Alien: Out the Shadows

“It’s simple enough,” Hoop said. “Start the fuel cell, initiate charging, disconnect damping and coolant systems. It can be done.”

“But there’s no accurate way to judge how long it will take to blow,” Lachance said.

“It doesn’t have to be accurate,” Ripley said. “As long as it gives us time to take off.”

Hoop and Lachance looked at each other, and in their silence Ripley heard their agreement. They saw why it needed to be done, and they could do it.

“Suits me,” Kasyanov said. “Quite happy to burn those fuckers, or bury them for all eternity.”

“Don’t forget there’s still that one on the Marion,” Sneddon said. She was still looking at her feet, and Ripley saw something in her that she’d never noticed before. A strange kind of calmness.

“We’ll tackle that when the time comes,” Hoop said.

“And only if we have to,” Lachance said. “With luck, it’ll just burn with the ship.”

“Right,” Hoop said.

They all stood in silence for a few moments. Then Hoop clapped his hands together, causing them all to jump.

“Let’s get to it, then!”

“Thank you,” Ripley muttered, so quietly that he probably didn’t hear. But he smiled nonetheless.

You’re all going to die, she thought, a silent message to those things raving down below. Maybe they were finding their way up through Level 7 now, coming for the people who had killed their queen, and all of their future queens, as well. But she was starting to feel better. Starting to feel good.

She hoped it wasn’t the drugs.

19 CELLS

PROGRESS REPORT:

To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division

(Ref: code 937)

Date (unspecified)

Transmission (pending)

Infiltration of Marion’s computer successfully achieved. All major systems now under complete control, sub-system routines being accessed. It was more difficult than projected… I have been away for some time, and systems have advanced.

Limited contact achieved with LV178 surface control systems. Elevator One remote controls were successfully interrupted upon manual operation. Elevator descended to Level Nine. Some evidence of new activity on Level Four.

Things seem to be going to plan.

Anticipating return of survivors to Marion within approximately seven hours.

Alien specimen surviving on Marion still not detected. It is waiting somewhere.

I am hoping that they bring a viable egg back with them.

I am hoping it is time to go home.

* * *

Hoop was unsettled.

Their course of action was now clear—lift a spare fuel cell onto the trolley, set another one to fire up and overheat, get the hell back to the surface, the Samson, the Marion, then into Ripley’s shuttle before the ship hit the atmosphere and came apart, all while watching out for the alien that had escaped into the interior of the Marion.

Simple.

But one thing troubled him, and it was close at hand.

Sneddon. She looked and acted fine, though there was something… quieter about her now, something calm. Unnaturally so. She had one of their infants in her chest. Ever since that face-hugger had fallen from her and died, Hoop had been thinking, It’s okay, it’s fine, we’ll get her to the Marion and into the med-pod, get that thing taken out of her, lock it up somewhere and leave it to burn up with the ship.

But it couldn’t be that easy, and Ripley’s comments were starting to hit home. She was injured, and the shots Kasyanov had given her might have gone to her head, just a little. The muttering, the swaying. But she knew exactly what she was talking about.

She always had.

If they took Sneddon back to the Marion with them, what would happen? What if Ash had somehow infiltrated the ship’s systems? Hoop didn’t think it likely—the Marion was a comparatively new ship, and its computing systems were a hundred times more complex than they’d been when Ripley had gone to sleep. But the chance was always there, and if Ash somehow found out about what Sneddon was carrying…