Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

'Twelve metres,' the comtech informed them. 'Man, this is one big signal. Ten metres.'

'They're right on us.' Ripley stared at the door. 'Vasquez how you coming?'

The smartgun operator didn't reply. Molten droplets singed her skin and landed, smoking, on her suit. She gritted her teeth and tried to hurry the welder along with some choice imprecations.

'Nine metres. Eight.' Hudson announced the last number on a rising inflection and looked around wildly.

'Can't be.' Ripley was insistent, despite the fact that the tracker she was holding offered the same impossible readout 'That's inside the room.'

'It's right, it's right.' He turned his instrument sideways so she could see the tiny screen and its accompanying telltales 'Look!'

Ripley fiddled with her own tracker, rolling the fine-tuning controls as Hicks crossed to Hudson's position in a single stride.

'Well, you're not reading it right.'

'I'm not!' The comtech's voice bordered on hysteria. 'I know these little babies, and they don't lie, man. They're too simple to screw up.' He was staring bug-eyed at the flickering readouts. 'Six metres. Five. What the fu—?'

His eyes met Ripley's, and the same realization hit them simultaneously. Both bent their heads back, and they angled the trackers in the same direction. The beeping from both instruments became a numbing buzz.

Hicks climbed onto a file cabinet. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder and clutching the flamethrower tightly, he raised one of the acoustical ceiling panels and shined his flashlight inside.

It illuminated a vision Dante could not have imagined in his wildest nightmares, nor Poe in the grasp of an uncontrollable delirium.

The serviceway between the suspended acoustical ceiling and the metal roof was full of aliens. More aliens than he could quickly count. They clung upside down to pipes and beams crawling like bats toward his light, glistening metallically. They covered the serviceway as far back as his light could shine.

He didn't need a motion tracker to sense movement behind him. As he snapped light and body around, the beam picked out an alien less than a metre away. It lunged at his face Ducking wildly, the corporal felt claws capable of rending metal rake across the back of his armour.

As he tumbled back into Operations the army of infiltrating creatures detached en masse from their grips and claw holds The flimsy suspended ceiling exploded, raining debris and nightmare shapes into the room below. Newt screamed Hudson opened fire, and Vasquez gave Hicks a hand up as she let go with her flamethrower. Ripley scooped up Newt and stumbled backward. Gorman was at her side in an instant pumping away with his own rifle. No one had time to notice Burke as the Company rep bolted for the only unblocked corridor, the one that connected Operations to Medical.

Flamethrowers brightened the chaos as they incinerated one attacker after another. Sometimes the burning aliens would stumble into one another, screeching insanely and adding to the confusion and conflagration. They sounded much more like screams of anger than of pain. Acid poured from seared bodies, chewing gaping holes in the floor and adding to the danger.

'Medical!' Ripley was backing up slowly, keeping Newt close to her. 'Get to Medical!' She turned and dashed for the connecting corridor.

The walls blurred around her, but at least the ceiling overhead stayed intact. She was able to concentrate on the corridor ahead. She caught a glimpse of Burke just as the Company rep cleared the heavy door into the lab area and slid it shut behind him. Ripley slammed into it and wrenched at the outside latch, just as it clicked home on the other side.

'Burke! Open the door! Burke, open the door!'

Newt tugged on Ripley's pants as she slipped behind her pointing down the corridor. 'Look!'

An Alien was striding up the passageway toward them. A big alien. A shaking Ripley raised her rifle, trying to recall in an instant everything Hicks had taught her about the powerfu weapon. She aimed the barrel straight at the middle of the glistening, skeletal chest and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

A hiss came from the advancing abomination. The outer jaws parted, slime splattering on the floor. Calm, calm, don't lose it, Ripley told herself. She checked the safety. It was off. A glance revealed a full magazine. Newt clung desperately to her leg and began to wail. Ripley's hands were trembling so violently, she nearly dropped the gun.

It was almost on top of them when she remembered that the first high-powered round had to be injected into the breech manually. She did so, jerked convulsively on the trigger. The rifle went off in the thing's face, hurling it backward. She turned away and covered her face as best she could in what had by now become an instinctive defensive gesture. But the energy of the shell impacting on the alien's body at point-blank range had thrown it back with such force that the spraying acid missed them completely.

The dampened recoil was still strong enough to send her off-balance body stumbling into the locked door. Her sight had been temporarily wiped by the nearness of the explosion, and she blinked furiously, trying to bring her eyes back into focus Her ears rang with the concussion.

In Operations, Hicks looked up just in time to fire at a leaping outline, the force of the pulse shell hurling his assailant backward into a blazing cabinet. By this time the combined efforts of the flamethrowers had activated the fire-contro system, and the overhead sprinkler jets deluged the room Water cascaded around the corporal, drenched the other soldiers. Some of it penetrated the central colony computer ruining it for future use. But at least it didn't pool up around their legs. By now there were enough acid holes to drain it off The fire siren wailed mindlessly, making it difficult for the combatants to hear each other and rendering any thought of unified tactics impossible.

Hudson was screaming at the top of his lungs, his shrill tone audible over the siren's moan. 'Let's go, let's go!'

'Medical!' Hicks yelled to him. He gestured frantically as he retreated toward the corridor. 'Come on!'

As the comtech turned toward him the floor panels erupted under his feet. Clawed arms seized him, powerful triple fingers locking around his ankles and dragging him down. Another towering shape fell on him from behind, and he was gone in seconds, swallowed by the subfloor crawl way. Hicks let loose a rapid-fire burst in the direction of the cavity, hoping he got the comtech as well as his abductors, then turned and ran. Vasquez and Gorman were right behind him, the smartgun operator laying down a murderous arc of fire as she covered their retreat.

Ripley was fumbling with the door handle when Newt pulled on her arm to attract her attention. The girl pointed silently to where the bleeding, half-blown-away alien was trying to rise to advance on them again. Flinching away from the blast and glare Ripley drilled it a second time. The pulse-rifle's muzzle jerked ceilingward, and Newt covered her ears against the roar. This time the nightmare stayed down.

A voice sounded behind them. 'Hold your fire!' Hicks and the others materialized out of the smoke and dust. They were grime-streaked and soaking wet. She stepped aside, gestured at the door.

'Locked.' It wasn't necessary to explain how. Hicks just nodded.

'Stand clear.' From his belt he removed a cutting torch that was a miniature of the one Vasquez had used earlier to sea first the fire-tunnel door and then the one leading into Operations. It made short work of the lock.

Inhuman shapes appeared at the far end of the corridor Ripley wondered how they could track their prey so efficiently They had no visible eyes or ears, no nostrils. Some unknown special, alien sensing organ? Someday maybe some scientist would dissect one of the monstrosities and produce an answer Someday after she was long dead, because she had no intention of being around when it was attempted.