Alien Read online

  “Out here,” Kenyatta said, “fresh produce is worth its weight in gold.”

  “Twice that,” Sid added.

  “And you didn’t give a damn,” Kenyatta finished.

  “That’s because we didn’t have anywhere to store it on the Manticore,” Tamar replied, “and that made it worthless, at least for us.”

  “You didn’t even try,” Kenyatta said. Tamar remembered how Juan, Kenyatta, Sid, and Lia had tossed around ideas for preserving the produce. The stupidest—offered by Lia—had been to jury-rig the cryo-sleep chambers to act as makeshift refrigerators.

  “So I didn’t have an orgasm, seeing a hold full of greenery,” Tamar said. “Juan decided I was… what?” She knew the answer, of course, but she needed to keep playing the part until she could figure a way out of this situation.

  “He figured you for a spy,” Sid said.

  “Looking for stuff she could bring to her employers,” Kenyatta added.

  “Juan took me and Kenyatta aside and told us of his suspicions,” Sid continued. “Not Lia, though. She’s too soft-hearted, and Juan figured she’d give you a heads-up.”

  Smart move, Tamar thought. Lia hated conflict among the crew, and functioned as their self-appointed peacemaker. There was an excellent chance she would’ve told Tamar about the captain’s doubts.

  “So what did Juan tell you to do?” Tamar asked. “Keep an eye on me?”

  “He copied us on any orders he gave you,” Sid said. “That way we could make sure you did what you were told—or not—and report back to him.”

  “If we caught you doing anything naughty,” Kenyatta said, “he told us to stop you any way we thought was necessary.”

  “Juan didn’t order you to take anything back to the ship—let alone a stasis pod,” Sid said. “So when we heard the pod’s motor…”

  You knew it had to be me, coming down the corridor, Tamar thought. Lia wouldn’t leave her post, and Juan would bring the pod to the bay, where we’d load it all at once. That was why Juan had come to the captain’s cabin—to check on her. He’d suspected her of being a spy—correctly, as it turned out.

  She was glad she’d killed him.

  It made sense, now that she thought about it. Juan, Kenyatta, and Sid had been stiff toward her over the last few weeks, although Lia had treated her the same as ever. She hadn’t thought much of it, though. When people spent a lot of time together in cramped quarters, they tended to run hot and cold. Especially given the… intimacies involved. She’d thought that was all. She’d been wrong, and now that mistake might cost Tamar her life.

  “What’s in the stasis pod that’s so special?” Kenyatta demanded. “Must be damn good to make you risk moving it onto the Manticore by yourself.”

  “And where the hell did you think you were going to hide the damn thing, once you got it aboard?” Sid said. “It’s not like we have a ton of extra space to…”

  Understanding came into his gaze.

  Kenyatta figured it out then, too.

  “You weren’t planning to hide it, were you?” the woman said. “You were going to leave us here, weren’t you?”

  This was it. One or both of them would take a shot at her in the next few seconds. Tamar could sense it. If either of them had been closer, she would’ve gone on the offensive, but this wasn’t an action vid. Even the most skilled martial artist was no match for a gun, let alone a pair of them—and while she was fast on the draw, both Kenyatta and Sid would get shots off before she could pull her gun clear. She wasn’t helpless, though.

  Looking at Sid, she let out a long sigh.

  “I guess the jig’s up, partner.”

  Sid’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Partner? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “There’s no point in pretending any longer. Juan’s a smart businessman, though. Maybe we can make a deal with him, get our bosses to cut him in on the action.”

  “Our bosses?” Sid’s eyes practically bulged from their sockets, and Tamar wouldn’t have been surprised if he had an embolism in the next few seconds.

  “What are you saying?” Kenyatta looked from Tamar to Sid and back again, brow furrowing. “You and Sid are both spies?”

  “That’s bullshit!” Sid protested. “Don’t listen to her! She’s just trying to confuse you to save her ass!”

