PROLOGUE
The Ovomorph pulsed with life. Writhing within the amniotic fluid was a creature perfected by an unknown hand eons ago. Then the Yautja encountered them, harnessed them, and found a use for them.
Now the creatures were bound to the Yautja system of honor and the hunt, so thoroughly that the two species would never be separated. This egg, in all its hideous beauty, was the beginning of a cycle that would help transform a young Yautja into a strong and valued member of their society, as he or she began to fulfill their destiny.
Seeding a planet for the unblooded was the first step in the developmental process. The source of the Ovomorphs remained hidden behind various impenetrable levels of bureaucracy and wasn’t deemed necessary for those who were to become future hunters. During the down times, however, traveling between the stars, Ar’Wen couldn’t help but wonder where the creatures had originated.
Xenomorphs had been their primary antagonists as far back as any record he had found. If there was a time when they hadn’t been the Yautjas’ mortal enemies, their greatest prey, it lay beyond memory and was of no consequence. What mattered to Ar’Wen was that he was here, a shepherd of sorts whose mission was to provide for others that which they could not provide for themselves.
This planet was the fifth one Ar’Wen had seeded on behalf of the elders. Oomans called it LV-363. The Yautja identified it as a rift world because the surface was split by deep gashes, as if a giant, zealous juvenile had taken an oversized wristblade and tried to carve something into its surface. The elders had designated it as perfect for seeding, with a wide variety of fauna that included two- and four-legged mammals, including primates of sufficient size to host the embryos. It also would provide an excellent battleground for groups of juveniles who were ready to become blooded.
The rifts would add to the difficulty and create several unpredictable problem sets that the juveniles would need to overcome. Neither the juveniles nor those who were training them would know of Ar’Wen’s presence. It had taken time and effort for him to rise in the hierarchy, to the point that he was entrusted with the seeding process. Those beneath him in the training strata weren’t privy to his activities.
As well, there was another reason for choosing the rift. Senior xenobiologists on their homeworld of Yautja Prime believed that if a Xenomorph implanted a species of the local fauna—in this case the winged insectoids—a mutation might emerge. There were those who rejected the theory, but to Ar’Wen it seemed entirely plausible. The winged creatures were at the top of the planet’s food chain, and had no viable predators. The only exception was a type of microphage that strained the host’s endocrinological system, slowing its hunger and keeping it from ranging too far or killing too many of the other species.
It was as if the land itself had installed a governor on the insects’ ability to flex their superiority over every other life-form on the planet.
Setting aside his musings, Ar’Wen returned to the task at hand. His mission was always the same. Having prepared the Ovomorphs, he had located the best area for placement, seeded the testing ground, set the beacon, then returned his ship to a hidden location. Once he had accomplished the first three tasks, he opened the manifest that identified those who would participate in the hunt.
In that moment, everything changed.
Instead of leaving before the blooding began, he chose to stay.
The time had finally arrived to settle an old score.
Ar’Wen had been waiting for this chance for fifteen years, since the day that had ruined his life—the day when the one he’d most trusted had let him down, leaving him for dead, broken on a planet to which he refused to give a name.
Because of his many years living a solitary existence, Ar’Wen had become a scholar of all things relating to vengeance. Ironically, there was a phrase from ooman history that identified it as “a dish best served cold”—meaning, he believed, as a deadly surprise. The Yautja believed in the here and now, and chose to reap the whirlwind whenever the opportunity arose.
Other species he’d encountered believed that the best method to achieve vengeance was to act as if their nemeses didn’t exist, starving them of any satisfaction that might be gained from their deed. To Ar’Wen, that was a coward’s way.
No, he would have his vengeance.
He would reap the whirlwind.
Of more immediate concern, however, there were oomans present on this ugly rock. Several groups, scattered across the surface, each one appearing to be entirely cut off from the others. From what he could ascertain they were drug collectors, gathering for resale as much as they could of the pollen that grew along the upper edges of the rift, like fuchsia-colored beards. Those in charge were oomans who used their people like tools, wasting them, breaking them, and then leaving their remains like so much garbage.
That was humanity by definition. The waste of a species.
Ar’Wen hadn’t had much interaction with them, but in the course of his preparations he’d studied the records. They possessed distinct potential, and yet so many of their kind utterly lacked the willpower that would enable them to reach for anything resembling greatness. That a species would prey upon its own in such a self-serving, self-destructive fashion lay beyond anything Ar’Wen had ever been taught or believed.
Ever a contradiction, oomans had the ability to be nearly as honorable as Yautja, and some rose to the challenge. He’d seen the recordings. He’d heard the stories—yet they also had the capacity to define what it meant to be horrendous. They had yet to learn that the worst of their species would always drag down their best.
