Pandora's Box

The official name of the planet was PR-2114, but those first explorers who had discovered it had jokingly called it Pandora’s Box, because of the run of bad luck it had produced. On the first day there, a mechanic had broken her arm, the pilot had encountered a type of native plant that brought him out in puss-filled hives, and a vital part of the engine had gone missing, not to be found for another three days. On the second day someone had sprained their ankle tripping on a loose stone, and the food stores turned out to have been corrupted with an odd blue fungus.

On the third day, the xenomorphs had found them, and the name had taken on a different, more sombre meaning.

The last two survivors had escaped – the pilot and one of the geologists – and the army had been called in to cleanse the planet. It had taken several long, bloody months, but eventually all the hives had been exterminated. A base had been built soon after the first wave, and it was there she that scientists brought in to study what remained.

Here at last was the ideal weapon, the ultimate predator. The perfect tool, if only it could be controlled. Unfortunately for them, only one intact egg remained, and a few relatively intact corpses.

“Think that’ll be enough?” the general in charge of the whole fiasco said. He was worn-out, and wanted nothing more than to leave the insane aliens and equally crazy scientists to their business.

“It will have to be,” the head scientist replied.


The first results were an unmitigated failure; they either died a-borning or were so uncontrollable they were of no use.

The second results, of blended xenomorph and human tissue, were no better. They survived to adulthood, but were infertile and weak. The scientists were baffled, and for a while the research faltered.

Eventually, a third attempt was made. The last of the viable tissue from the egg, spliced with DNA from a ‘king’ xenomorph and a human egg. The results were split three ways, and incubated for four months in synthetic placental sacs.


During that time, news came to the research team that the project was being abandoned. It hadn’t been yielding enough positive data, they were told, and was therefore deemed to be futile. They were to take their research and abandon the base, while the rest of Pandora (as the planet was still known) was to be colonised with agricultural settlers to harvest the blue fungus that had turned out to be medicinal.

There were grumbles, and even a few complaints, but for the most part they were glad to leave. Like the general years before, they were worn-out and homesick.


The base was to be destroyed by orbital bombardment, so the scientists didn’t bother to wipe what they were leaving behind. The placental sacs were unchanged, the contents both uncertain, and not a few of the scientists were tempted to save them from obliteration, but it had been ordered that they were to be terminated. So they simply left them, hastily stuffing the last of their papers away, and hurried out before they were razed along with both building and eggs.

As the last human left, one writhed a few minutes and was still.


The base was burnt to its foundations, no trace remaining except ashes and burnt rock that might have been an old meteor crash.

The first colonists were shipped in a few days later, hydroponic domes built to cultivate the first crop of blue fungus that would become its main income.

In the mountains around them, three shadowy figures chattered and scampered into the greyness of the dawn.