Chapter 12 - Unholy Revivals

 

Chapter 12
Unholy Revivals



Janek was a captain through and through. At times he felt as though the pulse in his veins matched the ambient rumbling of his mighty ship. His breath and the fluctuation of his ship’s engines were so often as one while the Prometheus moved through space. Even the tiniest of details did not slip the seasoned captain’s senses. As such, when one small monitor crackled out of blackness and into focus, Janek spotted it among the spanless array of screens, buttons, displays and the like. He moved closer to the image, which showed a combination of rocks and industrial metal – the loading ramp just outside! His heart skipped a beat when he pieced together what the source of the feed was; it was one of the in-helmet cameras of an environmental suit. In the lower right corner of the screen was the name FIFIELD, S.

“Bridge to Hangar- this is the Captain!”

“Yes, Captain,” Wallace returned as he carefully set himself down from a scaffolding.

“Fifield just popped up on the monitor.”

Vladimir and Sheppard, who were working in the Hangar with Wallace stopped what they were doing when they heard the name of the Geologist, who couldn’t have been there. His body had been found mutilated and burned in the Temple along with Millburn. His helmet had been fused to his face. He had died – horribly.

“What? Where?” Wallace tried not to sound frightened.

“According to what I’m lookin’ at, he’s right outside the goddam ship.”

“Boys, we have a man outside. Let’s get this ramp open!”

Wallace and Vladimir dropped what they were doing and moved to the lift controls for the Hangar bay door. Vladimir readied a pistol, which was in keeping with his way; there were those who shot first and asked questions later, and then there were those who merely shot and asked no questions. Sheppard remained a few meters behind them as the door began its descent. The eerie light of LV-223 poured into the Hangar. As the hydraulic-powered door thudded onto the ground, all three men saw it; the twisted, lifeless thing laying just at the foot of the ramp. This thing couldn’t possibly be what Captain Janek said it was. Wallace and Vladimir approached it and then looked to one another in total perplexment. There was no way they were going to touch this desiccated mound of nothing, let alone take it on board. The instant Wallace and Vladimir turned their backs on the so-called remains of Fifield, both men noticed the look of panic on the face of Sheppard.

“Wait a minute!” Janek’s voice spoke with something akin to authority that could not be described as demanding. The sound of his voice reflected the same trepidation that appeared in Sheppard; who was now backpedaling with both eyes wide in terror.

A sound came from behind Wallace that sounded like a tree creaking in the wind, and then… a thin, nasal croaking. When Wallace turned around, his bowels nearly voided themselves inside of his environmental suit. The thing that looked like a pile of refuse a mere seconds ago had somehow unfolded itself upright to nearly seven feet. Wallace’s eyes read the name FIFIELD, S in disbelief upon the towering monster’s suit. The head of the thing had become bulbous and elongated like some sort of mutated insect. Dull, Human teeth remained inside of the uneven, gaped maw; but they had become glassy and blackened. The deep-blue left eye of the Scotsman remained in perfect condition, while the right eye took on the appearance of an oversized, diseased egg; swollen and featureless. The area where Fifield’s nose had been was now smoothed over by translucent gray-green skin. A blackened mucus dribbled from his decayed maw.

“Fi…field?”

It was all Wallace could offer before one of the elongated limbs swung with inhuman speed; crushing through the thick exterior of his helmet and caving in the left side of his skull. Wallace was dead before Vladimir could let loose his first shot.

“Come on! We’re going down!” Janek stood and barked at Chance and Ravel.

Sheppard had turned and began running for the Buggy he had been working on. After shooting the Fifield creature with four more successive rounds from his pistol, Vladimir realized that his weapon had barely knocked the creature back with the force of impact. He dropped his weapon and began his hopeless retreat. The Fifield creature leapt through the air in Vladimir’s direction. As the mercenary began climbing up the side ladder of the larger of the two buggies, the creature grabbed him by his lower leg and ripped him back down to the ground. The monster raised both arms in a roar of triumph, and then promptly smashed them down onto the torso and head of its second victim. Sheppard managed to get inside of the buggy in which Vladimir had been trying to enter. Just as he heard the engines of the buggy turn over, Sheppard saw three additional figures in environmental suits enter the Hangar; each of them held one of the industrial flamethrowers. Within moments, three ferocious torrents of flame engulfed Fifield; who flailed and flipped for a few moments before fixing its eyes onto its assailants again. They released a second volley of fire… the buggy began to roll into motion. And just before the flame-bathed, seven foot monstrosity could offer one final desperate attack, the wheels of the vehicle under Sheppard’s operation ran it down; crushing it utterly and completely.

