused for impact. "Our ignorance is their primary weapon, and I hope to diffuse a little more of that with you today."

The soldiers all looked entranced. Hanging on her words. These people had been briefed on xenos before, but now they greedily lapped up the information she was presenting. She was familiar with the phenomenon. When you were a soldier, you could act as macho and as confident as you wanted to—but if you didn't listen and absorb every ounce of information handed to you, you could find yourself dead. Smart soldiers learned to listen. These grunts were smart and capable. Quirky, maybe, but she'd gone through the choices with the command herself, and not one of these people didn't belong here.

Too bad about people like the captain, Grant, and his castle of Frankenstein scientists. But then, if she had control over everything, pfft! The aliens would be instant slag, and Peter Michaels would be back.

Anyway, she had some interesting information here.

Her theatrics at the beginning had probably not been necessary, but she liked to put a little pizzazz into the proceedings.

She began with the parameters of the mission.

"Quite simply, people, as much as I'd like to say all this is perfect and noble in our mission, it's not. We're going to a planet which is the origin of the xenos in this sector of the galaxy. We'll be using a specially fitted lander. People, we've got the latest in technology at our disposal. Basically, we're going in to do a robbery. Now, ultimately I have no doubt this will be in humanity's best interest so take whatever nobility you can from your participation here. However, what we're up to here is the biggest heist of queen mother jelly in history."

Jastrow waved an excited hand. "Why?"

"Officially, I can't tell you. You're just supposed to do what you're ordered to do. Unofficially, though, I don't give a shit." She grinned. "Xeno-Zip."

An excited buzz sounded in the meeting room.

"That'swhy Daniel Grant is here," someone whispered.

"Heck, I use that stuff," another said. "It's great."

"That's right, people," said Kozlowski. "We're on a glorified drug run. Take my word for it, though. I'm personally assured that it will make someone a great deal of money—"

Laughter.

"And maybe even help the human cause as well. In any case, be assured. We're taking the Alien-Earth War to the source, and we'll most certainly kill lots of xenos in the process. Call it hard-core vengeance if you like. Call it just another job. In any event, we're here together so I can provide you with some information and equipment designed to preserve your sorry lives."

Quickly she rattled off some of the basics about the xenos, their behavior, their attack patterns, individually and in groups. She summarized what was known about the Hiveworld, and what the main hive itself looked like, from the information provided by the previous expedition. It was all like a mantra, and she ticked off the info, point by point.

"Now then. As for the interior of the hive..." She thumbed the projector to a prepared setting, kicking in the holotank in the corner.

Like some magician she conjured up a vision from the depths of Hades.

Here was the familiar bowellike tomb, ropey with intestoid projections and ridged with tubing, bumps, and alien growths, organic in the very worst and most frightening sense. All hellishly lit in orange and yellow. In the central portion of this chilly sight squatted a huge bulblike protuberance, like a half-planted flower bulb. However, instead of bright and colorful plumage, from its pustulelike side it sprouted tubings that connected to other, slightly smaller bulbs.

And from its top, like Mephistopheles happily squatted atop a pile of his own excrement, rose a gently swaying royal giantess.

An alien queen mother.

"All right." She snapped on a cursor-blip pointer and guided it over to the central sack. "What we have here is a quite realistic computer animation suggesting what we might find in the alien central chamber, once we locate it.

"This is where we'll find that royal jelly that Mr. Daniel Grant has sent us after," she said.

Grant, seated at the table in a position similar enough to the chairman-of-the-board's attitude to make him comfortable, leaned back, hands behind the back of his neck. "That's right. And if you can trap a queen mother, that would be okay by me."

"Trap?" said Private Jastrow, a little dubiously.

"It's been done before," assured Private Ellis.

"Sounds awfully dangerous!" piped Private Mahone, looking quite doubtful about the whole enterprise.

"Private—this whole trip is dangerous. You knew that when you volunteered. Anything involving these things is dangerous..." Kozlowski stepped up the magnification threefold, focusing in upon the queen. "Alice in Wonderland time, people. Listen up. We're going in the hive, and pulling this stuff out. Along the way, we will not be delicate. In any event, be assured... we've by no means come here to preserve the species. Kill all the creatures you want," she said brightly.

