Alien: Out of the Shadows

by Tim Lebbon

A piercing whistle filled the corridor as air was sucked out through the tiny hole. The door vibrated in its heavy frame, but it remained solid and secure. Dust cast graceful shapes in the air, shimmering skeins wavering as the artificial lighting flickered with a power surge.

  Soon the flow of air ceased, and they were standing in vacuum.

  “Everyone okay?” Hoop called. Everyone was.

  Which meant the time had come to make their way through to the Samson.

  They were assuming there was nothing dangerous left inside. Four aliens had emerged. Two had been killed in the vestibule, another blasted into space when the window had failed, and the fourth was somewhere aboard the Marion. They were as certain as they could be that there had only been four, but there was no saying they hadn’t left something behind when they’d fled— eggs, acid sacs, or something else unknown. They knew so little about the beasts.

  “Right. We can’t afford to use the plasma torch or spray guns in the Samson.”

  “I’ll go first, then,” Ripley said. She handed the spray gun back to Hoop and hefted the charge thumper. “Makes sense.” And she was through the door before anyone else could speak.

  Hoop followed her quickly through the ruined vestibule, past the airlock and along the short docking arm. She paused at the Samson’s open hatch, but only for a moment. Then she ducked, pushed the charge thumper ahead of her, and entered the dropship.

  “Oh, shit,” she said.

  “What?” Hoop pressed forward, senses alert. But then he saw what she had seen, and his stomach lurched.

  “Going to be a pleasant journey,” Ripley said.

  9

  DROP

  PROGRESS REPORT:

  To: Weyland-Yutani Corporation, Science Division

  (Ref: code 937)

  Date (unspecified)

  Transmission (pending)

  Presence of previously identified alien species confirmed. Several specimens destroyed.

  Warrant Officer Ripley in play. Plan proceeding satisfactorily. Anticipating further update within twelve hours.

  I have a purpose once more.

  Before undocking with the Marion, Lachance assured them all that he was the best pilot on the ship. His brief display of humor did little to lighten the mood.

  Even when Hoop leaned over to Ripley and informed her that the Frenchman might well be the best pilot in the galaxy, she still struggled to hold down her vomit.

  Bad enough this was their one and only chance. But forced to make the journey in this dropship, it seemed as if fate was rubbing their faces in the worst of everything that had happened.

  Once the internal atmosphere had been restored, they’d been forced to remove their headgear in order to conserve the suits’ limited oxygen supplies.

  Anything not bolted or screwed down in the Samson had been sucked out during decompression. But there was still the blood, dried into spattered black smears all across the cream-colored interior paneling, the light-blue fixed seats, and the textured metal decking. And there was the stench of decomposition, still heavy even though the ship had been in vacuum for almost a whole day.

  An arm was jammed beneath one row of seating, clawed fingers almost wrapped around the seat post, bones visible through scraps of clothing and skin. Ripley noticed the others doing their best to not look at it, and she wondered whether they knew who it had been. There were tattered insignia on the torn clothing, and a gold ring on one finger.

  They should have moved it aside, but no one wanted to touch it.

  And aside from the human detritus, there was what had been left behind by the aliens.

  The interior of the Samson’s passenger hold was laid out with two facing rows of seating across an open space, twelve seats per side. In this open space were fixings for equipment storage—they’d secured their various weapons there—and a raised area containing low-level cupboards and racks. Even when sitting, passengers could see over this raised portion to communicate with one another.

  At the rear of the cabin, two narrow doors were set into the bulkhead. One was marked as a bathroom, the other Ripley guessed led into the engine room.

  They had all chosen to sit as close as possible to the slightly raised flight deck. Lachance and Baxter sat up there, with Ripley and Hoop on one side of the passenger cabin, Kasyanov and Sneddon on the other. None of them wanted to sit at the rear.

  None of them even wanted to look.