Societies were by their very definition hierarchical, with the members of each culture grouped into castes—and there they should remain. Yet instead of seeking to become perfect within their own appropriate niches, oomans tried to claw their way to the next level.
A waste of time and destined to fail.
Here was a host of oomans preying upon the suffering of others. They were what their culture deemed a “criminal organization,” and their motivation was profit. They had identified a population with a built-in need and determined the best way to exploit it—oomans called them “addicts”—a weaker caste who allowed themselves to be controlled in order to procure what they needed. This placed the drug collectors at the top of their own food chain.
Another ooman trait—one which inevitably would lead to their downfall—was pity. An utterly useless concept, concerning oneself with another’s inability to achieve. All this meant was to suffer in their stead. If anything could be said for the ooman criminals, it was that they exhibited no such wasteful behavior.
In the end, he supposed, the oomans might provide additional hosts for the Xenomorphs. That, at least, would provide them with purpose.
Putting aside thoughts of a clearly inferior species, Ar’Wen, returned to the task at hand. His mission was to enable the young and inexperienced Yautja to graduate from unblooded and become young bloods.
All they needed to do was survive.
All he needed to do was bide his time.
1
LV-363 had few redeeming qualities. Breathable oxygen. Normal gravity. Almost no human occupation. Enough flora in the rifts to create humidity, and a never-ending supply of Khatura, which could only grow on the desolate planet.
Murray ran the operation, and the addicts harvested the flower pollen, but it was Shrapnel who did most of the work. Even the other merc, Margo, didn’t do as much as he did, but wasn’t it always like that? He never got his rightful due. To Murray and the bosses, he was only good for lugging crates and slugging riftwings. It was pure ageism. What he counted as experience, the rest of them considered “over the hill.”
Shifting the M41A pulse rifle to his right shoulder, he moved closer to the rift, a deep gash in the landscape. He wore heavily personalized and modified body armor that he’d bought on the black market from a Colonial Marine. He’d adjusted the knees and elbows to allow for more freedom of movement, and was able to carry three weapons and a drop pouch with extra ammo. Then he’d added a clear polymer paint that could be programmed to match the colors and textures of whatever was around him, making him blend in with almost perfect camouflage.
Shrapnel slid his helmet goggles into place and ran through the various visual fields. Peering over the edge, he inhaled, appreciating the funky aroma of the mass of flora that grew there. Ship life was nothing but recycled air, and no matter what filter upgrades were installed, after months in the can the air on board smelled like vomit and flop sweat. Even the sweat was strictly regulated, though. It was dry in space, and water was at a premium.
The treacherous drop to the bottom was studded with bushes thrusting their roots between rocks in an effort to get closer to the sun. This north-south crack in the planet’s surface was one of hundreds like it, gifted with full sun for only two hours a day. Far below he could just make out movement on the rift floor—six-legged rodents they called jivenings and what looked like an albino raccoon with a gray striped tail. In the trees he thought he spotted a couple of the native monkeys that for the most part stayed hidden in the daytime. Tiny birds moved from flower to flower on the various plants along with flybees, insectoid creatures that looked like a fly but acted like a bee.
Nothing on this godforsaken planet played by the rules.
The rift was silent during the long hours of darkness, but as light began penetrating the gloom, birds began calling to each other or marking their territory. Clouds of flybees swarmed here and there. Beetles rubbed their wings before they took to the air, searching for smaller prey to eat. Among the native flora and fauna, a pair of human figures dangled from cable harnesses.
For the most part, all of these were harmless. Shrapnel noted and dismissed them, knowing that his two harvesters were safe. He was watching for something much bigger and more dangerous. The largest and most dominant apex predator on the planet: the riftwing.
Human-sized and omnivorous, these aggressive winged insectoids boasted proboscises and needle claws. Impervious to the narcotic pollen of the Khatura plant, riftwings scanned for their prey on multiple visual spectrums. Their wings moved like those of a dragonfly, almost too fast to see, but the thrumming sound they made in the air offered a clear indication when one was near. Another was the call it gave when it was on the hunt, a jai-reeee that filled the rift with sound and sent all other creatures scuttling for safety.
Shrapnel keyed his mic.
“Enid, status.”
“Harvest back one ready to lift.” The tired and muffled voice of a woman came back.
“You’re working too slow,” he said.
“I—I’m wo-wo-working as fast as I can,” she said.
“Khaleed, your status.”
Silence.
“Khaleed.”
Still nothing.
