Harper hangs in the dark, both hands locked around a rusted pipe, every muscle in her body burning.

Below her, the corridor stretches away in near total blackness, broken only by a faint smear of industrial amber light leaking through a bent grille somewhere far behind her. It is barely enough to see by. Barely enough to separate the floor from the walls. Barely enough to tell where the hive ends and the old structure begins.

This is always the worst part of places like this. Not the smell. Not the silence. Not even the things moving through it.

It is the way the hive digests everything.

(To consider or use “everything that used to matter here” to be spoken by Gee Gee?: This is always the worst part of places like this. Not the smell. Not the silence. Not even the things moving through it. It is the way the hive digests everything that used to matter here.)

Metal, concrete, cable trunks, doors, vent housings, safety rails, signs. Decaying bodies have become part of the walls. The black organic growth does not simply cover a place. It absorbs it. Reinterprets it. Turns corridors into throats, rooms into organs and support beams into bones coated in slick black lacquer.

Harper keeps her eyes fixed on the pipe ahead.

The one she holds has started talking to her.

Not loudly. Just a soft, flaky little creak from deep inside the corroded metal. The kind of sound that says, I am still here, but not for much longer.

Slowly, carefully, she studies the next pipe.

It looks marginally better.

Marginally better will have to do.

She draws in the smallest breath she can manage and lets it out through parted lips.

Her boots tuck up behind her, knees bent, body suspended over the centre of the corridor like a trapped acrobat in a nightmare designed by an engineer and a butcher.

One hand at a time.

She loosens her right hand first, ignoring the rush of fire through her forearm, and reaches forward.

Her glove closes around the second pipe.

It holds.

Now the left hand.

She shifts her weight before the first pipe can complain any louder.

For one horrible second her body swings, a tiny pendulum motion over the corridor below.

Her satchel taps softly against her hip.

Harper freezes.

She clenches her jaw and tightens her abdomen, forcing the movement to die inside her body rather than travel through it.

The swing slows.

Then stops.

Only then does she lift herself a fraction higher, drawing her knees closer to her chest so the soles of her boots hang clear of the corridor below.

A shape slides into view at the far end of the passage.

Harper does not move.

The Xenomorph enters without urgency.

Its frame is all polished shadow and stretched power, tall enough that if it rose fully it could brush the hanging pipe with the crown of its skull.

It moves with smooth, terrible patience.

Not stalking.

Not searching.

Just moving through its own territory with the lazy certainty of something that fears absolutely nothing.

Its head tilts slightly.

It tastes the air.

Harper slows her breathing until each inhale feels stolen.

Come on, she thinks.

Keep walking.

The creature takes another step.

Then another.

Its claws click softly against the floor. Resin clings between its limbs and the wall when it passes too close, stretching in dark threads before snapping back. A faint metallic scrape whispers up the corridor as its tail drags once across a patch of rusted grating.

Then it stops.

Directly beneath her.

Harper’s shoulders scream.

Sweat prickles beneath her arms and runs along her spine. A fine damp salt gathers on her upper lip.

The Xenomorph lifts its head.

Its inner jaw twitches once behind its closed teeth.

A wet, patient hiss rolls up from deep inside its throat.

Harper does not even blink.

Her right palm slips inside the glove.

She wants to adjust it. Just a fraction. Just enough to pull the seam away from the base of her fingers.

She does nothing.

The creature lingers for another second, its smooth black skull less than a foot beneath her boots.

Then, with the complete disinterest of a predator dismissing a stone, it lowers its head and keeps moving.

Harper listens to every step.

It reaches the end of the corridor, turns left without hesitation and vanishes.

Still Harper waits.

Five seconds.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Only when she is certain it has gone does she slowly turn her head and check the corridor behind it.

Empty.

She drops.

Her boots hit the floor with a soft thud and her knees fold with the impact.

She crouches low, one gloved hand against the metal, head bowed as she drags in two deep breaths that feel like drowning in reverse.

Then she stands and moves on.

No dramatic grin.

No whispered quip to herself.

No little victory ritual.

That is another lie people tell about courage.

That it feels good.

Mostly it just feels like being allowed to continue.

Her earpiece sits fixed in her right ear.

Dark.

Silent.

Go in alone.

Be silent.

Need nothing.

She creeps deeper through the corridor until it opens onto a fractured service span where a section of walkway has collapsed into the sub-level below. Black hive growth has swallowed most of the original railing and turned the remaining metal into warped ribs jutting from the edge.

Harper looks down.

Long drop.

Not fatal.

Probably.

On the far side, the walkway continues through a sealed maintenance threshold split open by resin and age.

She leans back a pace, measures the distance and mutters, very quietly,

“Guys, you’re going to have to bring a seven-foot walkway with you.”

She does not know why she bothers talking on the way in.

Habit, maybe.

Or the simple comfort of hearing a human voice, even if it is only her own.

She takes three steps back.

Then she runs.

Three fast, silent strides and a leap.

For a moment there is nothing beneath her but cold air and black depth.

Then her boots slam onto the far side harder than she wants. Momentum throws her shoulder into the wall and the impact sends a sharp bolt of pain down her arm.

