“Not yours!” Hoop shouted. He’d given her real charges, and if she fired one in this confined space, it might kill them all.
Lachance was quick. He dropped Sneddon, stepped back, and fired his own charge thumper, loaded with nonexploding ammunition. The egg shuddered as something passed through it, and the flaps drooped as a thick, viscous fluid leaked out.
“Don’t step in it!” Ripley warned as she and Lachance grasped Sneddon again.
Kasyanov was staring at her handiwork. Half of the room was ablaze, plasma having stuck to the walls and the eggs and seeded multiple fires. Several more eggs— the ones not caught in the initial blast—burst open, their boiling insides spraying across the room. Kasyanov winced back, wiping at something that had landed on her forearm and glove.
“Don’t spread it!” Hoop shouted.
The doctor glanced back at him, shaking her head and holding up her gloved hand.
“It’s okay, it’s not acid,” she said. “I think it’s…” Then her face changed, as the suit material began bubbling and smoking as the liquid started to eat through.
Kasyanov screamed.
“Let’s go!” Hoop shouted. Ripley and Lachance dragged Sneddon, Baxter hopped as best he could, and Hoop went for Kasyanov, reaching for her while trying not to touch the parts of her that were affected. She saw him coming and tried to be still, but a heavy shudder was passing through her body. Her teeth clacked together so hard that he thought they’d break, and she was starting to foam at the mouth.
She reached out her good hand and grasped his.
“I… can’t… see…” she managed to croak, and Hoop squeezed her hand. Her eyes looked fine, but there wasn’t time now to examine them closely. The room was heating up. He needed to get away.
The face-hugging things were still bursting from their eggs, cooking in the fire, screaming.
They made it across to the opposite doorway. Ripley went first, lighting the way with her own flashlight. Hoop guided Kasyanov in last, leaning her against the dripping wall and trying to say some comforting words in her ear. He couldn’t tell whether or not she heard.
Then he stood in the opening and faced back into the room. The waves of heat were intense, drawing in air from behind him to feed the flames. The sounds of the blaze were incredibly loud—the roar of air alight, the crackle and pop of eggs bursting and burning. The stench was foul, scorching his nose and throat as the whipping limbs of flames threatened his clothing, face, and hair.
But there were still several eggs that were untouched.
As he leveled the spray gun and braced himself, he glimpsed something glimmering across the other end of the room. A shine, coming from the shadows. He aimed the flashlight that way, and saw.
“Ripley!” he said, trying not to shout too loud. “Lachance, Baxter! They’re here.”
15
OFFSPRING
“We’re killing their children,” Ripley said.
And though she wasn’t certain just how accurate this assessment was—where the eggs came from, what laid them, how these beasts procreated—somehow she felt it was right. Any species would go to great lengths to protect its offspring. This was nature’s way.
Across the burning, smoking, spitting pit of the egg chamber, the first alien stepped from the shadows.
Hoop’s acid spray gun wouldn’t reach that far, so Ripley didn’t hesitate. She braced the charge thumper against her hip and fired. It was a lucky shot. The projectile struck the alien low down on one leg, knocking the limb from under it and sending it sprawling to the left, rolling across two burning eggs. It shrieked and stood, shaking off the flames like a dog shaking water from its coat.
…One…
Ripley counted in her head. The only other time she’d fired an explosive charge from the thumper, the time delay had hit five seconds, and now—
…two…
“Hold your breath!” Hoop fired three spurts of acid across the right-hand side of the room.
…three…
The acid splashed from the wall, landed across the floor and several eggs, and immediately started hissing. One egg was sliced immediately in two, red smoke boiling up from its ruined insides.
…four…
The alien was on its feet again, one arm-like limb slapping at its legs where the small, metallic charge had penetrated and stuck.
“Down!” Ripley shouted. She turned her back to the flames and crouched.
The explosion reverberated across the room and through the ship’s structure, the floor punching up at their feet, air thumping at their ears. She gasped, swallowed, then spun around to face the room again.
The alien was all but gone, most of its torso and lower limbs blown away. Its head had rebounded from the roof and landed close to where it had been standing, and the next two aliens rushing into the room kicked it aside.
Hoop was gasping next to her. She glanced at him, saw the blackened split in his suit’s right arm.
But there was no time.
“Run!” she shouted. The two aliens had parted, stalking between the flames, and she only had one charge left. Someone shouldered her aside and the world turned white. She squeezed her eyes closed and slid down the wall, feeling the heat on one side of her face as more fire erupted through the egg room.
A wind roared past them to feed the fire, and then someone was squeezing her hand. Hoop was there, trying to pull her away and urge her to run.
Baxter stood above them, one leg firm and the other foot barely touching the ground. He had his back to them as he tracked one of the aliens, loosing another quick burst from the plasma torch and catching the creature across the head. It screeched, squealed, and darted across the room from one wall to the other, streaking fire behind it. When it struck the wall it slid to the floor and did not move again.
Ripley couldn’t see the other one.
“There’ll be more!” Hoop said.
“I’ll stay…”
At least that was what Ripley thought Baxter said. It was difficult to tell, his back still to them, plasma torch drifting left and right as he sought new targets. The room was a sea of flames now, the wind of the firestorm almost strong enough to knock him down. He was silhouetted against the flames.
“Don’t be fucking stupid,” Hoop said. He ducked down and took Baxter’s arm over his shoulders. “Ripley, can you guide Kasyanov?”
“I’m…” Kasyanov said. “I can walk… just not see…” She still shivered, one hand held out in front of her. It barely resembled a hand anymore.
“Your eyes aren’t damaged,” Ripley said.
“Fumes…” she said. “My belt, hip pocket. Red capsules. For… pain.”
“Hurry!” Hoop said. Ripley knew he was right, there’d be more aliens, but they needed Kasyanov on her feet. With Baxter hobbling and Sneddon down, they were rapidly getting to the time when they’d have to leave someone behind. And she sure as hell wasn’t about to decide who it would be.
She rooted through Kasyanov’s belt pockets and found a strip of red injection capsules. She removed three, popping the top from one and ramming the needle through Kasyanov’s suit into her right forearm. Then she popped the other, knelt, and jammed it into Baxter’s leg. Hoop was last, the needle pressed into his shoulder.
“Ouch!” he yelled, and Ripley laughed. She couldn’t help it. Baxter grinned, and Hoop smiled sheepishly.
Then she stood, took Kasyanov’s good hand and placed it on her own shoulder.