Alien: Out the Shadows

There was no way they should be letting the Samson dock, Hoop knew. Or if it did dock, they had to sever all external operation of the airlock until they knew it was safe. There had been twenty miners taken down to the surface, and twenty more scheduled to return in the dropships. Two shifts of twenty men and women—but right now, the ten people still on the Marion had to be the priority.

He moved to Baxter’s communication panel and checked the radar scanner again. The Samson had been tagged with its name now, and it looked to be performing a textbook approach, arcing up out of the atmosphere and approaching the orbiting Marion from the sunward side.

“Lachance?” Hoop asked, pointing at the screen.

“It’s climbing steeply. Jones is pushing it as hard and as fast as he can.”

“Keen to reach the Marion.”

“But that’s not right…” Lachance muttered.

“What?” Hoop asked.

“Delilah. She’s changing direction.”

“Baxter,” Hoop said, “plot a course trace on the Delilah.”

Baxter hit some buttons and the screen flickered as it changed. The Delilah grew a tail of blue dots, and its projected course appeared as a hazy fan.

“Who’s piloting Delilah this drop?”

“Gemma Keech,” Welford said. “She’s a good pilot.”

“Not today she isn’t. Baxter, we need to talk to Delilah, or see what’s happening on board.”

“I’m doing what I can.”

“Yeah.” Hoop had a lot of respect for Baxter. He was a strange guy, not really a mixer at all—probably why he spent more of his time behind the bar than in front of it—but he was a whiz when it came to communications tech. If things went wrong, he was their potential lifeline to home, and as such one of the most important people on the Marion.

“We have no idea what they’ve got on board,” Powell said. “Could be anything.”

“Did he say there’s only six of them on the Samson?” Welford asked. “What about all the others?”

Hoop shrugged. Each ship held twenty people and a pilot. If the Samson was returning less than half full—and they had no idea how many were on Delilah—then what had happened to the rest of them?

He closed his eyes briefly, trying to gather himself.

“I’ve got visual on Delilah!” Baxter said. He clicked a few more keys on his computer keyboard, then switched on one of the blank screens. “No audio, and there’s no response to my hails. Maybe…” But his voice trailed off.

They all saw what was happening inside Delilah.

The pilot, Gemma Keech, was screaming in her seat, terrified and determined, eyes glued to the window before her. It was haunting witnessing such fear in utter silence. Behind her, shadows thrashed and twisted.

“Baxter,” Hoop whispered. “Camera.”

Baxter stroked his keyboard and the view switched to a camera above and behind Keech’s head. It was a widescreen, compressing the image but taking in the entire passenger compartment.

And there was blood.

Three miners were kneeling directly behind the pilot. Two of them held spiked sand-picks, light alloy tools used for breaking through compacted sandstones. They were waving and lashing at something, but their target was just out of sight. The miner in the middle held a plasma torch.

“He can’t use that in there,” Powell said. “If he does he’ll… he’ll… what the fuck?”

Several miners seemed to have been strapped into their seats. Their heads were tilted back, chests a mess of blood and ripped clothing, protruding ribs and flesh. One of them still writhed and shook, and there was something coming out of her chest. Pulling itself out. A smooth curved surface glimmering with artificial light, it shone with her blood.

Other miners were splayed on the floor of the cabin, and seemed to be dead. Shapes darted between them, slicing and slashing, and blood was splashed across the floor, up the walls. It dripped from the ceiling.

At the back of the passenger cabin, three small shapes were charging again and again at a closed door. There was a small bathroom back there, Hoop knew, just two stalls and a washbasin. And there was something in there the things wanted.

Those things.

Each was the size of a small cat, and looked to be a deep ochre color, glittering with the wetness of their unnatural births. They were somehow sharp-looking, like giant beetles or scorpions back home.

The bathroom door was already heavily dented, and one side of it seemed to be caving in.

“That’s two inch steel,” Hoop said.

“We’ve got to help them,” Welford said.

“I think they’re beyond that,” Sneddon said, and for a moment Hoop wanted to punch her. But she was right. Keech’s silent screaming bore testament to that. Whatever else they had seen, whatever the pilot already knew, the hopelessness of the Delilah’s situation was evident in her eyes.

“Turn it off,” Hoop said, but Baxter could not comply. And all six of them on the bridge continued to watch.

The creatures smashed through the bathroom door and squeezed inside, and figures jerked and thrashed.