Xenophilia -- Yelena -- Part 1
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This is part of a project to touch up and publish an older series of works I had done in the past, placing them on Literotica. There are quite a few parts, so they will seem repetitive as more are updated, and since they are not being completely revised, they will show their age. There will also be some questionable content, and due to said age, may not be presented in the most palatable manner, as much as I may have believed I did those years ago. Please keep this in mind.
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Yelena clutched the pistol tightly in her hand, her knuckles white from the grip. With gritted teeth, she peered around the corner, met with a flickering fluorescent light. She grimaced.
"Fuck," she spat, her accent mildly Russian. "Too easy."
She wasn't referring to her own ease... the creatures that had infested the Colony preferred to ambush from dark places, and from as many unexpected angles as possible. The Colonial Marine had no desire to walk down a corridor with lighting as intermittent as she saw. On the other hand, she had to keep moving, had to reach the lab.
That was where something, if anything, could be done about this infestation. And also where she might get
some
answers; with the way those Weyland-Yutani scientists were handling the disappearances before everything went to hell in a handbasket, Yelena was certain they knew something. And thus, they might've known how to fix it.
'
C'mon, Sergeant, get your ass in gear,'
she berated herself. Clutching a knife in her other hand, her right arm -- the one with the gun -- resting over the forearm of her knife arm, in a cross formation, using her left arm to support her aim, Yelena would move into the corridor, shining the pistol's light wherever she could, making sure she left no angle unchecked.
She wasn't even sure why she still had the knife; stabbing one of those things would've been suicide, after she managed to wound one with a bullet. It sprayed muck-green blood over the floor, and the panelling just sizzled and melted wherever the droplets landed. Acid that potent would've severely wounded her, or killed her if she wasn't careful. Still, there was a modest comfort in holding one of the oldest killing tools known to man, reliable and simple, in her hand. She kept moving, looking around and behind her, to make sure she wasn't being followed.
It was moments like this since the entire shitstorm started that Yelena cursed the fact she had no extra equipment, and worst of all, no men to watch her back. Her entire squad, the only security on site besides the glorified mall cops that called themselves 'Colony Policing Agents', had been completely split apart by the creatures before she was even able to regroup with them. Not only that, she was dealing with some bullshit up in administration when the creatures started flooding the base, cutting her off from the armoury.
She was in nothing but fatigues, combat boots and long, baggy cargo pants, and had nothing besides a pistol, a few magazines shoved into her pockets that she'd liberated from a few discarded CPA vests -- oddly, no bodies -- and pistols found on the ground, her knife and a PDA that had a map leading her to the Laboratory. She had nothing else, not even a motion tracker, and Lord knew she could've done with one right now.
She grimaced, sweat beading down her forehead, causing her short, dark hair to cling to her scalp, and her shirt to hug her athletic form uncomfortably. It wasn't that she was hot or exhausted... her nerves were at an all time high, and she would've kicked her own ass for being as jumpy and frightened as she was if it weren't for the fact those...
things
were completely beyond any and all expectations and most training scenarios.
'
I didn't sign up for this,'
she thought, trying to keep her breathing and any audible sounds she made to a minimum. Yelena didn't get a good look at the creatures -- they moved too fast to track easily, and always struck from vents and shadows where they were hidden -- but she was certain they had no eyes... but that didn't stop them from being
highly
perceptive... and unnervingly cunning. She'd seen a CPA, trying to sneak past one through a monitor screen. It seemed like it was oblivious to his presence, until it suddenly wrapped its tail around his ankle, and dragged him screaming into a maintenance crawlspace. It knew he was there, it just pretended not to notice until he was close.
Yelena had no intentions of ending up like him, and all the rest of the colonists. She came to another intersection, and after several checks in all directions, she leant her body up against the wall, compulsively checking her magazine; she still had six shots left in the pistol. She furrowed her brow intensely, reinserting the magazine back into the gun, before pressing on, checking her PDA, and the signs around the corridors, to make sure she was heading in the right direction.
She passed by one of several cafeterias in the Colony, the lights brightly shining, but the tables conspicuously vacant. The place was dead, save the clicking and buzzing of lights, the muted hisses of steam rushing through pipes embedded in the walls, and the whooshing of fluids through the plumbing network. But no people, not even any of the admittedly few androids on site, the place was deserted as far as Yelena knew... save for herself, and an unknown number of alien creatures that seemed intent on hunting down every last human in the colony, and dragging them off to God knows where.