  “Listen, you sonofabitch.” Tamar’s face clouded with faux anger, and she took a step forward. “I’m not going to let you do this to me. If I’m exposed, you’re exposed. Got it?” As she said this, she moved her left hand to the omniscanner on her belt, keeping her gaze fixed on Sid.

  Kenyatta looked back and forth one more time, then trained her gun on Sid.

  “Maybe we should go find Juan and let him sort this out,” she said.

  Sid’s face went red with anger and frustration.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” he said. “You’ve known me for what now? Six, seven years? This bitch is trying to divide so she can—”

  Tamar chose that moment to tap a control on the omniscanner. The stasis pod whirred to life and began spinning in circles. Kenyatta’s and Sid’s attention was immediately drawn to the machine, and in that instant Tamar drew her pistol and fired.

  She shot Sid first, then Kenyatta. They were fast, sloppy shots, and she didn’t have time to aim. The bullet that hit Sid struck him in the throat, and the one that hit Kenyatta got her in the left shoulder. Before they could fall, Tamar stepped forward and quickly shot each of them between the eyes. The two pirates hit the deck and lay still as blood began pooling around their bodies.

  Tamar tapped the omniscanner once more, and the stasis pod stopped moving. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. That had been a close one.

  Her comm device chirped.

  “Tamar? You there?”

  It was Lia.

  “I’ve been guarding the crew for almost two hours now, and I haven’t heard from anybody. Is everything okay? I’m starting to get a little worried.”

  Tamar gazed down at the dead bodies of her former companions as she took the comm from her belt and raised it to her mouth.

  “Everything’s fine.”

  * * *

  It would take twenty-three days for Tamar Prather to reach Jericho 3. Not so long that she really needed to enter cryo-sleep, but she had nothing to occupy her during the trip, and she didn’t feel like sitting in front of the flight console watching data that never changed.

  She wasn’t concerned that the Proximo would come after her. The damage done by the Manticore’s rail gun had been extensive—enough so that they’d require replacements parts unlikely to be kept on board. And even if they managed to get the ship space-worthy again, they wouldn’t have the tracking equipment needed to follow the Manticore’s ion trail. Besides, the Proximo didn’t have any weapons worth noting.

  That didn’t mean she should throw caution to the wind. The first thing the Proximo’s captain would do, once Lia released her from the brig, was send out a distress signal. Then she would send a message to Weyland-Yutani. If the pod contained what Tamar thought it did, the company would do everything possible to retrieve it, and they had ships that were more than capable of tracking her. With weapons that made the Manticore’s rail gun look like a pea shooter.

  So she charted a roundabout course that avoided standard shipping lanes. Otherwise, she could’ve reached Jericho 3 in a week. Setting the call sign on the Manticore to change randomly every few hours, she programmed the light engines to cycle down periodically to break the ship’s ion trail. She doubted these precautions would be necessary, though. Space was fucking huge, and the odds of anyone finding the Manticore before it reached its destination were, not to make a pun, astronomically small.

  Still, she’d survived this long in the spy game by being careful to the point of paranoia.

  Securing the stasis pod in one of the Manticore’s hidden compartments, she stripped down to her underwear, slathered cryo-gel onto h
er body, and slipped into one of the cryo-chambers. It sealed with a hiss, and within moments a familiar deep drowsiness came over her. As she sank into darkness, she thought about the bonus she’d get from Venture, and fell into cryo-sleep with a smile on her face.

  2

  Aleta Fuentes walked down the corridor with a brisk, no-nonsense stride, gaze fixed straight ahead, features set in a do-not-talk-to-me expression. She was the director of the V-22 facility, and as such, everyone wanted to talk to her, to ask for something, complain about something, or—most often—curry favor. It was one of the main reasons she only left her office when absolutely necessary. She hated interacting with people.

  Most of them weren’t as smart as she was, and they almost always made her job harder than it needed to be. Not for the first time she wondered how she’d ended up in an administrative position, given her dislike for working with inferiors. But she was an employee of Venture, and one did as one’s corporate masters wished, if one wanted to advance. Since she hoped one day to become a master herself, she’d accepted her appointment with as much grace as she could muster.

