The early morning air was biting, and the mile hike had done little to warm him. The massive cone of the atmosphere processor stood cathedral-like before them, its peak reaching up into the grey sky. Even the lower archways of the ancillary cooling towers stretched out over a hundred metres above his head, while the weak sun struggled to penetrate the ugly black clouds that were already forming. McKenna had never been this close to it. An oppressive, ever-present feature that dominated the barren landscape, only now did he truly appreciate the scale.

  The hike had taken longer than expected. An unpaved “road” for vehicles ran back and forth between the processor and the outpost, but Sloan had insisted on avoiding that. Too obvious, and while he did not think the Marines were specifically monitoring it, the boss wasn’t taking any chances. The jarheads also weren’t the only things they had to worry about.

  Their boots were unnaturally loud as they marched up the south ramp towards the main gate. The sound reverberating off of the durasteel walls, and he found his eyes drifting across the ledges and dark crevices. Suddenly the hair along his arm rose and a cold chill ran down his spine. It was nothing to do with the weather, and nothing to do with the intimidating scale of the processor. It was the stillness. Despite all that had happened, this was still a working installation, yet it felt long abandoned. He could not explain it, but he could not shake the feeling that they were being watched.

  “McKenna,” barked Sloan, snapping him back. “Get your head back in the game, and get the door.”

  “Right,” he said, shaking his head. “Sorry, boss.” He stole one last upward glance, but there was nothing there. Punching the door controls, the huge door rose with a clatter and they quickly filed inside. Instinctively, he closed the door behind them. It was a flimsy barrier, but he nonetheless felt better to be on the other side of it. Relieved to be out of the cold, the entrance, though hardly warmer, felt more like a street than a corridor. Easily wide enough to drive an APC down, with a three-storey-high ceiling and walls covered in a maze of old pipes. The anaemic light of the overheads reflected off of the wet concrete floor, providing barely enough to see by.

  “Form up,” said Sloan as the men huddled round, flicking on torches. “Cohen, this is your show. What’s our next move?”

  “This whole station is one big fusion reactor. So, I’ll need to disengage the magnetic confinement coils and direct the coolant loop—” Cohen began, but Sloan cut him off.

  “Skip the jargon. Give it to me in plain English.”

  “I need to get to the Control Room. Should be up on Level 25,” he explained, tapping his datapad.

  “We’re really doing this,” McKenna muttered under his breath.

  “We’ve been over this,” snapped Sloan. “You don’t want to be a part of this? You can stay here with the rest of them.”

  McKenna felt his jaw tighten as he fought the urge to protest.

  “The problem is the backups,” Cohen continued, breaking the tense silence. “As soon as I override the system, the emergency venting will kick in. That’ll keep the reactor going maybe another four hours. Long enough for the jarheads to reestablish control. I’ll need someone to manually disable the safeties.”

  “Where?” asked Sloan.

  “Sub-Level 3. Right under the primary heat exchangers.”

  “What do they look like?”

  “You’d know them if you saw them. Engineering crews have to disengage them for maintenance. Look for a big handle on an electrical junction box. They’ll be clearly labelled and probably locked. There’ll be six. One under each cooling tower. You need to hit all of them,” Cohen explained.

  “You sure you can pull this off?” asked Sweeney, who had been quiet until now.

  “Gimme ten minutes in that control room, and I’ll make this reactor get up and dance,” said Cohen.

  “Hang on,” McKenna interrupted. “Once we light the fuse, how much time do we have?”

  “Without emergency venting? An hour, give or take,” said Cohen with a shrug.

  “What if we have to abort?” McKenna asked.

  “No such thing. Once I hit the override, it initiates a cascade failure. No brakes on this crazy train.”

  Great, McKenna thought. At least thirty minutes to get back to the main hangar, and at least ten minutes to prep for launch. They would be cutting it damn fine.

  “We better move fast then,” said Sloan, seemingly unperturbed, although McKenna knew he was doing the same mental math as he was. “Cohen, you take the Control Room. Palmer, Sweeney, Morse, go with him. McKenna, you’re with me. We’ll take Sub-Level 3.”

  Smart, he thought. Very smart. Apart from Sloan, he was the only other one who could pilot a dropship. He wanted to keep him close. “We’ll definitely know the safety switches when we see them?”

  “You can’t miss them,” said Cohen. “Here, take this,” he handed Sloan his datapad. “It’ll give you a map of the sub-level.”

  Sloan nodded, satisfied. “I want open comms throughout. We’ll be in and out before anyone knows we were here. As soon as you’re done, head for the landing pad. We’ll all meet there, and we all get out together.”

