Thirty-Five: This Is War

"Do you think that we could speed this up a little!?" Sunghoon asked, fanning himself with his hands. "This intense heat isn't doing good for me, I'm sure everyone else can agree."

"Oh my gosh! I'm an idiot!" Pastora cried.

"Why!? What happened?" Frankie asked, looking over at her with concern.

"I completely forgot! Sunghoon is a diabetic! He dehyderates faster! We need to get him some water!"

"Tell everyone about my health, why don't you?" Sunghoon growled.

"It's really not a big deal, Sunghoon!" I said. "It's better that we know so that we can help you."

"I don't need help." Sunghoon snapped.

"It's ready now." Pastora said, scanning the heat levels in the room. "It's not at the exact temperature as we hoped for, but I fear that this room will only get hotter the longer we wait."

"Will the molten lead still be affective?" Frankie asked.

"Yes, it will still be a dramatic change of temperature once we activate the fire sprinklers." Jiyong replied.

"Do you think the Queen will come up here?" Pastora asked, mainly to herself.

"Doubt it! She's too busy laying those facerapers." Sunghoon muttered.

"There's only one way to find out!" Jiyong responded, as he reached for a flare on the table.

"What if they sense we're up here!?" Summer asked.

"We have weapons. We'll just have to blast them." Pastora replies.

"And if there's an ambush?" Adam questioned.

"Your marine soldiers, aren't you trained to defend against an ambush?" Sunghoon asked, picking at the stud in his small nose.

"Sunghoon!" Pastora snaps.

"Let's just hope it doesn't come to that." Jiyong replied quietly. He lit the flare and tossed it down the chute along with a few noise makers.

I stepped closer to the observation window and looked down in the warehouse, watching the flare roll into a corner along with the nosemakers. Even behind the grass we could hear it as it buzzed and beeped loudly.

"Great job, Sunghoon. The noisemakers came out perfectly." Pastora praised.

Sunghoon got up to stand beside me. He crossed his arms against his chest and observed his creations quietly.

"Now let's see how long it takes for those monsters to sense them." He said, turning to me. "I want all these things dead."

"We all do." Frankie added, leaning against the wall. He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. His pulse rifle at the ready.

"That's for sure." I reply, looking over at Chelsea laying on the couch. Her dark hair was damp with sweat and clung to her neck and cheeks, I watched as her chest rose and fell with each breath she took. She was okay, we saved her.

"Now it's our turn." We're going to give these monsters a taste of their own medicine."

"They've sensed it." Jiyong announced.

I turned to see him in front of the computers, he pointed at the screen, at little moving blue circles.

"They're coming from the main hall." Pastora announced. "From the first tower."

"They heard it all the way from there!?" Summer cried, eyeing the computer screen curiously.

"The xenomorphs are lethal hunters." Pastora explained. "They search for hosts, even as an ovomorph."

"Ovomorph?" Adam repeated, looking puzzled.

"While the facehuggers are still in the egg." Pastora explained.

"Disgusting." Adam growled under his breath. "How on earth did a parasite like this get on the Amhul?"

"An astronaut was infected while searching LV-426, and his crew brought him to medical." Pastora replied. "That's all we know."

"They move fast." Frankie commnted, eyeing the screen. "It appears they've already reached the second tower."

"They use the air vents for transportation." Jiyong replied, pointing at a thin line on the map. "They're using them now as we speak."

"Let's take a look at the nest." Pastora said.

She typed a few things on the keyboard then clicked on the screen a couple times causing the screen to zoom in to a certain room on the map.

"The boiler room? This is where the nest is?" Jiyong asked.

"That's right. The Queens breed in moist-humid areas." She hovered the arrow on a big blue dot. "The Queen's still there, but as you see…." She paused to zoom out. "She hovered the arrow over several moving circular dots.

"There are some coming from the nest to check out our trap as we speak, my guess is her warriors, the ones that guard the nest."

"How can we get the Queen up here?" Frankie asked.

"Wait a minute! The fourth tower's in flames!" Jiyong exclaimed, furrowing his brow. "How is the Queen still alive!?"

Before Pastora could answer, a loud hissing came from below along with a low series of growling. None of us said a word as we watched a group of xenomorphs tip-toe into the warehouse. It was terrifying how light they could be on their feet.

I glanced over at the computer screen, the xenomorphs from the nest were on their way here.

"Hold on." I whispered to Jiyong. "The ones from the nest are on their way."

"There's no time." Jiyong replied softly. "It won't be long until they realize the warehouse is empty and we're just above it. They know we're near, they can sense us, no question."

"So what are we going to do about the others!?" I ask.

"We'll have to limit the molten lead we use." Jiyong replied.

