Alan Dean Foster - Aliens

'You now have thirty seconds to reach. '

She jumped onto the loading boom and hung on as it retracted into the dropship's cargo bay. An instant later a tremendous explosion tore through the station. The resultant wind shear slammed the hovering craft sideways. Extended landing legs ripped into a complex of platform, wall, and conduit. Metal squealed against metal, the entanglement threatening to drag the ship downward.

Inside the hold Ripley threw herself into a flight seat, cradling Newt against her as she strapped both of them in. Glancing up the aisle, she could just see into the cockpit where Bishop was fighting the controls. As they retracted, the sound of the landing legs pulling free echoed through the little vessel. She slammed home the latches on her seat harness, wrapped both arms tightly around Newt.

'Punch it, Bishop!'

The entire lower level of the station vanished in an expanding fireball. The ground heaved, earth and metal vapourizing as the dropship erupted skyward. Its engines fired hard, and the resultant gees slammed Ripley and Newt back in their seat. No comfortable, gradual climb to orbit this time Bishop had the engines open full throttle as the dropship clawed its way through the blighted atmosphere. Ripley's back protested even as she mentally urged Bishop to increase the velocity.

As they left blue for black, the clouds lit up from beneath. A bubble of white-hot gas burst through the troposphere. The shock wave from the thermonuclear explosion rattled the ship but didn't damage it, and they continued to climb toward high orbit.

Within the metal bottle Ripley and Newt stared out a viewport, watching as the blinding flare dissipated behind them. Then Newt slumped against Ripley's shoulder and began to cry quietly. Ripley rocked her and stroked her hair.

'It's okay, baby. We made it. It's over.'

Ahead of them the great, ungainly bulk of the Sulaco hung in geo-synchronous orbit, awaiting the arrival of its smaller offspring. On Bishop's command the dropship rose unti docking grapples snapped home, lifting them into the cargo bay. The outer lock doors cycled shut. Automatic warning lights swept the dark, deserted chamber, and a warning horn ceased hooting. Excess engine heat was vented as the cavernous hold filled with air.

Within the ship Bishop stood behind Ripley while she knelt beside the comatose Hicks. She glanced questioningly at the android.

'I gave him another shot for the pain. He kept insisting that he didn't need it, but he didn't fight the injection. Strange thing pain. Stranger to me still, this peculiar inner need of certain types of humans to pretend that it doesn't exist. Many are the times I'm glad I'm synthetic.'

'We need to get him to the Sulaco's medical ward,' she replied rising. 'If you can get his arms, I'll take his feet.'

Bishop smiled. 'He is resting comfortably now. It will be better for him if we jostle him as little as possible. And you are tired For that matter, I'm tired. It'll be easier if we get a stretcher.'

Ripley hesitated, looking down at Hicks, then nodded 'You're right, of course.'

Picking up Newt, she preceded the android down the aisle leading to the extended loading ramp. They could have a self-propelling stretcher back for Hicks in a few minutes. Bishop continued to talk.

'I'm sorry if I gave you a scare when you emerged onto the landing platform and saw the ship missing, but the site had simply become too unstable. I was afraid I'd lose the ship if I remained docked. It was simpler and safer to hover a short distance away. Close to the ground, the wind is not as strong. I had a monitor on the exit all the time so that I'd know when you arrived.'

'Wish I'd known that at the time.'

'I know. I had to circle and hope that things didn't get too rough to take you off. In the absence of human direction I had to use my own judgment, according to my programming. I'm sorry if I didn't handle it the best way.'

They were halfway down the loading ramp. She paused and put a hand on his shoulder, stared evenly into artificial eyes.

'You did okay, Bishop.'

'Well, thanks, I—?' He stopped in mid-sentence, his attention focused on something glimpsed out of the corner of one eye Nothing, really. An innocuous drop of liquid had splashed onto the ramp next to his shoe. Condensate from the skin of the dropship.

The droplet began to hiss as it started to eat into the metal ramp. Acid.

Something sharp and glistening burst from the centre of his chest, spraying Ripley with milky android internal fluid. An alien stinger, queen-size, driving straight through him from behind. Bishop thrashed, uttering meaningless machine noises and clutching the protruding point of the spear as it slowly lifted him off the landing ramp.

The queen had concealed herself among the landing mechanism inside one strut bay. The atmospheric plates that normally sealed the bay flush with the rest of the dropship's skin had been bent aside or ripped away. She'd blended in perfectly with the rest of the heavy machinery until she began to emerge.

Seizing Bishop in two huge hands, she ripped him apart and flung the two halves aside. Rotating warning lights flashed on her shining dark limbs as she slowly descended to the deck, stil smoking where Ripley had half fried her. Acid dripped from minor wounds that were healing rapidly. Sextuple limbs unfolded in unhuman geometries.

Breaking out of her paralysis, Ripley lowered Newt to the deck without taking her eyes off the descending nightmare.

'Go!'

Newt bolted for the nearest cluster of packing crates and equipment. The alien dropped to the deck and pivoted in the direction of the movement. Ripley backed clear, waving her arms and shouting, making faces, jumping up and down— doing anything and everything she could think of to draw the monster's attention away from the fleeing child.

Her decoying action was successful. The giant whirled moving much too quickly for anything so huge, and sprang as Ripley sprinted for the oversize internal storage door that dominated the far end of the cargo hold. Massive feet boomed on the deck behind her.

She cleared the door and flailed at the 'close' switch. The barrier whirred as it complied with the command, moving much faster than the doors of the now vanished station. An echoing whang reverberated through the storage room as the alien struck the solid wall an instant too late.

Ripley didn't have time to stand around to see if the door would hold. She moved rapidly among bulky, dark shapes searching for a particular one.

Outside, the queen's attention was drawn from the stubborn barrier to visible movement. A network of trenchlike service channels protected by heavy metal grillwork underlaid the cargo bay deck like the tributaries of a river system. The channels were just deep enough for Newt to enter. She'd dropped through one service opening and had begun crawling, scurrying toward the other end of the cargo bay like a burrowing rabbit.

The alien tracked the movement. Talons swooped, ripped up a section of grillwork just behind the frantic child. Newt tried to move faster, scrambling desperately as another piece of grille disappeared right at her heels. The next to go would be directly above her.

The alien paused in mid-reach at the sound of the heavy storage room door grinding open behind her. In the opening stood a massive, articulated silhouette.

Riding two tons of hardened steel, Ripley strode out in the powerloader. Her hands were inside waldo gloves while her feet rested in similar receptacles attached to the floor controls of the safety cab. Wearing the loader like high-tech armour she advanced on the watching queen. The loader's ponderous feet boomed against the deck plates. Ripley's face was a mask of maternal fury devoid of fear.

'Get away from her, you!'