Tim Lebbon - Alien - Out of the Shadows

So he did his best to shut the pain away.

His son had visited the dentist once, terrified of the injection of anaesthetic he’d require for a tooth extraction. On the way there, Hoop had talked to him about pain, telling him it was a fleeting thing, a physical reaction to damage that he knew would do him no harm, and that afterward he wouldn’t actually be able to remember what the pain had felt like.

Pain was a difficult concept to conjure in memory, Hoop had said. Like tasting the best cake ever. Such thoughts only really meant anything when the tasting— or the pain—was happening.

He tried it now, repeating a mantra to himself as they ran across that strange cavern’s floor. It doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t mean anything. He tried to analyze the sensation, take interest in it instead of letting it take over. And to an extent, it worked.

Kasyanov and Sneddon went ahead, Sneddon aiming her spray gun in front of her. Baxter and Lachance were bringing up the rear, Baxter looking determined through his own agony. Ripley stayed with Hoop, glancing frequently at him as she kept pace. He did his best not to give her cause for concern, but he couldn’t hold back occasional grunts or groans.

Responsibility weighed heavy. That he couldn’t rationalize away. He was in command, and although the Marion ’s survivors, with Ripley in tow, were acting more like a leaderless group, he still felt in every way responsible for their fate.

Even as they ran he racked his brains, trying to decide whether he had made all the right decisions. Should they have remained on the Marion for longer, spending more time preparing? Should he have assessed both elevators, before deciding which one to take down into the mine? Perhaps if they’d taken the other one, they would be on their way back to the surface already, precious fuel cell pushed on a trailer between them. But he couldn’t deal in “what if” and “maybe.” He could only work with what they had. The definitives.

They had to reach the other elevator, and soon.

And yet the aliens were behind them, pushing them forward. Hoop hated feeling out of control, unable to dictate his own destiny, all the more so when there were others relying on his decisions.

He stopped and turned around, breathing heavily.

“Hoop?” Ripley asked. She paused, too, and the others skidded to a halt. They were close to where the craft’s wing rose out of the ground, though the distinction was difficult to discern.

“We’re doing what they want,” he panted, leaning over.

“What, escaping?” Kasyanov asked.

“We’re not escaping,” Hoop said, standing straighter.

“He’s right,” Ripley said. “They’re herding us this way.”

“Any way that’s away from them is fine by me,” Baxter said.

“What do you—?” Ripley asked, and for that briefest of moments Hoop might have believed they were the only two people there. Their eyes locked, and something passed between them. He didn’t know what. Nothing so trite as understanding, or even affection. Perhaps it was an acknowledgement that they were thinking the same way.

Then Sneddon gasped.

“Oh my God!” she said. Hoop looked back over his shoulder.

They were coming. Three of them, little more than shadows, and yet distinguishable because these shadows were moving. Fast. Two flitted from somewhere near where the survivors had entered the cavern, the third came from a different direction, all three converging.

Lachance crouched, bracing his legs, and fired his charge thumper. The report coughed around the cavern, lost in that vast place.

“Don’t waste your time!” Baxter said. “Maybe if they were a few steps away.”

“If they get that close, we’re dead!” Lachance said.

“Run!” Hoop said. The others went, and he and Ripley held back for just a moment, again sharing a look and each knowing what the other was thinking.

They’re driving us forward again.

The surface underfoot changed only slightly as they headed up onto the craft’s huge, curving wing. It still felt to Hoop as though he was running on rock, although now it sloped upward, driving a whole new species of pain into his wounded leg as he relied on different muscles to push himself forward.

Over the time this thing had been buried down here, sand and dust must have dropped onto it and solidified. Boulders had fallen, and this close he could see a series of mineral deposits that formed sweeping ridges all across the wing, like a huge ring of expanding ripples, frozen in time.

Each ring came up to their knees, and leaping over each ridge made Hoop cry out. His cries echoed Baxter’s.

“It’s only pain,” Ripley said, and she looked surprised when Hoop coughed a laugh.

“Where to?” Sneddon called from up ahead. She had slowed a little, then turned, spray gun aiming back past them.

Hoop glanced back. He could only see two aliens now, their repulsive forms skipping and leaping across the ground. They should be closer, he thought, they’re much faster than us. But he couldn’t worry about that now.

He looked around for the third creature, but it was nowhere in sight.

“That damaged area,” he said, pointing. “It’s the only way we know for sure we’ll get inside.”

“Do we really want to get inside?” Ripley asked.

“You think we should make a stand here?” Hoop asked. Sneddon snorted at the suggestion, but Hoop had meant it. Ripley knew that, and she frowned, examining their surroundings. There was nowhere to hide—they would be exposed.

“Not here,” she said. “Far too open.”

“Then up there, where the fuselage is damaged,” he said. “And remember, there’s another one somewhere, so keep—”

The third alien appeared. It emerged from shadows to their left, already on the wing, manifesting from behind a slew of low boulders as if it had been waiting for them. It was perhaps twenty yards away, hunched down, hissing and ready to strike.

Ripley fired her charge thumper, and if hatred and repulsion could fuel a projectile, the alien would have been smashed apart just by the energy contained in the shot. But he didn’t even see where the shot went, and if the creatures really were herding them toward the old ship, it likely wouldn’t even react.

Ripley held her stance, looking left and right. Hoop hefted his spray gun. The others pointed their weapons.

The nearest alien crawled sideways, circling them but never coming closer. Hoop’s skin prickled when he watched it move. It reminded him of a giant spider… although not quite. It more resembled a hideous scorpion… yet there were differences. It moved with a fluid, easy motion, gliding across the rough surface of the giant wing as if it had walked that way many times before.

He fired the spray gun. It was a natural reaction to his disgust, a wish to see the thing away. The staggered spats of acid landed in a line between him and the monster, hissing loudly as the acid melted into dust and stone, and whatever might lie beneath. And even though the fluid didn’t reach the alien, the creature flinched back. Only slightly, but enough for him to see.

Breath held against any toxic fumes, Hoop backed quickly away. That pressed the others into motion, as well.

“We could charge it,” Ripley said.

“What?”

“All of us in one go. Run at the thing. If it comes at us we all shoot, if it slips aside we move on.”

“To where?”

“A way out.”

“We don’t know a way out!” Hoop said.

“It’s better than doing what they want, isn’t it?” Ripley asked.

“I’m for going where they aren’t,” Baxter said. “They’re that way, I’m going this way.” He turned and hobbled again toward the ship’s main fuselage, right arm now flung over Kasyanov’s shoulder.