Tim Lebbon - Alien - Out of the Shadows

“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.”