by Tim Lebbon
But it was a dropship, built for short-distance transport to and from the surface of a planet. It wasn’t equipped for deep space travel. No stasis pods, no recycling environmental systems. It was a no-go.
“We’d starve to death, suffocate, or end up murdering each other,” Lachance said. He looked at Baxter, wearing a deadpan face. “I’d kill you first, you know.”
“You’d try,” Baxter muttered.
“Yeah, sure, the Samson,” Powell said. “And who’s going to stand by those doors when we open them? We can’t see what those things are doing inside.”
“We can’t escape on the Samson,” Hoop said. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t need it. Ripley?” She looked uncertain, but she stood, stubbed out her cigarette, and lit another.
“Hoop and Sneddon came up with this,” she said, taking the first drag. “It might work. The Narcissus is a lifeboat as well as a deep space shuttle. Environmental systems, carbon dioxide recycling capability.”
“But for nine of us?” Welford asked.
“We take turns in the stasis pod,” Ripley said. “But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. There’s another problem.”
“Of course there is,” Powell said. “Why should anything be easy?”
“What’s the problem?” Lachance asked.
“The shuttle’s fuel cell is degraded,” Ripley said. “Less than ten percent charge left, which is nowhere near enough.”
“Enough to get us away from the Marion, surely,” Kasyanov said.
“I’ve run the figures,” Hoop said. “Lachance, Sneddon, I’d like you both to check them. But we need enough power to get the overloaded shuttle away from Marion, out of orbit, and accelerated to a speed that’ll get us back within the outer rim before we’ve died of old age. I figure we need eighty percent of a full charge, at least. Any more than that just means we can accelerate to a faster speed, get there quicker.”
Welford snorted, but then Ripley spoke again.
“It’ll be real-time,” she said. “Even sharing the stasis pod means there’ll be eight people at a time just... sitting around. Growing older.”
“We estimate eighty percent cell charge will get us past the outer rim within six years,” Hoop said. “Give or take.”
There was a stunned silence.
“So I do get to murder Baxter,” Lachance said.
“Fucking hell,” Powell said.
“Yeah,” Kasyanov agreed. Her voice shook.
“Welford’s feet smell,” Garcia said. “Lachance farts. Hell, we won’t survive a year.”
No one laughed.
“Is there a precedent?” Lachance asked.
“We’d be setting it,” Sneddon said.
The bridge was silent for a time while they all thought about what it really meant.
“You said we still need the Samson,” Lachance said. “For its fuel cells?”
Hoop shook his head, and looked to Ripley again.
“Won’t power my shuttle,” she said. “Completely different system design. The Marion’s might, but Hoop tells me they’re damaged and dangerous. He says there are more down in the mine, though—spares, stored remotely, just in case. So we have to take the Samson down to the surface. We bring a couple back up, adapt one, and fix it into the Narcissus. Load the shuttle up with as many supplies as we can, then blast off before your ship starts to burn.”
More silence.
Ripley smiled. “Then all we need is a deck of cards.”
“Piece o’ cake,” Lachance said.
“Yeah,” Powell said, voice quavering with panic, “no problem. Easy!”
“Well...” Hoop said. “There’s more.”
Powell muttered something, Kasyanov threw up her hands.
“What?” Lachance said. “Another problem? Don’t tell me. The shuttle’s made of cheese.”
“It seems Ripley’s been having some computer malfunctions,” Hoop said. “Maybe it’s best if I let her tell you about it.”
Ripley raised her cup of cold coffee in a toast. He shrugged apologetically. Sorry, he mouthed. She gave him the finger.
He liked Ripley. She was strong, attractive, confident in the same self-deprecating way Lucy Jordan had been.
Damn it.
* * *
“Ash,” Ripley said. “He was an android aboard my ship.”
