Sneddon stood off to one side, watching, ostensibly listening for any of those things that might be approaching. Hoop was pretty confident they had some time before the beasts could make their way up through the mine. Both staircases had blast doors at every level that were kept permanently shut, and they wouldn’t know how to use the code keys on the control panels. But it gave Sneddon something to do.
He watched her. They all did, and she knew it. Yet she offered them back a gentle smile, as if she knew something they did not.
Hoop opened the cell’s metallic shell and placed the cover to one side. He set to work disconnecting three cooling loops, then removed the coolant supplies altogether, for good measure. He delved deeper, past wires and conductors to the governing capacitors. These were adjustable, and he turned them all up to full.
A soft hum rose from the core. Barely the size of his fist, still its potential was staggering.
“We’re almost good to go,” he said after a while. More adjustments, several wires snipped, and then he disconnected and rerouted the last safety failsafe, meaning he could initiate the cell without having to input its own unique code.
“How long do you think it will give us?” Ripley asked.
“I’m thinking nine hours until it goes critical,” he replied. “Plenty of time to get off this rock.”
“If those things haven’t made it out to the Samson and trashed it. Or if they’re not just sitting inside, waiting for us to board. Or—”
“Fuck it,” he said, cutting her off. “If they’ve done that, I’ll come and sit beside this thing and wait for it to blow, rather than die of exposure or starvation.”
“Let’s hope then, eh?” Ripley asked.
“Let’s hope. Hey, you okay?”
“Yeah. Flying high from the shots Kasyanov gave me, that’s all.”
Hoop nodded, then called over to where Lachance was fussing over the cell on the trolley.
“We good?” he said.
“Ready,” the pilot replied. He looked down at the cell that lay next to Hoop, its cover removed and half of its mechanical guts hanging out. “You’ve done a real butcher’s job on that.”
“I’m an artist,” Hoop said. “Everyone else good? Sneddon?”
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” she said.
“Right.” Hoop breathed deeply and held two bare wires, ready to touch them together.
What if I’m wrong? What if the overload happens in minutes, not hours? What if…? But they had come too far, survived too much, to pay any more attention to what-ifs.
“Here goes nothing,” he muttered, touching the two wires together.
A spark, a clunk, the sound of something whirring noisily inside the cell. Then a slew of lights flickered into life across its dismantled maintenance panel, some dying out, others remaining lit.
A red warning light began to pulse.
“Okay, it’s working,” he said. “In about nine hours, everything inside of a mile of here will become a cloud of radioactive dust.”
“Then let’s not hang around,” Ripley said.
The elevator still worked. Kasyanov had removed the remains of Baxter’s body. Even so, with the introduction of the fuel cell, things were cramped. They rose quickly to ground level and exited into the vestibule area, Lachance steering the trolley carrying the replacement fuel cell. They watched for movement, listened for the sound of running things.
Everything was suddenly going too smoothly, but Ripley tried not to question it.
Close to the tunnel entrance at the edge of the dome, they opened the metal storage container and donned their suits once more. They gauged oxygen supplies, then checked each other’s fittings and connections. Ripley felt constrained having to wear the suit again.
The lights were still on in the tunnel that stretched between dome and landing pad. They moved quickly, passing the place where the floor was bubbled from an acid spill, and when they were close to the external pad Hoop called a halt.
“Nearly there,” he said. “Let’s not get hasty. We’ve got plenty of time, it’s been less than an hour since I fired up the cell. Slow and careful from here.”
Ripley knew he was right. The aliens had chased miners this far and further, so they certainly couldn’t lower their guard just yet. But there was a small part of her, filled with dread, that whispered that they should never leave.
She ignored it.
She had to, because Amanda was still in her dreams, and haunting those occasional, shocking waking visions that seemed so real.
Her stomach hurt more and more, but she didn’t want another shot of painkiller. Once they were on board the Samson, launched, flying safely up toward the Marion in low orbit, perhaps then. But for these last moments on this wretched planet’s surface, she wanted all her wits about her.
Sneddon walked with them, carrying something that might kill them all. Didn’t they realize that? Didn’t they see what was happening here? Hoop had described to her the fate of their shuttle Delilah, and they knew it had been the hatching monsters that did that.
What if Sneddon’s beast hatched on their way up?
Ripley’s finger stroked the torch’s trigger. One slight squeeze and Sneddon would be gone. A moment of shock, another instant of awful pain as the burning plasma melted through her flesh and bone and turned her heart and lungs to cinder…
“Wait,” Ripley said. The word had a weight of finality to it, and when Hoop sighed and turned to look at her, she thought he knew.
Sneddon did not even turn around. She looked down at her feet, shoulders dropping.
“We can’t…” Ripley said. She was crying now, finally unable to hold back the tears that fell for everyone—her old, dead crew; the survivors with her now; Amanda. Most of all, for Sneddon.
“What, Ripley?” Lachance asked. He sounded tired.
Ripley lifted the plasma torch and aimed it at Sneddon’s back.
“We can’t take her,” she breathed.
No one moved. None of them stepped back, away from the area where the flames would spout. But none of them went to help, either. Maybe shock froze them all.
“You know what happened before,” Ripley said. “Same thing might happen to the Samson, when we’re partway there. If she hatches… if the thing bursts from her chest… how do we kill it on the shuttle? Can’t use this.” She lifted the plasma torch slightly, nozzle now aimed at the back of Sneddon’s head. “Can’t use the acid gun Hoop’s carrying, either. We’d fry everyone, burn a hole in the dropship. We’d be an easy target for it. So…” She sniffed hard, blinking to clear her vision.
“So?” Hoop asked.
Ripley didn’t answer. Sneddon still hadn’t turned around.
“Move, say something, damn it!” Ripley shouted. “Fall down! Start to shake, to scream, try to stop me—give me a reason!”
“I feel fine,” Sneddon said. “But Ripley… I know I’m going to die. I’ve known that since I woke, knowing what had happened to me. I’m a science officer, remember.” She turned around. “I know I’m going to die. But not down here. Not like this.”
Ripley’s finger tightened on the trigger. Hoop only watched, his face seemingly impassive. She wished he’d give her some sort of signal—a nod, a shake of the head.
Help me, Hoop!
“I’ll stay in the airlock,” Sneddon said. “The moment I feel something happening, I’ll blast myself out. But please, take me, and I’ll do anything I can to help. There’s still an alien on the Marion, remember? Maybe I can tackle it. Maybe it won’t do anything to me if it knows what’s inside me.”