  She ran V-22—colloquially known as the Lodge by its workers—with determined efficiency, but she knew that doing an excellent job here wouldn’t be enough to distinguish herself in the view of her superiors. She needed to do something more. Something special. She needed to pull off a bona fide fucking miracle, and if what Dr. Gagnon had told her was true, it looked as if she was on the verge of just that.

  V-22’s focus was on the development of new and improved space colonization technology. The first wave of colonists had already moved out into the galaxy, but they were merely a drop in the bucket for what was to come. They lived in small groups housed in cramped space stations, or equally cramped planet-based facilities, but soon larger missions would be looking for opportunities beyond the world of their birth. More ambitious settlements would be established—villages, towns, cities, and eventually entire nations. The future colonists would need better ships, better facilities, and better tools to help them survive, let alone work in the hostile environments they would encounter.

  Venture intended to be the number one supplier of these needs, outcompeting all others, including the almighty Weyland-Yutani. Of course, Weyland-Yutani had a habit of buying out any corporation that came close to becoming a threat, but Aleta didn’t care about that. Their salary would spend just as well as Venture’s.

  At a shade over five feet, Aleta wasn’t a physically imposing presence. She was fit but not rail thin, as were so many people who lived and worked in space. Conservation of resources was vital to survival, and that included food. She wore her black hair short, and used only minimal makeup, just enough to achieve an enhanced “natural” look. Most of Venture’s personnel wore the gray coveralls that served as the facility’s unofficial uniform. As chief administrator, Aleta was encouraged to dress the same way in order to visually demonstrate that there was no real difference between rank-and-file employees and management. She thought this was human resources bullshit, though, and wore a navy-blue suit jacket over a white blouse, with navy-blue slacks and less-than-stylish black flats. She liked to look good, but she wasn’t a fanatic about it. Although she would have liked the couple extra inches heels would have given her.

  The complex was practically gigantic as planet-side facilities went, with five interconnected buildings and a staff of nearly six hundred. It was an old cliché that people were the costliest resource in business, but it was true, and doubly so off-world. There had to be air, water, food, and livable environments. Humans were fragile creatures, biologically unsuited to the harsh and all-too-often deadly conditions of space, and keeping them alive was damned expensive.

  Venture had been too ambitious when it built this facility, and so far the corporation’s return on its investment had been modest. If the situation didn’t improve—if V-22 didn’t start generating significant profits—there was an excellent chance the facility would be shut down and its staff either relocated or, if they proved to be less than essential employees, let go.

  This situation, unknown to most of the staff, put her in a precarious position. She wanted the Lodge to be a stepping stone to bigger and better things, but if the facility failed while she was in charge, she’d be blamed, regardless of whatever factors were in play. If that happened, she’d be lucky to get a job cleaning lavatories. V-22 had to be a success. If she wanted to climb Venture’s corporate ladder, she needed to accomplish something that would make a big impression on her superiors and, ultimately, the board of directors.

  This latest acquisition might be the answer to her prayers.

  Aleta heard the sound of someone jogging down the corridor, and she turned to see Tamar Prather coming toward her. She groaned inwardly. This was the last thing she needed, but she put on a coolly professional smile as the woman reached her and came to a stop. There was a slight sheen of sweat on her forehead, but she didn’t appear winded. Aleta told herself that she needed to work out more.

  “I went to your office to see you, but you weren’t there,” Tamar said. “Your assistant told me that you were on your way to Research and Development, so I started running, hoping I could catch up to you.”

  “And you succeeded,” Aleta said drily. “What can I do for you?”

  The question wasn’t necessary. Aleta knew damn well what Tamar wanted—the same thing she’d wanted since she’d landed the Manticore on the planet.

  “Your assistant told me that you’re planning to speak with Dr. Gagnon. Dare I hope that he’s ready to share some information about the bio-specimen, so you’ll finally authorize my payment?”

