Alien: Out the Shadows

Jordan grabbed a headset from beside Baxter. Hoop looked around at the others, all of them standing around the communications area. The bridge was large, but they were all bunched in close. They showed the tension they had to be feeling, even the usually unflappable science officer, Karen Sneddon. The thin, severe-faced woman had been to more planets, asteroids, and moons than all of them put together. But there was fear in her eyes.

“Samson, this is Captain Jordan. What’s happening? What’s going on down at the mine?”

“…creatures! We’ve—”

The contact cut out abruptly, leaving the bridge ringingly silent.

Wide viewing windows looked out onto the familiar view of space and an arc of the planet below, as if nothing had changed. The low-level hum of machinery was complemented by agitated breathing.

“Baxter,” Jordan said softly, “I’d like them back online.”

“I’m doing my best,” he replied.

“Creatures?” The ship’s medic Garcia tapped nervously at her chin. “No one’s ever seen creatures down the mine, have they?”

“There’s nothing living on that rock, other than bacteria,” Sneddon said. She was shifting from foot to foot. “Maybe that’s not what they said. Maybe they said fissures, or something.”

“Have we got them on scanner yet?” Jordan asked.

Baxter waved to his left, where three screens were set aslant in the control panel. One was backlit a dull green, and it showed two small points of light moving quickly toward them. Interference from electrical storms in the upper atmosphere sparked across the screen. But the points were firm, their movement defined.

“Which is the Samson?” Hoop asked.

“Lead ship is Samson,” Lachance said. “The Delilah follows.”

“Maybe ten minutes out,” Jordan said. “Any communication from Delilah?”

No one answered. Answer enough.

“I’m not sure we can—” Hoop began, then the speakers burst back into life. Let them dock, he was going to say.

“—stuck to their faces!” the voice said. It was still unrecognizable.

Baxter turned some dials, and then a larger screen above his station flickered to life. The Samson’s pilot, Vic Jones, appeared as a blurred image. Hoop tried to see past him to the inner cabin of the dropship, but the vibration of their steep ascent out of LV178’s atmosphere made a mess out of everything.

“How many with you?” Hoop asked.

“Hoop? That you?”

“Yeah.”

“The other shift found something. Something horrible. Few of them… ” He faded out again, his image stuttering and flickering as atmospherics caused more chaos.

“Kasyanov, you and Garcia get to sick bay and fire up the med pods,” Jordan said to the doctor and her medic.

“You can’t be serious,” Hoop said. As Jordan turned on him, Jones’s voice crackled in again.

“—all four, only me and Sticky untouched. They’re okay right now, but… to shiver and spit. Just get… to dock!”

“They might be infected!” Hoop said.

“Which is why we’ll get them straight to sick bay.”

“This is fucking serious.” Hoop nodded at the screen where Jones’s image continued to flicker and dance, his voice cutting in and out. Most of what Jones said made little sense, but they could all hear his terror. “He’s shitting himself!”

Kasyanov and Garcia hustled from the bridge, and Hoop looked to Sneddon for support. But the science officer was leaning over the back of Baxter’s chair, frowning as she tried to make out whatever else Jones was saying.

“Jones, what about the Delilah?” Jordan said into her headset. “Jones?”

“…left the same time… something got on board, and… ”

“What got on board?”

The screen snowed, the comm link fuzzed with static, and those remaining on the bridge stood staring at each other for a loaded, terrible few seconds.

“I’m getting down to the docking level,” Jordan said. “Cornell, with me. Baxter, tell them Bay Three.”

Hoop coughed a disbelieving laugh.

“You’re taking him to back you up?”

“He’s security officer, Hoop.”

“He’s a drunk!” Cornell didn’t even meet Hoop’s stare, let alone respond.

“He has a gun,” Jordan said. “You stay here, supervise the bridge. Lachance, help guide them in. Remote pilot the dropships if you have to.”

“If we can even get a link to them,” Lachance said.

“Assume we can, and do it!” Jordan snapped. She took a few deep breaths, and Hoop could almost hear her thoughts. Never figured it would fuck up this bad, gotta be calm, gotta be in control. He knew she was thinking about those three miners she’d lost, and dreading the idea of losing more. She looked straight at him. He frowned, but she turned and left the bridge before he could object again.