Alien - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Transformation ❯ Chapter 5 ( Chapter 5 )

Transformation

 

Chapter 5

 

Consciousness weaved in and out between bouts of pain. His vision blurred distorting like heat waves forming a mirage. There was a sharp crack of melting metal. He knew hew was hurt badly, but paralysis had set in. Now he could only feel himself bleed and fade away. Peripheral vision became dark nothingness. All he could see was a tunnel directly ahead of him. The hull of the ship had been ripped wide open and beyond that gaping tear was an endless expanse of desert. Sand dunes rolled like waves in his failing vision. He was tumbling in an ocean of sand lost and confused. The air strangled him with ropes of heat. He could barely make out the wind from the sharp hisses, rapid footsteps around him and a sudden nausea from being moved. Finally consciousness itself failed.

 

Memories expunged themselves twisting and melting into one another. Blood stained walls, carnage, everything that was wrong. Arthur was there, a spectator in a coliseum. It was a horrifying circumstance to be both calm and accepting of the situation. The slate was wiped clean; the memories faded from view leaving a familiar half alien, half human room of his dreams.

 

An alien hand promptly bitch slapped Arthur.

 

“The hell is wrong with you?!”

 

The alien hissed nearly crushing Arthur with a hand to his throat. It snarled and a lion's roar escaped its throat.

 

“We almost died!”

 

The alien began to hyperventilate with anger. It released Arthur carelessly onto the floor and slammed a fist through the familiar center table.

 

“We almost died. I almost died! Don't you have any will or self preservation?”

 

The alien breathed deeply catching its breathe to calm its fury.

 

“I hate her. That damn Queen… Why did you go to her?”

 

Arthur had no answer. He had probably been too shocked out of senses. He could claim innocence from horrors with calm acceptance of his own frailty. But he refused to accept any reason other than it was his fault and his fault alone. Guilt hurt and even as a victim he could not deny that emotion as clogged his heart and choked his thoughts.

 

“She cannot control us, oh no. Heaven forbid, I become a slave to that creature. But she's persuasive. All we need is one moment of weakness, and she'll strike! Bend us slightly to our will, change our very fate with a light touch to our mind.”

 

The alien began pacing madly shaking at each thought. Arthur stood still silently swaying to his own shock. Burdened by the crushing weight of his mistake, his faint hope to cure himself could have been dashed by a towering monster. It tore at his very mind that he had almost given so easily to his instincts. He felt the weight of a thousand tons of worries, and fears, and anger, and trauma bear down on his soul. God, the massacre! A swirling mist faintly tainted the room becoming liquid darkness. He felt helpless. Helpless that he could not have done anything to save those people. Helpless he did not even try.

 

“The hangar incident still got you down, buddy? C'mon! They were at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

 

The room seemed darker now and more foreboding. Was this the same room he remembered from his dream. Was his own subconscious mind playing tricks on him? The alien was brimming with vitality and anger. A little more than half the room had been consumed by the alien covering. The swirling mist became a thick polluted fog that guttered and whirled as the alien stepped through it.

 

“Who gives a damn!” The alien laughed hysterically. “It was their fault, Arthur. Leave it be. They died. They're dead. It's done.”

 

No. Arthur's eyes narrowed as he felt his strength return to dispel the fog. This was far from over.

 

 

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Location: Earth

 

The static display flickered over and over again constantly repeating the same clip, a space station's last furious moments. Time stopped and rewound. The station again guttered as an explosion consumed the interior incinerating everything in its path, the final eulogy to the dozens dead onboard. The screen paused right as the flames burst through the hull of the station magnifying a distant speck of nothingness. The image enhanced itself becoming crystal clear and unmistakable to those watching. The speck went from unremarkable to impossible.

 

“That, is the standard life raft.”

 

The lights turned on abruptly revealing the box like conference room lined with high ranked men and women, the Board of Directors. They were mostly weathered by internal politics of the Company and the weight of their daily issues. All except for their leader who stood proudly in front of the oblong, mirror-like conference desk. He was a tall elderly man, hair silver stricken, and a voice that held power and respect. He had aged like fine wine while his partners aged like stale cheese. Light reflecting off Earth and cast the ambient light through the three clear windows of the room. The eerie glow that invaded every corner of the room was dramatically highlighted in the reflective mirror like desk polished to absolute perfection.

 

“Do you see any problem with a life raft being launched at this time.” He stood firmly in front of the display awaiting the answers of his fellow board of directors.

 

“That's impossible. Other than Dr. Nolan and Dr. Lorne, no one made it off the station to LV-786.”

 

The conference room became a cacophony of arguments and noise that all stopped instantly with a wave of the man's hand. He turned and opened the only door to the hall letting in a statuesque woman who took her seat at the end of the table. Pull out her briefcase and pulling out all manner of small computers and stacks of small pamphlets and leaflets. She seemed to glow with the ambient light in the room as she spoke. She was very young, perhaps in her mid twenties, and could have easily passed for a grand daughter of the Board of Directors. Professionally dressed in a business suit, she had sort of ageless beauty stemming from her European background. Her dark blonde, almost brunette hair, was tastefully secured into a French braid.

 

“Now we know,” he began again drawing the attention away from the newcomer. “No one made it off that station after Dr. Nolan and Lorne. No human being did. We-”

 

The speaker was abruptly cut off as the woman's briefcase took this time to spill its contents all over the floor.

