Chapter Text
For the life of her, Shoko could never understand why every assignment she’d ever been given in Siberia always happened to be in the depths of winter.
She flexed her fingers. Her suit kept her core temperature from dropping too much but, as usual, her extremities were a lost cause.
Twenty minutes late.
She rolled her eyes. Whoever they had bribed to reprogram the facility’s ventilation system had obviously been given a different schedule.
The mission had seemed fairly simple on the face of it: infiltrate a low-priority Weyland-Yutani research facility, bypass their security, and steal a high-value piece of tech. They hadn’t given her any more information than that, just some cryptic assurance that she would know it when she saw it. In her experience, that meant whatever it was they wanted was either alien or illegal. Maybe even both.
She had been dropped off about fifteen kilometers out to avoid any potential long-range sensors, although she seriously doubted a place like this would even have them. Her enhanced musculature had eaten up the distance with its usual nerveless efficiency and Shoko had managed to cover it in a little over forty-five minutes, a personal best if she wasn’t mistaken.
Yay me.
Now, she was perched about twenty meters up in a sprawling pine tree, lazily flipping through LiDAR spectrums on her HUD.
So far, there had been no patrol drones, no security detail, no abnormal heat signatures.
The silence of the forest was a bit unnerving, just the wind through the pines and a sporadic clicking sound from a nearby tree, meters off to her left. It was a dry, rhythmic sort of sound, reminiscent of a woodpecker, but heavier, more substantial.
Initially, she had dismissed it as a local bird or the wood contracting due to the cold. But the cadence was oddly deliberate.
The thermal signature of the roof’s ventilation hatch shifted. The seal had just been broken, venting a plume of white steam into the frigid night air.
Fucking finally.
She got to her feet, choosing to stay high as she picked her way through the tree cover with unnatural ease, navigating the swaying limbs with almost no sound.
The facility loomed in the clearing ahead of her, an ugly squat building constructed on the bones of a much older site.
By now, she knew this specific layout almost by heart. Weyland’s architectural department had become progressively less imaginative over the last two centuries or so, recycling the same five or six floor plans for almost every lab they constructed.
Someone had told her it was to make the logistics of bioweapons research and development easier. But, probably more importantly, it made it easier for employees to evacuate when their test subjects inevitably escaped containment and started killing everyone.
Shoko had always been more cynical. Obviously it was to cut costs. Everyone knew Weyland didn’t give a shit about its employees.
She realized when she reached the edge of the treeline that the clicking noise had returned, closer this time. Almost as if it had followed her.
She looked in the direction of the sound, allowing her pupils to dilate and shift her view of the dark woods to something more high-contrast. She scanned the neighboring trees for anything out of place. Nothing.
If there is something out here with me, I don’t really want to find out while I’m all the way up here.
Either way, she didn’t have time to look for the source of the noise, even if she wanted to. She quickly looped her safety tether around the tree trunk and aimed her grappling line at the vent housing on the facility’s roof, letting the winch yank her across the clearing.
She sprinted across the roof and dropped into the open shaft, closing the grate behind her before crawling through the narrow duct work to the third floor office she had chosen as a starting point. Based on the schematics, it seemed logical to start in sub-basement one.
Before stepping into the hallway, she activated her suit’s RF scrambler. If she moved slowly enough, it would hopefully interfere with any security cameras in the hallways.
At the door to the stairwell, she swiped the spoofed ID card she had been provided, hoping it wasn’t a dud like that other time.
She sighed when she heard the door click and the indicator light flick from red to green.
As she descended, she picked up the sounds of voices a few flights below. Two researchers were coming up the stairs. Shoko pressed her back against the wall and held her breath, letting it out when a heavy metal security door slammed shut one floor below her.
It really was just a skeleton crew as the intel had said. But the emptiness felt odd somehow.
At the door to the first sub-basement, she froze when she noticed through the glass panel in the door that the lights were on. The lights in this area were motion activated after 6pm and on a one-minute timer. If they were still active, someone had been through here less than a minute ago.
Her gut told her to wait until they turned off. Give whoever had moved through here before her time to get further ahead so she wouldn’t run into them. But she knew it would be better to go through this area now rather than trigger the lights again.
She took a breath and pried the heavy door open.
The hallway beyond was a dimly lit, sterile white tunnel at this hour. She kept to the shadows as much as possible, ducking into the first door on her left that appeared to be some kind of reception office.
The terminal on the desk inside was active, the screen illuminated with its most recent query.
Someone had just been here. Shoko frowned and looked closer at the screen, feeling the blood drain from her face as her brain processed the words written there:
Yautja - Specimens and Artifacts: Labs 156-157.