  “We’ll lose comms for a bit. The signal won’t get through thirty floors of plastcrete,” corrected Cohen.

  “Keep’em open anyway,” said Sloan.

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “Move out.”

  *

  The two hulking APCs growled to life, engines settling into a low rumble as they idled. The blue beams of their headlights flickering on as nearly twenty Marines cut back and forth in a well-choreographed dance. Armour was checked, extra magazines were packed, and then checked again. Two Marines hefted an additional crate of ammo for the turret guns. It may have been overkill, but Jennings was taking zero chances.

  No one was. Everyone was strung out. Bleary-eyed and exhausted, he was sure they could have slept the next eighty hours. But they were still Colonial Marines. The first ones in and the last ones out. They had all been briefed, and they knew what the stakes were. People were counting on them. One last push to get them over the line before the evac arrived. But they knew what was out there, and they were going out armed to the teeth.

  “How we looking?” he asked Molina.

  The Marine pumped the grenade launcher on his pulse rifle. “Locked, cocked and ready to rock, Sarge.”

  Jennings nodded. “I’m giving you second squad. Take the rear APC and watch our asses. Lowry, you’re with me in the lead vehicle, and you’re driving.”

  Lowry nodded. It was time.

  “Alright, Marines,” Jennings barked. “On the ready line!”

  *

  The Control Room was not what Morse had expected. He wasn’t sure what he had expected. Something grander, maybe. It was smaller than he had imagined. Less than twenty metres across, with two long banks of consoles facing a giant display on the far wall that showed an elevation schematic of the processing tower. It was mostly dark, except for the faint glow of some displays, and the sterile tang of recycled air hung in the room. It looked like it had never been used. That suited him. If they had to start executing staff, the noise would draw unwanted attention.

  “Area secure,” said Palmer, and Morse rolled his eyes. Of course it’s secure. Three days stuck in a dropship with this idiot and he was going to go batshit crazy.

  Cohen beelined for one of the consoles and pulled out a chair for himself. Morse propped himself up on an adjacent desk, foot dangling while he kept one eye on the door. Sweeney leaned back against the wall near the door, pulse rifle at a low ready, while Palmer continued to act as if he had never seen a control room before.

  Cohen cracked his knuckles. “Time to go to work.”

  *

  Sanchez’s footsteps echoed unnaturally loud in the empty corridor. With two squads leading the raid on Medical, and dozens more missing, the corridors were eerily quiet. Missing. Dead, he corrected himself. Marines under his command. It would be the end of his career, not that that mattered. He was tired. So very tired. He could not remember the last time he had slept. Thirty-six hours at least, probably more. But he would not allow himself to rest until Jennings and the rest were safely back inside, and so he found himself patrolling the perimeter like a junior enlisted. He guessed some old habits never die.

  “Colonel Sanchez to Command, please. Immediately,” a nervous voice sounded over the P.A. He broke into a jog and reached the command centre in under a minute. The small, dark room felt even emptier than the corridors outside, despite the consoles and tactical display table. Usually staffed by five or six operators at a time, now it had only one.

  “What’s the problem?” he demanded.

  “Sir, we have a breach of the atmosphere processor’s security systems. Someone is trying to hack the reactor controls.”

  “From where?”

  “Looks like…the main control room. It’s over at the processing station. Level 25,” confirmed the young man.

  “Sloan…” he growled, and rage turned to dread as realisation dawned. “Madre de Dios, he’s trying to scuttle the reactor. Lock him out, now.”

  “I can’t, sir,” said the operator apologetically.

  “Get Watson in here,” he ordered.

  “Who?”

  “The synthetic. One hand. He’s helping Doc McTaggart. Get him in here on the double,” he barked. The operator took off running as Sanchez grabbed a headset.

  “Jennings, come in,” he spoke into the mic.

  “Jennings here, sir. Go ahead,” the voice of the sergeant buzzed.

  “Change of plan. Sloan is trying to sabotage the main reactor. Processing station. Level 25. Get over there. Now,” he barked. He did not wait for the response as he stood helplessly watching warning after warning flash up on the screen.

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  “Excuse me, sir,” he didn’t hear Watson until the synthetic pushed past him and assumed the operator’s seat, his one remaining hand moving so quickly over the keys that Sanchez could barely follow the movement.

  “Can you stop them?” he asked.

  “No,” said Watson flatly. “They have on-site control. I can stall them, but I cannot freeze them out of the primary system from here.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” confirmed Watson.

