Alien: Covenant - The Official Movie Novelization

XI

As soon as surface-to-orbit communications went down, Faris turned her full attention to the medbay monitor. It showed Karine, exhausted as she was, working hard to secure a safety strap around Ledward’s waist. He was trembling violently, the out-of-control convulsions having relapsed into wild shivering.

Without slackening her efforts, the scientist shouted in the direction of the AV pickup.

“Faris! What are you doing? Get down here! We need to IV him and I can’t do it by myself; he’s too strong and he’s still moving around too much. Help me!”

With a last, lingering look at the silent surface-to-orbit comm, Faris bolted from the bridge. Once back outside the medbay, she stopped at the sealed door to peer through the port. Having momentarily resumed functionality, Ledward’s hands were now tightly gripping the edge of the med table. His back facing the door, he began to secrete a watery, bloody liquid from his spine.

Where was Karine?

Faris lurched back as the other woman’s face abruptly appeared at the port. The biologist was in shock. Or something worse. Audio picked up her words from the other side. Her tone was flat, stunned.

“Let me out.”

A hard lump formed in the pilot’s throat. She didn’t quite whisper a response.

“I can’t do that, darlin’.”

Both Karine’s expression and voice went wild. “Let me out of here! Please! Faris, for god’s sake, open the door!”

Tears began to trickle from the pilot’s eyes. She did not reply.

Outside, a blood-red sun was setting. Between the lowering sun and the ever-present mist, darkness descended like a blanket over the expedition team as they hurried back toward the lake. As soon as they were able to make out the lights of the lander in the distance, they quickened their pace.

By now Hallet was unable to walk on his own. Supported by Lopé on one side and Walter on the other, he gasped in pain with each step. Trying to manage by himself, he broke away from his helpers only to fall to his hands and knees. Bloody fluid dribbled from his mouth and nose and he choked, trying to clear his throat. As Walter looked on, Lopé bent beside his companion.

“Come on, Tom. You can do it.” Looking up, the sergeant gestured ahead. “See? There’s the lander. See the lights? We’ll get you into medbay, fix you up.”

Coughing and wheezing, Hallet shook his head. “Sorry… I can’t. So sorry, Lopé…”

“Let me out of here! You fuck!”

Within the lander, Karine was banging both hands on the medbay door. The biologist was one scream shy of lapsing into unrestrained hysteria. Faris struggled to keep her voice even.

“You know I can’t do that.”

In the face of her friend and colleague’s panic it was all the pilot could do to hew to procedure. Everything she had seen since Karine and Ledward had returned to the lander cried out for quarantine. If things improved, she would be happy to open the door. Relieved, overjoyed.

As the situation stood now, opening the door to Karine would mean opening it to the unknown. And the unknown, in the person of Private Ledward, needed to be walled off and shut away until it could at the very least be better understood.

Karine knew that better than anyone, Faris told herself, but it was easy to follow procedure when you were standing on the safe side of the medbay door.

A rattling breath from the med table caused Karine to turn. Ledward was lying on his stomach now, still gripping the sides of the table, trying to suck air while wailing like a wounded animal in its final death throes. Maybe, she told herself, the infection, or whatever it was, would play itself out. Maybe it would behave something like the ancient, long-eradicated malady called malaria, where the victim suffered terribly for a short while, only to recover with no apparent after-effects.

Still scared but forcing herself to keep it together, Karine walked back over to the table. Ledward, she reminded herself, was the one who was ailing. Not her. There was nothing wrong with her. Physically, she felt fine. As an experienced researcher she should know better than to give in to panic. She should be observing, making mental notes to set down later in the expedition’s permanent record.

Without knowing what afflicted him, there was little she could do to help. Given his unpredictable bursts of convulsions, and without Faris’ assistance, she couldn’t even get an IV into him. She told herself that in his current state, an intravenous soporific might even do him more harm than good.

“Shhh.” She did her best to sound reassuring as she approached the table. “You’re gonna be okay. It’s Karine here. I’m with you, honey.”

She had no way of knowing if he could hear her, and if he could, if he was able to understand her words. But in trying to soothe him verbally she felt she was at least doing something. Gritting her teeth, she reached out and placed a hand on his back. For a moment it seemed to steady him.