She told the entire story, and something about it felt so unreal. It wasn’t the strangeness of the story itself— she’d witnessed everything, knew it all to be true. It was the idea that Ash had followed her. He’d expressed his sympathies, and Parker had burned off his face, but by then he must have already insinuated himself into the shuttle’s computer, just in case things went wrong aboard Nostromo. How could he have been so prepared? What sort of paranoid programing had he been given?
She spoke about him now as if he could hear every word. She was only sorry that he couldn’t feel shame.
“So as far as I can tell, he’s the reason I’m here,” she concluded. “And he’s not going to be happy unless I bring one of those things back with me.”
“That’s just really fucking dandy,” Powell said. “So we clear one ship of fucking great big rib-busting monsters so we can escape on another ship piloted by a psychotic AI. Wonderful. My life is complete.”
“I don’t think it’s that much of a problem anymore,” Ripley said. She lit another cigarette. The smoke burned her throat. They were harsh Russian cigarettes, brought along by Kasyanov. Of the Marion’s crew that survived, only the doctor smoked. “Because of Ash, I’m here instead of home. I haven’t been able to access detailed flight logs yet, but... it could be he’s just kept me floating around out here. Waiting for another sign that these aliens are still around.”
“But why keep you alive, if that’s the case?” Sneddon asked.
“Because he needs someone for the alien to impregnate. He’s seen how violent the fully-grown creature is, there’s no way he could get one back to Weyland-Yutani. Not on board the Narcissus.” She exhaled smoke and waved it away. “Anyway, that’s beside the point. Can’t undo what that bastard has done. But back then he was mobile, tactile. Hell, we all thought he was human. He interfered in our decision-making, steered events toward his secret agenda. And when things got out of his control, he went on the rampage.
“Now... he’s not really here anymore. He’s just code. Ethereal.” She blew smoke again, but this time didn’t wave it away. “And we know where to find him.”
“So we just shut down Ripley’s shuttle’s computer until we’re ready to go,” Hoop said. “Then when we’re underway, and before we initiate main thrust, I’ll do my best to purge Ash from the systems. Or at least to isolate him to certain drives.”
“God knows you’ll have plenty of time,” Powell said.
“Right,” Ripley said. “And there’ll always be someone awake, to monitor any changes in the shuttle’s programed flight. Incoming signals. Whatever.”
“So Ash is just floundering,” Sneddon said. “Following his programing, but without a plan.”
Ripley shrugged. She wasn’t sure. He’d been so deceitful, so scheming back on Nostromo, that she didn’t want to underestimate him now. But whatever part of Ash still survived, he could no longer intrude in their actions. Not physically, at least.
Soon, she would return to the Narcissus to find out more.
“So that’s the plan,” Hoop said. “Lachance, I need you to plot the Marion’s trajectory around the planet; let us know when we’ll be closest to the mine. But it’s gotta be soon, like in the next couple of days. Powell, Welford, I need you to gather as much of the mining equipment as you can. We need plasma torches, sand picks, anything else you can find.”
“There are the thumpers,” Garcia said. “They use them to fire charges deep into loose sand.”
Hoop nodded.
“Can we really use them in the Samson?” Baxter asked.
“We don’t have to use the explosive charges,” Welford said. “Substitute b
olts, or something, and you have a pretty good projectile weapon.”
Ripley was looking into her cup of cold coffee, listening to the discussion, trying to take it all in. But her mind was elsewhere. Somewhere dark, claustrophobic. Stalking the steam-filled corridors where lighting flashed, the countdown siren wailed, and the alien could have been waiting around any corner.
“How many are in there?” she asked. The conversation was too loud, so no one heard her. She tried again. “Hey!” That quieted them down. “How many are in the Samson?”
“We think four,” Hoop said.
“Fully grown?”
He shrugged. Looked around.
“Last time we saw, they looked big,” Baxter said. “Just shadows, really. They were still, hunkered down at the back of the passenger compartment.”
