by Tim Lebbon
“Easy,” Ripley said. Someone laughed. Someone else started swearing quietly, voice so soft that she couldn’t even tell whether it was a man or woman.
Wait! she wanted to say. Wait, we still have time, we can come up with something else! But she knew that they didn’t have time. That bastard Ash had brought her to this doomed ship, and now she was going to face them again.
The monsters from her nightmares.
Hoop whispered, “Go.” The Samson’s outer hatch squealed open, and the shadows came.
7
SHADOWS
Between blinks, Ripley’s world turned to chaos.
As soon as the Samson’s hatch was open the aliens surged out. They were so fast, so silent and furious, that she didn’t have time to count. Their limbs powered them along the docking arm and through the airlock, skittering on the metallic surfaces. Someone shouted in surprise, and then the creatures struck the heavy netting.
Ripley crouched down clutching her sand pick, ready to drag the creatures toward the vestibule’s rear doors. But something was wrong with the net. It held two of them tightly in a tangled jumble, but two more thrashed violently, limbs waving and slashing, tails lashing out, and those terrible teeth clacking together and driving ice-cold fear through her veins.
“Careful, they’re—” she shouted.
And then they were through.
The tightly coiled metal-cored netting ruptured, high-tension wiring thrashing at the air with a high-pitched whipping sound. Welford screamed as his features blurred. Blood splashed across the vestibule, painting the harsh white surfaces a startling shade of red.
Hoop shouted as he ignited his plasma torch. One alien surged at him, then kicked sideways against a rank of fixed seating, veering away from the waving flame.
Directly toward Ripley.
She crouched against the bulkhead and propped the long pick’s handle beside her, pointing it up and away from her at an angle. The alien—tall, spiked, chitinous, with razor nails and the curved head and extruding mouth that had haunted her for so long—skidded toward her, claws scoring ruts in the flooring as it tried to slow. But not quite quickly enough.
It squealed as the point penetrated its body somewhere just above it legs.
An acrid stench made Ripley gag. She heard fluid spattering onto metal, and then she smelled burning.
“Acid!” she shouted. She shoved forward with the sand pick. The alien stood its ground, crouched down with its hands clawed and waving, mouth snapping forward. But it was playing for distraction. Ripley heard the soft whoosh! of its tail, and ducked just in time.
The pick was snatched from her hands and sent clattering across the vestibule.
Ripley feinted left toward the airlock, then leapt to the right, following the curved wall toward the rear doors. She sensed the thing following her, and as she approached the doors Hoop shouted.
“Ripley, down!”
She dropped without hesitation. A roar burst all around her and she smelled hair singeing, felt the skin on the back of her neck and scalp and arms stretching as an unbelievable heat scorched the air above and behind her.
The alien squealed, high and agonized.
Ripley looked toward the open exit doors just as another shadow powered out through them. From beyond she heard an impact—wet, meaty, a thud and a grunt. Someone screamed.
Something grasped her hand and she cried out, rolled, kicking out, her heavy boot connecting with Hoop’s thigh. He gasped, then grabbed her tighter and dragged her across the vestibule.
The alien was still squealing as it burned, thrashing back along the curved bulkhead toward the airlock doors.
And toward Powell. He was standing over the two aliens still struggling in the net, aiming his charge thumper. There was something wrong with his face. Ripley saw the splash of blood across his chest and neck, saw it dripping from his features. He was totally expressionless. He waved the thumper back and forth, but didn’t seem to be seeing anything.
She glanced aside from him and saw what had become of Welford. He was meat.
“Powell!” she shouted. “Eyes right!”
Powell lifted his head. But instead of looking right at the blazing alien that was staggering toward him, he looked left at his dead friend.
Kasyanov leapt across two rows of seats, braced her legs, and fired her charge thumper at the burning alien. The shot was deafening, pulsing in Ripley’s ears and blowing the flames back from the creature’s sizzling hide.