Harper flattens herself instantly.

No breath.

No sound.

Movement stirs somewhere nearby.

Then a shape peels itself from the dark ahead.

Then two more.

Three Xenomorphs enter the corridor in a loose scatter.

One moves low and fast along the floor. Another advances down the opposite wall with insect certainty. The third unfolds from the ceiling as if gravity has only ever been a suggestion.

Harper lies half twisted in the shallow edge where the walkway meets the wall, every muscle rigid.

The one on the wall changes direction.

It comes straight toward her.

Its claw finds purchase inches from her shoulder.

Another grips the metal above her head.

Its limbs move with sickening care, elegant and hideous, as it passes over the section of wall she is pressed against.

She can see the texture of it now.

The wet sheen across the black carapace.

Scratches scoring the exoskeleton.

Tiny fibres of hive resin caught between the joints.

Its head slides past her face close enough that if she panicked and turned, her nose would touch it.

Harper stares at a bolt head embedded in the wall and tries not to exist.

The creature moves on.

One by one the three of them reach the broken stretch of walkway and descend through it, vanishing into the gap below with a series of soft wet impacts and disappearing clicks.

Harper counts to twenty before she moves.

Her lungs convulse with the first breath.

“Still alive,” she whispers, though whether it is for the logs or herself she does not know.

She continues through the maintenance threshold and into the deeper levels, where the architecture widens and the infestation thickens.

The facility was once industrial.

You can still tell by the scale of it.

Bulk transport shafts.

Load-bearing gantries.

Server access spines.

Heavy floor grids built to take enormous weight.

Now the place looks prehistoric.

The deeper she goes, the more the hive overrules the design.

Walls bulge inward with slick organic mass. Vein-like runs of resin connect ceiling to floor. The air grows warmer, thicker, damp with the slow breath of the structure.

In one long chamber she passes a cluster of shapes sealed into the wall behind a layer of translucent secretion.

Human once.

Probably.

Hard to say now.

She looks away and keeps walking.

The lower service route floods in places.

Harper reaches the first break where the corridor floor has collapsed into a trench of black water. A maintenance lip runs along the wall above it, no wider than her boot.

She turns sideways and edges along it, one hand sliding across the resin-slick wall while dark water sloshes inches below her feet. Each distant thump from somewhere deeper in the hive sends small ripples shivering across the surface.

On the far side the corridor has partially caved in. A load brace has twisted down from the ceiling and pinned a section of ducting across the passage.

Harper climbs over the brace and ducks into the narrow gap beneath it, forcing herself through a crawlspace where the air is warm and sour and thick enough to taste.

When she straightens again the corridor widens.

A few more careful steps and the passage spills into a cavernous sub-level.

Harper stops at the threshold.

There it is.

The server core stands half embedded in the hive wall like a sacred object swallowed by geology.

Seven feet tall.

Heavily shielded.

Rectangular and ugly in the practical way only industrial machinery ever manages to be.

Power conduits snake from its sides into the resin growth surrounding it, as if the hive has begun feeding on the heat.

A dead work light blinks weakly above it.

Harper wipes a smear of black residue from the designation plate and lets out the smallest breath of relief.

Correct target.

“Asset located,” she whispers. “Sub-level nine, eastern archive vault. Main access compromised. Bridge gap on approach. Flooding in lower service run. Heavy infestation throughout.”

Harper crouches and studies the route out.

Her job now is to build the corridor of death.

She opens her satchel.

Inside, nestled in foam and strips of damp resin cloth, are the charges.

Each one is the size of a small fruit, fleshy-looking and faintly tacky to the touch, with a segmented membrane around the centre where the acoustic gland sits.

They are ugly little things.

Half device.

Half grown component.

Harper takes the first one, peels back the activation tab with her thumb and presses it to the wall beside the vault entrance.

It adheres at once.

A thin pulse moves beneath the membrane.

Alive enough for the job.

She retraces her route, placing more charges at every choke point.

A junction where the corridor narrows.

The service span before the broken walkway.

The bend where the lone drone paused beneath her.

Each charge settles against the metal with a faint organic tack.

Not elegant.

Not humane.

Effective.

By the time she nears the surface route again, Harper’s arms tremble from exertion and the damp cold of the mountain begins to seep back into the upper levels. Wind moans through a fractured loading throat ahead, carrying real weather with it.

Real air.

She steps out of the ruined facility and onto the mountain ridge.

The cold hits her at once, sharp enough to make her teeth ache.

After the wet biological heat of the hive, the wind feels almost clean.

Above her, the sky is a sheet of slate storm cloud snagged on black mountain peaks. Far below, hidden by mist, the valley dissolves into white.

Harper moves behind a rock outcrop, shrugs the satchel from her shoulder and pulls out the crude detonator.

She glances back at the entrance.

“Showtime.”

She presses the trigger.

The mountain answers with a chain of muffled concussions, deep and ugly and rolling.

One after another the charges detonate below the rock, the sound travelling through the structure like a giant beating on locked doors.

Dust lifts from the entrance.

