The Xenomorph Saga: Prologue

A Story By: G'lek

Professor Elrain Degraad hummed to himself as he watched the creature on the other side of the high-strength plexi-glass. In truth, he didn't think that the glass would hold an adult Xenomorph at bay if it truly wanted to be out, but so far the Drone on the other side had made no attempts to escape its prison. He looked down at the readouts on the computer terminal. The Drone, ID Z-03, seemed in good health. Its vital signs were normal and the logs showed little to no attempts to break its restraints. "Strange..." He mused to himself. Most Drones made at least some effort to break free, even if they'd been restrainted since birth. This one seemed content to watch him from the opposing side of the glass.

He walked over to the door into the room and thumbed the mechanism. It slid open with the gentle hiss of air rushing between the rooms. They kept the rooms for the Xenomorph's at a different pressure to help supress any communications from the Queen and to limit the Xenomorph's sonar. Z-03 turned to look at him, but otherwise didn't react. He walked over and stood in front of it.

"How are we today, 03?" He asked. To his collegues, he sounded like everyone else, some how amazed and enthralled by the Xenomorphs. His concerned, however, was much more genuine. His area of specialization was the cognitive sciences, things like learning, behaviour, and such. Z-03 was of special interest to him. It had shown different tendencies then other Drones, even an inclination towards more social behaviours.

He reached out and brushed a hand along the underside of Z-03's jaw. The Drone pushed back into the touch, as if trying to nuzzle his hand. He rubbed at the Drone's jaw for a few moments before moving up over its domed head. In the past, the Drone had showen opposition to that contact since it obstructed its sonar and whatever "eyes" it had. Now, it pushed up into his hand. He made note of this.

"Well, seems you're doing well today, 03. I'll be sure to have someone along in a bit to check up on you again." He walked out of the room, but before he left, he thought her heard the Drone hiss. It sounded like a word, but he passed it off. The Drones were smart, they knew that, but so far none had learned to speak English.

That hiss, however, clung to his mind the rest of the day. That evening, he returned to Z-03's chamber, bringing some tools he used for teaching the colony's children. He also brought a chair. He set himself down in the chair and looked at the Drone, and it at him. He lifted a large card with a red circle on it. "Red." He said, prompting it. He didn't know why he was doing this, but his gut told him something was different about this Drone.

The Drone looked at the card, to him, to the card again, and then back to him. It's head turned towards one of the red emergency light housings on the wall. It looked back at the card again before emitting a low hiss. Professor Elrain noted this. He put the card down and stood up, walking over to the light housing. "Is this red?" He asked the Drone.

To his great surprise, it nodded. He stepped over to a yellow and black hazard stripe around a window. "Is this red?" He asked, pointing to the yellow on the stripe. The Drone shook its head. Professor Elrain's mind was somewhat in shock. The Drone understood the concepts of color. He walked back to his seat and sat down. He pulled up another card with a picture of a circle. "Circle." He said, hoping to get a similar response.

The Drone looked at the card for several seconds, the around the room. It returned to looking at him, apparently having not found anything circular enough to, in its mind, match the image on the card. Professor Elrain pulled out a wooden block in the shape of a circle, and another shaped as a square. He held up the circle block. "Circle?" He asked.

The Drone nodded. He held the square up. "Circle?" He asked again. The Drone shook its head. It understood shapes as well. "Alright, maybe something more challenging." He pulled out a card that had two sets of objects, green balls, separated by a line. One group had four balls, the other had one. "What's different?" He asked, wondering how much English it understood. The Drone spent longer looking at the card. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, seeing as it couldn't talk and was restrained.

The Drone opened the claw on the right, the side of the card with more balls in the group. It flexed the claw before holding up all four of its fingers. In truth, it had six fingers, but four of them were fused into two groups of two and the other two acted similar to thumbs, one on each side of the hand. The other claw held up only one digit. "That's right, there's more on the right side then the left." So it could count as well.

He sat and thought on this for a few minutes. They had known Xenomorphs were intelligent, but they'd never had a way to determine how intelligent. This could prove to be a major breakthrough. He looked up at the Drone. "Well, 03, I think we'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on." He quickly packed his things up and left. Later that evening, he talked to the head of the Xenobiology division. He presented his case and got permission to have exclusive use of Z-03 for his research.

He didn't sleep much that night, excited about the possibilities of where his research was going. The next morning, he was up early and already in the labs, looking through the plexi-glass at the Drone. He looked down at the computer terminal and the few larger buttons that controlled important things. The restraints and the supression systems. He thumbed the button for the restraint release. The magnetic locks on the restraints released, allowing the Drone to climb out of the metal structure that had held it.

It looked around, as if confused as to what was going on. Professor Elrain walked to the door to the chamber and took a deep breath before he thumbed the mechanism that opened the door. It slid open and he walked into the room. He was nervous, it was still a Drone and he had no clue if its behaviour would remain the same, or if it would become aggressive. The Drone looked over at him, but made no movement.

He walked over to it, kneeling down, trusting his gut. He reached his hand out to stroke along its domed head. It nuzzled into his head. He released a held breath. It seemed just a peaceful as it had in the restraints. "Well, 03, we're already out of the gates running." He stood up and walked back to the observation room to pick up his things. When he returned, the Drone was waiting at the door. It seemed it didn't like the idea of leaving the room.

