Alien: Out the Shadows

“We can help you,” Ripley said, aiming a warning stare at Hoop. “There are enough of us. Don’t panic.”

“Who’s panicking?” Baxter said, looking desperate, eyes wide with pain and terror.

“We won’t leave you,” Ripley said, and he seemed to take comfort from that.

“Everyone else?” Hoop asked. Sneddon nodded, Lachance raised a hand in a casual wave. “Ripley?”

“I’m fine, Hoop,” she said, trying not to sound impatient. They were down, battered and bruised, but they couldn’t afford to hang around. “So what now?”

“Now we have two choices,” Hoop said, glancing at Baxter again. “One, we start climbing.”

“How many stairs?” Kasyanov asked.

“We’ve struck bottom at level 9. Seven thousand steps to—”

“Seven-fucking-thousand?” Sneddon spat. Baxter remained silent, but he looked down at the floor close to his wounded foot and ankle. All his weight was on the other foot.

“Choice two,” Hoop continued, “we make our way across to the other elevator.”

Silence. Everyone looked around, waiting for someone else to speak.

“And whatever they found was down here, where they were working the new seam,” Baxter said. “On level 9.”

“There’s no choice,” Kasyanov said. “How far is the other elevator shaft?”

“In a straight line, a little over five hundred yards,” Hoop said. “But none of the tunnels are straight.”

“And we have no idea what happened down here?” Ripley asked.

No one answered. They all looked to Hoop. He shrugged.

“All they said is that they found something horrible. And we already know what that was.”

“No we don’t!” Kasyanov said. “There could be hundreds!”

“I don’t think so.” They looked to Sneddon, who was looking down at the spray gun she’d picked up once again. “They hatch from people, right? We’ve seen that. So by my reckoning—”

“Eighteen,” Ripley said. “Maybe less.”

“Eighteen of them?” Kasyanov asked. “Oh, well, that’s easy, then!”

“We’re better prepared now,” Ripley said. “And besides, what’s the alternative? Really?”

“There is none,” Hoop said. “We make it for the other elevator, up to level 4 for the cell, then back to the surface.”

“But what about—” Kasyanov began, but Hoop cut her off.

“Whatever we find on the way, we handle it,” he said. “Let’s say positive. Let’s stay cool, and calm, and keep our eyes open.”

“And hope the lights are still working,” Lachance said.

As they picked up their weapons, and Kasyanov did her best to splint Baxter’s ankle with supplies from her med kit, Ripley mulled over what Lachance had said. Down here, in the dark. Feeling their way along with the aid of weak flashlights, a billion tons of planet above them.

No, it didn’t bear thinking about.

When she blinked, she saw Amanda in a floral dress thrashing on the sweet, green grass with one of those monsters attached to her face.

“I’ll see you again,” she whispered. Hoop heard, glanced at her, but said nothing. Perhaps they were all finding some way to pray.

11 MINE

As she exited the remains of the elevator—wondering whether they were incredibly lucky to have survived, or incredibly unlucky for it to have happened in the first place—Ripley realized with a jolt that this was the only planet other than Earth on which she had ever set foot. The voyage aboard the Nostromo had been her first, coming soon after she’d been licensed for space flight, and even after landing on LV426 she’d never actually left the ship.

She had always assumed a moment like this would have brought a moment of introspection. A rush of wonder, a glow of joy. A deep grounding of herself and her place in the universe. Sometimes, after having traveled so far, she’d feared that she would have no real stories to tell.

But now she only felt terror. The rock beneath her feet felt just like rock, the air she breathed was gritty with dust, stale and unpleasant. There was no epiphany. The beasts had ruined everything for her—any chance of joy, any scrap of innocent wonder—and quickly the fear was replaced with rage.

Outside the lift was a wide-open area, propped at frequent intervals with metal columns. Along one side stood a line of lockers, most doors hanging open. There were also storage boxes stacked against a wall, marked with symbols she didn’t understand. Most of them were empty, lids leaning against their sides. Trimonite boxes waiting to be filled, perhaps. Ripley found them sad, because they would never be used.

Lighting was supplied by several strings of bare bulbs, all of them still illuminated. The cables were neatly clipped to the rough rock ceiling.