Tim Lebbon - Alien - Out of the Shadows

“Okay guys,” Hoop said, “slow and quiet.”

Nervously, Welford and Powell entered the airlock. Ripley moved sideways, so that she could see them inside. As soon as they reached the far door they started repairing the dismantled door mechanism.

Garcia and Sneddon went to work rigging the heavy cargo netting around the door that led from the airlock into the vestibule, leaving one side loose for the engineers to slip past once they were done.

Ripley frowned. No matter how she looked at it, the plan was as loose and woolly as ever. Remote-open the Samson, wait until the aliens came through and got caught in the netting. Use sand picks to hook the netting and drag them back through the vestibule and along the corridor to the ruined docking bays. Open the inner door, shove the creatures through, lock the door again. Blast them into space.

It was like catching a shark in a goldfish net.

Yet there were so many ways the aliens might not play ball. What if they stay in the Samson? Ripley had asked. Welford had suggested a remote drone they used for deep mine exploration. Sending it in, luring them out.

So woolly. So loose.

The others seemed just as nervous. Some of them had seen these things in action—on monitors, on the destroyed dropship, and aboard the Samson . But the ones they’d seen had been small. Not much bigger than the bastard that had burst from Kane at their last meal together. The grown ones, the adults, had existed on their screens as little more than ambiguous shadows.

She shook her head. Her breathing came heavier.

“This won’t work,” she said.

“Ripley,” Hoop whispered.

The others were looking at her, eyes wide.

“Not four of them,” she said. She hefted the sand pick. It was heavy, its end viciously barbed, but it felt insufficient. She swung it too slowly. Her shoulders already ached from holding it.

“We should think of something else,” she said.

“Damn it, Ripley!” Lachance said.

“Quiet!” Baxter hissed. “Welford and Powell have a headset, too!”

She knew they were right. The engineers were almost within touching distance of the dropship, and soon they’d have the last door ready to open.

They couldn’t change their minds now.

And the aliens had been in there for more than seventy days. Their only food source—the bodies of the six miners and dropship crew—had been rotting the entire time. Little food, no water. Nowhere to move and stretch. Maybe they would be tired and weak, and easy to drag away.

Maybe.

Ripley nodded to let the others know she had her fears under control. But really, she didn’t. Hoop knew that— she could see it when he looked across at her. He’s as scared as me.

Perhaps they all were.

But they were also desperate.

Welford and Powell retreated back through the airlock, ducking around the heavy netting that had been hung across the inner door. Welford nodded to Hoop.

“Okay, Lachance, airlock outer door ready to open.”

Ripley heard someone take in a sharp breath, then through the airlock she saw the docking arm’s outer door slide open into the wall. Beyond lay the Samson’s outer hatch. It was dusty, scratched, and docked perfectly central to the airlock.

“Last check,” Hoop said. “Baxter, no view or sound from inside?”

“Still nothing,” Baxter said.

“Welford, Powell, either side of the netting with the plasma torches. Remember, only blast them if you have to. Kasyanov, wait over there with the charge thumper. Ripley, you okay?”

She nodded.

“Good. Sneddon, Garcia, back through the doors into the corridor behind the vestibule. Once we start dragging them in the net, you lead the way to Bays One and Two. Open the blast doors as quickly as you can, then get ready to close them again. Lachance, once we’ve shut them in there, you remote-open the door leading to the ruined docking bays.”

“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.

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.