Alien Resurrection
Page 25
So, with eyes that matched Ripley’s, it pleaded with her.
KILL ME! KILL ME! FOR GOD’S SAKE, MOTHER, KILL ME!
* * *
In the cockpit, Vriess watched the earth loom nearer and nearer as he fought the ship’s controls. The countdown continued in Call’s voice, reminding him with every second that she still wasn’t there, that Ripley hadn’t returned, that he was alone in his futile battle with the ship’s aging systems. Alone. Inadequate. Crippled. He’d never be able to control the Betty now as she plunged wildly toward the planet.
Suddenly, Johner threw himself in the seat Ripley had vacated and wrapped his hands around Vriess’s own, lending the mechanic his own brute strength. Together, they wrestled with the bucking ship.
* * *
When the terrible suction stopped as the Newborn hit the window, Ripley sagged, exhausted, against the floor. She heard Call screaming her name, but could barely think, barely react, even to save herself. Call was reaching for her with one arm even as the robot clung to the apparatus of the ship with the other. Slowly, Ripley forced herself to crawl toward the smaller woman.
The Newborn’s screams grew louder, shriller—scaling up into panicked hysteria. The creature clawed the air desperately, its face, its eyes riddled with terrible pain. Ripley looked back, even though she didn’t want to, but she was unable to hear the sounds of fear without feeling something.
The Newborn looked straight at her, hissing, mewling painfully.
She shook her head. Her last terrible child. It was appropriate that she be here to mark its passing. She needed to witness. Just to be sure.
She felt Call’s fingers latch onto her clothing, haul her closer, then tie some kind of strap around her waist, then her chest, but she was unable now to pull her gaze away from the flailing, crying creature that was still tied to her genetically. Ripley sobbed as the Newborn stretched its arm toward her, pleading with its eyes for her help.
It ends here, Ripley thought at the creature. All of it. Forever. No more incarnations.
The Newborn writhed in torment, whimpering.
Okay, Ripley thought, as if trying to ease its pain. It won’t be long. Easy now.
With a sudden jerk, the outstretched arm was sucked into the creature’s body, the bones flying through the hole into the air. The Newborn bellowed in agony, writhing against the hole that held it as fast as a glue trap pinned a fly. Then its belly hollowed, as its entrails erupted out of the window.
Its piercing scream ripped right through Ripley’s brain, hitting her like electricity. She sagged, grabbing her ears, trying to block the terrible sound of her offspring’s death rattle. She screamed with the Newborn as the sound tore through her like razors. Ripley felt the warm stickiness of her own blood seeping through her hands as her ears bled. She huddled on the floor, crying out, as Call pulled her nearer, clinging to her, holding onto her with all the strength the robot had, as if to save Ripley from this last attack.
As the women watched in shocked terror, one of the Newborn’s legs retracted sharply into its body, disappearing into its torso, as huge bones and muscles were sucked out into the void.
Then the Newborn’s other leg contracted into its body so fast, Ripley feared the port wouldn’t last much longer. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horror of the melting Newborn. The creature looked back at her as the second arm retracted. The Newborn’s head sank into its grotesquely misshapen body.
Oh, God, tell me you’re dead by now. You’ve got to be dead! Ripley begged for it to be true, but then the living eyes of her terrible child said no. Its lungs had to be gone, and its terrible screams had finally stopped, but its mouth kept moving, the frightening teeth opening and closing. Ripley knew the Newborn was still connected to her.
And silently begging, Help me. Help me.
Then suddenly, with a final, terrible rush, the creature’s skin tore, wadding around the remnants of its body like so much clothing, then slipped out the port bit by bit as the Newborn’s living flesh was sucked into space. Ripley could see fingers of one hand still wiggling near the being’s eyes.
I’ve got to get out of here, she thought, fearing she’d lose her mind if she didn’t. I’ve just got to get out—But those eyes, those damned eyes that were just like hers were still alive and Ripley felt trapped by them.
Even as the ship shook and rattled around them, the inexorable destruction of the monster, piece by piece, continued. Everything happened much faster now, as the last of the Alien’s skin peeled off its body and flew out into the stratosphere. Ripley let go of her bleeding ears, and found herself hugging Call’s head, as if trying to keep a young child from seeing something horrible. But they were both watching it, unable to pull their eyes away.
Ripley felt the tenuous telepathic link try one last desperate time to capture her. She shuddered under that inhuman contact, and mourned it at the same time. It was part of her, after all, and it was dying. But she could not allow it to take her with it.
The Newborn’s head jerked suddenly, and finally, mercifully, Ripley realized the back of its skull had exploded outward, taking its brain.
As the head erupted and extinguished the Newborn’s life, Ripley felt the grasping mental touch evaporate like a sigh and found herself weeping, half in relief, half in grief.
Oh, thank God, it’s dead, finally dead! Ripley thought, wanting to just break down and sob. But there wasn’t time as the decompression continued, pulling everything not nailed down toward the grisly remains of the Newborn.
More sucking noises, and suddenly the skin on the Newborn’s face ripped completely away, pulled out through the eye sockets. There was a momentary pause, as if they’d reached the calm center of the hurricane, as the Newborn’s eye sockets got plugged with its last mass of skin, but then one socket blew free, once again acting as a suction hole. And suddenly, the women were back in the wind tunnel, as the vacuum pulled them toward the hideous, grinning skull.
It was too horrible to consider, that they might get yanked out into space through the Newborn’s head.