  In their time aboard the ship, the aliens had made the shadowy rear of the cabin their own. The floor, walls, and ceiling were coated with a thick, textured substance. It clung around the two doors, crossing them here and there, like bridges of plastic that had melted, burned, and hardened again. It looked like an extrusion of some kind, dark and heavy in places, glimmering and shiny in others, as if wet. There were hollows that bore a chilling resemblance to shapes Ripley knew well.

  The aliens had made their own place to rest, and it was a stark reminder of what had been in here until so recently.

  “I hope this trip is quick,” Sneddon said. Kasyanov nodded beside her.

  “Lachance?” Hoop asked.

  “Last checks,” the pilot said. He was propped in the flight seat, leaning forward and running his hands across the control panels. A screen flickered to life in front of him, two more in the bulkhead by his side. “Baxter? Have we got a link to the Marion’s computer yet?”

  “Just coming online now,” Baxter said. In the copilot’s seat, he had a pull-out keyboard on his lap, hands stroking keys as a series of symbols flashed across the display suspended before him. “Just calling up the nav computer... Ah, there we are.” The windscreen misted for a moment, and when it cleared again it was criss-crossed with a fine grid display.

  “Leave it off for now,” Lachance said. “I want to get away from the Marion first. I’m worried there’s still wreckage from the crash matching our orbit.”

  “After so long?” Kasyanov asked.

  “It’s possible,” Lachance replied. “Okay, everyone strapped in?”

  Hoop leaned across Ripley and checked her straps. His sudden closeness surprised her, and she felt his arm brushing her hip and shoulder as he tightened the safety straps.

  “Bumpy ride,” he said, smiling. “The atmosphere of this rock can be nasty.”

  “Great,” she said. “Thanks.” Hoop nodded, caught her eye, looked away again.

  What was that? she thought. Come on, Ripley, you’re dodging monsters at the edge of space, and you can still get horny? She chuckled soundlessly, and knew that he heard her exhalation.

  “How’s it looking?” Hoop asked.

  “All systems online,” Lachance said. “Inertial dampers are a bit glitchy, so the ride might be bumpier than usual.”

  “Oh, super,” Sneddon said.

  “How often have you guys been down?” Ripley asked.

  “We’ve all been planetside a few times,” Hoop said. “Kasyanov for medical emergencies, the rest of us for various other reasons. But it’s mainly the miners who made this trip.”

  “Soon you’ll know why,” Kasyanov said quietly. “This planet’s a regular shit-hole.”

  “Okay, everyone,” Lachance said. “Thank you for flying Lachance Spaceways. Dinner will be served half an hour after take-off—today we have lobster ravioli and champagne. There’s a selection of in-flight entertainment, and your vomit bags are under your seats.” He chuckled. “You’ll be needing them. Dock disconnect in ten seconds.” He switched on an automatic countdown, and Ripley soundlessly ticked off the seconds.

  Nine... eight...

  “Electro-locks off, magnetic grab disabled.”

  ...six... five...

  “Retros primed, fire on my mark.”

  ...three...

  “Passengers might feel a slight bump.”

  What the hell is a slight bump? Ripley thought. Hoop grasped her hand and squeezed. Sneddon and Kasyanov looked terrified.

  “... one... mark.”

  There was a moment of
nothing. And then Ripley’s stomach rolled, her brain bounced against her skull, her senses swam, her breath was punched from her lungs, and a shattering roar filled the cabin.

  She managed to turn her head and look past Hoop through the windscreen and onto the flight deck. As they dropped quickly away from the Marion, the extensive damage from the other dropship’s crash became even more apparent. She also saw the Narcissus docked at the other edge of the ship’s belly, and felt a curious anxiety at being away from her. Perhaps because that ship had been her home for so long, whether she’d been aware or not.

  But the shuttle was locked up safe, and Jonesy would spend most of his time asleep. She’d made sure he had plenty of food.

  A siren wailed, buzzers cut through the cabin, and the ship’s attitude changed. Lachance seemed to be calm and in control, stroking buttons and waving his hand across projected controls between him and the windscreen. The Marion moved out of sight to port, and LV178 came into view. With the vibration of the ship’s descent it was difficult to make out any real features—to Ripley it was little more than a yellowish-gray smudge beyond the windows.

