Alien: Out the Shadows

She even felt herself starting to cry. But tears would only blur her surroundings, making everything more dangerous. She had to keep her wits about her.

She had to survive.

As they moved inward from the damaged area of the extraterrestrial ship, the surroundings became even stranger. Ripley thought of the old story of Jonah in the heart of the whale, such a disturbing image when translated to their current situation. Much of their surroundings showed distinctly biological features— uneven floors lined with inlaid tubing that resembled veins; skin-like walls, hardened over time yet still speckled with dust-filled pores and imperfections.

Then they began to encounter objects that must have formed some sort of technology. One narrow corridor opened into a gallery viewing area, looking down over a deep pit. It was ringed with a waist-high barrier. On the gallery stood several identical metallic units. They might have been seats surrounded by control equipment of some kind, the details obscure, arcane. If they were seats, then Ripley couldn’t easily identify the shapes of the beings meant to fill them.

The pit was filled to a few feet below the gallery by a glassy fluid of some kind, its upper surface scattered with grit and dust. The ceilings and walls were smooth, and Ripley could only assume that the dust had blown in from outside over the eons.

“Which way now?” Ripley asked.

The gallery led around three quarters of the pit, and there were at least six openings leading off from it, including the one they had just come through.

Hoop was peering at the opening through which they’d just come. From back that way came the sound of scuttling, hissing things.

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” Baxter said, sweating, trying to hide away his pain. Even standing still he was shaking. Ripley couldn’t imagine the agony he was working through, but knew there was no alternative. She only hoped a time didn’t come when he physically couldn’t go any farther.

What then? she wondered. Leave him behind? Kill him? She turned away, just as Hoop spoke.

“Let’s change this game,” he said. “Kasyanov, Baxter, get ready with the plasma torches.” He nodded at the opening they’d come through. “Bring it down.”

“Wait!” Sneddon said. “We have no idea what effect the plasma torches will have on this stuff. We don’t even know what the ship’s made of! Whether or not it’s flammable.”

Ripley heard more hissing, and back along the tunnel shadows shifted, casting spidery shapes along floors and walls.

“We run or we do it, that’s all!” she said. She braced herself to fire her charge thumper.

“Ripley.” Hoop handed her something from his waist pack, a chunky object about the size of a computer tablet. “Load it through the top. Real charges.”

“We can’t just fire those things at random,” Lachance said.

“Not at random,” Ripley said, plugging the container into the top of the thumper. “At them.” She braced again, took aim, and fired. The charge clattered along the tunnel, its echoes sounding strangely muffled as it ricocheted from the walls.

Ripley frowned.

Hoop grabbed her arm. “Time delayed,” he said as he pulled her to the side.

The explosion thudded through their feet and punched the air out of Ripley’s lungs. Behind the rumbling roar of the mining charge, she was sure she heard the aliens screeching in pain, and a shower of debris burst from the tunnel, pattering from her suit, scratching her face.

Smoke blasted after it, driven in streaming tendrils by the rush of air. Ripley swallowed to try and clear her ears, gasped at the stinging sensation across her face. Even as she stood up, Kasyanov and Baxter were at work with the plasma torches.

The entire gallery was brightly illuminated by the scorching plasma. Looking down, Ripley could see a network of slow ripples playing back and forth across the surface of the pit. The blast must have resounded through the ship. It was so thick, the surface so heavy, that the ripples moved like slow snakes, colliding and interfering, making complex but strangely beautiful patterns.

The stench was terrible, almost like burning flesh. The structure all around the opening slumped down, flowing, echoing the lazy ripples from below.

“Hold off!” Hoop shouted, and Kasyanov and Baxter ceased fire. Flames flickered all across the surfaces, fluttering out here, reigniting there, as the heavy framework dipped down until it met the bubbling floor. It had already started to harden again, effectively closing off the opening. The air shimmered from the incredible temperatures. Ripley’s lungs burned.

“Now we decide which direction to take,” Hoop said.