by Tim Lebbon
Hoop didn’t like that one little bit.
“Look here!” Sneddon said. She was at the far edge of the room now, standing back from one of the eggs and taking photographs. The flashes troubled Hoop—for a second after each one his vision was complete blackness, his sight returning slowly every time. He didn’t like being blind, even for a moment.
The egg before her was open. Unlike the others, it didn’t look old and fossilized, but newer. Wetter.
She flashed off another shot, but this time Hoop blinked just as the light seared around the room, and when he opened his eyes again his vision was clear. In the final instant of the flash, he saw that the old-looking eggs were opaque beneath the camera’s flash. Inside, there were shapes. And he was certain that some of those shapes were moving.
“Sneddon, don’t get too—”
“There’s something—” Sneddon said. She took one step closer.
Something leapt from the egg. In an instant it wrapped itself around Sneddon’s face. She dropped the camera and it started flashing on automatic, the white-light searing the room at one second intervals as she grabbed the thing and tried to force her fingers beneath its grasping claws and the long, crushing tail that coiled around her neck. And then she dropped to her knees.
“Holy shit!” Lachance said, swinging the charge thumper up and toward her.
Ripley knocked it aside.
“You’ll take her head off!”
“But that thing will—”
“Keep her still!” Hoop said. Then he was beside Sneddon, trying to assess what was happening, how the thing had attached, what it was doing to her.
“Oh, shit, look at those things!” Kasyanov said.
Other eggs were opening. Even beneath the shouting and panic Hoop could hear the wet, sticky, almost delicate sounds of the flaps peeling back, and the slick movements of the things inside.
“Don’t get too close to any of them!” he said. “Get over here, everyone get close to—”
“Fuck that!” Kasyanov said, and she fired her plasma torch across the room. Sneddon’s still-flashing camera was nothing compared to the blazing light. The doctor swept it from left to right, the fire rolling in a white-hot wave across the space, and beneath its concentrated heat the eggs began to burst. They split apart and wriggling, thrashing things emerged, sliding out in a slick of fluid already bubbling beneath the heat, their legs and tails whipping for purchase. Then they began to shriek.
It was a horrible sound, ear-splitting, far too human.
“Help me drag her!” Ripley said, trying to grab Sneddon beneath one arm. But the science officer slumped forward, her shoulder striking an egg, before falling onto her side. “There!” Ripley shouted, nodding at the opening across the room. “Help me!”
Lachance pulled the spray gun from Sneddon’s other shoulder, grabbed her beneath the arm, and began to haul.
The egg that Sneddon had nudged against opened. Hoop saw it, and without thinking he swung the spray gun to bear. Ripley saw the barrel aiming at her and opened her mouth to shout a warning, but then she sensed the movement as well, turned, and swung the charge thumper from her shoulder.
“Not yours!” Hoop shouted. He’d given her real charges, and if she fired one in this confined space, it might kill them all.
Lachance was quick. He dropped Sneddon, stepped back, and fired his own charge thumper, loaded with nonexploding ammunition. The egg shuddered as something passed through it, and the flaps drooped as a thick, viscous fluid leaked out.
“Don’t step in it!” Ripley warned as she and Lachance grasped Sneddon again.
Kasyanov was staring at her handiwork. Half of the room was ablaze, plasma having stuck to the walls and the eggs and seeded multiple fires. Several more eggs— the ones not caught in the initial blast—burst open, their boiling insides spraying across the room. Kasyanov winced back, wiping at something that had landed on her forearm and glove.
“Don’t spread it!” Hoop shouted.
The doctor glanced back at him, shaking her head and holding up her gloved hand.
“It’s okay, it’s not acid,” she said. “I think it’s...” Then her face changed, as the suit material began bubbling and smoking as the liquid started to eat through.
Kasyanov screamed.
“Let’s go!” Hoop shouted. Ripley and Lachance dragged Sneddon, Baxter hopped as best he could, and Hoop went for Kasyanov, reaching for her while trying not to touch the parts of her that were affected. She saw him coming and tried to be still, but a heavy shudder was passing through her body. Her teeth clacked together so hard that he thought they’d break, and she was starting to foam at the mouth.