  A few moments later Lachance hit a button and heat shields rose to block out the view.

  “Just about to start skimming the atmosphere now,” he said.

  Artificial gravity flickered as it adjusted to the planet’s real pull. Sneddon puked. She leaned forward and aimed most of it between her legs. Kasyanov glanced sideways then ahead again, closing her eyes, gripping her seat arms so tightly that her knuckles were pearls of white on her dark skin.

  Hoop’s grip almost hurt, but Ripley didn’t mind.

  The Samson started to shake even more. Each impact seemed hard enough to tear the ship apart, and Ripley couldn’t hold back the gasps and grunts that came with each thud. It brought back memories of descending down to LV426 in Nostromo, but this was much worse.

  She looked back at that strange swathe of material the aliens had left behind. It must have been quite solid to survive the decompression and remain intact, yet from here it looked almost soft, like huge spider webbing covered with dust and ash. The creatures must have hibernated in there. She wondered just how much longer the beasts could have slept, waiting, if they hadn’t decided to open up the Samson.

  Her thoughts drifted, and she feared what was below them. Hoop figured that eighteen miners had been left behind down on the surface, and no one knew what had happened to them. There was no real information on what they had found, how the alien attack had happened, where they had been discovered. The trimonite mine was the last place in the galaxy she wanted to go right then, but it was the only place that offered any hope for their survival.

  Get the fuel cells and get out again. That was Hoop’s plan. They’d all agreed.

  It felt as if the ship was shaking itself to pieces. Just when Ripley believed all their worries might end there and then, Lachance spoke again.

  “Might be a little turbulence up ahead.”

  Sneddon leaned forward and puked again.

  Ripley leaned back and closed her eyes, and Hoop squeezed her hand even tighter.

  * * *

  It seemed like forever, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour before they were deep in LV178’s atmosphere, flying a mile above the planet’s surface toward the mine. Baxter had fired up the nav computer and calculated that the facility was six hundred miles away.

  “Just over an hour,” Lachance said. “I could fly faster, but the storm’s still pretty rough.”

  “Let me guess,” Kasyanov said. “Might get bumpy?”

  “Just a little.”

  “How are we still flying?” Sneddon asked. “How is the ship still in once piece? How is my stomach not hanging out of my mouth?”

  “Because we’re hardy space explorers,” Baxter said.

  In truth, the vibrating and bumping had reduced drastically once they had entered the atmosphere and Baxter had plotted their route. Lachance gave control over to the autopilot, and then turned his seat around.

  “Lobster,” he said.

  Sneddon groaned. “If you ever mentioned food again, Lachance, I won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

  “Okay, folks, we’ve got an hour,” Hoop said. “We need to talk about what happens next.”

  “We land, get the fuel cell, take off again,” Ripley said. “Right?”

  “Well...”

  “What?” she asked.

  “It might not be quite that simple,” Hoop said. “There are variables.”

  “Oh, great,” Kasyanov said. “You can’t get much more variable that those monsters, can you?”

  “Landing pad,” Hoop said. “Access to the mine. Air quality inside. Damage. And the fuel cells are stored several levels down.”

  “So tell me what all that means?” Ripley said, looking around at them.

  Sneddon held up her hands. “Hey, I’m just the science officer.”

  “The planet’s atmosphere isn’t great,” Hoop said. “The mine and its surface complex are contained in an environmental dome. The landing pads are outside, connected by short tunnels. Inside the dome there are several surface buildings—stores, mess block, accommodations—and then two entrances to the mine, also enclosed for additional safety.

  “Once down in the mine, in each entrance there are two caged elevators descending to nine levels. The first three levels are abandoned—they’ve been mined out. Level four is where the fuel cells are stored, along with a load more emergency stores. Food, water, equipment, stuff like that. Most of the emergency stores are belowground in case of a disaster, so they’ll be accessible to anyone down in the mine. And levels five through nine are the current working levels.”