“Maybe they were dead,” Kasyanov said hopefully. Nobody responded to that. Their luck wasn’t going that way.
“They have acid for blood,” Ripley said.
“What?” Sneddon asked.
“Dallas—our captain—said it was molecular acid of some sort. It ate through two decks before its effect slowed down.”
“Oh, man,” Powell said, laughing in disbelief. “Do they fire lightning out of their asses, too? Do they cum nuclear jelly? What else, huh?”
“Ripley, that’s...” Sneddon stopped, and shook her head. Ripley looked up in time to see her glance at the others, eyebrows raised.
“I’m not making this up,” Ripley said.
“No one said you were,” Hoop said.
“Hoop, come on!” Sneddon said. “Acid for blood?”
There was a long silence on the bridge. Ripley smoked the last of her cigarette and dropped the butt into her coffee mug. It sizzled out. She was feeling an increasingly urgent need to get back to the Narcissus, alone, find her own space. Talk with Ash. She wasn’t sure it would solve anything, but it might make her sense of betrayal easier to bear.
She’d promised Amanda she’d be home.
Closing her eyes, she willed back the tears. She’d already cried too much. Now it was time to survive.
“If you want to use the Samson, best draw them out before you kill them,” she said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“We’ll work on a plan,” Hoop said. “In the meantime—”
“Good. I’m going back to my shuttle.” Ripley stood, but the science officer blocked her path.
“Now wait,” Sneddon said. She was six inches shorter than Ripley, but she stood her ground. Ripley respected that. “None of us knows you. You come here for whatever reason, start telling us these stories about rogue AIs and aliens with acid for blood. And now you want to go back to your shuttle?”
“Yeah, why?” Powell asked. “Hoop, we can’t just let her wander round.”
“What, you’re afraid I’m going to damage your perfect little ship?” Ripley asked. “God knows, we wouldn’t want to scratch the paint.”
“Let’s just chill,” Hoop said. But Sneddon’s blood was up.
“What are you going back for?” she demanded. “You’ve just come from there with Hoop.”
“You’re welcome to come,” Ripley said. She was staring Sneddon down. She waited until the shorter woman averted her gaze, then smiled. “I’m just going to feed my cat.”
* * *
As it turned out, Jonesy wasn’t hungry. Ripley laid out some reconstituted chicken, and though he crept from the stasis pod and sniffed at it, he turned his nose up and slinked away. But he stayed in the shuttle.
Maybe he can smell them out there, Ripley thought. Maybe he knows more than the rest of us.
The acid-for-blood thing troubled her. What she’d witnessed had been just a drop, spilled from the thing hugging Kane’s face when Ash and Dallas tried cutting it off. She didn’t know whether the fully-grown alien carried the same blood, or whether wounding one would result in a similar effect. Really, she knew so little. But though the reality of her experience had been terrifying, the alien had taken on larger, darker connotations in her sleep.
Thirty-seven years of nightmares, she thought. And now that I’m awake, the nightmare has woken with me.
She moved around the cramped space, again wondering just how the hell nine people would survive in here. Even with one in the stasis pod, there’d barely be room for the rest to sit down. There was a small bathroom behind the equipment locker, so at least there’d be privacy for toilet and limited washing. But existing together here for more than a few days hardly bore thinking about.
For months? Years?
She finally found Jonesy again in the suit locker, snuggled down in one of the big EVA boots. He took some coaxing, but eventually he miaowed and climbed out, letting Ripley pick him up and hug him to her. He was her link to the past, and the only solid proof that any of it had actually happened. She didn’t really require such proof— she was confident that she could distinguish reality from nightmare—but the cat was a comfort nonetheless.
“Come on then, you little bastard,” she said. “You gonna help me?” She held the cat up and looked into his eyes. “So why didn’t you spot anything wrong with that bastard Ash? Damn fine ship’s cat you are.”
