Aliens: Bug Hunt

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  INTRODUCTION by Jonathan Maberry

  CHANCE ENCOUNTER by Paul Kupperberg

  REAPER by Dan Abnett

  BROKEN by Rachel Caine

  RECLAMATION by Yvonne Navarro

  BLOWBACK by Christopher Golden

  EXTERMINATORS by Matt Forbeck

  NO GOOD DEED by Ray Garton

  ZERO TO HERO by Weston Ochse

  DARK MOTHER by David Farland

  EPISODE 22 by Larry Correia

  DEEP BACKGROUND by Keith R.A. DeCandido

  EMPTY NEST by Brian Keene

  DARKNESS FALLS by Heather Graham

  HUGS TO DIE FOR by Mike Resnick and Marina J. Lostetter

  DEEP BLACK by Jonathan Maberry

  DISTRESSED by James A. Moore

  DANGEROUS PREY by Scott Sigler

  SPITE by Tim Lebbon

  AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES

  BUG HUNT

  READ ALL OF THE EXCITING ALIEN™ NOVELS FROM TITAN BOOKS

  ALIEN: OUT OF THE SHADOWS by Tim Lebbon

  ALIEN: SEA OF SORROWS by James A. Moore

  ALIEN: RIVER OF PAIN by Christopher Golden

  THE RAGE WAR by Tim Lebbon:

  PREDATOR: INCURSION

  ALIEN: INVASION

  ALIEN VS. PREDATOR: ARMAGEDDON

  THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATIONS BY ALAN DEAN FOSTER

  ALIEN

  ALIENS™

  ALIEN 3™

  ALIEN: COVENANT™

  ALIEN: COVENANT – ORIGINS

  ALIEN RESURRECTION by A.C. Crispin

  THE COMPLETE ALIENS OMNIBUS

  VOLUME 1

  VOLUME 2

  VOLUME 3

  VOLUME 4 (June 2017)

  VOLUME 5 (December 2017)

  VOLUME 6 (June 2018)

  VOLUME 7 (December 2018)

  THE COMPLETE ALIENS VS. PREDATOR™ OMNIBUS

  THE COMPLETE PREDATOR™ OMNIBUS (January 2018)

  ALIEN ILLUSTRATED BOOKS

  ALIEN: THE ARCHIVE

  ALIEN: THE ILLUSTRATED STORY

  THE ART OF ALIEN: ISOLATION

  ALIEN NEXT DOOR

  ALIEN: THE SET PHOTOGRAPHY

  ALL-NEW TALES FROM THE EXPANDED ALIEN UNIVERSE

  B U G H U N T

  EDITED BY JONATHAN MABERRY

  TITAN BOOKS

  ALIENS ™: BUG HUNT

  Hardback edition ISBN: 9781785655777

  US paperback edition ISBN: 9781785654442

  UK paperback edition ISBN: 9781785655784

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781785654459

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: April 2017

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  TM & © 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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  To Ridley Scott and James Cameron.

  Thanks for taking us out into the big black

  and scaring the bejeezus out of us.

  And, as always, to Sara Jo.

  INTRODUCTION

  BY JONATHAN MABERRY

  On a beautiful spring day I drove from Philly to New York with a movie projectionist buddy of mine to see the premier of a new film by Ridley Scott. We had only ever heard of the director from one previous piece, the period drama The Duelists. No idea if the guy could handle a science fiction flick. Mind you, this was years before Blade Runner. No one knew who Scott was. And no one knew what his new movie, Alien, was going to be like. All we’d seen were the trailers.

  My buddy ran the Alien trailer every day for weeks and he was convinced it was going to be good. I was skeptical, having been disappointed in most recent science-fiction films and was, frankly, hoping for another flick like Star Wars.

  We settled in, both interested but jaded. We’d seen every flick and thought that nothing could do more than form the basis for a critical discussion. We never expected the movie to have punch.

  Or, rather, to have bite.

  It was a packed house on a matinee. Outside it was a sunshiny New York afternoon.

  Suddenly we were in outer space. Aboard a rusty old piece of junk freighter. Far away. And in real trouble.

  The tagline of the film was: “In space, no one can hear you scream.”

  Well, they sure as hell could hear people scream in that damn theater. Everyone. Every. Single. Person.

  Me, too… and I’m a hard sell. I’m a big guy. I was working as a bodyguard back then. Tough as nails. My buddy had seen every horror flick ever made. We were the film critic guys, not the rubes who would jump, and yell, and yelp, and cry out at cinematic monsters.