  “Then it’s on one of those levels they found the aliens?” Ripley asked.

  “That’s a fair bet.”

  “So we get in, descend to level four, get the fuel cells, and come back out.”

  “Yeah,” Hoop said. “But we have no idea what state the mine’s in.”

  “We take it all step by step,” Kasyanov said. “Whatever we find, we work through it as best we can.”

  “And just as fast as we can,” Sneddon said. “Don’t know about you all, but I don’t want to be down here one minute longer than necessary.”

  After that, silence hung heavy. Lachance turned his chair around again and kept an eye on the flight computers. Baxter scanned the nav displays. Ripley and the others sat quietly, not catching one another’s eyes, and trying not to look at the strange sculptures the aliens had left behind.

  Ripley took the easy way out and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  And surprised herself when Hoop nudged her awake. Had she really slept? Through all that movement, buffeting, and noise?

  “Sheesh, haven’t you slept long enough?” he asked. Anyone else and she might have been annoyed, but there was a lilt to his voice that said he almost understood. He sounded hesitant, too, almost sad.

  “We there?”

  “Just circling the complex now.”

  “Lights are on,” Lachance said from the flight deck.

  “But no one’s home,” Baxter replied. “Dome looks intact, can’t see any obvious damage.”

  Ripley waited for a moment, sensing the subtle vibrations of the ship. Their flight seemed much smoother than when she’d fallen asleep. She hit the quick release catch on her straps and stood up.

  “Ripley?” Hoop said.

  “Just looking.” She moved forward and leaned against the back of the flight chair. The Frenchman turned lazily and squinted back at her.

  “Come to see my cockpit??” he asked.

  “You wish,” she replied.

  The windscreen was hazed with dust, but she could still make out the segmented metallic dome below as the ship circled it. One side of it was almost buried with drifting sand, and across its surface were several blinking lights. There was no sign of clear sections, nor could she see any access points.

  “Bleak,” s
he said.

  “Wait ’til you get inside,” Baxter said.

  “Where are the landing pads?”

  Lachance leveled the Samson slightly and hovered, drifting sideways directly over the dome. He pointed. Ripley could just make out three bulky shapes on the ground, also half-buried by drifted sand.

  “Get closer,” Hoop said, joining Ripley behind the two flight chairs. “We don’t know what happened down here, but it’s a fair bet they were pursued all the way to the ships.”

  “How do you figure that?” Sneddon asked from where she was still strapped in.

  “Because the Samson left so many behind.”

  Lachance dropped them lower and closer to the landing pads. They were only a couple of hundred yards from the dome, and Ripley saw hints of the connecting tunnels that ran between them. Sheets of sand blew across the ground, driven by winds they could not feel in the Samson. The landscape was daunting but strangely beautiful, dust sculptures forming incredible, graceful shapes. Away from the artificial interruption of the mine, the desert looked like a frozen sea, flowing over years instead of moments.

  Miles in the distance, electrical storms flashed deep inside looming clouds.

  “How the hell are you going to land?” Ripley asked.

  “The pads are usually cleared by the ground crews,” Lachance said. “Big blowing machines, sand scoops. It’ll be okay. I’m good.”

  “So you keep saying,” she said. “I’m still waiting for proof.”

  “No sign of any nasties waiting for us,” Hoop said.

  “In this weather?” Baxter asked.

  “There’s no saying what environments they live in, or even prefer,” Ripley said. She remembered Ash—before his true nature was exposed, when he was studying the alien—talking about remarkable adaptations to the ship’s environment. Maybe sand-lashed, storm-blasted landscapes were their preference.

  “Strap in, ladies and gentlemen,” Lachance said. He checked readouts, stroked his hand across the projected nav controls in front of him, and then settled back in his seat.

  Ripley and Hoop went back to their seats and secured their safety straps. She waited for him to check her clasps again, and saw Sneddon looking from her to Hoop, and smirking. Ripley stared back.