Yautja.
She hadn’t seen that word in years, not since her time at the facility on Titan nearly six years ago. Her memory of that time was foggy, permanently clouded by the combination of painkillers and crippling illness from the cocktail of viruses and mutagens the staff had injected her with.
The oblique assurances she'd been given that she would know what to look for suddenly made sense. A part of her had always wondered if they knew exactly what she had seen in the labs on Titan. This was confirmation enough. And, they knew she would remember enough.
Someone had just been in this room and, of all things, this was what they had searched for.
Well, this is ominous.
Still, she had come this far, there was no point turning back now. It was a bridge she would just have to cross when she came to it.
Gritting her teeth, she decided to press on, moving methodically from room to room towards Lab 156.
The two rooms were directly across from each other. Lab 156 appeared to be more focused on biological samples based on what she could see through the glass and the biohazard markings on the door.
Lab 157 was more promising. She could make out the tables inside with various artifacts laid out for cataloguing.
She was about to swipe her ID when she noticed the door was already ajar.
Frowning, she scanned the room for any occupants. When she saw none, she pushed the door open and stepped inside, her eyes darting from table to table, a growing sense of urgency now prodding her forward. There were too many coincidences for her to disregard.
All she wanted was to grab whatever she came here for and get the hell out.
As she stepped closer to the center of the room, the little hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
If she didn't know any better, she would think someone was in the room with her. While she didn't see anyone, it felt as if something was lingering just on the periphery of her vision. But, when she looked directly at it, there was nothing.
Get your shit together, Shoko. You're imagining things.
She forced herself to focus on the task at hand, her gaze finally landing on the far table. Some kind of wrist gauntlet was sitting there, its buttons and symbols pulsing with a faint, red glow.
That had to be it. It was the only thing that made sense given the other items here.
She reached out to pick it up, immediately aware of a prickling sensation on the back of her neck.
The presence from earlier seemed to loom closer.
The air beside her suddenly curdled with a rapid click-click-click.
She froze. Before she could react, a massive, invisible hand closed around her throat.
Gasping, she clawed at the unseen wrist as she was lifted off her feet.
She dangled for a second before being thrown out of the room like a rag doll, colliding with the door of the lab across the hall. The doorframe groaned, the reinforced glass spiderwebbing into a mess of cracks behind her.
She slumped to the floor, desperately trying to pull air into her lungs. Gritting her teeth against the ache in her ribs, she pushed herself upright, leaning against the door for support.
Her eyes searched the lab’s doorway for the invisible assailant until she finally caught a subtle rippling of the light.
Shoko launched herself at it with all the strength she could muster.
Her forehead collided with an abdomen that felt like warm stone, her arms wrapping around a pair of narrow but solid hips. She heard the breath leave him in a sharp huff of surprise as he sprawled backwards, hitting the tile floor with a metallic thud.
But she had landed badly, pinned between his thighs.
She scrambled to create some distance. A heavy hand swiped downward, snagging the fabric of her hood and jerking it away as something sharp sliced across her face.
A sharp sting bloomed in her left cheek. She reached up absently to touch it, eyes widening when her hand came away wet with blood.
He has claws.
She summoned all her strength and rage, lifted herself off his body, and drove her fist into his crotch. It was like punching a brick wall with almost the same effect: he had zero physical reaction. But she winced at the pain that coursed up her arm.
Her eyes widened when she caught the sound of a low rumble in his chest, amplified and distorted as if he was wearing a mask of some kind. But the rhythm of the sound was unmistakable.
He was laughing.
She growled, twisting to find leverage, driving her elbow down as hard as she could into what she assumed would be his abdomen. Again, it seemed to hurt her far more than it did him, the shock of the impact vibrating up her arm.
Apparently, she had only managed to irritate him because two seconds later, a massive hand found her stomach. With terrifying, casual strength, he scooped her up and tossed her backward.
She sailed through the air and crashed into a wall of shelving. The metal groaned and buckled from the impact.
She managed to push herself clear of most of the debris that fell but still had to curl into a fetal position to shield herself, groaning as something heavy and sharp landed squarely on her ribs.
A hush fell over the room as the dust settled, only to be broken by the sound of her own wheezing and coughing.
Pushing herself into a crouch, she clutched at her side. Judging by the way it now burned with every breath, she was fairly certain a couple of her ribs were broken.
She glanced around to see where her attacker had gone, eyes going wide when she spotted the gigantic humanoid figure now visible in the middle of the room.