Easy laughter.

"So then, let's cook up a little preliminary strategy on how you pry open a bug hive, shall we?"

With the aid of more prepared graphics, she delineated the technology, science, and tactics that would allow a group of marines to storm a nest of the nastiest monsters in the universe.

"So... basically—guns, guts, and lots of luck!" she said. She paused for a moment as her people tried to assimilate her words.

She let them twist in the wind for a moment as a parade of aliens wilted before the onslaught of cartoon marines. The blasts from the heavy millimeter carbines tore through the heads and carapaces, splashing splinters of alien exoskeleton hither and thither along with gobs of alien blood that fell upon the marines and the scene like cancerous amoebas.

Kozlowski froze the animation.

"What's wrong with this picture?"

Jastrow raised a tentative hand. "Wishful thinking?"

"Yes. Fantasy, perhaps. Only showing the aliens eating marines wouldn't exactly be the best way to raise your morale, would it?"

"Not particularly, no," mumbled Ellis.

"Wait a minute," said Henrikson. "All that alien blood on the troops. It doesn't seem to phase them. That stuff makes toxic waste look like cotton candy."

Kozlowski snapped her ringers. "My man! Exactly!"

"What about the acid blood?" said Edie Mahone. "Can you tell us something about that?"

"Some good news for you all there. We do have something special for you. Something that's going to buck your morale right up." She smiled. "But first, let me remind you it's still very important that at close distance you try and avoid the torso. The splatter potential is quite bad. It's best to go for the knees." The cursor in the air flew to one of the strong and knobby alien lower joints. "As many of you have already discovered, a shot to the knee will not only hamper the alien's mobility... but such a wound also minimizes bleeding and spatter potential. A discreet coup de grace to the head at that point is made possible. But then, of course, if you haven't actually been in battle with the things, you've at least had simulation chamber experience... save perhaps for Mr. Grant."

"I'm hardly going to exactly participate in the mayhem, now am I, Colonel?" said Grant.

"As you've never handled a gun before, I hope not..." said Kozlowski dismissively. "Now then... I've kept you all waiting long enough..." She pulled out a com unit. "Thank you, Doctor, for waiting in the wings. You may come out now, and by all means bring your assistant with you."

She turned to the audience, most of whom were on the edge of their seats with suspense.

Kozlowski turned quite serious.

... Michaels, his head molten and sizzling, skin sliding from naked skull...

She suppressed the memory.

"I know the blood issue is of great concern to all of you, so I'm happy to present an innovation that should all but do away with your fears."

Yeah. Right.

Pep talk. Maybe that's what she'd given too much of to poor Peter. Maybe if he'd been properly scared shitless and quaking in his sweatsocks, he wouldn't have had to act like the Big Man and gone to that trap.

She swallowed down a dry throat, resumed.

"For more on that, I turn you over to Dr. Zato."

Dr. Zato, one of Grant's squids.

The man waltzed into the room like a stand-up comedian just called on to do his act. He was a toady little guy, who blinked as though the light was too much. Receding hairline. High IQ dandruff.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said in a high, munchkin voice, "I give you your next best friend—"

The assistant walked into the room, slowly, clearly a little weighted down by what he wore, but not uncomfortably so.

Armor.

"Here it is, folks. The Z-110 Acid-Neutralizing Combat Wardrobe."

The assistant wore a streamlined, snazzy-looking jumble of plates, silver and blue in hue. A combination of insect and tortoiseshell. On the back was a compact storage unit. A narrow-visored helmet fitted snugly over his head. An antenna angled out of the back.

Kozlowski had seen it before, but the sight of it still impressed her.

And if it could do what Doc Z. claimed—well, all the better!

"Efforts to produce an armor resistant to the intense acidity of the alien blood have proved impractical."

Ellis waved his hand, got called upon. "Yeah. I always wondered about that. We've got the chemical composition of the alien's exoskeleton down cold. That isn't eaten up by alien blood, clearly. And it's light enough. How come its elements aren't used for armor?"

"Well, that would be all very good, Private, if you'd care to be encased in a toxic suit."

"You can't make an alloy... or have that stuff as the uppermost layer?" insisted Ellis.