Encouraged, she applied slight pressure.

Two ivory-white spikes shot upward from his back and rib cage, bursting out between her splayed fingers. Shocked into immobility, she could only stare as his entire back ruptured, the split rib cage spreading in opposite directions as if pulled apart by a pair of giant hands. Fountaining blood gushed over her, causing her to stumble backward, one hand feeling for her own mouth.

A placenta-like sac oozed from the now-dead private’s insides, rising and expanding from his back like a fleshy balloon. She screamed and flecks of blood flew from her lips. Ledward’s blood.

Ripped open from within, the sac tore lengthwise. The creature that emerged was small, about the size of an ordinary house cat. With its white, almost translucent flesh and elongated, vaguely humanoid skull, it was a choice vision from Hell. Mucus and bits of dead Ledward dripped from its head and flanks.

As it rose, limbs unfolded from joints, revealing slender arms and legs glistening with slick afterbirth. A long, pointed tail uncoiled. There were no eyes or ears, but a small puckered circle indicated the presence of an as yet unformed mouth. The skin was smooth, slick. A nauseatingly sweet smell, like the aroma of a bad narcotic, spread through the medbay. While blood continued to pump from the private’s destroyed body, the flow began to slow.

Not quite dead but much less than alive, what remained of Ledward abruptly jerked forward, then contorted backward across the med bed. Tumbling off but still halfway held to the platform by the single safety strap around his waist, he twisted once again. A single loud report filled the bay as his back snapped.

Drenched in his blood, a terrified Karine stumbled backward and slipped, falling to the floor. Scrambling on her backside, pushing with hands and feet, she retreated from the table until she found herself pressed up against one wall.

In front of her, the monstrous emergent dropped off the table and onto the deck. Though the sausage-like skull was devoid of visible eyes, it was clearly scanning its immediate surroundings, as if taking stock. Shaking with fear, Karine managed to get to her knees, but could hardly bring herself to look at the thing. A dark stain spread down her pants, adding the curdled stink of urine to that of death and the creature.

Abruptly she realized that it had grown. Now the size of a domestic canine, the thing stopped searching the room to focus on her. Already its arms and legs were longer, the mouth more prominent. Its actions seemed to reflect curiosity, more than malice. As she finally brought herself to regard the little monster, it remained where it was, staring back at her eyelessly.

A moment, she told herself. Just give me a moment. Stay there, stay there. Watch all you want. A moment.

Slowly, slowly, she reached toward Ledward’s utility belt. It lay on the floor nearby, along with the rest of his clothes. A standard Security expedition belt, its pouches held food packets, water purification tablets, medical ampoules, a serrated survival knife…

Moving quickly, she grabbed at the sheath holding the knife, ripped back the seal, and pulled the blade. Gripping it tightly, she was just turning back toward the creature as its tail whipped forward over its head to impale her.

Staring open-mouthed through the port, her hands on either side of the window, Faris whirled and ran. Ran without thinking, without looking back. Her mind was drowning in screams, both her own and Karine’s.

Stumbling wildly, she slammed into a bulkhead, staggered and fell. For a moment the screams went away. Dizzy and bleeding, she picked herself up. There was nowhere to run. There was only the lander. And that—thing. Some kind of faintly humanoid being that possessed not a trace of humanity.

The comm. Omni-pickup. She shouted at the top of her lungs.

“This is Lander One! We have an emergency! Please come in. Captain Oram, I need you! I need everyone! Now!”

Exhausted but driven to break into a run, both by the proximity of the ship’s lights and Faris’ frantic cry for help, the team willed themselves to accelerate toward the lakeshore. By this time Walter and Lopé were alternately carrying and dragging the unconscious Hallet.

Puffing hard as he ran, Oram yelled into his pickup.

“Faris, what’s going on? What kind of emergency? Christ, answer me, Faris!”

Her reply was uneven. If she was moving rapidly through the ship, her voice would have to be transferred from one pickup to the next. The electronic response was fast, but it wasn’t instantaneous, and would have to adjust clarity and volume for the fact that the speaker was not standing still.