Whatever cloaking tech he had been using was failing. His form flickered with an orangey-red glow in the darkness. He didn’t seem concerned as he casually tapped a sequence of keys on his forearm. With a beep, he became solid.
Shoko's mouth fell open.
He was huge, easily seven feet tall, maybe more, his head nearly touching the ceiling. A metallic-looking mask concealed his face. Dark tendrils spilled over his shoulders and down his back. He was dressed in sparse, ornate armor covering his thighs, chest and one shoulder, with gauntlets on each forearm, just like the one she had come here for. She thought she could see some kind of ranged weapon on his left shoulder.
The second he saw her flinch, his left arm flexed, and two long, jagged blades hissed out of the gauntlet on that arm. He moved almost faster than she could see, closing the distance between them in less than a second.
Shoko dropped down to try to slide between his legs and clear his reach.
She almost made it.
But, in an instant, the world stopped moving as a crushing pressure stopped her momentum and pinned her to the floor. The impact drove the air from her lungs.
She looked down at the source of the pressure, blinding agony erupting when she realized he had driven his wrist-blades through her shoulder into the floor below. The top of his fist pressed into her collarbone, holding her in place.
She bit her lip until it bled, glaring up at him and trying her best not to scream.
He was down on one knee with his entire center of mass positioned over her like a cat pinning a bird. When he retracted the blades, she did scream, the sound tearing itself from her throat as warm blood began to soak through her suit.
She tried to scramble away, her boots slipping uselessly on the floor. Too much of his weight was on top of her to move.
He watched her squirm for a few seconds, his head tilted curiously before seemingly coming to a silent conclusion. A distorted huff of what sounded awfully like resignation emanated from his mask.
Shoko would swear she saw him shrug his shoulders before reaching down and seizing her by the throat once more. He dragged her off her feet and slammed her into the wall.
He held her with her feet dangling, eye-to-eye with her for just a second before she summoned what was left of her strength to bring her feet up and kick him square in the chest. The sudden force was enough to loosen his grip just slightly, allowing her to wrench herself free and drop to her feet.
She grabbed her knife and drove it deep into the gap between his ribs.
He let out a deafening roar that shook the room as she twisted the blade and yanked it free. Subconsciously, she noticed the glowing neon green blood staining the blade, before stabbing him again, rewarded with another outraged roar.
On the third stab, she saw her opening and lunged toward the center of the room, snatching the gauntlet from the floor before bolting out into the hallway.
The floor vibrated beneath her feet as he pursued her.
At the end of the hallway, she skidded to a halt. Three distinct dots danced across the far wall in front of her. She turned around as they settled squarely on her chest.
He was standing about fifteen feet away, the weapon on his shoulder glowing with a building blue charge.
With a gasp, she dove away seconds before he fired, a flash of blue light momentarily blinding her.
A wave of intense heat grazed her side, the force slamming her into the wall and knocking the wind from her lungs. Searing pain radiated through her torso. She looked down at her right side. Her suit had been nearly vaporized. Along her right arm from her elbow to her shoulder, the skin beneath it was charred black.
She nearly gagged as the smell of burnt flesh hit her nose.
At this point, adrenaline was the only thing keeping her upright and she knew that wouldn't last forever. It was only a matter of time before she started to go into shock.
Her eyes focused enough to see him walking towards her, apparently no longer in much of a hurry now that he'd nearly crippled her.
Wheezing, she struggled to her feet, clutching the gauntlet to her chest with her left arm and forced herself into a run. If she could get to the stairs, maybe she could buy herself some time, although she was starting to wonder about her chances.
A few feet from the stairwell door, the air behind her shifted and a foot caught her ankles. Her feet were swiped out from under her, sending her face first into the floor.
Her forehead cracked audibly on the tile. Moaning, she rolled onto her back, stars dancing across her vision. Warm blood from the gash in her forehead seeped down her face and began pooling in her ears.
Before she could move, the lead weight of a foot on her chest pinned her down.
He loomed over her, a metallic spear in one hand. If he was toying with her before, his posture was different now.
This was the end.
Through the throbbing pain in her head and the slow creep of unconsciousness starting to muffle her perception, voices and hurried footsteps echoed from the hallway behind him.
She tried to lift her head towards the sound. The alien’s mask tilted in the same direction, his focus on her broken.
Before either of them could react, there was a burst of electrical charges in the air. The first buried itself in the alien’s torso and the second sank into his thigh.
A roar ripped from his throat as they discharged. Shoko gasped as the current coursed through his body into hers.
The last thing she felt before darkness took her was the sensation of her muscles being locked into an agonizing seizure and the stubborn determination that she was not going to die here…and neither was he.