"Incompatible. What we have here in the aliens is a different kind of chemistry. Part carbon-based, part silicon-based—and maybe something else."

"But we're starting to learn to use their DNA."

"Fooling around with genes and chromosomes doesn't necessarily mean we've got everything solved, Private. These things are still mysteries wrapped in enigmas. Believe me, your suggestions have been tried." He shook his head patronizingly. "Just doesn't work."

"So there was some kind of armor that wasn't affected by the alien blood?" said Mahone.

"That's right. But it was too heavy. Now if we were working in low-gee environments, maybe. Such is not the case on the Hiveworld. These suits were already in the works when this mission was established. We tailored the batch we brought along just for this occasion—with all your specific measurements in mind."

"No chance to return these, huh?" said Jastrow.

"That won't be necessary, I assure you. What we've got here is a new process, but we've been testing it for years, and we've got it down exactly."

He went over to the suit and poked the side of the arm.

The surface gave.

"What we have here is a light, effective armor, covered with a permeable membrane controlled by a mechanism in the back of the suit. It's kind of like having the whole suit engulfed by a friendly jellyfish that will grow back immediately if hit. Its function is quite useful.

"Before, the suits that worked were too heavy. Therefore what we have here is a self-contained osmotic demi-atmospheric suit that does not resist, but extirpates."

He poked the suit again.

"The moment alien blood touches this wardrobe, the threat is eliminated altogether."

He took a vial marked ACID from his pants pocket, twirled it open, and poured drops onto the shoulder of the suit.

The top layer frizzled, bubbling.

Kozlowski had to make herself watch.

The bubbling was only for a moment, though.

Fluid welled, swallowing the acid.

The membrane closed up the hole within moments, and it was as though the acid had never been.

"Yeah, but how tough is that stuff?"

"It's a form of plastic, and it can be cut... but it's even better than skin... it naturally re-forms into its previous mode within seconds, and chemically rebonds itself. A healing process, if you will."

"What about inside. I mean, we haven't exactly been trained in those sort of suits," said another man.

"That's one of the beauties of the things. In all details, the interior, the articulation, and the booster servos of the suits are identical to what you all have been trained to use. The other aspects are self-regulating. Maintenance will be needed, of course, but only after an encounter with the enemy. I should emphasize that this armor isn't perfect. It will wear out, though it should stand up during battle. Nonetheless try and avoid any alien blood you can. Don't go wading in it." He nodded to his assistant. "Go ahead. Let them have a close look."

The man strode around the room.

The soldiers poked and prodded the model.

"Goddamn. I'm going to feel like rubber-boy!" said Ellis.

"This is going to give a whole new twist of the saying 'Bouncing back!' " suggested Jastrow.

"Okay," said Kozlowski, after giving them a couple of minutes to handle the merchandise. "You'll all have the opportunity to get used to these suits in special exercises we have planned every day for the remainder of the journey. But for now, listen up! 'Cause this is how we're going to use these things."

And she told them.

One drink down.

Two more to go.

"Another glass of bubbly, my dear?" said Daniel Grant, pulling the bottle out of the thermo-adjuster and tilting it even as he asked the question.

"It is awfully delicious—but..." said Edie Mahone, holding out her hand.

Glug glug glug.

The quite large glass filled with bright, dazzlingly effervescent fluid.

"Of course you will. You're off duty, you need to relax, and we've got three whole days before your mission," said Daniel Grant. "Our mission!"

He refilled his own glass with the double-strength champagne. Damned good thing he was feeling generous with his team on the Razzia. He'd fitted them out with his own concept of hardship supplies. Hell, if they had to go to the other side of nowhere to suck some bug juice from some god forsaken planet, at least they should do so in style. Now, he was reaping the rewards of his own munificence.

"Well, if you insist. I know your time is valuable and I hate to take it up by asking you really silly questions. But I have been following your career, and I do have more questions."

Somehow the alcohol seemed to have unlocked this woman's pheromones. She smelled good, damned good, and Daniel Grant breathed her scent in greedily. Of course she wore no perfume—a ridiculous and foolish luxury for a person on a highly unglamorous journey in a tin can through space with a bunch of males. That didn't make any difference. Hell, he was tired of perfume. What he had here before him was the dangling, rounded hair and breasts and lovely limbs of a full-blooded woman.