A seam in the ridge spits out a ribbon of dark smoke.

Then silence returns.

Harper leans against the stone and waits, her expression almost bored.

That part is important too.

The waiting.

Standing in the freezing wind after threading your body through a nest of apex predators and pretending it had all been no more troubling than posting a parcel.

Minutes later the lander comes in low through the mist.

Its engines roar against the mountain and kick freezing grit across the ridge as the craft settles onto its struts. The ramp drops before it has fully finished landing.

Two dozen retrieval soldiers storm out in full gear, rifles up, boots hammering metal and stone as they run past her without so much as a nod.

Corporate property moving to secure corporate property.

Harper does not take it personally.

Indifference is practically the company uniform.

She walks up the ramp once they are gone and into the relative warmth of the cargo bay.

The lander smells of oil, heated wiring and old fabric.

A faded photograph is taped to one bulkhead beside a locker, its edges curled from years of temperature shifts.

Harper touches it as she passes.

Her mother. Joe.

A photo taken before the company finished collecting its payment from her body.

She pulls a warm company jacket from the locker and shrugs it on.

Then she heads for the cockpit.

Penny is exactly where Harper expects her to be, strapped half sideways in the pilot’s seat with one boot braced against the console housing and a look on her face that suggests the entire universe has personally inconvenienced her.

Harper holds up a fist.

Penny bumps it lightly with her own and gives Harper a sideways glance.

“You smell disgusting.”

“Nice to see you too.”

“I mean scientifically disgusting. Like wet radiator meat.”

Harper drops into the co-pilot seat with a groan.

“That’s the resin. You’re just jealous because I get all the premium spa treatments.”

Penny shakes her head.

“I don’t know how you do it. One of those things breathes in my face and I’m dead on principle.”

Harper buckles in and lets her head fall back for a second.

“As long as I stay quiet, I’m wallpaper.”

“That is the least comforting sentence I’ve ever heard.”

“It’s fine,” Harper says. “They walk about as fast as Sergeant Bell.”

Penny barks out a laugh.

“That miserable bastard does move like his bones are filed paperwork.”

“Exactly.”

Penny adjusts a flight readout and squints through the front glass toward the facility entrance.

“What have they got you mapping this time?”

“Server core. Big one.”

“Of course it’s a server core.” Penny sighs theatrically. “Dragged me out of bed after two hours’ sleep for a server core. Do you know what I was doing before this?”

“Lying next to the hottest guy you’ve ever seen?”

Penny looks at her in mock offence.

“Rude that you know me so well.”

Harper smiles faintly.

“And before you say it,” Penny continues, “yes, I know you don’t care because you’re above such things.”

“I’m not above such things. I’m just happy not picking up the scraps.”

Penny slaps a hand dramatically to her chest.

“Vicious.”

“How’s Murve?”

Penny rolls her eyes so hard Harper thinks they might stay there.

“There is always another broken unit for him to fix. I still throw him in the shower before I let him touch me.”

“That’s romance.”

“That’s hygiene.”

Penny glances toward the cargo bay.

“And there’s a new mechanic in Hangar Three who keeps smiling at him. If she keeps it up, I’ll crash-land on her just to save everyone time.”

Harper laughs softly, then closes her eyes for a moment.

Penny’s voice softens.

“You spoken to your mum lately?”

“Yeah.”

Harper’s smile shifts without her noticing. Warmer. Smaller.

“She’s good. Joe turns eighteen in a few days.”

“No.”

“Yep.”

“He still burning noodles?”

“He says he’s learning to cook.”

Penny snorts.

“Heating beans and noodles is not cooking. It is surrender.”

A heavy metallic clanging cuts through the cockpit.

Both women turn toward the external cargo monitors.

On the grainy feed, the retrieval team wrestle the server core up the ramp in a sweating, swearing mass of armour and effort.

The thing looks even bigger in motion.

One soldier slips.

Another shouts.

A third is clearly inventing a new religion based entirely on hatred.

Penny stares.

Then she slumps back in her seat and groans.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”

Harper watches the screen.

“Looks tight.”

“Tight?” Penny turns toward her. “That thing has its own weather system.”

The clanging grows worse. Something scrapes hard against the ramp housing.

Penny unbuckles with a violent snap.

“Those idiots better start pulling straws because I am not flying back to this miserable rock to pick them up if they wedge that bastard sideways.”

Harper’s eyes are already drifting closed with exhaustion.

“You love it really.”

“I love oxygen and decent sleep. This job is against both.”

Penny stands, checks the monitor once more and mutters, more to herself than to Harper,

“They never tell us the real payload mass.”

Harper opens one eye.

“No.”

Penny heads for the cockpit door at speed, already preparing the complaint she is about to unleash on the soldiers in the cargo bay.

At the threshold she stops just long enough to look back.

“One day that’s going to get us all killed.”

Then she is gone.

Harper sits in the sudden quiet, listening to the scrape and crash of men forcing expensive machinery into a space it barely fits, and lets her head rest fully against the seat at last.

Outside, the mountain waits in the storm.

Inside, the ship trembles around her like it already knows.