  He already knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  *

  “This is taking too long,” Sweeney spoke through gritted teeth as he paced. Sloan and McKenna were probably already halfway to the landing pad. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust the boss, he just wasn’t sure he trusted him that much.

  “I’m going as fast as I can,” said Cohen, not taking his eyes off the screen as his hands furiously moved over the keys. “They’re trying to lock me out. Whoever it is, they’re good.”

  “There’ll be two dozen Marines here any minute,” he pressed.

  “Relax, we’ll be gone by then. They can slow me down but they can’t stop me. Ten minutes, tops, and we’re outta here.”

  “Let them come,” seethed Morse. “I’ve got a score to settle.”

  “Since when did you become so fucking gung-ho?” Sweeney snorted in disgust.

  “Since you became a fucking pussy,” spat Morse.

  “Whatever,” Sweeney shrugged. “I’m going for a piss.” Turning towards the door, he just barely clocked the shimmer before the twin blades punched through his eye sockets.

  *

  Morse bolted upright as he saw Sweeney impaled mid-step. Two wicked blades protruded from the back of his head as he gasped for breath, hands desperately clutching at the forearm of some ghostly apparition before his body went limp. A deafening crack and a flash of blue-white light filled the control room as a bolt of plasma slammed into the console, blowing it apart and sending both him and Cohen sprawling. His ears rang as he struggled to his feet. His skin singed and his lungs burned as smoke billowed from the fiery remains of the destroyed console.

  “We’ve got a hostile,” screamed Palmer as he fired a volley at the doorway, but hit nothing.

  Yeah. No fucking shit, dumbass, thought Morse.

  “I don’t see a goddamn thing,” said Cohen, coughing, face burned from the blast.

  Morse saw the flicker of shimmering movement just a split second before Palmer was caught by a net that took him off his feet, carrying him across the room and slamming him to the wall with a bone-rattling thud. A criss-cross of bloody lines began to appear on his forehead and across his legs, before a torrent of blood gushed down the front of his armour. The net had pulled tight under his jaw, garrotting him, his body going limp as he bled out. Fuck. Two down in seconds. He almost shot Cohen when the tech reappeared beside him, and he silently cursed him for being such an idiot. He even had half a mind to kill him anyway. Then his ears pricked up. It had stopped. The attack had ceased as quickly as it had begun, and now the only sound was the crackling of the fire and his own laboured breathing, leaving the place eerily still. He eyed the door several metres away.

  “Get behind me and watch my back,” he ordered Cohen, whispering through gritted teeth as the smoke stung his eyes. “Start heading for the door. Slowly.”

  The sound of a faint purr caused him to whirl around to face it, only for another from a different direction to do the same. It seemed to be everywhere and nowhere.

  “Morse…” whispered Cohen.

  “Shut up,” he hissed.

  “Morse, it’s got me” said Cohen, his voice trembling.

  “I said shut the fu—”

  The low purring sound came from behind, this time much more distinctive, and now punctuated by the occasional sharp click. He turned to face Cohen who stood, frozen and wide-eyed, and he saw it. The slight refraction effect in the shape of fingers wrapped around Cohen’s throat. The distortion made it hard to judge exactly where the top of its head was, but it was big.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered, as if the creature could not hear. But it did not react. He could not see any details but he could almost feel its gaze assessing him. Sizing him up.

  “This thing’s grip is like a vice,” rasped Cohen between quick gasps.

  He tensed, and although the movement was almost imperceptible, Cohen’s eyes widened when he realised what he was about to do.

  “Don’t...” he pleaded weakly as the hand on his neck squeezed harder.

  “Nothing personal,” said Morse with a cruel smirk.

  With one quick motion he brought the pulse rifle up to hip-firing position. It would be inaccurate as all hell, but at this range it wouldn’t matter. But before he could get a single round off, there was another blinding flash and thunderous roar as another searing bright blue bolt shot from the apparition’s shoulder, the steep downward angle obliterating his gun before striking him in the upper thigh. He was sent tumbling to the floor, his ears ringing as his vision teetered on the edge of consciousness. Then the smell of burning meat made him come to, and he looked down in horror at the stump of his right leg that ended in a ragged, charred mess after six inches. Too stunned to scream, he watched as Cohen’s head was twisted one-hundred-and eighty-degrees with a sickening snap, before the shape casually tossed his limp body aside.

