Tim Lebbon - Alien - Out of the Shadows

She rooted through Kasyanov’s belt pockets and found a strip of red injection capsules. She removed three, popping the top from one and ramming the needle through Kasyanov’s suit into her right forearm. Then she popped the other, knelt, and jammed it into Baxter’s leg. Hoop was last, the needle pressed into his shoulder.

“Ouch!” he yelled, and Ripley laughed. She couldn’t help it. Baxter grinned, and Hoop smiled sheepishly.

Then she stood, took Kasyanov’s good hand and placed it on her own shoulder.

“Hold tight,” she said. “Stop when I stop, go when I go. I’ll be your eyes.”

Kasyanov nodded.

“Lachance?” Hoop said.

“I’m okay for now,” the Frenchman said, kneeling and slinging Sneddon over one shoulder. “She’s light. But we won’t get far like this.”

Ripley stared at the thing on Sneddon’s face, and between blinks she saw Kane lying in sick bay on the Nostromo, Ash and Dallas hovering without any idea what to do. Maybe she shouldn’t get far, she thought. Already that thing might be planting its egg inside her. But the idea of leaving her was too sick to contemplate.

With Sneddon’s spray gun lost and Kasyanov’s plasma torch hanging from one shoulder, they were down on their weapons. After the one charge she had left, Ripley would be firing bolts again. She had no idea how long the plasma and acid would last.

Kasyanov clasped her shoulder hard. Like her life depends on it! Ripley thought, smiling grimly. Then the flashlight strapped to Lachance’s charge thumper went out.

“One down,” he said, already gasping beneath Sneddon’s weight.

“Hoop, Lachance is right. We can’t get far like this,” Ripley said.

“We have to,” he replied.

He was right. That was the only answer. This wasn’t one of those situations where a miracle would suddenly present itself. They had to get as far as they could, and there was no use waiting for something else to happen. One foot in front of the other, defending themselves, fighting when they had to, moving quickly when they didn’t.

And if and when we get back to the Marion, there’s Ash, she thought. She wondered just how far that bastard had gone. He’d dragged her with him through the cosmos, searching for alien life, and once he’d found it, he’d tangled her up in all this. Commitment she could understand, but his determination went way beyond that.

Maybe he’d even…

She barked a short, bitter laugh.

“What?” Hoop asked, shooting her a sideways glance.

“Nothing,” she said. And it was nothing. Even if Ash had been responsible for the shuttle’s fuel cell decay, that meant nothing right now. But if they ever made it back to the Marion , they’d have to be careful. That was all.

One foot in front of the other… step by step.

The corridor rose steadily, as wide as any they’d yet followed, and they started passing openings on either side. Hoop slowed before each opening and fired a quick shot from his spray gun every time, but nothing shrieked, nothing came at them from the shadows.

They didn’t even know there was an opening above them until they heard the scream.

It was different from the other alien noises they’d heard, a deeper cry as if from something larger. The shriek was somehow more measured, almost more intelligent. It was haunting.

Ripley stopped and crouched, and Kasyanov did the same behind her. She looked upward. There was a wide, darker shadow in the ceiling above them that swallowed light, and it was only shining a flashlight directly up that revealed the shaft rising above them. High up in that shaft, something moved.

Hoop was ahead with Baxter, both of them already aiming their weapons. But neither of them fired. Acid and fire will drop back down, Ripley thought.

“Back!” Ripley said. She and Kasyanov backed up, and behind them she heard Lachance grunting with the effort of reversing with Sneddon still slung over his shoulder. Hoop and Baxter moved forward, further along the corridor, so that the opening in the ceiling was now between them. Ripley and her group pressed tight against the wall, giving the leaders as wide a field of fire as they could.

But not wide enough.

“Come on!” Ripley said. “Quickly!” And she ran. Kasyanov clasped her shoulder firmly and moved with her, perfectly in step. Lachance struggled along behind, keeping up with them as they passed beneath the gap in the ceiling. Ripley risked a glance up…

…and saw the moving thing much closer now, falling, limbs knocking sparks from the shaft’s sides, no longer screeching but growling, keening, its mouth extended and open, ready for the kill.

She shrugged Kasyanov’s hand from her shoulder, pushed her to keep moving, then crouched and fired her charge thumper up. Then she rolled backward without waiting to see where the charge had gone.

“Run!” Hoop said. He grabbed Ripley by the collar and hauled her to her feet, then helped Baxter stagger along the corridor. The charge will fall , Ripley thought, bounce off that thing and land behind us, and when it blows it’ll knock us down, knock us out, and then —

The explosion came from behind them. She could tell by the sound that the charge had detonated up in the shaft somewhere, but then seconds later its effects powered down and along the hallway, shoving them all in the back. Kasyanov grunted and stumbled forward, falling with her arms outstretched and screaming as the damaged hand took her weight. Ripley tripped face-first into Hoop’s back, hands raking across his shoulders for purchase and knocking him down. As they fell she thought of his spray gun and what would happen if its reservoir burst beneath them.

Hoop must have been thinking the same—he braced his hands in front and pushed sideways, spilling Ripley against the wall and landing on his side. The wind was knocked from her and she gasped, waiting long seconds for her breath to return. And while she waited she watched—

Lachance dropping Sneddon, tipping forward, rolling, and then coming to his feet again, pivoting on his left foot and swinging his charge thumper up to aim back toward the blast.

Ripley turned to look as she gasped in a breath, and what she saw drove the air from her lungs again, as surely as any explosion.

The alien had dropped from the shaft and was blocking the corridor—the entire corridor. One of its limbs and part of its torso seemed to have been blown away, and acid hissed and bubbled across the floor and walls. It staggered where it stood, one of its sturdy legs lifting and falling, lifting and falling, as if putting weight down gave it pain.

It was larger than any other alien they had ever seen. Its torso was heavier, head longer and thicker.

It hissed. It growled.

Lachance fired.

Two bolts struck the alien’s wounded side, smacking shreds of shell-like skin and bubbling flesh back away from them. It shrieked and flailed its remaining limbs, striking deep scratches across the walls. Lachance’s next two shots hit it directly beneath its raised head.

The shrieking stopped. The beast froze. Hoop stood and aimed the spray gun, but he didn’t fire. Even the drifting smoke from the explosion seemed to go still, waiting for whatever might happen next.

“One more,” Ripley whispered, and Lachance fired again. The bolt struck the alien’s abdomen, but it was already slumping to the ground, limbs settling, its damaged head resting against the corridor’s side. And then slowly, slowly, it slid down as its acid-blood melted a depression in the wall.

Hoop tensed, ready to fire his acid-gun, but Ripley held up a hand.

“Wait!” she said. “Just a bit.”