She reached out her good hand and grasped his.
“I... can’t... see...” she managed to croak, and Hoop squeezed her hand. Her eyes looked fine, but there wasn’t time now to examine them closely. The room was heating up. He needed to get away.
The face-hugging things were still bursting from their eggs, cooking in the fire, screaming.
They made it across to the opposite doorway. Ripley went first, lighting the way with her own flashlight. Hoop guided Kasyanov in last, leaning her against the dripping wall and trying to say some comforting words in her ear. He couldn’t tell whether or not she heard.
Then he stood in the opening and faced back into the room. The waves of heat were intense, drawing in air from behind him to feed the flames. The sounds of the blaze were incredibly loud—the roar of air alight, the crackle and pop of eggs bursting and burning. The stench was foul, scorching his nose and throat as the whipping limbs of flames threatened his clothing, face, and hair.
But there were still several eggs that were untouched.
As he leveled the spray gun and braced himself, he glimpsed something glimmering across the other end of the room. A shine, coming from the shadows. He aimed the flashlight that way, and saw.
“Ripley!” he said, trying not to shout too loud. “Lachance, Baxter! They’re here.”
15
OFFSPRING
“We’re killing their children,” Ripley said.
And though she wasn’t certain just how accurate this assessment was—where the eggs came from, what laid them, how these beasts procreated—somehow she felt it was right. Any species would go to great lengths to protect its offspring. This was nature’s way.
Across the burning, smoking, spitting pit of the egg chamber, the first alien stepped from the shadows.
Hoop’s acid spray gun wouldn’t reach that far, so Ripley didn’t hesitate. She braced the charge thumper against her hip and fired. It was a lucky shot. The projectile struck the alien low down on one leg, knocking the limb from under it and sending it sprawling to the left, rolling across two burning eggs. It shrieked and stood, shaking off the flames like a dog shaking water from its coat.
...One...
Ripley counted in her head. The only other time she’d fired an explosive charge from the thumper, the time delay had hit five seconds, and now—
...two...
“Hold your breath!” Hoop fired three spurts of acid across the right-hand side of the room.
...three...
The acid splashed from the wall, landed across the floor and several eggs, and immediately started hissing. One egg was sliced immediately in two, red smoke boiling up from its ruined insides.
...four...
The alien was on its feet again, one arm-like limb slapping at its legs where the small, metallic charge had penetrated and stuck.
“Down!” Ripley shouted. She turned her back to the flames and crouched.
The explosion reverberated across the room and through the ship’s structure, the floor punching up at their feet, air thumping at their ears. She gasped, swallowed, then spun around to face the room again.
The alien was all but gone, most of its torso and lower limbs blown away. Its head had rebounded from the roof and landed close to where it had been standing, and the next two aliens rushing into the room ki
cked it aside.
Hoop was gasping next to her. She glanced at him, saw the blackened split in his suit’s right arm.
But there was no time.
“Run!” she shouted. The two aliens had parted, stalking between the flames, and she only had one charge left. Someone shouldered her aside and the world turned white. She squeezed her eyes closed and slid down the wall, feeling the heat on one side of her face as more fire erupted through the egg room.
A wind roared past them to feed the fire, and then someone was squeezing her hand. Hoop was there, trying to pull her away and urge her to run.
Baxter stood above them, one leg firm and the other foot barely touching the ground. He had his back to them as he tracked one of the aliens, loosing another quick burst from the plasma torch and catching the creature across the head. It screeched, squealed, and darted across the room from one wall to the other, streaking fire behind it. When it struck the wall it slid to the floor and did not move again.
Ripley couldn’t see the other one.
“There’ll be more!” Hoop said.
“I’ll stay...”
At least that was what Ripley thought Baxter said. It was difficult to tell, his back still to them, plasma torch drifting left and right as he sought new targets. The room was a sea of flames now, the wind of the firestorm almost strong enough to knock him down. He was silhouetted against the flames.
“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Hoop said. He ducked down and took Baxter’s arm over his shoulders. “Ripley, can you guide Kasyanov?”
“I’m...” Kasyanov said. “I can walk... just not see...” She still shivered, one hand held out in front of her. It barely resembled a hand anymore.