Pastora walked over to the desk, her hand hovering over the lever that I assumed was what would control the crane to drop the bucket of molten lead on the xenomorphs.

I looked down, seeing the xenomorphs creep into the room. Their lips were pulled back in a grin. There were at least twenty of them. They all tip-toed over to the flare. They hissed at each other and leaned down to sniff at the smoke.

"NOW!" Jiyong ordered.

Pastora nodded and pulled back the lever, causing the buckets to tilt and shower the xenomorphs with molten lead.

They all shrieked with surprise, some stuttered from the sudden impact of the molten lead, some even bumped into another.

"Now for the grand finale!" Sunghoon announced, hammering his fist down on a red button that activated the fire sprinklers.

Water poured down into the warehouse, and faster than the blink of an eye. Every xenomorph's exoskeleton shattered and exploded from the sudden temperature change. Acidic blood spurted and poured everywhere.

I cried out and took a step back as one of the xenomorphs blood sprayed across the observation window.

"No. No. NO!" I cried out, watching in horror as the blood sizzled and ate right through the glass.

"We have to turn down the temperature, FAST!" Jiyong cried.

"We won't have time! It will take hours for the room to cool off! We won't survive from that extreme heat exposure! We have to get out of here!"

I hurried over to Chelsea who was still asleep on the couch and scooped her up in my arms, holding her protectively against my chest.

"But there's still more out there!" Sunghoon cried.

"We'll have to take our chances!" Frankie replied.

"I can bring us all to the escape pods!" Jioyng announced deactivating the emergency override on the door. "But we have to be quick!"

A high-pitched scream startled us all and came directly from behind us. I didn't want to look, but I did anyways.

By the observation window, there was Brooke with a barbed tail of a xenomorph through her chest. It was soaked with her blood, along with her shirt. Blood and foam poured from her mouth and her eyes rolled to the back of her head as it went limp and lolled to her shoulder. Dying instantly.

"BROOKE!" Summer screamed.

"RUN!" Frankie yelled, as he started to fire at the xenomorph.

Just as we scattered out of the room, I saw two more xeno's jump up through the window, flashing their human-like teeth at us. They must have been from the nest and weren't exposed to the temperature change.

"GO! GO! GO!" Frankie barked, walking backwards towards us as he continued to fire at the xenomorphs.

"Lead the way, Jiyong! We have to get out of here!" I cried.

Jiyong nodded and took off down a staircase by the observation room that we were just in.

"Down here!" He called.

Adam hurried after him. "Wait! There could be more of them down there!" He shouted.

Sunghoon took Pastora's hand and looked over at Summer who was in complete disbelief.

"She was so young…" Summer whispered.

"I'm sorry, Summer. But we really have to get going! There's nothing we can do for Brooke now!" I cried.

Summer nodded. "Go on, I'll be behind you guys."

Sunghoon and I exchanged a nod and started down the stairs where Jiyong and Adam went.

"Guys! Hold up!" I cried.

The staircase was dim and very narrow. The air reeked of rot and blood.

"Chaeyoung, don't look down!" Pastora warned, "and watch your footing…they're everywhere!"

I swallowed hard.

"Dead bodies? Or eggs?"

"Both!"

"I'll take care of them!" Summer announced and began to fire her gun.

"WAIT! Stop! Pastora cried over the loud explosions, but Summer ignored her and continued shooting at the eggs. Ooze and greenish-yellow goo exploded from them and poured down the stairs.

"You're going to attract more of them!" Sunghoon shouted.

A high-pitched screech came from below us. My heart sank as I thought it was a xenomorph, but I was wrong. I looked down and could hardly make out the small spider-like form of a facehugger as it scattered up the stairs faster than a cat.

"AHEAD! AHEAD! FACEHUGGER!" Was all I managed to say but it was too late.

The facehugger sprang in the air, it's spider-like arms spread out wide as it launched itself onto summer's face, wrapping its oily tail around her neck.

"NO!" Pastora cried as Summer collapsed on her knees, instantly unconscious as the facehugger embedded her. The three of us watched in horror as Summer fell and rolled down the stairs with the facehugger still attached to her face.

"Someone grab the gun!" I cried. "We have to keep moving!"

"What about Frankie!?" Pastora cried. "He should have been here by now!"

"We don't have time!" Sunghoon replied, bending down to grab Summer's pulse rifle. "We need to catch up to Jiyong and Adam!"

The three of us said no more and started down the stairs. I could hear Chelsea's shallow breathing against my ear. I know I had to stay focus but I couldn't get the image of Summer being attacked out of my head or the sight of Brooke's dead body lifted from the Xenomorphs tail.

They were everywhere. Breeding more and more by the minute. I couldn't stop asking myself: Who will be next?