“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.
There was brief discussion that Lachance and Baxter might remain behind, but it was quickly dismissed, and they didn’t need much persuading that they should go with the others. Neither liked the idea of being left alone with the creature, especially if something went wrong on the planetary surface. Better that they all remain together. Besides, there was little that they could do aboard the orbiting ship, other than track its doomed trajectory.
Just before they left the bridge level, Hoop watched as Kasyanov approached Ripley, stretched on tiptoes, and planted a kiss on her cheek. She didn’t speak—perhaps words of thanks would have been redundant, or might have lessened the moment—but she and Ripley locked glances for a moment, and then both nodded.
“If you ladies are done smooching, maybe it’s time to get the fuck off this ship,” Baxter said. With the bridge doors locked and their mechanisms disabled, the six survivors moved off toward Hold 2. Sneddon volunteered to go first, asking for Hoop’s charge thumper. He didn’t object. They were all in this together.
They circled back around the accommodations hub, watching each door in the inner wall of the curved corridor. There were almost a hundred separate bunk rooms in the hub, and the alien could be hiding in any of them. Access doors were recessed into the gray metal wall and difficult to see, and subdued lighting gave the shadows added depth. It was a stressful journey. They took it slowly and reached Hold 2 without incident.
It was a huge space—high ceilinged, cavernous and partly filled with spare mining equipment. Two massive ground transport vehicles were chained down to the floor, and several smaller trucks had moved around during and immediately following the Delilah’s crash. Other equipment lay stacked or scattered. There were metal transport crates, tool racks, supply tanks and boxes, and all manner of smaller items. It formed a complex maze of walkways and dead ends, and Hoop suddenly wanted to turn and go back the way they’d come.
But they needed weapons. Not just in case they came across that bastard thing in the Marion’s corridors, but to face whatever they might find down on the planet. The miners had unearthed something dreadful down there, and there was no telling how many of the things might be waiting for them.
The thought almost paralyzed him with a sense of hopelessness. But he had to shake his doubts and hide them away beneath the stark knowledge that they had no other options.
He motioned the others close, and he led the way along the hold’s outer wall. When he reached a heavy green door he entered an access code. The door whispered open, and automatic lighting flickered on inside.
“All in,” he murmured.
They filed past him, Ripley bringing up the rear.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Workshop,” Hoop said. He was the last inside, backing in, watching the hold as he closed the door behind him. Only then did he turn around and relax.
Powell stood by the welding rig over in the far corner, complaining about something Welford had done, or something that grumpy bastard Baxter had said in the rec room, or maybe just finding an aspect of his own appearance to whinge about. Welford sat at the electronics island bench, goggles up on his forehead. He smiled at Powell’s constant, monotonous drone. A massive coffee mug emblazoned with the words “Engineers are always screwing” steamed by his elbow as he waxed lyrical on some subject or another, his voice a constant background buzz, a counterpoint to Powell’s deep tones.
Hoop blinked. He never thought he’d miss those two, not really. They’d died badly. He couldn’t hold back the memories. He’d spent so long down here with them, working on various repair and maintenance jobs, and although they’d been more friendly with each other than with him—his superior ranking, he thought, or perhaps just that the two of them were more alike—they’d still been a team of three.
“What a dump,” Baxter said.
“Fuck you,” Hoop said.
“Nice place you’ve got here…” Ripley smiled, and she seemed to understand. Maybe she’d seen it in his expression.
Hoop sniffed and pointed.
“There’s some stuff racked in the cupboards back there. Baxter, why don’t you and Lachance check it out? Sneddon, Kasyanov, come with me and Ripley.”
“Where?”
“Through there.” He pointed at a door in the side wall, closed and marked with a Hazardous Materials symbol.
“What’s in there?” Ripley asked.
“I’ll show you,” he said, smiling. “Wondering if we can fight fire with fire.”
Hoop punched in the access code and the door slid open. Lighting flickered on inside, illuminating a small, sterile-looking room, more like a research lab than the workshop that led to it. He’d spent quite a bit of time in here, toying with chemicals and developing various application methods. Jordan had always turned a blind eye to the engineers’ hobbies in research and development, because it relieved boredom and passed the time. But this had really been Welford’s baby. Sometimes he’d spent twelve hours at a time in here, getting Powell to bring him food and drinks down from the galley or rec room. Hoop had never been sure exactly why Welford had become so interested in the spray gun technology. Perhaps it was simply because it was something he excelled in.
“So what’s this?” Ripley asked.
“Welford’s folly,” Sneddon said. “I helped him with some of the designs.”
“You did?” Hoop asked, surprised.
“Sure. Some of the stuff he was using down here was… pretty cutting-edge, actually.”
Hoop hefted one of the units Welford had been working on. It looked like a heavy weapon of some sort, but was actually surprisingly light. He shook it, already knowing that the reservoir would be empty.
“We’re going to fight them with water pistols?” Ripley said.
“Not water,” Sneddon said. “Acid.”
“Fire with fire,” Hoop said, smiling and holding up the gun.
“The miners had been asking us for something like this for quite a while,” Sneddon said. “The trimonite is usually only found in very small deposits, and surrounded by other less dense materials—sands, shales, quartzes, and other crystalline structures. It’s always been a timeintensive process, sorting through it. The idea with this was to melt away all the other stuff with hydrofluoric acid, and keep the trimonite untouched.”
“Sounds dangerous,” Ripley said.
“That’s why it’s still just in the lab,” Hoop said. “We were looking for a way to make the application process safer.”
“And you found it?”
“No,” Hoop said. “But safe’s the last thing on my mind right now.”
“How do we know this will even bother them?” Kasyanov asked, negative as ever. “They have acid in their veins!”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Hoop said. “We have two units. Let’s get them primed, and we can get out of here.”
Ten minutes later they stood ready at the workshop’s locked doors. Hoop had shrugged a tool bag over his shoulder, packed with all the tools he thought they might need. He and Sneddon carried the spray guns, containment reservoirs fully loaded with hydrofluoric acid. Ripley and Lachance had charge thumpers, the charge containers loaded with six-inch bolts. They wore bolt belts around their waists, heavy with spare ammunition. Baxter and Kasyanov were carrying newly charged plasma torches.