Alien: Out the Shadows

They’d already lost so many friends and colleagues, but these eight survivors had existed together for more than seventy days, striving to make the Marion safe, hoping that their distress signal would be picked up by another ship. Living day by day with the constant, hanging threat of further mechanical malfunction, or a break-out of those monsters from the Samson. Fighting against the odds, their determination had seen them through. Perhaps they hadn’t all liked each other, but what group of people could claim that? Especially under such stress.

Yet they had been the survivors. And now three of them were gone, slaughtered in a matter of moments by those bastard creatures.

Ripley gave them their silence, retreating to a control panel and sitting in the upholstered chair. It was a navigational control point. She browsed the system, noting the other planets and their distances, orbits, makeup. The sun at the system’s center was almost half a billion miles away.

No wonder it feels so fucking cold.

“We’ve got to find it,” Sneddon said. “Track it down and kill it.”

“Track it down how?” Kasyanov asked. “It could be hiding away anywhere on the Marion. It’ll take us forever, and we only have days.”

“I saw it,” Sneddon said. At the sound of her voice— so filled with dreadful awe, quavering in fear—everyone grew quiet, still. “It came out like… like a living shadow. Garcia didn’t even know what hit her, I don’t think. She didn’t scream, didn’t have time. Just a grunt. Like she was disagreeing with something. Just that, and then it killed her and ran. Just… brutalized her, for no reason.”

“They don’t reason,” Ripley said. “They kill and feed. And if there’s no time to feed, they just kill.”

“But that’s not natural,” Sneddon said. “Animals kill for a purpose.”

“Some do,” Ripley said. “Humans don’t.”

“What is and isn’t natural out here?” Hoop asked, and he sounded angry. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is what we do.”

“Track it down,” Sneddon said.

“There’s no time!” Kasyanov said.

“That acid ate through the vestibule windows and floor in no time,” Hoop said. “We’re lucky the doors are holding—they’re blast doors, not proper external doors.”

“So how the hell do we get to the Samson now?” Lachance asked.

“That’s another problem.” Hoop was the center of attention. Not only in command, he was the only engineer left alive.

“Suit up,” Lachance said.

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Hoop said.

“Yeah,” Baxter agreed. “The Samson’s environmental systems will recompress, once we’re inside.”

“We’ll need to form another airlock,” Hoop said.

“But we can’t just leave that thing roaming around the ship!” Kasyanov shouted. She was standing, fists clenched at her sides. “It could chew through cables, smash doors. Do god-knows-what sort of damage.”

“We can leave it.” Hoop looked at Ripley, as if seeking her agreement. And suddenly the others were watching her, as well.

Ripley nodded.

“Yeah. It’s either that, or we hunt the thing through the ship and put everyone at risk. At least this way we have a chance.”

“Yeah, a chance,” Kasyanov scoffed. “What are the odds? I’m taking bets. Anyone?”

“I don’t gamble,” Ripley said. “Listen, if three of us keep watch while the other three work, it’ll still take a while to get into the Samson

. Then when we return, straight into my shuttle and away.”

“What about supplies?” Baxter asked. “Food, water. Lube for all that lovin’ we’ll be doing.”

“Are there stocks down at the mine?” Ripley asked Hoop.

“Yep.”

“But that’s where they came from!” Sneddon said.

Ripley nodded. No one else spoke. Yeah, we’ve all been thinking about that, too, she thought.

“Right, so I’ll call it,” Hoop said. “I’ve got an idea of how we can get through the decompressed rooms to the Samson. We all go, and follow the plan. And if that thing causes us problems when we come back, we deal with it then.”

“One cataclysm at a time, eh?” Baxter said.

“Something like that.”

“We need more weapons,” Ripley said. “We lost most of them down there when…”

“We can divert to Hold 2 on the way down,” Sneddon said. “Plenty of charge thumpers and plasma torches there.”

“Easy,” Lachance said.

“A walk in the park,” Baxter agreed.

“We’re all going to die,” Kasyanov said. And she meant it. She wasn’t making a joke. Ripley had been impressed when she leaped into action in the docking arm, but now she was the voice of pessimism once again.

“Not today,” Ripley replied. Kasyanov snorted. No one else replied.

They moved, but not too quickly. On the relative safety of the bridge, they each took a few moments to compose their thoughts.

Beyond the doors lay only danger.

8

VACUUM

They made sure that the bridge was properly sealed before they left.