There was a quiet clanging sound, like thin metal clattering onto the floor. She whipped towards the source, shining her light through the windows that separated the corridor and the cafeteria, through the glass cases over the food counters at the back of the cafeteria, into the kitchen beyond. She saw nothing, and there were no further sounds, but that did not allay her fears; these things were smart, and she couldn't see into the entire kitchen, plenty of blind spots for one of those things to hide from view. She grimaced, and slowly passed the Cafeteria, gun trained behind the counter for a few moments, before swinging around as she swept her gaze all around her surroundings, not wishing to fixate too much on something that might've been nothing, and miss something that wasn't.
Slowly, she made her way through the hallways and corridors towards the laboratory, signs of struggle evident in places; overturned chairs and trolleys, papers strewn across the ground, and the odd flickering PDA dropped on the floor and unmoved from where they fell. In other places, scratches from sharp claws, and fragments of clothing, and in the most evident areas, bubbled, perforated metal from acid blood, and holes in the walls and ceiling from firearms, some of them looking like they came from Pulse Rifles... but what Yelena couldn't stand was the lack of
human
blood, or any corpses, human or otherwise.
It was like they had killed no one, opting to kidnap everyone off to an unknown fate... and that seemed worse to her somehow, knowing that a quick, if violent, death was not certain with the lack of bodies strewn about, or the blood stains to support that someone died on the spot. Same with the fact there were no patches of thoroughly dissolved metal where one could've inferred an alien was slain and bled out onto the floor. Signs of their pressurised blood spray from wounds, sure, but nothing that suggested any had been killed... but she didn't know enough, and wasn't willing to spend time investigating. Getting to the laboratory, that was her current objective.
She was nearing her goal, passing through a small waiting lounge outside an administration office that dealt with people going into and out of the lab, taking a wide berth around a fallen ventilation grating, Yelena all too aware of their penchant for using the ducts to get around and ambush from. She passed by the office, heading for the decontamination airlocks that led into the lab itself.
The outer airlock door was code locked, though fortunately for her, no keycard was required, and she knew the code. She punched in the seven-digit number, and a positive chirp accompanied by a green light signalled her authorisation, the metal and glass door opening with a hiss. She passed through the egress into the decontamination chamber, glancing around cautiously as the door slid shut behind her. Nozzles above her began spraying a fine chemical mist, causing her to sneeze; she always hated the shit, it always made her sneeze.
Once the process was complete, she passed through into the lab itself, gun raised and knife pointed out towards any would-be aggressors. She swept her weapon across the darkened room, the only illumination red emergency lights.
'
Not a good sign,'
she thought to herself. Slowly, she advanced past the tables and counters full of various science equipment Yelena didn't care to know about, more concerned with the ominous lack of people and low lighting.
She moved forward, approaching a large, glass wall at the end of the room, circular, with a raised catwalk surrounding its outwards edge, as though a circular room lay on the other side, though she couldn't see for certain because metal shutters had been lowered on the
inside
. She stepped up onto the catwalk, only a foot higher than the main floor of the room behind her. She looked up at the wall, trying to figure out what was behind it, when the shutters suddenly slid upwards like venetian blinds.
And inside stood a woman in a white coat, her auburn hair tied up into a bun, square spectacles resting on the bridge of her nose, slightly magnifying her blue eyes. She looked like the stereotypical egghead, holding onto an oversized electronic tablet in one hand, resting it on her crooked arm. Her expression was neutral, though somewhat grim as she regarded Yelena through the glass, the Marine idly wondering if WeyYu taught its employees theatrics with this sort of entrance.
"Doctor Genos?" Yelena inquired, not even sure if Genos could hear her. "Are you alright?"
"For the most part, yes, Sergeant Degtaryev," Genos answered, her voice tinny and synthetic, transferred via some sort of intercom,
annoying Yelena with her almost-sideways manner of response. "I suppose you've come here for answers."
"Answers second. First and foremost, I want a fucking plan on how to deal with these things," Yelena said. "They're all over the place, and I've got no men left to fight back, and I'd rather
not
let these things get off the planet. I'd also like to not get nuked with them if it comes down to that. I know the communications network runs through the lab, so we could access the comms tower array from here."
Genos' eyes narrowed slightly.