It screeched louder. But it continued on toward Powell, falling on him, and Ripley didn’t quite close her eyes in time. She saw Powell’s head erupt beneath the impact of the burning thing’s silvery mouth.
“What the fuck?” Hoop shouted.
Kasyanov fired the thumper again, two more times, shattering the alien’s head and spreading its burning parts across the floor and wall on that side of the vestibule. Flames curved across the windows, smoke formed intricate patterns, and an acidic haze rose.
Hissing. Smoking.
“We need to get out!” Ripley said.
“Where’s the other one?” Hoop asked.
“Through the door. But the acid will—”
“Kasyanov, out!” Hoop shouted.
Kasyanov came for them. Ripley saw her disbelief, but also the determination that had smothered her terror. That was good. They’d need that.
One of the aliens trapped in the netting broke free, streaking toward them across the vestibule. It knocked seating aside, jumped over the back of a row of fixed equipment racks, and bore down on Kasyanov.
Hoop raised the plasma torch. But if he fired this close he’d fry the doctor as well.
“No!” Ripley said. “Hoop!” She sidestepped to the left, never taking her eyes off the alien. It paused briefly, and her selfish thought was, Not me, don’t come at me. Fear drove that idea, and moments later—as the alien leapt and Hoop fried it with the plasma torch—she felt a flush of shame.
But Kasyanov was alive because of Ripley’s quick decision. She’d acted on instinct, and her baser thoughts, more taken with self-preservation, had needed a moment to catch up.
The Russian nodded once at her.
Then one of the acid-splashed windows blew out.
The storm was instantaneous. Anything not fixed down was picked up and blasted toward the ruptured window, carried by the atmosphere gushing out into space under massive pressure. Broken chairs, dropped weapons, wall paneling powered across the vestibule and jammed against the window and bulkhead. The noise was incredible, a roar that threatened to suck Ripley’s eardrums from her skull. She tried to breathe, but couldn’t pull air into her lungs. She held onto a floor fixing for a row of chairs with one hand, reaching for Hoop with the other.
Hoop clung onto the door frame, Kasyanov clasping onto his flapping jacket.
Ripley looked over her shoulder. Two tattered bodies—all that remained of Welford and Powell—were pressed hard against the broken window, the two dead, burned aliens almost merged with them. The surviving creature, still tangled in netting, was clasping onto the airlock doorway, but as she watched its grip slipped and it impacted against its dead brethren. Things were drawn through the airlock and whipped around toward the breach—clothing, body parts, other objects she couldn’t identify from inside the Samson.
She saw Powell’s right arm and chest sizzling and flowing from spilled acid.
“We don’t have long!” she tried to shout. She barely even heard herself, but she could see from Kasyanov’s expression that she knew the terrible danger they were in.
For a moment, the storm abated a little. The blown window was clogged with furniture, body parts, and bulkhead paneling. Ripley felt the pressure on her ears and the tugging at her limbs lessening, so she started pulling herself along the floor fixings toward the doorway. With the acid eating away at the detritus, the calmer period wouldn’t last for long.
Hoop hauled himself through, helped by hands from the other side. Kasyanov we
nt with him. Then they both turned back for her.
Jammed against the door frame and held from behind, Hoop reached for Ripley.
As he looked over her shoulders and his eyes widened, she got her feet under her and pushed.
Hoop grabbed her arms and squeezed, so tight that she saw blood pooling around where his fingernails bit into her wrists.
The entire bulkhead surrounding the shattered window gave way.
With a shout Ripley barely heard, Hoop pulled her toward him. The doors were already closing, and she was tugged through the opening moments before the edges met.
There was a loud, long whine, a metallic groaning, and then the growl of racing air fell immediately away. Beyond the door was chaos. But here, for a few seconds, it was almost silent.
Then Ripley’s hearing faded back in. She heard panting and groaning, and Hoop’s muttered curses when he saw Garcia’s mutilated body jammed through a doorway across the corridor. Her chest was a bloodied mess, bones glinting with dripping blood.