The two women clung together desperately, fighting the terrible pull.
* * *
“We’re not gonna make it!” Johner swore, even as he battled the controls. The ground was coming up fast. The decompression in the cargo hold was tossing them around like a paper airplane.
“Oh, yes we are!” Vriess barked back at him, waging his own war.
Call’s voice maintained a bizarrely calm level, as it counted down the seconds until impact.
* * *
As the ship trembled violently around them, and cargo and machinery were flung about the hold, Ripley and Call clung to each other for safety. But as Ripley wrapped her arms tightly around the robot’s torso, Call kept attaching more safety webbing to them, snapping the end clasps to metal handholds bolted into the cargo bay walls. The straps bit into Ripley’s body as they fought the pull of space, but she hardly noticed.
Inside her, in spite of the terrible jarring, in spite of the fact that they were probably plunging to their deaths, Ripley found herself amazingly placid. She remembered the drop ship from the Sulaco and the violent ride down to Hadley’s Hope. She remembered Hicks sleeping as if it were just a pleasure cruise, and that made her smile. She held Call against her, wishing she could convey the image, convey her tranquility. Nothing mattered now. Earth would be safe. They were all dead. All of them. And she had outlived them, if only for this little while.
At last, the leering skull of the Newborn shattered into a thousand pieces and disappeared through the breached port.
* * *
“This is it, man, this is it!” Johner yelled.
“We’re gonna make it, I said,” Vriess argued, as both men still wrestled with the helm.
* * *
Without warning, the ship gave a final shudder, then suddenly calmed. Ripley felt the cool rush of natural air as it blew wildly around the hold, whipping papers and debris around like a whirlwi
nd, only now it was blowing into the hold, not sucking everything out of it.
She blinked as she drew in the cool, crisp air and looked out the now empty port. The melted hole showed no lingering evidence of its grisly victim. All she could see was blue sky, and fleecy clouds.
There was an unnatural stillness, and Ripley suddenly felt like she was dissolving. The death of the Newborn had taken the very last remnants of her tattered strength. There was nothing left. She tottered on the verge of collapse.
But Call held her up. “You did it,” the robot whispered. “You killed it.”
“I did?” Ripley wondered dazedly.
“Yeah. You did it. It’s dead. It’s history.”
“Great,” the woman mumbled wearily. “That’s really great.”
Call looked up at her as she struggled to support the taller frame. “Maybe now we can both have good dreams, huh?”
Ripley tried to smile. “We made it. We’re okay.”
“Yeah,” Call said with some amazement. “We are!”
Ripley heard the sound of an intercom flicking on. The hold was filled with Johner’s whooping sounds of victory as Vriess, obviously laughing wildly in relief, called out, “Call? Ripley? You guys okay? We can see you, but—”
“We-we’re okay,” Call called back. She looked back at Ripley and really grinned now. “We’re really okay back here.”
Ripley nodded and tiredly rested her cheek against Call’s head.
* * *
In the cockpit, both men howled with joy and relief. Johner lurched out of his chair, grabbing Vriess roughly around the head and kissed him hard on the mouth.
“Yeah!” Johner crowed. “We got this puppy by the danglies now! Let’s put her down!”
Vriess nodded his head rapidly, grinning like a fool. Then he paused, glanced about the cockpit, and sobered. Glancing nervously at Johner, he asked quietly, “How do we put her down?”
EPILOGUE
Ripley stared out of the Betty’s viewport at the approaching Earth. She’d never seen a blue sky or real soil. At least, not in this incarnation. It was new to her, and she enjoyed the uniqueness of it.
She sensed Call standing quietly at her shoulder, and the robot’s presence gave her a sense of comfort and companionship that she had never felt before.
The memories of Newt, and Amy, Hicks, and Bishop, and all the other people whose lives she’d touched no longer burned so painfully inside her. Now they made her feel warm. They made her feel human. She had loved and been loved. She had fought and protected and had died to save those she loved. She would do it again if need be. And again. And again. She was okay with it now.
The dream images that had so long flickered across her mind were no longer chaotic. The cold comfort of cryo-sleep. The driving need to protect her young. The strength and companionship of her own kind. The power of her own rage. The warmth and safety of the company of friends. The images were meaningful, satisfying. She recognized them on a level far beyond consciousness, far beyond learning. They were part of her, part of who she’d been, what she’d been. And now they were part of what she had become.
She turned to smile at the smaller woman. Call was staring at their nearing landing site. “Earth,” she said, as if only realizing it now herself.
Ripley nodded and almost smiled. “Earth.”
“My first time,” Call said quietly. “Ought to be plenty of places to get lost around here. I guess…” She paused, as if there were a whole battery of things she wanted to say, but couldn’t find the words for.
That struck Ripley as funny. Call was a robot. She had the entire lexicon of language at her disposal, and she couldn’t find the right words.
“What?” Ripley prodded, wanting to know.
“What do you think we should do? Where should we go?” Call was looking at her as if she had all the answers.
Ripley could only shake her head as she looked down over the planet. “I… I don’t know!” She shook her head. “I really don’t know, Call. I’m a stranger here myself.”
The two women stood quietly, companionably, side by side, watching the distant lights of the nearest city. There was plenty of time to decide.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A. C. CRISPIN (1950–2013) was the New York Times bestselling author of 24 novels, including tie-ins to Star Trek, Star Wars, V and Pirates of the Caribbean. In 2013, she was named a Grandmaster of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
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