His last date had hardly been fulfilling. And the gritty details attendant to moving the Razzia and himself toward hyperdrive and hypersleep had pretty much put a hold on his appetites. But as soon as the sleep-rheum drained from his head, he immediately became aware of how horny he was. The incident on the shuttle made him naturally think of Private Edie Mahone. After Colonel Kozlowski's briefing, he'd suggested that after evening mess she might like to stop by for that promised drink. He always enjoyed talking to fans about his career, and he was quite upset about the gross inaccuracies of that trashy book about him, and wanted to set some things straight—

... uhm, so to speak.

Two to go.

He'd sized her up. She was a three-drink girl. In two drinks she'd be pliable. Three she'd sit closer, lean those dark eyes toward him, let that sweet, fresh, scrubbed scent of her dart in for a kiss.

Then snap! like a patient angler fish, he'd swallow her up for a delicious hour or so, and then spit her back out. They'd both be happy, sated, and better able to deal with the grim realities before them.

She brought the topped-off glass up to those full, moist lips and drank half the glass in a couple swallows. He was impressed and gleeful at this. "My, but this is wonderful stuff."

"My own special vintage!" said Grant. "You're one of the few people who've actually tasted it!"

"Goodness! Then I shouldn't be so shy, should I? I don't want to be impolite when I'm so privileged!" With that, and a down-the-hatch determination to her face, she took the large glass and swallowed the rest of it.

That had been a very large portion. This, perhaps, would be very short work!

"Yes, right." In a moment she'd probably have to step off to his private toilet and he'd slip the last bit of liquor into her glass. He had to play it cool though now. "You were asking me about my youth?"

Edie Mahone had an odd expression on her face. She seemed not to be listening to him, just in a kind of trance.

"Edie? Edie... are you all right?"

"Mr. Grant..."

"Daniel..." he said. "I told you, you can call me Daniel."

She got quiet. She closed her eyes.

Hmm, thought Daniel Grant.

Maybe two glasses of the old id-tickler was all that was necessary!

He scooted closer.

"You know, Edie... We're basically just two people... a man and a woman with needs... out in the middle of nowhere... We should comfort one another, the way that normal human males and females do..."

Edie Mahone snorted. She sniffed, and the straight line described by her lips crumpled into misery. Tears dripped from the corners of her eyes.

"Oh, Daniel..." she mewled, and then dissolved into a quivering mess onto him, arms wrapped protectively over her abdomen. "I don't know what I'm going to do..."

"Uhmm... Edie... what's wrong?"

"I made a terrible mistake. I never should have come along on this mission. It just seemed like the right thing to do at the time. I just wanted to be light-years away. Light-years from him."

"Him?"

"Chuck!"

Chuck. Oh, yes. A boyfriend. The usual story.

Grant began to stroke her back comfortingly. He could feel her muscles relax. Oh, yes, this was going to be soooooo easy!

"Tell me about him?"

"What's to tell?" she said in a monotone voice. "Love with the wrong guy. He was in my troop. Started sleeping with our lieutenant. No way to compete. Only thing to do is to ship out. Chuck wasn't going to. So I'd tested high in all necessary categories, I've got the skill and the experience. And now the reason. But now that I wake up here... Now that I see those pictures, I remember what it was like, the one actual nest experience I had." Grant could feel her shudder. "It's worse than cold and forbidding out here. And those things. They're worse than devils."

"There, there, dear. I know how you feel." She was wearing a green fatigue shirt with buttons down the front. He slowly unbuttoned the top one.

"I know you do. I can feel it. You're really a sympathetic man, a good man... beneath that hard, caustic surface. I could tell that... even in the book."

Another button.

"You're a very special woman, Edie... You deserve comforting." Another button. He could see a fleshy swell of bare bosom, held in check by a tan bra. Out here in the harsh and cold of space, it struck him as one of the most erotic sights he'd witnessed.

He slipped his hand inside her shirt. Soft, warm, pliable.

Ah!

She said nothing. She hardly seemed to notice, wrapped up in her own misery.

Maybe she didn't really want this. Maybe she'd just let him have his way, like a trusting lamb, helpless before the slaughter. Maybe he really shouldn't take advantage of this vulnerable soul this way...