 

 

Dr. Elizabeth Shaw stumbles and staggers down the corridor; her thin, cheap medical gown is plastered to her with sweat and blood. She is emotionally destroyed, physically ravaged, and feeling the effects of her double dose of painkiller. When Shaw had last traveled this hallway in her adrenaline-fueled state, her reliable memory allowed her to navigate her way to Vickers’ quarters by instinct alone. But now, she hadn’t the foggiest idea where she was going – she simply walked on. Her head swam, and for a moment she thought the sound of soft violin music and several voices was merely as a result of the drugs… but no, as Shaw sluggishly approached an open door on her left side, the sounds increased in volume. Some of the voices even became recognizable to Shaw’s ears; the voices of one of Vickers’ hired goons, the android David, and… another voice that Shaw told herself she could not possibly be deciphering correctly. As she approached the door, her guesses at the owners of the low-spoken voices had been correct. To her disbelief, there in the seat of a wheelchair sat the brittle, spotted form of none other than Peter Weyland. David was knelt at the feet of his maker, washing his feet from a rectangular metal basin. Shaw fell unto her side in exhausted horror; no one came to her aid, no one even really appeared to care that she was there to learn the big secret – Peter Weyland had been alive the whole time. But why?

“You… you’ve been on the ship all this time. Why?” Shaw offered as she lay plastered to the floor; noticing now that her legs were partially drenched in her urine.

“Well, I only have a few days of life left in me. I didn’t want to waste them until I knew you could deliver what you promised…” a pained smile formed on the aged, cracked face, “… to meet my maker.”

David pulled his master’s feet from the basin and dried them with a thick, white towel.

“There we are, sir. Nice and clean,” it said without looking up.

Weyland seemed neither thankful nor comforted by the nurturings of his pet android; the son he had built from scratch. Shaw and David managed to meet each other’s gaze.

“Haven’t you told him? They’re… all gone!”

“But they’re not all gone, Dr. Shaw…” David snapped back with the usual robotic kindness. “One of them is still alive. We are on our way to see him now.”

“What?!”

Weyland had just finished putting a fresh pair of gray slippers onto his deathly-looking feet. He waved one hand at Jackson standing in front of him.

“Turn me around!”

The mercenary slowly spun Weyland around in the wheelchair to face his unexpected guest again.

“You… you convinced me that…” Weyland shuddered as he delivered his words with what conviction his body could manage. “If these things made us, then surely that can save us. My stick, please!”

Without fail, David produced a silver and brown cane instantaneously, and handed it to his maker. Weyland snatched the cane thanklessly, and then slowly pushed himself onto his feet unsteadily. As a child, Elizabeth Shaw had built a small house out of wooden toothpicks and playing cards with her father. The shell of a man before her now reminded her of that house; laughably unreinforced, a thing that could be toppled and crippled by a gust of wind.

“They will save me, anyway…” Weyland concluded pompously.

Shaw had finally found the strength to pull herself to her feet again. She refused to be towered over by the shell of a man. She shook her head and glowered at Weyland.

“Save you from what?”

A brief lifting and falling of the old man’s chest and shoulder – laughter.

“Death, of course.”

Shaw shook her head again. She stepped forward a few paces.

“You don’t understand! You… don’t know! This place… it isn’t what we thought it was. They aren’t what we thought they were! I was wrong! We were SO wrong! Charlie… Dr. Holloway is dead. We must leave!” Shaw pleaded with Weyland; knowing the moment the words came out how futile they were.

“And what would Charlie do now? We’re so close to answering the most meaningful questions ever asked by mankind. How can you leave without knowing what they are? Or have you lost your faith, Shaw?”

