Tim Lebbon - Alien - Out of the Shadows

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 wanted 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.

Yet they had been the survivors. And now three of them were gone, slaughtered in a matter of moments by those bastard creatures.

Ripley gave them their silence, retreating to a control panel and sitting in the upholstered chair. It was a navigational control point. She browsed the system, noting the other planets and their distances, orbits, makeup. The sun at the system’s center was almost half a billion miles away.

No wonder it feels so fucking cold.

“We’ve got to find it,” Sneddon said. “Track it down and kill it.”

“Track it down how?” Kasyanov asked. “It could be hiding away anywhere on the Marion. It’ll take us forever, and we only have days.”

“I saw it,” Sneddon said. At the sound of her voice— so filled with dreadful awe, quavering in fear—everyone grew quiet, still. “It came out like… like a living shadow. Garcia didn’t even know what hit her, I don’t think. She didn’t scream, didn’t have time. Just a grunt. Like she was disagreeing with something. Just that, and then it killed her and ran. Just… brutalized her, for no reason.”

“They don’t reason,” Ripley said. “They kill and feed. And if there’s no time to feed, they just kill.”

“But that’s not natural,” Sneddon said. “Animals kill for a purpose.”

“Some do,” Ripley said. “Humans don’t.”