The path to the entrance appeared to be clear, and Lex could see a dull glow in the distance—halogen lights still burning in the grotto outside the pyramid. But as they reached a wide staircase lined with square columns, another Predator stumbled out of the darkness and lunged at Lex.
Recoiling, she beat the creature with her fist, then kicked out with her booted foot.
Amazingly, the Predator staggered backwards under her weak assault. Lex noticed that the creature seemed injured—its face mask was gone, and its mandibles writhed convulsively. The fanged mouth was flecked with green foam.
Reeling, the stricken Predator stumbled back. Then its knees gave out and it folded to the floor. Head thrown back and twisting from side to side, slime spraying on the statues, walls, and flagstone floor, the Predator howled —and Lex saw its chest cavity begin to bulge.
The helpless creature gagged as the skin stretched around its heart, then blossomed into a phosphorescent burst of green, gushing gore. Lex stumbled into a column and fell to the ground, watching in horrified fascination as the head of a newborn Alien poked out swathed in pus and ooze, its jaws snapping air, desperate to be free of the Predator’s dying flesh.
Only then did Scar step forward and activate the plasma gun on his shoulder. For a split second Lex saw three scarlet dots illuminate the chattering jaws of the nascent obscenity, then Scar fired.
The searing plasma struck the fallen Predator, incinerating its carcass, along with the squirming horror that twitched inside of its gaping chest. Red fire and black smoke filled the chamber, and the awful, permeating stench of burned flesh choked Lex. Turning her back to the conflagration, she watched the flickering shadows play on the walls as both aliens were completely consumed.
CHAPTER 29
In the labyrinth, hundreds of Aliens raced through the darkness, flowing over walls and rippling along the ground, hissing and tittering, aware that their prey was close—close enough to hear, to smell, and soon to taste.
Behind the ocean of black, blood-mad monsters loomed a massive shape that dwarfed the others—something huge and monstrous and very, very angry. The Alien Queen.
Standing over the smoldering corpse of his fellow Predator, Scar heard the Alien swarm. He paused in midstride to listen, head cocked in an almost human gesture.
After a moment, Lex heard them too. Though she could not see her pursuers, it was obvious that the monsters were gaining on them.
Scar took off, heading for the exit. Lex was on his heels. They emerged from the pyramid in a dead run and took the stairs two at a time. Through a red mist of exhaustion, Lex spied the bright white lights of the underground camp in the distance. It seemed to be deserted.
Sucking in frigid air, she risked a glance over her shoulder; there was still no sign of the horde that had been chasing them.
When they finally reached the grotto, they found the expedition’s equipment broken and scattered, as if by mad vandals.
It was then that Lex discovered the frozen corpse of the roughneck Quinn at the foot of the ice tunnel. By the look of him, he’d fought hard for his life. While Scar stood guard, Lex quickly searched the camp for others, but everyone was either gone or dead.
At the mouth of the shaft that led to the surface, the roughnecks had set up a winch-and-pulley system to lower supplies underground and haul samples back up. For Lex and the Predator, the device was the only way out of this hell. Looking around, Lex spied a large wooden packing crate. She tore the lid off. Except for a loaded piton gun, there was nothing inside. Lex threw the lid aside and hooked the crate to the pulley cable.
Next she checked the control panel for the winch and discovered that the machine was calibrated with a counterweight of four tons—meaning that a sled with four tons of weight would be hauled up the tunnel at five miles per hour when the switch was thrown. Lex doubted that she and Scar together weighed even half a ton, so with that amount of counterweight their trip to the surface would be quick.
She got Scar’s attention and pointed to the sled.
“Get in!”
But as Scar turned to climb aboard, the alpha-Alien lunged at him from the shadows. The severed stump of its tail lashed out and slashed Scar’s shoulder. The wound exploded in a shower of glowing green gore.
Lex grabbed the piton gun and turned—just as a second, smaller Alien loomed over her. Startled, she fell backwards, into the empty crate. As the Alien reached for her, Lex rolled over on her back and thrust the muzzle of the piton gun between the creature’s snapping jaws.
“Consider yourself exterminated,” she cried as she pulled the trigger.
The back of the Alien’s head blew away and the creature fell limply to the ice. A few drops of Alien blood sizzled and burned the walls of the wooden crate.
Lex peeked over the edge in time to see Scar decapitate an Alien, only to be attacked by another. Again, it was the alpha-Alien with the grid-ravaged hide, his lightning-fast attack a blur of teeth, claws and a thrashing stump of a tail.
Unrelenting, the Predator slammed the blade of a throwing disk down on the alpha-Alien’s head. The wound was deep, but not mortal. Acid gushed from the slash, spraying Scar and pitting his armor. Then the Alien stepped back, raised its claws, and charged again.
Alien and Predator came together with a great crash, and both went down. They rolled end over end, locked in a deadly embrace. Finally Scar kicked out with his mammoth feet, tossing the Alien against a wall of ice.
Lex seized the moment to pull Scar toward the empty crate. At the wall, the alpha-Alien staggered to its feet, segmented tail striking sparks from the ice.
With an angry hiss the Alien took off after Lex and the Predator.
Stubbornly, Scar decided to make a stand. With a roar he turned to face the black monstrosity.
But Lex only wanted to escape. She pushed the Predator backwards with all her might, and her weight carried them both into the empty crate. Reaching over the edge, her fingers closed on the control lever. She pushed it to the line that read Emergency Release.
With a slam, she was thrown backwards, her spine cracking against the edge of the crate. Scar landed at her side at the bottom of the box as it shot up the narrow ice tunnel like an express elevator out of hell.
Up they raced, the sides of the box scraping the ice until it smoked from friction. Lex prayed that the wood would hold together long enough to get them to the top.
As they neared the surface, she noticed flecks of snow around them and looked up. She saw the mouth of the tunnel looming in the distance, cloud-filled sky roiling over the pit, and the tripod platform constructed over the shaft blocking the path of their sled.
Lex managed to cry a warning. “Hold on!”
The box leaped from the tunnel, smashing into the winch rig with a massive impact that shattered it completely and sent the steel tripod supports tumbling down the shaft, clanging as they fell.
Scar was thrown clear. He hugged Lex in a protective hold as they landed in the snow, rolling end over end across the hard, glacial ice.
When the Predator released her at last, Lex tumbled into a drift, where she lay motionless as wind stirred her tattered clothes and a gentle snow fell around her.
The Predator was up instantly, seemingly oblivious to the wound that still sprayed green gore in rivulets down his chest. He searched around him for danger. A low, cold mist wrapped Bouvetoya Whaling Station in an icy grip, and blankets of snow still fell, though the fury of the katabatic storm had finally blown itself out.
Anxiously, the Predator moved to the shaft and peered down. At first Scar saw nothing, though he heard unearthly, echoing cries rising from underground. Then he saw distorted shadows skimming the smooth walls.
Finally, the Predator spied the Alien Queen, leading her hell-spawn up the shaft to the world of humans. Her claws dug into the ice as her children clambered over her, crawling along every inch of the shaft like ants climbing
