Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

That certainly seemed to be what was happening in the service tunnel because the robot sentries kept up their steady barrage. Two minutes went by; three. The counter on B gun reached zero, and the thunder below was reduced by half. Its motion sensor continued to flicker on the tactical readout as the empty weapon tracked targets it could no longer fire upon.

'B gun's dry. Twenty left on A.' Hicks watched the counter his throat dry. 'Ten. Five. That's it.'

A grim silence descended over Operations. It was shattered by a reverberating boom from below. It was repeated at regular intervals like the thunder of a massive gong. Each of them knew what the sound meant.

'They're at the fire door,' Ripley muttered. The booming increased in strength and ferocity. Audible along with the deeper rumble was another new sound: the nerve-racking scrape of claws on steel.

'Think they can break through there?' Ripley thought Hicks looked remarkably calm. Assurance—or resignation'

'One of them ripped a hatch right off the APC when it tried to pull Gorman out, remember?' she reminded him.

Vasquez nodded toward the floor. 'That ain't no hatch down there. It's a Class double-A fire door, three layers of stee alloy with carbon-fibre composite laid between. The door wil hold. It's the welds I'm worried about. We didn't have much time. I'd feel better if I'd had a couple bars of chromite solder and a laser instead of a gas torch to work with.'

'And another hour,' Hudson added. 'Why don't you wish for a couple of Katusha Six antipersonnel rockets while you're at it One of those babies would clean out the whole tunnel.'

The intercom buzzed for attention, startling them. Hicks clicked it on.

'Bishop here. I heard the guns. How are we doing?'

'As well as can be expected. A and B sentries are out of ammo, but they must've done some damage.'

'That's good, because I'm afraid I have some bad news.'

Hudson made a face and leaned back against a cabinet 'Well, now, that's a switch.'

'What kind of bad news?' Hicks inquired.

'It will be easier to explain and show you at the same time. I'l be right over.'

'We'll be here.' Hicks flipped the intercom off. 'Charming.'

'Hey, no sweat,' said the jaunty comtech. 'We're already in the toilet, so why worry?'

The android arrived quickly and moved to the single high window that overlooked much of the colony complex. The wind had picked back up and blown off the clinging fog Visibility was still far from perfect, but it was sufficient to permit them a glimpse of the distant atmosphere-processing station. As they stared, a column of flame unexpectedly jetted skyward from the base of the station. For an instant it was brighter than the steady glow that emanated from the top of the cone itself.

'What was that?' Hudson pressed his face closer to the glass.

'Emergency venting,' Bishop informed him.

Ripley was standing close to the comtech. 'Can the construction contain the overload?'

'Not a chance. Not if the figures I've been monitoring are half accurate, and I have no reason to suppose that they are anything other than completely accurate.'

'What happened?' Hicks spoke as he walked back to the tactical console. 'Did the aliens cause that, monkeying around inside?'

'There's no way to tell. Perhaps. More likely someone hit something vital with a smartgun shell or a blast from a pulse-rifle during the fight on C-level. Or the damage might have been done when the dropship smashed into the base of the complex. The cause is of no import. All that matters is the result, which is not good.'

Ripley started to tap her fingers on the window, thought better of it, and brought her hand back to her side. There might be something out there listening. As she stared, another gush of superheated gas flared from the base of the processing station.

'How long before it blows?'

'There's no way to be sure. One can extrapolate from the available figures but without any degree of certainty. There are too many variables involved that can only be roughly compensated for, and the requisite calculations are complex.'

'How long?' Hicks asked patiently.

The android turned to him. 'Based on the information I've been able to gather, I'm projecting total systems failure in a little under four hours. The blast radius will be about thirty kilometres. It will be nice and clean. No fallout, of course About ten megatons.'

'That's very reassuring,' said Hudson dryly.

Hicks sucked air. 'We got problems.'

The comtech unfolded his arms and turned away from his companions. 'I don't believe this,' he said disconsolately. 'Do you believe this? The RSS guns blow a pack of them to bits, the fire door's still holding, and it's all a waste!'

'It's too late to shut the station down? Assuming the instrumentation necessary to do it is still operational?' Ripley stared at the android. 'Not that I'm looking forward to jogging across the tarmac, but if that's the only chance we've got, I'll take a shot at it.'

He smiled regretfully. 'Save your legs. I'm afraid it's too late The dropship impact, or the guns, or whatever, did too much damage. At this point overload is inevitable.'

'Terrific. So what's the recommended procedure now?'

Vasquez grinned at her. 'Bend over, put your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.'

Hudson was pacing the floor like a caged cat. 'Oh, man. And I was getting short too! Four more weeks and out. Three of that in hypersleep. Early retirement. Ten years in the Marines and you're out and sitting pretty, they said. Recruiters. Now I'm gonna buy it on this rock. It ain't fair, man!'

Vasquez looked bored. 'Give us a break, Hudson.'

He spun on her. 'That's easy for you to say, Vasquez. You're a lifer. You love mucking around on these alien dirtballs so you can blow away anything that sticks up bug eyes. Me, I joined for the pension. Ten years and out, take the credit, and buy into a little bar somewhere, hire somebody else to run the joint so I can kick back and jabchat with the customers while the money rolls in.'

The smartgun operator looked back toward the window as another gas jet lit up the mist-shrouded landscape. Her expression was hard. 'You're breaking my heart. Go cross a wire or something.'

'It's simple.' Ripley looked over at Hicks. 'We can't stay here so we've got to get away. There's only one way to do that: We need the other dropship. The one that's still on the Sulaco Somehow we have to bring it down on remote. There's got to be a way to do that.'

'There was. You think I haven't been thinking about that ever since Ferro rolled ours into the station?' Hudson stopped pacing. 'You use a narrow-beam transmitter tuned just for the dropship's controls.'

'I know,' she said impatiently. 'I thought about that, too, but we can't do it that way.'

'Right. The transmitter was on the APC. It's wasted.'

'There's got to be another way to bring that shuttle down. I don't care how. Think of a way. You're the comtech. Think of something.'

'Think of what? We're dead.'

'You can do better than that, Hudson. What about the colony's transmitter? That uplink tower down at the other end of the complex? We could program it to send that dropship a control frequency. Why can't we use that? It looked like it was intact.'

'The thought had occurred to me earlier.' All eyes turned toward Bishop. 'I've already checked it out. The hardwiring between here and the tower was severed in the fighting between the colonists and the aliens—one more reason why they were unable to communicate with the relay satellite overhead, even if only to leave a warning for anyone who might come to check on them.'

Ripley's mind was spinning like a dynamo, exploring options, considering and disregarding possible solutions unti only one was left. 'So what you're saying is that the transmitter itself is still functional but that it can't be utilized from here?'