  There was an audible beep and suddenly the shimmer materialised into a solid figure. Morse lost control of his bladder as he stared, mouth agape, at the towering nightmare figure. This was the thing that had got Carter and the boys…

  “Holy shit…” he muttered, and the yautja immediately locked its attention on him. The laser points on the side of its mask lit up, casting three red dots dead centre on his chest as an odd projectile weapon on its shoulder swivelled into place. A moment passed, only for it to seem to change its mind. The dots vanished, and the strange weapon lowered. He was still in too much shock to be in real pain, and in his daze he wondered if it had decided to spare him. Then it took a step forward.

  “No, no, no, no, no, wait, wait!” he pleaded, holding out a placating hand as he tried to pull himself across the floor, dragging his useless stump of a leg, but it effortlessly closed the gap in a few unhurried steps.

  “Nothing personal,” repeated the yautja, playing back a distorted echo of his own voice as it placed one massive foot leisurely on his head. His piercing, ragged scream was cut short as it pressed down with its full weight, and crushed his skull like an eggshell.

  *

  Sanchez watched as Watson’s hand froze, and the synthetic stared unblinking at the screen.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong, sir. They stopped,” said Watson.

  “What do you mean, ‘they stopped’?” he demanded.

  “I mean they…stopped, sir. The intrusion halted mid-command, and disconnected a moment later. It appears they have aborted their attack,” explained Watson, with the matter-of-fact calm only a synthetic could manage.

  The room felt suddenly larger, the hum of the servers filling the silence. Sanchez stared at the screen for a long moment, the words “CONNECTION LOST” flashing in red. He held his breath, waiting for the attack to resume, almost willing it to, but the screen kept repeating its ominous message.

  “They didn’t abort anything,” he said as he picked up a headset. “Sergeant Jennings, come in.”

  “Sir,” the static-filled voice buzzed in his ear. “We’re en route to intercept. ETA ten minutes.”

  “Stand down, Sergeant. False alarm. Resume your supply mission. Double-time it. Sanchez, out,” he ordered before taking off the headset.

  “Colonel,” Watson tilted his head, the faint imitation of confusion flickering across his face. That was part of his social programming; technically, he could not be confused. “That was not a false alarm. There was a security breach, and I cannot guarantee that they will not reattempt—”

  “They’re dead,” Sanchez cut him off. He didn’t need to see it. He already knew. “Thank you for your assistance, Mister Watson. You may resume your normal duties.”

  The synthetic regarded him for a moment longer before turning and leaving without another word, the door hissing shut behind him, leaving Sanchez alone in the room. He leaned on the desk, watching the blinking screen.

  “What are you planning?”

  *

  Sub-Level 3 was a labyrinth of pitch-black corridors and maintenance tunnels that branched off the main spokes like a spider’s web, and Sloan clutched the schematic like a lifeline as he pushed deeper. Truth be told, he couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but his gut told him they were on the right path. The deeper they went, the hotter it got. Simple enough. He might not have been hot shit with a computer, but he understood basic thermodynamics. The atmosphere processor was one giant reactor, and all that excess heat had to go somewhere.

  There was something else. Faint, right at the very limits of his senses, but it was there, and growing stronger. The smell. Not an industrial smell. Not metal, plastic, or oil, but organic. A sort of acrid, sickly sweetness that wormed its way into his nostrils despite its faintness. His boot almost went out from under him as he stood in a pool of clear, viscous fluid.

  “Shit,” he swore under his breath as he caught himself, and knelt to inspect the puddle. Glinting in the light of his flashlight, it looked almost like saliva…

  “You hear that, boss?” McKenna interrupted his train of thought. Sloan stood, straining his ears, but he heard nothing beyond the ever-present thrum of the processor. He shook his head.

  “Thought I heard something,” said McKenna, his eyes still locked on the ceiling above them.

  “Heard what?”

  “Gunshots.”

  He strained again, but hard as he tried he could not hear anything out of the ordinary.

  “Let’s just get this done,” said Sloan.

  “Copy that,” said McKenna. “Being down here gives me the creeps.”

  The walls began to drip with condensation, and a now constant drizzle fell like underground rain, soaking his already sweat-drenched shirt. Something must be seriously wrong with the environmental controls, he thought. It didn’t matter; it shouldn’t be much further.

  Sure enough, another few dozen metres and the corridor widened into a crossroads, with one larger corridor cutting across their path, and curving round in both directions. Both men stopped at the edge, and stared in disbelief. The opening to the junction, and everything beyond that they could see, had been transformed. Alien patterns sculpted out of some sort of secreted resin caked every available surface, forming what looked like the maw of some giant, subterranean nightmare. It was obvious what had done this.