  Aleta made a mental note to fire her assistant the moment she returned to the office.

  “I believe so,” she responded, “although he didn’t say. I’ll be sure to keep you apprised of whatever information he gives me, though.” She gave Tamar a cold smile. “Provided, of course, the company doesn’t consider it classified. I’ll have to run it through the proper channels, and if—”

  “I’m not really a proper channels kind of person,” Tamar said. “Too many hoops to jump through. I’m more of a let’s get shit done girl. Since I’m already here, why don’t I go with you to Gagnon’s lab? That way you won’t have to deal with the hassle of proper channels. It’ll save us both some time.”

  Aleta didn’t like Tamar. As a rule she disliked spies, although she understood their usefulness. Corporate spies had no loyalty, though. They worked for whoever paid them the most. Their allegiances were temporary and liable to change at the slightest shift in the breeze. Aleta believed in the sanctity of the contract. Once you signed with an employer, you gave them everything—mind, body, and soul. So long as the contract remained in force. Once it was terminated, all bets were off.

  People like Prather—freelancers—were unpredictable, and because of that they weren’t trustworthy. More than that, Tamar got on Aleta’s nerves. She was pushy, persistent, and altogether unpleasant. More than any bullshit about proper channels, that made Aleta want to deny the woman’s request. Before she could, however, the woman spoke again.

  “There are a lot of people who would be interested to know about the specimen,” Tamar said. “Especially Weyland-Yutani. I’m sure they’d love to know where their ‘lost’ property turned up.”

  Aleta considered calling Security and having Tamar thrown in the brig, but she knew it was pointless. The woman would already have considered that possibility, and have a contingency plan in place. Perhaps an automated message that would be sent to Weyland-Yutani if she found herself behind bars. The threat wasn’t a bluff.

  She let out a long sigh.

  “Fine. You can join me.”

  Tamar smiled.

  “If you insist.”

  * * *

  An electronic tone sounded, indicating that someone was at the door. Millard Gagnon was on the other side of the large room, watching data stream across a terminal screen. Without looking up, he spoke to
his assistant.

  “Please let the director in.”

  Brigette wasn’t any closer to the door, but she nodded, walked across the lab, and pressed a button on the wall keypad. The lab door slid open with a soft hiss of air, and Gagnon looked up from his work to watch Aleta Fuentes enter. This was expected. That Tamar Prather accompanied her was not. Gagnon wasn’t distressed by this, however. He liked it when things were unpredictable, even downright chaotic at times. Order might be comfortable, but chaos provoked change, and change provided opportunities. Change was unpredictable, messy, and at times dangerous, but as far as he was concerned it was the only reliable way to move forward in life. So he gave both women a smile as he left his terminal and went to greet them.

  “Welcome, welcome!” he said, shaking each of their hands in turn.

  Brigette closed the door, then turned to regard their visitors with an interested, if dispassionate, gaze.

  Gagnon looked nothing like the stereotype of a scientist. Yes, he wore a white lab coat over his equally white shirt, but otherwise he seemed more like a miner or someone who worked with heavy equipment. He was a big, rough-looking man, tall, broad-shouldered, with a loud, deep voice and thick black hair and beard. He’d been told he was handsome, but there was something in his brown eyes that bothered people. A cold detachment that—as a former lover once told him—made them think of a predatory insect. The description hadn’t bothered him. In fact, he’d taken it as a compliment. It was this detachment that made him good at what he did.

  Brigette didn’t look the stereotype of a scientist, either, any more than Gagnon. She was a Venture Corporation synthetic, originally created for human sexual gratification, and as such, she had been designed to be physically appealing. She was slim, small-waisted, large-breasted, with fiery red hair that reached to the bottom of her back. Her lips were full and lush, and her green eyes were striking, almost seeming to glow with an inner light. Like Gagnon, she wore a white lab coat, but it did nothing to disguise her figure.