  Except that’s what happened.

  That movie scared the hell out of us. Nothing had done that since I saw Night of the Living Dead when I was ten. And because it scared me so badly I did the same thing with Alien that I’d done with Romero’s zombie flick. I stayed to see it again.

  Over time I got to know those characters. I read Alan Dean Foster’s rather brilliant novelization. I read the comic adaptation Heavy Metal published. I bought the damn calendar. I was hooked.

  I even watched every cheap knock-off of it, hoping for something that would approach the blend of intelligent storytelling, subtlety and excitement. I never found another movie that came close.

  Until the summer of 1986.

  James Cameron hit us with Aliens. Not a remake, as so many sequels are. And not an inferior follow-up. A masterpiece. Another masterpiece. Brilliant and different. Where Alien was a horror movie set in outer space, Aliens was a war story set in space. Like the first movie it relied on the talent of a rich ensemble cast of character actors. Like the first movie it paved new ground. Like the first movie it scared the hell out of me. In all the right ways.

  Since then there have been more sequels and prequels. There have been comic books. There have been tons of novels. And there have been video games. The world of Alien has grown and continues to grow because it’s captured the imagination of the public while at the same time respecting their intelligence. That’s a hard balance.

  Of all the movies, though, my personal favorite is Aliens. I loved the story of the Colonial Marines. Apone and Hicks, Hudson and Vasquez, and all the others. I even liked Gorman. Kind of.

  The camaraderie between those marines was one of the inspirations for Echo Team, the Special Ops shooters in my bestselling Joe Ledger weird-science thriller series.

  Several of my author friends have done superb novels set in this world. Alan Dean Foster did the first three books, knocking each one out of the park. The late—and much missed—A.C. Crispin did Alien Resurrection. There have been a lot of others, including some by contributors to this anthology, Yvonne Navarro, Christopher Golden, James A. Moore and T
im Lebbon.

  I’ve long wanted to suit up and go into battle with the Colonial Marines. A couple of years ago I was in London having dinner with the publishers of the Titan Aliens novels, Nick and Vivian Landau. I mentioned that I wanted to do an anthology set in this world. Not the meta-world of the whole Alien franchise, but specifically the world of the Colonial Marines. They put me in touch with in-house editor Steve Saffel, and we closed a deal.

  Which is when I got to play. I made a wish list of who I thought could write the absolute hell out of short stories of soldiers going into battle against aliens. Not just against the Xenomorphs, but other kinds of aliens featured in the movies and related books and comics; no, this book also contains stories that pit the Marines against all sorts of otherworldly threats. The Marines have a catch-all nickname for any alien that wants to turn humans into brunch: bugs. Hence the famous line from Aliens.

  HUDSON: Is this a stand up fight or another bug hunt?

  There are all kinds of bug hunts here. Against Xenomorphs and against critters that don’t even have a name yet. Scary things that lurk in the dark. We went on the premise that it’s a large, weird, dangerous universe filled with creatures who aren’t warm and fuzzy E.T.s and who don’t necessarily want to share. And who are looking for a hot lunch.

  I thought it might take me as much as a month to fill my roster of literary gunslingers to go hunting with me. Ha. It took me about two days. You see, I’m not the only writer out there who’s been itching to tell a story in this world. Not only did I get enough commitments for a thick, delicious collection of stories… once the news got out that I was doing this book I had to turn down a couple of hundred pitches.

  Yeah. Nice.

  So, Aliens: Bug Hunt.

  The stories here are all different. They range from pure adrenaline-fueled action to introspective human dramas to the deeply weird. As the editor of the anthology I got to read them first—and there is a greedy little joy in that. As a fan of the genre I feel like I’ve been invited back into the world of Xenomorphs, corporate greed, kickass action, heroics, horror, and the kind of dark magic that is particular to this kind of horror-based science fiction.

  These are grand tales of heroism, cowardice, struggle, betrayal, remorse, and the cost in human terms of taking up arms against unknown foes. Some of these tales fit easily into the existing canon of the Alien/Aliens franchise. Other stories won’t necessarily be considered canonical, though—they’re farther out on the edge, suggesting that it’s a bigger, darker, stranger and more dangerous universe than any of us think…

  So, grab your pulse rifle and let’s go hunting.

  Enjoy!

  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?”