He brought his chair with him and sat down in it, setting his bag down beside it. The Drone looked at the bag, recognizing it from yesterday. He opened it and reached inside. They had a lot of work in front of them.

The Drone sat curled up on the floor, idly rolling a multi-colored ball around between its claws. At the sound of the door lock disengaging, its head popped up and looked over. The door opened, revealing Professor Elrain. "Faaatheeer!" The word was hissed and somewhat hollow sounding, the result of the Drone using its natural sonar organ in a similar manner to a speaker to produce speech.

"I've told you, I'm not your Father, 03." The professor replied, walking in and sitting down in the seat that was now almost constantly left in the room. "Father is person who cares and teaches, but is man, not woman. You care and teach, you man, you Father." He chuckled. "I can't argue with your logic, 03, though there's more to it then just that. A father is the man who mated the mother of a child."

"Then adopted children father is not father who cares and teaches?" The Drone retorted. Elrain hummed for a moment. "No, you're right. An adopted child has a biological father and an adoptive father." The Drone got up, leaving its ball and sat down in front of the chair. "Then you adoptive father, but still Father."

Elrain nodded. "Fair enough. Though I think if you can name me father, I should give you a name. 03 is a number, afterall, and you're more then a number." The Drone cocked its head. "What my name?" He thought for a moment. "Well, your ID is Z-03. So..." He wrote on a erasable card. "How about this. What do it say?" The Drone looked at the card. "Z... O... E... Zo?" He chuckled. "Well, that's how it's pronounced if you follow the proper rules of English." The Drone nodded. "When two vowels go a'walking, the first one does the talking," She quoted. He nodded. "That's right. Most people pronounce it Zo-e, but if you like Zo better, we can use that." The Drone nodded. "I like Zo."

Elrain nodded. "Zo it is, though we'll spell it Zoe to match your ID. You've come a long way since we first started. I still can't believe it." Zoe pulled her lips back in her version of a smile. "Come far, still long way to go." Elrain chuckled. "You're right, there's still a lot of work to be done. To think, all the things we could change in the world. An inside look at Xenomorph society, of their culture, of their stories, what their history is. We could learn to communicate with them, to make peace rather then war."

Zoe cocked her head again. "I not know..." Elrain paused. "I'm sorry?" He asked. "I not know about others like me," She explained. Elrain chuckled, rubbing her domed head. "I know. You've been raised in captivity, I'm not expecting you to know anything. All I'm saying is there's so much we can learn thanks to you. Not that I need more then what you've already given me, Zo."

Suddenly, the comm panel in the corner of the room buzzed. Elrain stood up and walked over, picking the small handset up for privacy, having recognized the extension as the head of the research department of the colony. "Yes? Certainly sir, I'll be right up there." He returned to Zoe. "My boss wants to talk to me. I'll be back before too long." Zoe nodded, curling up. "I wait, no hurry," She said, tail tapping the ground in a lazy, cat-like manner.

"That's unacceptable!" Elrain shouted at Markus. Markus just leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. "I'm sorry, Professor, but I have my orders, handed down from the corporate execs back on Earth. They want Z-03 for their own research. She's the best shot we have at ever completing that research."

Elrain thumped his hands on the desk. "I said no. You're not taking her to cut her open. Go talk to the marines if you want a corpse. Or to turn her into a weapon, for that matter. She's not some stupid animal you can push into doing what you want."

"Everyone has a price they'll pay, limits at which they'll break." Elrain paled. "You can't be serious..." Markus grinned. "I take my duties very seriously, Professor. I don't joke when it comes to company interests, especially ones as important to the execs as this."

"I said no, and I mean it. You're not talking her. Not when I'm so far into my research. Where am I going to find another Drone like Zo?" Markus frowned. "You named it? You're getting attached, Professor, something you should never do in the world of research. This is not something I'm going to discuss. The Drone is being transferred and thats-"

"Sir!" The comm panel on his desk blurted out. "Flight Control has picked up a medium sized ship entering the atmosphere. It's got no transponder and it's running dark." Markus jumped up. "Get security mobilized, get them armed, and get ready to intercept it if it lands on the landing strip." Markus turned to Elrain. "We'll talk about this later."

What neither man could have predicted was that there would be no 'later'. The slavers were fast an efficient. They were also very heavily armed. They swept the colony's security forces aside with the first wave of attackers. The slavers moved through the base, capturing anyone who they thought would be worth something on the flesh markets and killing anyone who resisted or who wasn't worth the cost of keeping them.

Someone managed to get a distress call out before they were killed. It would take the Marine Search and Rescue squad almost two weeks to reach the colony. What they found there is another story entirely.

Author's Note: Hopefully you enjoyed this little opening to what I hope will be the longest series to date for me. I know I haven't been very good at keeping a series going in the past, but this one feels different. I feel closer to the characters, more involved in shaping their fates. Hopefully that's what proves to be the push I need to keep this one going.

As I always say, your comments and feedback are greatly appreciated. Unlike previously, however, your feedback will not determine whether or not I continue writing this story. It could potentially determine the direction I take, but that's something to be left until the story is well established.