 

“Oh! Sorry!” She hastily picked up all her items nervously brushing off the irritated side glances of the Board of Directors. Her sudden unprofessionalism betrayed the fragile nature of her disguise. Amongst possible war mongers, greedy and selfish sycophants, and questionably powerful individuals in the known universe, she was a sheep in wolf's clothing. It was as if a casual wind would reveal her insecurities and her frail humanity like curtains hiding a tragic crime scene.

 

“I'm sorry. Please…” She straightened out her business dress. “Please continue.”

 

“Oh don't worry, Dr. Haley, we need you more for your expertise that your balance.”

 

The Board chuckled lightly at her expense.

 

“Now back to the subject at hand, no human being could have gotten off the station within a few minutes of the self destruct. The last transmission revealed all human personnel were dead. We know who… what… made it off that hunk of steel. Whether it was by accident or purposeful, I don't know. But what I do know, gentlemen,” The man's voice rose in fury with every word. “I do know a fourth of the Company's investments are lying in ruins on that desert planet! Dr. Lorne may have betrayed us, but Dr. Nolan was foolish enough to make the situation worse. Dr. Haley, if you please.”

 

“He's right,” she responded before standing up to distribute several small leaflets of information. “Dr. Nolan was supposed to send us the latest nanite build when he landed his ship at the terra-forming plant. He did not. The current nanite builds we have do not work as Lorne has reported. We have reason to believe, Lorne has been sending us outdated models; builds that that are half working. Possibly sabotaged.”

 

The board grumbled in outrage.

 

“Nolan has not responded since this situation escalated. Most importantly, his ship last reported minor damage from entry.” Dr. Haley nervously coughed as the entire Board of Directors focused their attention on her. “It's very possible that they are still hold up in the old terra-forming plants and secondary labs on LV-786. If the ship was damaged in entering the atmosphere, there would be no one light years around to fix it.”

 

The leader of the board of directors smiled lightly.

 

“Thank you, Dr. Haley. It seems we were right to request your expertise. This is the reason why I have requested your presence here.”

 

The board of directors grumbled to themselves as they all focused on Haley.

 

“How long did you work with Dr. Lorne before he was transferred?”

 

“About five years on his nanite research. I was an assistant at the time gaining valuable experience in the field.”

 

The man smiled again before calling in another person in the hall. The newcomer was dressed in a highly decorated military uniform. It was almost impossible to determine his ethnicity, and he remained unreadable. His piercing brown eyes told nothing. He looked more machine than man chiseled from steel. Perfect in character and foreboding strength, he was equally out of place as Dr. Haley in the Board of Directors. But whereas she was weak and kind, he was strong and uncaring. If any emotion could escape from his lips, it would be of cold anger and furious brutality.

 

“As you all may know,” the newcomer spoke gently but managed to shake the room with his voice. “I am General Sherman and I will be in charge of this `rescue' mission.”

 

A member of the Board of Directors spoke harshly.

 

“General, I would like to know how you can handle the situation any better than your previous disasters with these creatures.”

 

Again the General spoke lightly weaved with hidden hostility.

 

“I will handle this matter personally. I will handle this matter under my direct control. Other times, my command has been compromised by your actions endangering the mission. This situation has, by your actions, exploded out of control and now I am going to fan the fires. I cannot do that if outside interference, lacking knowledge of military tactics and common sense, keeps forcing me to lead suicide raids.”

 

The member who spoke up abruptly stood down. It was eerie how Sherman's voice was almost monotone lacking a certain humane grace.

 

“That is right, this will be my mission. Unlike the previous situation, we are not going to run in like idiots. This time, I want enough men and firepower to solve any problem. We will burn bridges and scorch the planet if I have to. Most importantly, Dr. Haley here will accompany us on this mission planet-side to retrieve Dr. Lorne.”

 

Said Doctor coughed loudly as she almost swallowed her tongue. She immediately rose to her feet in indignation.

 

“You can't be serious! Those things are killing machines! I saw the records! What if they're alive! I never fired a gun; never used a weapon in my life. I'll be slaughtered…”

 

“Calm now, Dr. Haley. Not only are you best we have to an expert of Lorne's nanite technology, but you personally knew him. Dr. Nolan has not responded when he had to and therefore, the worst case scenario, Dr. Lorne has forcefully taken over. We are wasting far too much time. Get your bags packed we will be leaving early tomorrow.”

 

General Sherman removed himself from the room leaving a gaping Dr. Haley sputtering behind him.

 

“But, but, I cannot… I mean… there's no way… that.”

 

The leader calmly placed his hand on her shoulder.

 

“Don't worry Dr. Haley, General Sherman is an expert and will not put you in any sort of danger. But he is our best chance of completing this task. No one else has the experience he has.”

 

Dr. Haley left the meeting into the non-descript halls of the space station orbiting Earth clutching the stack of papers that had fallen out of her briefcase to her chest.

The halls broke way to windowed observation rooms surrounded by a endless stars and a daringly beautiful Earth. She walked slowly captured slightly by the visage. The Earth silhouetted her figure highlighting her frail beauty, her worries, her fears, and her determination. But after years of staring out into the same wonders as a minor perk to her research, she walked on.

 

“What have I gotten myself into?” She muttered to herself. The papers clutched to her chest took this to slip from her weakening grasp slightly wet from hounding fears and humble tears.