Tim Lebbon - Alien - Out of the Shadows

“We have to stay together,” Hoop said as they all followed. But he couldn’t help thinking that Ripley had been right—charge, take the fight to them—and he hoped he wouldn’t have cause to regret his decision later.

The ground rose steeper before leveling again, the curve of the wing still scattered with boulders and those strange, waved lines of mineral deposits. Hoop thought perhaps this whole cavern had once been under water, but there was no way of proving that right now. And such knowledge couldn’t help them.

What could help them was a place to stop. Somewhere easy to defend, a position from which they could make a stand. A route around or through the strange ship, leading back up into the mine.

A fucking miracle.

Maybe he should make a stand, here and now. Just him. Turn and charge the alien, spray gun spitting acid, and who knows, maybe he’d get lucky. The creature was just an animal, after all. Maybe it would turn and run, and he and the others could push home their advantage and charge back the way they’d come. Using the plasma torches, it wouldn’t take much to open up that access again.

One glance back told him everything he needed to know.

The three aliens were stalking them, spiked shadows dancing across the massive wing’s surface, flitting from boulder to crevasse as they sought natural cover. They moved silently and easily, their fluid motions so smooth that their shadows flowed like spilled ink. They were hunters, pure and simple. Having their quarry suddenly turn and charge would not faze them at all.

Fuck that.

He wasn’t about to sacrifice himself for nothing.

“Faster,” he muttered.

“What?” Lachance asked.

“We should move faster. Quick as we can, get there as soon as possible, find somewhere to defend. Perhaps that’ll throw them, a little.”

No one replied, and he read doubt in the silence. But they all ran faster, nonetheless. Even Baxter, hopping, swearing under his breath, and Kasyanov, sweating under the man’s weight. Whatever Hoop thought of his comm officer, there was a stark courage there that he couldn’t help but respect. And Kasyanov’s fear seemed to be feeding her determination.

Hoop’s leg was a solid weight of pain now, but he used it to fight back, slamming it down with each step, forging forward, driving events toward what he hoped would be a good resolution. He’d never been the praying kind, and faith was something he’d left behind with other childhood fancies. But he had a strange sense that this was all part of something bigger. However unlucky they’d been—the Delilah crash, the Marion’s damage, the beasts on the Samson, and now the elevator’s malfunction and their descent into this strange place—he couldn’t help feeling that there were larger hands at play.

It might have been the effect of their discoveries. This ship was an incredible, undeniable sign of alien intelligence, the likes of which no one had ever seen before. It had opened a doorway in his mind to greater, wider possibilities. But there was something more. Something he couldn’t quite pin down.

Ripley was part of it, he was sure. Maybe finding someone like her in the middle of all this was fucking with his mind.

Someone like her? he thought, laughing silently. It had been a long time since he’d really cared about someone. Jordan had been a fling, and she’d always remained a good friend. But with Ripley there was more. An instinctive understanding that he hadn’t experienced with anyone since…

He thought briefly of home, his estranged wife, and his children left behind. But there was too much pain and guilt to hold that thought for long.

Baxter was crying out with each step, the foot of his broken ankle dragging along behind him. Yet he still bore the plasma torch at the ready. As they neared the steeper slope up onto what must have been the ship’s main fuselage, Hoop began to look ahead.

The broken area they’d seen from a distance was larger than he’d thought. It extended from above the wing and back over the soft curve of the vessel’s main body, its skin torn apart and protruding in stark, sharp sculptures across the extent of the damage. It wasn’t one large hole, but a series of smaller wounds, as if something had exploded inside the ship and blasted outward, rupturing the hull in several places. Even after so long, there were scorch marks evident.

“That first hole,” he said, pointing. He darted forward quickly and looped his arm through Baxter’s, careful to let him wield the plasma torch. “You okay?” he asked quietly.

“No,” Baxter said, but there was a strength to his voice.

“Hoop, they’re following closer,” Ripley said from behind.

He let go of Baxter’s arm, tapped him on the shoulder, then turned around. Down the slope the three aliens were creeping forward, their casual gait as fast as the human’s sprint. And they were closer.

“Go on,” he said to the others. He and Ripley paused, looking back.

“Shot across their bows?” Ripley asked.

“Yeah.”

She lifted and fired her charge thumper at the closest creature. As it paused and skipped aside, Hoop fired the spray gun at it. The spurts didn’t quite reach the target, but they impacted across the sloping wing close to it, sizzling, scorching. Yet again he saw the beast cringe back away from the acid.

Ripley fired at the other two as well, shots echoing around the massive cavern, the sounds multiplying. They shifted aside with amazing dexterity, dancing on long limbs. Beneath the echoing reports he heard their hissing. He hoped it was anger. If they were riled up enough, they might charge to within range of the spray guns and plasma torches.

“Come on,” Hoop said to Ripley. “We’re almost there.”

As they climbed the steeper slope, the surface beneath their feet changed. It became smoother, and the feel of each impact was different as well. There was no give, no echo, but still a definite sense that they were running on something hollow. The ship’s interior almost bore a weight.

As they reached the first of the blasted areas, Hoop ran ahead. The miners had strung a series of lights along here, some of them hung on protruding parts of the ripped hull. And looking down inside, he saw a similar array.

This was where they had entered the ship.

His concern intensified. He shook his head, turning to face the others, ready to suggest that—

“Hoop,” Ripley said, breathing hard. “Look.”

Back the way they had come, several more shadows had appeared. They were moving quickly across the wing’s surface. From this distance they looked like ants. The analogy didn’t comfort him one little bit.

“And there,” Sneddon said, pointing higher up the slope of the ship’s fuselage. There were more shadows back there, less defined, yet their silhouettes obvious. Motionless. Waiting.

“Okay,” he said. “We go inside. But don’t touch anything . And first chance we get, we fight our way out.”

“Ever get the feeling you’re being used?” Sneddon asked.

“All the time,” Ripley muttered.

Hoop was first down into the ship.

Maybe she’s nine years old. There’s a doorway leading down into the old ruin, steps worn by decades of tourists and centuries of monks long, long ago. A heavy metal grille is fixed back against the wall, the padlock hanging unclasped, and at night they close off the catacombs, allegedly to prevent vandals from desecrating their contents. But ever since they arrived, Amanda has been making up stories about the night-things they want to keep locked in.

When the sun goes down, she says, the shadows down there come alive.