Alien: Out the Shadows

For a moment, the storm abated a little. The blown window was clogged with furniture, body parts, and bulkhead paneling. Ripley felt the pressure on her ears and the tugging at her limbs lessening, so she started pulling herself along the floor fixings toward the doorway. With the acid eating away at the detritus, the calmer period wouldn’t last for long.

Hoop hauled himself through, helped by hands from the other side. Kasyanov went with him. Then they both turned back for her.

Jammed against the door frame and held from behind, Hoop reached for Ripley.

As he looked over her shoulders and his eyes widened, she got her feet under her and pushed.

Hoop grabbed her arms and squeezed, so tight that she saw blood pooling around where his fingernails bit into her wrists.

The entire bulkhead surrounding the shattered window gave way.

With a shout Ripley barely heard, Hoop pulled her toward him. The doors were already closing, and she was tugged through the opening moments before the edges met.

There was a loud, long whine, a metallic groaning, and then the growl of racing air fell immediately away. Beyond the door was chaos. But here, for a few seconds, it was almost silent.

Then Ripley’s hearing faded back in. She heard panting and groaning, and Hoop’s muttered curses when he saw Garcia’s mutilated body jammed through a doorway across the corridor. Her chest was a bloodied mess, bones glinting with dripping blood.

“One… one came through,” Ripley said, looking at Sneddon. The science officer nodded and pointed along the corridor.

“Into the ship,” she said. “It moved so fast. And it was huge. Huge!”

“We’ve got to find it,” Ripley said.

“The others?” Sneddon asked.

Hoop shook his head. “Welford. Powell. Gone.”

The chaos beyond the doors ended as quickly as it had begun.

Ripley stood up, shaking, looking around at the others—Hoop, Kasyanov, Sneddon. She tried not to look at Garcia’s damaged, pathetic body, because it reminded her so much of Lambert, hanging there with her arm still swinging, blood still dripping.

“We’ve got to track it down,” Ripley said again.

“Baxter, Lachance!” Hoop said. “One got free on the ship. You hear me?”

No reply.

“The decompression must have screwed the com connection,” Sneddon said.

Ripley reached for her headset, but it was gone. Ripped off in the violence.

“The bridge,” Hoop said. “All of us. We need to stay together, get up there as quickly as possible. Warn them. Then we decide what to do. But only after we’re all together. Agreed?”

Ripley nodded.

“Yeah,” Sneddon said.

Hoop took the last remaining charge thumper from Sneddon, and led the way.

* * *

They’d moved so quickly! Even after being trapped in the Samson for seventy days, they’d stormed out of there faster than Ripley could have imagined. She wasn’t really sure what she’d been expecting… To find that it had all been a bad dream, perhaps. To discover that the things in there weren’t really related in any way to the monster that had killed her crew, thirty-seven years before.

But it hadn’t been, and they were. Exactly the same. Giant, insectile, reptilian things, yet with a body that in certain light, from certain angles, could have been humanoid.

That head… those teeth…

Hoop held out his hand, palm up toward them. Ripley stopped and repeated the signal so that Sneddon could see, and behind her Kasyanov.

They were at a junction in the corridor. Across the junction was the door that led into the ruined docking bays, still solid and secure. Around the corner lay the route up into the main body of the Marion.

Hoop stood motionless, the charge thumper held across his body. It was long, unwieldy, and to aim it ahead of him as he stepped around, he’d have to move across the corridor.

The alien could have been anywhere. Any corner. Any shadow in the corridor walls, open doorway, hatch, side room. She’d seen it rush from the vestibule, heard it pause just long enough to kill Garcia, and then it had gone, ignoring Sneddon altogether. Maybe because she carried a weapon. But more likely, Ripley thought, because it sensed the vast ship to which it now had unrestricted access.

Maybe it had stopped a dozen steps away and was waiting for them. Drooling, hissing softly, anticipating its first real meal in so long.

Or perhaps it had dashed headlong into the depths of the ship, losing itself in unlit, unheated rooms, where it could plan what to do next.

Hoop slipped around the corner and Ripley paused for a second, holding her breath. But there was no explosion of violence, and she followed, drawing close to him once again.

They reached the end of the docking section and climbed a wide staircase into the main ship. She kept her eyes on the head of the staircase. It was well lit up there, yet she still expected to see the shimmering silhouette, all spiked limbs and curved head.

But they were alone.

Hoop glanced back, face tense. Ripley smiled and nodded encouragingly, and he returned her smile.