“Something got on board. Some kind of… animal or parasite. Hostile. Vaguely humanoid, but morphed—neomorphic. Came out of Ledward… he’s dead. Oh god, oh god! Please hurry… I’m afraid it’s…”

Communication failed.

Oram cursed the loss of contact.

“What? Say again? Faris, repeat. Come in Lander One!” There was no response. “Fuck!”

Paced by Daniels, he started to sprint. As the pair broke out ahead of the others, Lopé and Walter were held back by the need to carry Hallet. In the absence of orders to do otherwise, Cole, Rosenthal, and Ankor stayed with the sergeant. Overcome by his partner’s breakdown, Lopé didn’t think to order the other members of the security detail to go with the captain and Daniels.

Inside the lander, at least a portion of Faris’ dread gave way to determination. Running to the weapons lockers, she wrenched open an orange door and fumbled inside for a weapon—any weapon. Settling on a military-grade shotgun with half a dozen heavy shells secured to its side, she whirled and raced back toward the medbay, loading the weapon as she ran.

Around her, Oram’s frantic words, broken and distorted, echoed through the corridors. Having no time to reply, she ignored them now.

Gripping the weapon tightly, she slowed as she neared the medbay. Pausing there, she took a moment to catch her breath, to try and collect herself, before pressing her back against the wall and edging sideways until she could once again turn to peer through the port.

The creature that had erupted out of Ledward—the neomorph—was on top of Karine. She was screaming and her heels, bloodied, were slamming spasmodically against the deck. The creature was also shrieking—wordlessly, horribly, machine-like in its incomprehensibility.

Readying herself, Faris deliberately hyperventilated a couple of times, then punched the door control. The barrier slid aside and she stepped into the medbay.

The white neomorph was standing on Karine’s chest, shredding her face and torso. It might have been eating, though in that brief soul-sucking moment Faris couldn’t tell for certain what it was doing. Responding to the sound of the door opening, it spun and looked up from its horrid, gory perch.

Taking a step forward as she tried to aim the weapon, Faris slipped in the spreading pool of blood and liquid and guts. She fired while going down, but the shot went predictably wild and slammed into the ceiling. Leaping off the mangled body of the scientist the neomorph attacked—only to find itself equally without traction as it slipped and scrabbled to get a purchase on the bloody, slick floor.

The precious few seconds allowed Faris just enough time to scramble back through the door and slam the “close” button. Having gone in with the intent of helping Karine, she had discovered that her friend was beyond help. Now she had to try and save herself.

The door began to slide shut—only to have the creature insert a portion of itself into the opening. Screaming, cursing, she jabbed the obstructing white limb as hard as she could with the butt end of the weapon. Every time she knocked it back it returned, fighting with crazed energy to get through the gap, to get at her. Each time, the door tried to close, found itself jammed, started to reopen, then reclose.

With reserves of strength she didn’t know she had, she finally succeeded in shoving the weapon hard enough against the protruding limb to force it far enough back into the room to enable the door to shut and lock. But in the process, the weapon ended up in the room with the monster.

Turning, she ran back up the corridor. Behind her, motivated by an incomprehensible inhuman energy, the frenzied neomorph slashed and battered at the door, leaping and kicking. A crack appeared in the port.

Racing away from the booming, pounding noise behind her, Faris staggered into the lander’s cargo bay and wrenched another shotgun from the still open locker. There was no shelter in the empty bay save for a webbed divider. Feeble though it was she took cover behind it, trying to steady her shaking hands and the weapon they held. Automatically she loaded it, and then flicked off the safety.

Moments later the neomorph appeared, already grown larger than it had been just moments ago. It took only a moment for it to see her hiding behind the webbing. Without sound or hesitation it leaped toward her, its movements a cross between those of a spider and a baboon. She screamed and fired, point-blank.

Missed.

Emitting a metallic screech, the creature threw itself sideways, away from her and toward the open hatch. Still screaming and cursing, Faris tried to track it with her weapon. Repeated bursts tore up the webbing and the interior of the bay as they struck just behind the fleeing, dodging creature, sending shards of metal flying, blowing out lights, conduits, intersecting the open weapons locker…

WHOOM.