Shrapnel strode over and tugged at the cable. He should have received a tug back, but got nothing in return. He tugged again.
Still, nothing.
“Margo, get your ass over here,” he said.
The other merc trotted over from where she’d been sitting. She wore no armor, just a ship’s jumpsuit and rubber boots to keep from getting static electrical shocks. Margo had a pistol on her hip and an M37A2 shotgun angled across her back.
“Khaleed?” she asked.
Shrapnel nodded.
Margo had probably been pretty a decade before, but now, with a broken nose and a flattened cheekbone from being hit by space debris during an out-of-station chase, any beauty had been shorn away. One eye hung droopy where the cheek was flattened, and an ear on the same side had a missing lower lobe. She wore her black hair short with a buzz of fuzz going down the center. Her neck was tattooed from when she’d been in the marines.
“Do you think he did it again?” she asked.
“He better not have, or old Murray will have our asses.”
“Weren’t you watching?”
He glared at her, then heard the sound of wings.
JAI-REEE!
He brought his rifle around and aimed, moving in quick efficient steps until he was above where Enid hung.
The sound came again.
From the depths of the rift it rose, like an immense dragonfly with the face of a monkey and a meter-long proboscis designed to suck the fluids out of its victims. The thrum of its wings caused every other creature in sight to dash into hiding. As Margo pulled at the cable in an effort to haul Khaleed back to the surface, Enid began crying, the sound rattling in his ear.
“Take it easy, girl,” Shrapnel said. “I got the thing covered.”
A second JAI-REEE! split the air.
This one was larger and bore the markings of a fighter. It had scars along one side and a weeping wound on one of its spindly legs, which were very much like those of arthropods. Its trochanter was fat with muscle, descending into a thick femur with two tibias and ending with a tarsus that had the claws of a raptor.
“Please… oh… please… oh… please.” Enid’s feverish cries came through the comms.
“Fucking hell,” Shrapnel ground out. He took aim at the monster closest to his harvester—the smaller of the two—and let loose with six rounds that zipped across the space and punched through its carapace. Green blood exploded out the back and the riftwing faltered, then fell, crashing against the side of the rift until the sound receded into silence.
The larger one spun toward him with a predatory appreciation.
He shifted his aim and was about to open fire when it dove out of sight, dropping to the bottom where it would probably feed on its dying kin.
Margo heaved the last bit of cable and dragged Khaleed over the edge. Sure enough, he was mask-free and stoned out of his mind. The masks let the harvesters breathe, but filtered out the narcotic Khatura pollen. The asshole addict had found a way to remove the mask, despite all of the safeguards that kept it locked and harnessed. The mask’s metal mechanics were supposed to make it unremovable.
Other than that, Khaleed was fine—just on cloud four hundred and nineteen, with his face covered in the red powder. His heart rate was probably through the roof. The pollen was unprocessed and uncut, thus at full strength. They’d need to give him a shot to slow things down, and then shove him in his bunk. He’d be useless for the next rotation, which meant the other harvesters would have to double their work.
Shrapnel stalked over to the sitting figure, whose eyes rolled up to the whites to stare at the fireworks oscillating through his frontal cortex. Drool laced down his chin just below an idiot’s grin. The merc pressed the barrel of his rifle against the side of the man’s neck and heard a satisfying sizzle. The barrel still hot from the passage of rounds.
It didn’t even phase the stupefied man.
“Really, Shrap?” Margo scowled. “Can’t you be human for once?”
He prodded the drugged addict with the barrel of his rifle, shoving hard enough to make him turn halfway, then roll back.
“You call this human? He’s a fucking addict.”
Margo stepped closer and got into his face, and he hated her for it. She thought she was a badass, but she wasn’t. He was just biding his time. Still, he listened to her.
“He’s not your toy,” she said. “He’s property. He belongs to the cartel. You want to explain to them why you ruined their property?”
He backed away, wishing for something to shoot.
“Mr. Shrapnel, can I come up?” Enid asked in a voice so tiny he had to strain to hear it. He spun back toward the rift and bared his teeth.
“Nice try. Keep harvesting.”
“But the riftwings…”
“What about them?”
“They might—”
“You should be more frightened of me than them,” he growled into his mic. “Do you understand me?”
The sound of her weeping was replaced with a strangled, “I understand.”
While Margo dragged Khaleed back to basecamp, Shrapnel took up his position again. He was down to ninety-two rounds. That should be enough for a while, and he had to admit, he did love shooting the riftwings. He only wished there might be something else to shoot at and kill.
Something. Anything.
Anyone.
Anything to relieve his boredom.
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