  “Busy little creatures,” he muttered.

  “I don’t like this, boss,” said McKenna nervously.

  He held up a hand, bidding him to be quiet. Nothing. Apart from the hum of the reactor, the hiss of steam vents, and the constant pitter-patter of moisture, he couldn’t hear a goddamn thing. Silent as the grave.

  “Doesn’t sound like anybody’s home,” said Sloan, keeping his voice low.

  “Or just sleeping,” McKenna countered.

  “Works for us,” said Sloan. “It’s not like we have a choice. We do this quick and quiet. In and out, and no one has to be any the wiser.”

  McKenna nodded.

  “According to the schematics, this is one big loop. Three cooling towers each side. Keep your comm open. You go right; I’ll go left. We meet up at the north exit, and we get the fuck out of here,” said Sloan.

  “Sounds good to me,” said McKenna, sounding relieved. He was too, although he did his best not to show it. Three cooling towers. It was only a few hundred metres to the other side of the ring. Ten minutes, and they were heading to the landing pad.

  “Stay alert, and if you see one of those things, blast it,” he cautioned. “They’re tough, but they still die to bullets.”

  McKenna nodded. “See you on the other side, boss,” he said with a half-hearted smirk, and took off down the east passage, vanishing into the fog.

  Sloan set off in the opposite direction, gripping his carbine as he waded across the wet, uneven floor. Eyes scanning for any sign of movement. Within a few minutes, he found the first switch. A massive orange junction box covered in buttons and lights whose purpose he could only guess at. A large lever sat locked under a clear plastic cover, plastered with warning signs. Cohen did say he would know it when he saw it. The alien material was hard, but brittle, and snapped off easily enough. Smashing the cover with the butt of his carbine, he yanked the lever down hard with a mechanical clank, and a dozen warning lights flashed an angry yellow.

  One down. Two to go.

  He found the second switch another couple of hundred metres around the bend, and the process was equally straightforward. Nice and easy. He also didn’t get the impression that he was heading any deeper into the hive. The middle ring seemed to form the outer edge, and that suited him just fine. One switch box left. He still remained vigilant as he traced his way to the third control panel. The walls themselves seemed to pulse, and even through his gloves the resin felt slick and disgustingly warm. Deep shadows and billowing steam vents provided plenty of hiding spots for an ambush, but the hive showed no reaction to his presence. That’s it, he thought, allowing himself a hint of optimism. Sleep tight. Don’t mind us. Five minutes, and we’re out of here…

  He found the third switch box with no more difficulty than he had found the first two, but this one was fully encased in that same translucent resin. This was going to take a minute. He smashed away some of it with the butt of his gun, pulling off large wet chunks with his hands, but it was slow going, and he was making too much noise. He wondered if McKenna was having more luck. The younger man should be at the exit by now, and two of them would make this last switch go that much faster. They were so close…

  “McKenna,” he whispered into his headset. “How’s it coming? Over.”

  His ear buzzed with static. Damn walls down here, playing hell with the signal.

  “I said how’s it—” he was cut off by the sound of a hiss. Not from his headset. Not from one of the countless vents. This one was different. Low, quiet. Deliberate. Suddenly, every shadow seemed to move. The walls became black carapaces and gnashing teeth. The hum of the reactor became the heartbeat of the hive. Every sound covered the approach of a closing predator.

  He spun, carbine at the ready, as he caught the flicker of shadow out of the corner of his eye, but there was nothing there. Had there been? He couldn’t be sure. A hiss from behind, and he spun again, only to be confronted by nothing. All of his usual bravado melting away, a deep, primal chill gripped him. Fuck the switch. It was time to leave. Now. He would take his chances with the dropship. Suddenly, the hair on the back of his neck stood on end as a dark shadow enveloped him, and he felt drips of thick saliva falling on his shoulder. The acrid smell was suddenly cloying. Suffocating, and the thrum of the hive now pounded inside his skull.

  He froze as he looked down to see the black blade of a tail emerging from between his knees, curling back to point towards him as it reached his chest. Slowly, he brought his pulse rifle up, careful not to make any sudden movements. He tightened his grip, steeling himself. He could almost feel its breath on his neck, his heart hammering in his chest. He mouthed a silent prayer before spinning on his heel, pulling the carbine to his shoulder. But before he could fire, long black taloned hands clamped over his mouth, and his cheeks burned as razor-sharp claws dug deep, cutting off his scream and dragging him down into the darkness.