Tears filled Shaw’s eyes. She hung her head in sorrow and shame. She and Dr. Holloway had brought Weyland and his corporate lapdogs this far; they had sold their souls as well as the soul of their scientific efforts. They could have told Weyland Corporation long ago to take their money and shove it… they could have gone about their collective research in purity and in poverty. But just as it was with the despicable Peter Weyland, the disgusting husk of a man barely able to stand, Elizabeth Shaw and Charles Holloway chose the road of Greed. They had taken the money, and they had become corporate stooges themselves. Whatever scientific discoveries that had been waiting on LV-223 belonged to Weyland, and would go directly to Peter Weyland himself. This whole mission, this damnable death world, the Engineers, the company’s entire squandered fortune, the lives spent along the way – it had all been in the name of Peter Weyland achieving immortality. Shaw felt as though she might vomit, but she merely shook her head in shameful acceptance, if not shameful agreement. There was nowhere left for her to go. Everyone Shaw ever loved in this life was dead, it was doubtful she would ever leave LV-223. Once Weyland had what he wanted, what then would he do with Shaw? He would no longer need her… and it was clear that she fit the bill of an extreme ‘loose end.’ Worse still was the thought of what Weyland would do if he didn’t get what he wanted. Shaw imagined easily enough the remainder of the mercenaries turning their weapons on her with a look of inhuman glee… or perhaps it would be the android David with his hands at Shaw’s throat; those synthetic, condescending eyes staring into Shaw’s while her life slipped away. There was no turning away for Elizabeth Shaw now. She would see this horrible mission through – she would try to speak to the surviving Engineer. She had to know why this ancient race sought to wipe out Humanity… and if Shaw wasn’t able to learn that, at the very least she could implore this living god NOT to grant Peter Weyland the immortality he sought. Elizabeth Shaw decided that her life was no longer important, and was even less desirable to carry on any further. The important thing was ensuring that Peter Weyland came to the grave with her… and if at all possible, his synthetic pet as well.

“Okay…” Shaw said through her sorrow.

 

Elizabeth Shaw cried out in agony as she zipped herself into her thermal undersuit. Someone rang the bell to her quarters.

“Come in…” Shaw called out through the horrible pain in her abdomen.

Captain Janek entered; lacking the smoothness and charisma that usually came with one of his arrivals.

“Doc, what the Hell are you doin’?!” He began with stern, animated anger. “You know what this is place is? Those, uh… Engineers? This ain’t their home! It’s a military installation! They put it out here in the middle of nowhere because they’re not stupid enough to make weapons of mass destruction on their own doorstep. That’s what all that shit is… oozing out of those vases. They made it… it got out… it turned on them… THE END. It’s time for us to go home.”

Shaw stared at Janek. No matter what anyone thought of the man, he was truly a man of conviction; a man worthy of respect.

“One of them is still alive. Don’t you want to know what they have to say?”

Janek’s shook his head slightly for a moment.

“I don’t care…” He replied.

"Right… all you do is fly the ship.”

“That’s right.”

Shaw took a deep breath.

“Well, you must care about something, Captain,” she offered finally, “otherwise, why are you here?”

It was Janek’s turn to pause in contemplation.

“How about this…” he began, “no matter what happens down there… I can’t bring none of that shit home with us. Can’t let it happen. And I’ll do whatever I have to… to see that it doesn’t.”

Shaw smiled warmly and touched Janek on the arm in a display of tenderness.

“Make sure you do, Captain…”

 

Peter Weyland and David were alone making their final preparations before suiting up when Meredith Vickers entered. Weyland was clearly not pleased to see his biological daughter.

“You came after all…” the old man finally managed.

“I thought you wanted me to,” Vickers responded with deliberate stupidity.

“After all your vigorous attempts to stop me, I’m just surprised to see you. All right, David… leave us now.”

David bowed slightly and then made his exit. Father and daughter stared upon one another in uncomfortable silence. Even as they stood face to face in this small room, there was a universe and more between Vickers and Weyland. The beautiful blonde gave a wry half-smile before speaking again.

“If you’re really going down there, you’re going to die,” Vickers said matter-of-factly.

Weyland’s eyes scanned the floor as he fidgeted with his outfit.

“You have a negative way of looking at things. Exactly why you should have stayed at home.”

Vickers shook her head; restraining the urge to twist her smile into something more resentful and scream in the old man's face.

“Did you really think I was going to sit in a board room, arguing over who was in charge while you go look for… for some miracle on some god-forsaken rock in the middle of space?”

Vickers approached her father, knelt beside him and spoke to him in a whisper.

“A king has his reign… and then he dies. It is inevitable.”

She pulled away and stood again before her father; the single person she despised most in all of creation. Her words seemed to strike something in Weyland. But he did not take the argumentative bait; he did not have the time or the energy to waste on her. As far as Peter Weyland was concerned, this would be the last time he would speak to Meredith – regardless of the outcome of meeting the last Engineer.

“Anything else?”

Vickers smiled emptily.

“No, father.”

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