“One... one came through,” Ripley said, looking at Sneddon. The science officer nodded and pointed along the corridor.
“Into the ship,” she said. “It moved so fast. And it was huge. Huge!”
“We’ve got to find it,” Ripley said.
“The others?” Sneddon asked.
Hoop shook his head. “Welford. Powell. Gone.”
The chaos beyond the doors ended as quickly as it had begun.
Ripley stood up, shaking, looking around at the others—Hoop, Kasyanov, Sneddon. She tried not to look at Garcia’s damaged, pathetic body, because it reminded her so much of Lambert, hanging there with her arm still swinging, blood still dripping.
“We’ve got to track it down,” Ripley said again.
“Baxter, Lachance!” Hoop said. “One got free on the ship. You hear me?”
No reply.
“The decompression must have screwed the com connection,” Sneddon said.
Ripley reached for her headset, but it was gone. Ripped off in the violence.
“The bridge,” Hoop said. “All of us. We need to stay together, get up there as quickly as possible. Warn them. Then we decide what to do. But only after we’re all together. Agreed?”
Ripley nodded.
“Yeah,” Sneddon said.
Hoop took the last remaining charge thumper from Sneddon, and led the way.
* * *
They’d moved so quickly! Even after being trapped in the Samson for seventy days, they’d stormed out of there faster than Ripley could have imagined. She wasn’t really sure what she’d been expecting... To find that it had all been a bad dream, perhaps. To discover that the things in there weren’t really related in any way to the monster that had killed her crew, thirty-seven years before.
But it hadn’t been, and they were. Exactly the same. Giant, insectile, reptilian things, yet with a body that in certain light, from certain angles, could have been humanoid.
That head... those teeth...
Hoop held out his hand, palm up toward them. Ripley stopped and repeated the signal so that Sneddon could see, and behind her Kasyanov.
They were at a junction in the corridor. Across the junction was the door that led into the ruined docking bays, still solid and secure. Around the corner lay the route up into the main body of the Marion.
Hoop stood motionless, the charge thumper held across his body. It was long, unwieldy, and to aim it ahead of him as he stepped around, he’d have to move across the corridor.
The alien could have been anywhere. Any corner. Any shadow in the corridor walls, open doorway, hatch, side room. She’d seen it rush from the vestibule, heard it pause just long enough to kill Garcia, and then it had gone, ignoring Sneddon altogether. Maybe because she carried a weapon. But more likely, Ripley thought, because it sensed the vast ship to which it now had unrestricted access.
Maybe it had stopped a dozen steps away and was waiting for them. Drooling, hissing softly, anticipating its first real meal in so long.
Or perhaps it had dashed headlong into the depths of the ship, losing itself in unlit, unheated rooms, where it could plan what to do next.
Hoop slipped around the corner and Ripley paused for a second, holding her breath. But there was no explosion of violence, and she followed, drawing close to him once again.
They reached the end of the docking section and climbed a wide staircase into the main ship. She kept her eyes on the head of the staircase. It was well lit up there, yet she still expected to see the shimmering silhouette, all spiked limbs and curved head.
But they were alone.
Hoop glanced back, face tense. Ripley smiled and nodded encouragingly, and he returned her smile.
Behind her, Sneddon and Kasyanov remained close, but not so close that they might interrupt each other’s movements. Even though she’d lost her headset, Ripley could still hear their heavy breathing—part exertion, mostly terror. No one spoke. The shock of what had happened was still circling, held at bay by the adrenalin rush.
Soon it’ll hit us, Ripley thought, remembering the crunching sound as the alien bit into Powell’s head, the hissing, acidic stench as the destroyed creature’s blood splashed down across Powell’s and Welford’s ruined corpses.
Soon it’ll really hit us.
