Tim Lebbon - Alien - Out of the Shadows

The elevator plunged, screeching against its control framework, throwing sparks that were visible through the cage walls, vibrating violently, shaking her vision so much that everyone and everything around her was a blur.

She heard the thud of weapons hitting the floor and dropped her own, staggering back until she was braced against the wall. But there was nothing to hold onto. And even if there had been, it would have made no difference.

Her stomach seemed to be rising and rolling, and she swallowed down the sudden urge to vomit.

Someone else puked.

Hoop hung onto the long handle set into the wall beside the door, one hand curled through it and the other working at the controls.

“What the hell—?” Baxter shouted.

“I’ve got it!” Hoop cut in. But it was clear to Ripley that he didn’t have it. She edged across to him, afraid that at any moment she and the others would actually lift from the floor and start to float.

We can’t be going that fast, she thought. We’d have struck bottom by now! Five thousand feet, Hoop had said. She turned the figures over, trying to calculate how long they might have at freefall, but—

“There are buffers,” Hoop shouted. “Each level. We’ve passed the first four already, barely felt them. Approaching five…”

Thud!

A heavy vibration passed through the lift, thumping Ripley in the chest.

“We’re not slowing!” she shouted.

“We will!” he responded. “Dampers were fitted over the bottom two levels, in case of—”

“This?”

He looked at her. Beside him she could see a flickering set of figures on the control panel. Their depth approached 2,500 feet, the numbers flipping too fast for her to see.

“It’s one way to test them,” he said.

Ripley felt a flood of emotion. They were helpless, and that was a sensation she hated. In space, there were so many variables that presented countless levels of danger, but usually they were countered by some mechanical, electrical, or psychological means.

Even with that thing stalking them on the Nostromo they had gone on the offensive, hunting it, seeking to drive it toward the airlock. And after Dallas was gone and Ash was revealed for what he was… even then they had been acting in their own best interests.

Here, now, she could only stand and wait to die.

They flashed past levels 6 and 7, and each time the impact of safety buffers seemed harder. Was their descent slowing? Ripley wasn’t sure. Sparks flew all around the cage’s outsides, metal whined and screeched, and at the speed they were going now, she figured they’d know nothing about reaching level 9.

She contemplated that final moment, the instant when the elevator struck, crumpled, and they were all smacked into the solid floor, mashed together… and she wondered if she’d feel anything at all.

The brief waking nightmare seemed somehow worse.

“We’re slowing!” Hoop said. They thudded past the buffer on level 8, and then a heavy grinding sound commenced.

Ripley and the others were all flung to the floor. A rhythmic clanging began, resounding explosions from all around that vibrated through the cage’s structure. Bolts, screws and shreds of metal showered around her, and Ripley expected them to burst apart at any moment.

The noise became almost unbearable, pulsing into her ears, her torso, and the vibrations threatened to shake her apart bone-by-bone. Lying flat on the floor, she managed to turn her head toward Hoop. He was sitting propped in the far corner, head tilted to one side so he could still look at the control panel.

He glanced across, saw her looking.

“Dampers working,” he shouted.

Then they struck bottom. Ripley’s breath was knocked out of her as she was punched into the elevator’s floor. Something heavy landed on her leg. A scream was cut off, but someone else grunted and started to moan.

The lift mechanism was smoking, filling the air with an acrid haze. Lights flickered off and then came back on again, buzzing and settling into an even glow. The sudden silence was more shocking than the noise and violence had been.

Ripley pushed herself up onto hands and knees, breathing hard and waiting for the white-hot pain of cracked ribs or broken limbs to sing in. But apart from an array of bruises, a bloodied nose, and a sense of disbelief that they had somehow survived, she appeared to be fine.

“Are we still falling?” Sneddon asked. “My guts tell me we are.”

“Nice landing,” Lachance said, nodding at Hoop. “Make a pilot out of you yet.” Hoop smiled back.

“I think…” Baxter said. He stood, then howled, slipping sideways and falling again. Kasyanov caught him. “Ankle,” he said. “Ankle!” The doctor started examining him.

“Anyone else hurt?” Hoop asked.

“Only my pride,” Lachance said. His suit was speckled with vomit, and he brushed at it with one gloved hand.

“Best pilot in the galaxy, my ass,” Ripley said, pleased to see the Frenchman smile.

“We okay?” Sneddon asked. “We’re not just hanging here waiting, to fall the rest of the way, are we? The way our luck’s been going, you know.”

“No, we’re down,” Hoop said. “Look.” He nodded at the cage doors, then pulled a small, narrow flashlight from his tool belt. It threw out a surprisingly bright beam. He aimed it past the bent bars of the deformed cage, revealing the smoother metal of more solid doors.

“Level 9?” Ripley asked.

Hoop nodded.

“And the elevator’s fucked,” Baxter said. “That’s just fucking great.” He winced as Kasyanov probed around his foot and lower leg, then groaned when she looked up.

“Broken ankle,” she said.

“No shit,” Baxter replied.

“Can you splint it?” Hoop asked. “He’s got to be able to walk.”

“I can walk!” Baxter said, a little desperately.

“We can help you,” Ripley said, aiming a warning stare at Hoop. “There are enough of us. Don’t panic.”

“Who’s panicking?” Baxter said, looking desperate, eyes wide with pain and terror.

“We won’t leave you,” Ripley said, and he seemed to take comfort from that.

“Everyone else?” Hoop asked. Sneddon nodded, Lachance raised a hand in a casual wave. “Ripley?”

“I’m fine, Hoop,” she said, trying not to sound impatient. They were down, battered and bruised, but they couldn’t afford to hang around. “So what now?”

“Now we have two choices,” Hoop said, glancing at Baxter again. “One, we start climbing.”

“How many stairs?” Kasyanov asked.

“We’ve struck bottom at level 9. Seven thousand steps to—”

“Seven-fucking-thousand?” Sneddon spat. Baxter remained silent, but he looked down at the floor close to his wounded foot and ankle. All his weight was on the other foot.

“Choice two,” Hoop continued, “we make our way across to the other elevator.”

Silence. Everyone looked around, waiting for someone else to speak.

“And whatever they found was down here, where they were working the new seam,” Baxter said. “On level 9.”

“There’s no choice,” Kasyanov said. “How far is the other elevator shaft?”

“In a straight line, a little over five hundred yards,” Hoop said. “But none of the tunnels are straight.”

“And we have no idea what happened down here?” Ripley asked.

No one answered. They all looked to Hoop. He shrugged.

“All they said is that they found something horrible. And we already know what that was.”

“No we don’t!” Kasyanov said. “There could be hundreds!”

“I don’t think so.” They looked to Sneddon, who was looking down at the spray gun she’d picked up once again. “They hatch from people, right? We’ve seen that. So by my reckoning—”