She sat in the pilot’s seat, Jonesy on her lap, and rested her fingers on the keyboard. She took a deep breath. Ash had tried to kill her, but he was just a machine. An AI, true. Created to think for himself, process data and make his own decisions, act on programed responses and write and install new programs based on experience— essentially learning. But a machine nevertheless. Designed, manufactured, given android life in the labs of Weyland-Yutani.
Suddenly Ripley felt a rush of hatred for the company. They had decided she and her crew were expendable, and four decades later they were still fucking with her life.
It was time for that to stop.
Hello Ash, she typed. The words appeared on the screen before her, flashing green, the cursor passing the time as a response was considered. She didn’t actually expect one, assuming a resounding silence as the AI strived to hide its continued existence. Instead, the reply was almost instant.
Hello Ripley.
She sat back in her seat, stroking the cat. The sensation returned—the feeling of being watched. She didn’t like it.
You brought us here in response to the Marion’s distress signal?
That’s right.
Crew still expendable in accordance with special order 937?
You’re the last of the Nostromo’s crew.
Answer the question, Ash.
Yes. Crew expendable.
“Nice,” she breathed. Jonesy purred in her lap. But I know where you are now, Ash. You can’t control things anymore. You’re without purpose.
I did my best.
Ripley looked at those words and thought about what they meant. The Nostromo’s crew, brutally killed by the thing Ash had allowed on board. Her decades in hypersleep, away from her daughter and home.
Fuck you, Ash, she typed.
The cursor blinked back.
Ripley punched the computer off and then sat back in the chair. Jonesy stretched and allowed himself to be scratched.
6
FAMILY
The Marion drifted, Lachance computed, and he decided that four days after Ripley’s arrival would be the optimum time to drop back down to the mine. It would entail a thousand-mile, three-hour drop, four hours at the mine retrieving the spare fuel cells, and then an hour’s blast back into orbit. If all went well they’d be away from Marion for around eight hours. If all didn’t go well...
Everyone knew what the results of that would be.
Hoop suggested that they open up the Samson a day before they were due to drop. That would give them time to tackle the creatures inside, clear out the ship, and prep it for travel. If there was damage, they could do their best to repair it.
No one mentioned the possibility that it might be damaged beyond their ability to repair. There were so many things that could go wrong that they didn’t
bear discussing, and as such the survivors lived in a miasma of false positivity. The only talk was good talk. Everyone kept bad thoughts to themselves.
Baxter was the only one who was openly pessimistic, but then they were used to that with him. Nothing new.
Hoop was becoming more and more impressed with Ripley. That first day she’d been woozy and uncertain, but she soon found her feet. She came across as strong, resilient, yet damaged—tortured by what she had experienced. She’d once mentioned her daughter, but never again. He could see the pain in her eyes, but also the hope that she would see her child again.
Hope in the face of hopelessness, he supposed, was what kept them all going.
And she was attractive. He couldn’t get away from that. She looked to him first when they had group conversations, and he didn’t think it was because he was ostensibly in command. Maybe it was because, having both lost their children, they had something in common.
Hoop often thought about his two sons, and how he and their mother had watched a marriage dissolve around them. Neither of them had been able to rescue it. His job was the prime cause, she’d told him. It’s dangerous, she said. You’re away for a year at a time. But he’d refused to accept all of the blame.
It’s well-paid, had been his response. One more long job, then we’ll be able to buy our own business back on Earth, be self-sufficient.
And so it had spiraled, until eventually he had retreated to the one thing he knew was utterly indifferent, not caring how and what he was.
Space.
I ran away. The thought dogged him constantly, and it was the last thing the woman he loved had said. You’re running away.
Ripley’s presence made him feel more guilty than before, because in his case it had been a willing decision. She should only have been away for eighteen months.
* * *
He and Ripley spent some more time in the Narcissus, talking about the journey they would undertake together, being positive, discussing how nine people could live in a shuttle designed for three or four, at most. For years. Perhaps many years.