Hoop led them through a wider, better-lit corridor stretching toward a central circulation area. From there other corridors led off, as well as an elevator that rose up through the decks. Three doors were securely closed, shutting off deck areas that had decompressed during the initial disaster, all of which were now out of bounds. The other corridors, all leading toward the rear of the ship, were still open.
From where they stood they could see part of the way along each one. Doors stood in shadows. Staircases rose out of sight. Lights flickered from weak or interrupted power supplies, causing flinching movement where there was none.
Hoop indicated the elevator. Sneddon moved forward, quickly and silently, and pressed the call button.
“Baxter?” Hoop whispered again into his microphone. “Lachance?” He looked at Sneddon, then back at Kasyanov. They both shook their heads.
The lights above the elevator shone a flat red.
“Stairs?” Ripley asked.
Hoop nodded and pointed the way. They moved behind the elevator bank and toward the bottom of the widest staircase. Hoop immediately started climbing, charge thumper aimed up and ahead of him.
Ripley and the others followed. They trod quietly, moving as quickly as they dared, and at the next halflanding Hoop paused and peered around the corner. He moved on. The ship hummed and throbbed around them with familiar sounds and sensations.
At the next landing Hoop stopped again, staring, frozen.
Ripley moved up beside him. She was ready to act quickly—grab him, fall back and down if the alien pounced. But to begin with she couldn’t see anything out of place, and she touched his shoulder and squeezed to get his attention.
Hoop swung the charge thumper around and down, pointing its wide barrel at something on the landing. A clear, viscous slime, splashed down on the landing and the first tread of the next flight, then smeared across the textured metal.
“Which level is the bridge?” she whispered in his ear. She was confused, lost.
He pointed up, held up one finger.
“We have to get out of the stairwell,” she said. “Get up there some other—”
Hoop ran. He pushed off with a grunt, leaping up the staircase two at a time, weapon held out before him. He moved so quickly that he took Ripley and the others by surprise, and by the time she started after him he was already on the next half-landing, swinging around the corner without pause. She grabbed the handrail and pulled herself up.
We should be going slow and quiet! she thought. But she also knew exactly what Hoop was feeling. He wanted to get to the bridge and warn Lachance and Baxter before the alien got there. And if they arrived and the other two had already been slaughtered, he w
anted to kill the fucking thing.
Ripley saw him pause briefly at the doorway leading onto the next deck, then he touched the pressure pad and the door whispered open. He pushed through, crouched down low, looking all around as Ripley and the others closed on him. With a quick glance back at them, he moved on.
Ripley finally recognized where they were. As they approached the main entrance that led onto the bridge she dashed on ahead, pausing by the doors and listening, one hand hovering over the pressure pad. She couldn’t hear anything from inside, but then perhaps the doors were soundproofed. Maybe the screaming was contained.
Nodding to Hoop, she counted down with her fingers.
Three... two... one...
She stroked the pad and the door whispered open. They went in together, Hoop on the left, Ripley on the right, and the joy and relief was almost overwhelming when she saw Lachance and Baxter huddled around the communications desk.
“What the fuck?” Baxter asked, standing and sending his chair spinning across the floor. “We lost contact and...” He saw their faces then, and read the terror.
“What happened?” Lachance asked.
“Secure the bridge,” Hoop said to Sneddon and Kasyanov. “Lock the doors. All of them.”
“What about the others?” Baxter asked.
“How long ago did you lose contact?”
“Just when they—when you were opening up the airlock,” Baxter said. “I was about to come down, but...”
“There are no others,” Hoop said. “Secure the bridge. Then we’ll decide what the hell to do next.”
* * *
Their grief was palpable.
They’d already lost so many friends and colleagues, but these eight survivors had existed together for more than seventy days, striving to make the Marion safe, hoping that their distress signal would be picked up by another ship. Living day by day with the constant, hanging threat of further mechanical malfunction, or a break-out of those monsters from the Samson. Fighting against the odds, their determination had seen them through. Perhaps they hadn’t all liked each other, but what group of people could claim that? Especially under such stress.