“Your eyes aren’t damaged,” Ripley said.
“Fumes...” she said. “My belt, hip pocket. Red capsules. For... pain.”
“Hurry!” Hoop said. Ripley knew he was right, there’d be more aliens, but they needed Kasyanov on her feet. With Baxter hobbling and Sneddon down, they were rapidly getting to the time when they’d have to leave someone behind. And she sure as hell wasn’t about to decide who it would be.
She rooted through Kasyanov’s belt pockets and found a strip of red injection capsules. She removed three, popping the top from one and ramming the needle through Kasyanov’s suit into her right forearm. Then she popped the other, knelt, and jammed it into Baxter’s leg. Hoop was last, the needle pressed into his shoulder.
“Ouch!” he yelled, and Ripley laughed. She couldn’t help it. Baxter grinned, and Hoop smiled sheepishly.
Then she stood, took Kasyanov’s good hand and placed it on her own shoulder.
“Hold tight,” she said. “Stop when I stop, go when I go. I’ll be your eyes.”
Kasyanov nodded.
“Lachance?” Hoop said.
“I’m okay for now,” the Frenchman said, kneeling and slinging Sneddon over one shoulder. “She’s light. But we won’t get far like this.”
Ripley stared at the thing on Sneddon’s face, and between blinks she saw Kane lying in sick bay on the Nostromo, Ash and Dallas hovering without any idea what to do. Maybe she shouldn’t get far, she thought. Already that thing might be planting its egg inside her. But the idea of leaving her was too sick to contemplate.
With Sneddon’s spray gun lost and Kasyanov’s plasma torch hanging from one shoulder, they were down on their weapons. After the one charge she had left, Ripley would be firing bolts again. She had no idea how long the plasma and acid would last.
Kasyanov clasped her shoulder hard. Like her life depends on it! Ripley thought, smiling grimly. Then the flashlight strapped to Lachance’s charge thumper went out.
“One down,” he said, already gasping beneath Sneddon’s weight.
“Hoop, Lachance is right. We can’t get far like this,” Ripley said.
“We have to,” he replied.
He was right. That was the only answer. This wasn’t one of those situations where a miracle would suddenly present itself. They had to get as far as they could, and there was no use waiting for something else to happen. One foot in front of the other, defending themselves, fighting when they had to, moving quickly when they didn’t.
And if and when we get back to the Marion, there’s Ash, she thought. She wondered just how far that bastard had gone. He’d dragged her with him through the cosmos, searching for alien life, and once he’d found it, he’d tangled her up in all this. Commitment she could understand, but his determination went way beyond that.
Maybe he’d even...
She barked a short, bitter laugh.
“What?” Hoop asked, shooting her a sideways glance.
“Nothing,” she said. And it was nothing. Even if Ash had been responsible for the shuttle’s fuel cell decay, that meant nothing right now. But if they ever made it back to the Marion, they’d have to be careful. That was all.
One foot in front of the other... step by step.
The corridor rose steadily, as wide as any they’d yet followed, and they started passing openings on either side. Hoop slowed before each opening and fired a quick shot from his spray gun every time, but nothing shrieked, nothing came at them from the shadows.
They didn’t even know there was an opening above them until they heard the scream.
It was different from the other alien noises they’d heard, a deeper cry as if from something larger. The shriek was somehow more measured, almost more intelligent. It was haunting.
Ripley stopped and crouched, and Kasyanov did the same behind her. She looked upward. There was a wide, darker shadow in the ceiling above them that swallowed light, and it was only shining a flashlight directly up that revealed the shaft rising above them. High up in that shaft, something moved.
Hoop was ahead with Baxter, both of them already aiming their weapons. But neither of them fired. Acid and fire will drop back down, Ripley thought.
“Back!” Ripley said. She and Kasyanov backed up, and behind them she heard Lachance grunting with the effort of reversing with Sneddon still slung over his shoulder. Hoop and Baxter moved forward, further along the corridor, so that the opening in the ceiling was now between them. Ripley and her group pressed tight against the wall, giving the leaders as wide a field of fire as they could.
But not wide enough.
“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 Sn
eddon, 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.