Alien: Out the Shadows

“Come on!” Ripley said. “Quickly!” And she ran. Kasyanov clasped her shoulder firmly and moved with her, perfectly in step. Lachance struggled along behind, keeping up with them as they passed beneath the gap in the ceiling. Ripley risked a glance up…

…and saw the moving thing much closer now, falling, limbs knocking sparks from the shaft’s sides, no longer screeching but growling, keening, its mouth extended and open, ready for the kill.

She shrugged Kasyanov’s hand from her shoulder, pushed her to keep moving, then crouched and fired her charge thumper up. Then she rolled backward without waiting to see where the charge had gone.

“Run!” Hoop said. He grabbed Ripley by the collar and hauled her to her feet, then helped Baxter stagger along the corridor. The charge will fall, Ripley thought, bounce off that thing and land behind us, and when it blows it’ll knock us down, knock us out, and then—

The explosion came from behind them. She could tell by the sound that the charge had detonated up in the shaft somewhere, but then seconds later its effects powered down and along the hallway, shoving them all in the back. Kasyanov grunted and stumbled forward, falling with her arms outstretched and screaming as the damaged hand took her weight. Ripley tripped face-first into Hoop’s back, hands raking across his shoulders for purchase and knocking him down. As they fell she thought of his spray gun and what would happen if its reservoir burst beneath them.

Hoop must have been thinking the same—he braced his hands in front and pushed sideways, spilling Ripley against the wall and landing on his side. The wind was knocked from her and she gasped, waiting long seconds for her breath to return. And while she waited she watched—

Lachance dropping Sneddon, tipping forward, rolling, and then coming to his feet again, pivoting on his left foot and swinging his charge thumper up to aim back toward the blast.

Ripley turned to look as she gasped in a breath, and what she saw drove the air from her lungs again, as surely as any explosion.

The alien had dropped from the shaft and was blocking the corridor—the entire corridor. One of its limbs and part of its torso seemed to have been blown away, and acid hissed and bubbled across the floor and walls. It staggered where it stood, one of its sturdy legs lifting and falling, lifting and falling, as if putting weight down gave it pain.

It was larger than any other alien they had ever seen. Its torso was heavier, head longer and thicker.

It hissed. It growled.

Lachance fired.

Two bolts struck the alien’s wounded side, smacking shreds of shell-like skin and bubbling flesh back away from them. It shrieked and flailed its remaining limbs, striking deep scratches across the walls. Lachance’s next two shots hit it directly beneath its raised head.

The shrieking stopped. The beast froze. Hoop stood and aimed the spray gun, but he didn’t fire. Even the drifting smoke from the explosion seemed to go still, waiting for whatever might happen next.

“One more,” Ripley whispered, and Lachance fired again. The bolt struck the alien’s abdomen, but it was already slumping to the ground, limbs settling, its damaged head resting against the corridor’s side. And then slowly, slowly, it slid down as its acid-blood melted a depression in the wall.

Hoop tensed, ready to fire his acid-gun, but Ripley held up a hand.

“Wait!” she said. “Just a bit.”

“Why?” he asked. “It might not be dead.”

“Looks dead to me,” Lachance said. “Half its head’s blown off.”

“Yeah, well…” Ripley said. They waited like that, watching the motionless creature, the smoke drifting down from the vertical shaft, drawn back along the corridor toward the burning egg chamber. She couldn’t feel the breeze anymore, but the fleeting smoke indicated that the fires were still blazing. They listened for more movement, but heard none. And all the while she tried to see what was different about this dead beast.

Apart from being bigger than the others, there were other, more subtle differences. The length of its limbs, the shape of its head.

“What the hell is that?” Hoop asked, pointing. “There, at its ass-end.”

“Oh, well, that’s gross,” Lachance said.

The alien’s abdomen had burst open, spilling a slick mess across the floor. It sizzled and spat as the acid-pool spread, but it was the things lying in the pool that drew Ripley’s attention. Scores of them—maybe hundreds— spherical and each roughly the size of her thumb. They glimmered moistly beneath the flashlight beam, sliding over one another as more poured from the wound.

“I think we killed a queen,” Ripley said.

“You’re sure?” Hoop asked from behind her.

“Pretty sure—it’s the only thing that makes sense. They’re eggs. Hundreds of eggs.” She looked back at him. “We nailed a fucking queen.”