Bullshit, he thought, remembering his personal philosophy. Plunder while the plunder's available.

"You know, Edie, I can't think of anything more soothing than if we gave each other hot oil massages. You'll feel much better. Now let me just help you off with this scratchy old uniform and then—"

There was a pounding on the door.

Private Edie Mahone jumped about a foot in the air, eyes going wide. "Who's that?" she said, pulling away from his embrace.

"No one! I'll get rid of them!"

She stuffed herself back into bra and fatigues, sobering up in record time.

"Grant!" called a too-familiar voice. "I know you're in there. Answer the damned door. There's something wrong with your comm unit."

"Colonel Kozlowski!" said Mahone, jumping up and away from Grant's grasp for her. Quickly she ran into his toilet to straighten herself out. She turned back and gave Grant a harsh you're-just-like-the-book-says-you-are look. Then, in a rush of indignation and alarm, she was gone.

Pound. Pound."Grant. We need to talk."

Daniel Grant had to take a deep breath and straighten his pants as much as possible. Calm yourself. The bitch doesn't need any kind of salute from you.

Then he got up and hit the door hydraulics. It slid open, and characteristically Colonel Kozlowski just stormed on in. "You know, with only three days to go, you can't expect to just hole yourself up."

"I was having a conference. Getting to know our troops," said Grant, rearing up to every inch of six feet two.

She glared at him, not buying his attempt at dominance for a moment. "Troops?"

"Private Edie Mahone. She's in the bathroom. She was having a few doubts about the mission."

Kozlowski raised her eyebrow. "Oh, yeah—?"

Edie Mahone came out of the head, looking perfectly composed and professional. "Thank you, Mr. Grant. You've been a real gentleman, but I have to go now..."

"Mahone. Why aren't you studying...?"

"Free time, sir. I can use it according to my discretion. Permission to leave, sir?"

"Permission granted," said Kozlowski in a disgusted tone. She didn't even watch as the private departed, a study of healing wounded dignity.

Grant felt mightily vexed.

Sexual frustration piled upon a direct intrusion upon his privacy by a woman wearing confrontation over her head like a storm cloud.

Back on Earth, had this situation arisen, so might have the infamous Daniel Grant temper. A rant, a rave, a metaphorical chomping off of the head. Employee or associate, pressman or president, it would make no difference. Grant would have made mincemeat of them.

He could feel it burbling up, steaming through his capillaries. One little vent was all it would take, and the explosion would blast.

However something gave him pause.

Something odd aglint in this feistmeister of a woman's eye. She did present a fetching figure in those skintight duds she wore. And if you got past the cropped, patchy hair, the defiant lack of softening makeup, and those scars she wore like medals...

If you turned down the lights a bit and smudged a little with mind and imagination, this Kozlowski bitch was really quite the looker.

He looked at her. He looked at the unopened bottle of champagne in its cooler slot. He looked back at her, suddenly oily with cordiality.

"Well, Colonel. As long as you're here—"

The gall!

She looked at him as though he'd just opened his zipper and wagged his privates at her.

The unmitigated gall!

"No, Mr. Grant. I will not have a glass of champagne with you!"

Daniel Grant stepped back as though she'd blasted a breath of fire at him. "You don't drink."

"I drink. That's not what I came here for, though."

"You don't like champagne. I promise you, you'll not taste better. Besides, Colonel... We're three days away from Death leering at us. Carpe diem. Seize the day!"

She wasn't sure why she was so annoyed at his offer. He was right. She'd pretty much finished most of her tasks for the day anyway, and the Colonial Marines were unfortunately not a military navy force known for packing away kegs of rum onboard for the officers.

She'd been working hard for three days. Her mouth was dry. And here was some high-quality, rich man's champagne being offered to her. She hadn't had a drink in weeks, and she could feel her tastebuds and her nerves, falling to their knees and begging her to accept the offer.

She told them to go screw themselves.

"I'm here, Grant, to officially request that you allow me to tour the levels assigned to your scientists on this mission. In the interests of the success of our journey, I feel the need to know everything going on in this ship."

Grant nodded. "Ah. I see. This, despite what your superiors told you. To wit: that is not your territory of concern."