Complex 13

Armstrong was still standing near the frozen laboratory worker. Clasped in the dead man’s hands was a large notepad.

Armstrong grabbed it, flipped it open.

The early pages were written in neat, clinical Russian:

‘ The extra-terrestrials adore the taste of human meat.  Live human meat. They won’t touch the dead prisoners. Saw the anti-social writer, Polemov, thrown into the ship

today. He wasn’t as brave as he was in his anti-Soviet writings! He screamed like a girl as they dragged him across the catwalk and tossed him in. ’

And another entry:

‘ These creatures do not appear to be the builders of the spaceship. It is well beyond their development. The remains of least nine other alien species have been found

on the ship—all dead. Only this species survived. Was this some kind of zoological transport ship in which the animals escaped?’

Then this entry:

‘ The creatures seem to go through three life-phases: the slug-like infant phase, the dragon-like flying adult, and then the largest phase of all, the enormous super-adults that live in the holes of the large web/mound formation. 

The infant phase lasts approximately five weeks. The adult phase, ten weeks. The super-adult phase, another ten weeks. Total life-span, twenty-five weeks.

‘The life-cycle is reminiscent of the common butterfly, only with one additional stage: a small slug becomes a large winged adult which then cocoons again and becomes much much larger...

‘According to Comrade Dr Karlov, at the fifth week of super-adult life, the creatures give asexual birth to new infants. On present observations, the good doctor estimates that every one super-adult gives birth to two infants…’

But then, late in the notebook, the ordered writing became a frantic, messy, desperate scrawl:

‘ We’ve lost control of the complex! Karlov was wrong! It wasn’t a one-to-two ratio at all! Only the first generation had that ratio. The second generation of super-adults gave birth to four infants. The next gave birth to eight. Then the next: sixteen! They have now multiplied beyond our control and are taking over the complex! ’

The final entry read:

‘ The order has been given. Complex 13 is surrounded by the Spetsnatz who, along with the outside temperatures,  are keeping the creatures at bay. The Complex is now to be buried under a deliberate landslide, triggered by explosives. Trapped in this laboratory, I cannot get out,  unless I choose to run the gauntlet of a thousand man-eating creatures. I will die in here. For the hundreds of men I have marched to their deaths, may God have mercy on my soul.’

Armstrong stuffed the notebook into his backpack. ‘I have the breeding information!’ he called.

‘And I have the killing information,’ one of his men said. ‘The Soviets did experiments on them with different temperatures. Heat is no good—they can survive superheated temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius. No wonder our grenades didn’t work! But they’re not impervious to cold! According to this data, the things can’t survive temperatures below -35° Celsius!’

‘That’s why they’re trapped in here…’ Doc said.

‘And that’s exactly the information we need,’ Armstrong called. ‘Now let’s get the hell out of here.’

JOURNEY OUT OF HELL

Out of the lab they bolted.

Dozens of squealing man-sized dragons now filled the air of the hangar.

Armstrong and his men fired up in every direction as they ran, bringing down creatures all around them.

They came to the spindly metal spiral staircase leading to the ceiling…

…just as a series of great low growls arose from the floor of the hangar.

Every man froze.

The high-pitched squeals of the smaller dragons stopped.

Then, with a great cracking sound, five large super-adults burst up out of the web-formation on the floor of the hangar!

They were enormous—not only possessed of heads like T-Rexs, but each was the size and shape of a T-Rex, only with huge flapping leathery wings and six free-grasping claws which they used to grab prey. Their heads were utterly terrifying: longnosed and leathery, with giant jaws equipped with teeth twenty inches long!

And how they moved!

The great superdragon-like monsters soared into the air, swooping around the staircase like giant bats, snapping at Armstrong and his men. They towered over the humans—easily double their size.

One creature bit a Marine clean in half.

Another grabbed two with its claws and stuffed them both into his mouth together.

In both cases the creature in question instantly vomited up its food, spraying blood and partially-digested human remains everywhere in some peculiar kind of eating function. No sooner had the remains hit the floor than hundreds of little slug-like creatures emerged from the web and started eating the shredded remains.

Yet another of the super-adults made for Armstrong himself—but the Finisher just whirled to face it and fired his large-bore Desert Eagle right into the monster’s left eye.

The giant creature’s eye exploded, torn from its socket and the monster squealed and fell out of the air, crashing down on top of its ship, writhing and convulsing.

Now only five Marines remained on the spiral staircase.

Armstrong and two of them made it to the top of the stairs just as two of the super-adults wrenched on the staircase itself, ripping the entire structure from its ceiling mounts, causing the whole high-and-narrow staircase to topple…and fall… with the last two Marines on it!

Like a slow-falling tree, the staircase fell, crashing down onto the silver spaceship and the web formation on the floor, crushing through the suspended catwalk on the way.

No man would be going down there ever again.

THE RACE OUT

Armstrong found his two rear-guards—Twohy and de Souza—lying dead at the top of the (now destroyed) spiral staircase, their corpses being eaten by three of the smaller dragons!

Disturbed by Armstrong’s sudden arrival, the three mini- dragons looked up from their gobbling—their snouts smeared with fresh blood. Then, with astonishing speed, they made for Armstrong and his two surviving men—Doc