The Marion shook.
A subtle vibration, but he felt it through his boots.
Oh, not now, he thought. He skidded around a corner, up some stairs, and then he was in the wide area where the chaos had only just ended. Lachance lay dead against the wall to his left, head hanging from his body by strands. Ripley was on the floor to his right. Kasyanov knelt beside her, melted hand pressed tight to her right hip, the other busy administering emergency first aid. Beyond them, the windows looked down onto the planet. To the north Hoop saw the bright bruise of the explosion that had taken the mine, and felt a brief moment of glee. But it didn’t last long. Shimmering threads of smoke and fire flitted past the window as the Marion encountered the very upper reaches of LV178’s atmosphere.
“We don’t have long,” Kasyanov said, looking up at his approach. Hoop wasn’t sure whether she meant the Marion or Ripley, but in his mind they were the same.
“How bad are you?”
“Bolt from Lachance’s thumper broke up, ricocheted, hit me.” She moved her ruined hand aside slightly, looking down. Hoop could see the shredded jacket and undershirt, the dark bloodstains glinting wetly in artificial light. She pressed the wound again and looked up. “Honestly, I can’t feel anything. Which isn’t a good sign.”
“It’s numb. You can walk?”
Kasyanov nodded.
“You go ahead, open the doors, I’ll carry her,” Hoop said.
“Hoop—”
“I’m not listening. If there’s a chance for her, we’ll take it. And you can sort yourself out while we’re there.”
“But that thing could be—” Their earpieces crackled, and Sneddon’s voice came in loud and fast.
“I’ve got the bastard cornered in Hold 2!” she shouted. “Shot it up, its acid splashed everywhere… not sure if… oh, fuuuuck!” She moaned, long and loud.
“Sneddon,” Hoop said.
“It hurts. It hurts! It’s in me, moving around, and I can feel its teeth.” Another groan, then she coughed loudly and shouted, “Screw you! Hoop, it’s cornered behind some of the equipment lockers, thrashing around in there. Might be dying. But… I’m going to… make sure!”
Hoop and Kasyanov stared at each other. Neither knew what to say. They were witnessing a fight far away from them, and listening to the impending death of a friend.
Metal clanged, the sound of something falling over and hitting the deck.
“Come on, come on,” Sneddon whispered. “Okay, I’m almost done.” She was talking to herself, muttering between croaks of pain and high-pitched whines that should not have come from a person.
“What are you doing?” Hoop asked.
“Got a full crate of magazines for the charge thumpers. Rigging a charge. You’ll feel a bump, but it’ll get rid of this… for good. So…”
Hoop ran to Ripley, scooped her up, slung her over his shoulder. She moaned in unconsciousness, and he could feel her blood pattering down on his back and legs.
“Med bay,” he said to Kasyanov. “Need to get as close as we can before it blows.”
“Maybe a minute,” Sneddon said. “The one inside me… it wants out. It’s shifting. It’s…” She screamed. It was a horrible sound, volume tempered by the equipment yet the agony bare and clear.
“Sneddon…” Kasyanov whispered, but there was nothing more to say.
“Come on!” Hoop led the way, struggling with Ripley’s weight. Kasyanov followed. He heard her groaning, cursing beneath her breath, but when he glanced back she was still with him. She had to be. He didn’t know how to use the med bay equipment, and if Kasyanov died, so would Ripley.
“You going to be—?” he started asking, but then Sneddon came on again.
“It’s coming for me.” Behind her voice Hoop heard an alien squeal, and the scraping of claws on metal growing rapidly louder. Sneddon gasped, then fell silent. The channel was still open; Hoop could hear the hiss and whisper of static. He and Kasyanov paused at the head of a staircase. And then he heard the more uneven hissing of something else.
“Sneddon?”
“It’s… just staring. It must see… know… sense… Oh!”
“Blow the crate,” Hoop said. Kasyanov’s eyes went wide, but he wasn’t being cruel or heartless. He was thinking of Sneddon, as well as them. “Sneddon, blow the crate before—”
The crunch of breaking bones was obvious. Sneddon let out a long groan of agony.
“It’s coming,” she rasped. “The thing’s just watching. It’s dying, but it doesn’t care. It sees… its sibling… coming. This close it’s almost beautiful.”
“Sneddon, blow the—”
“Two seconds,” the science officer whispered.
In those two seconds Hoop heard the infant alien clawing, biting, tearing its way from Sneddon’s chest, its high-pitched squeal answered by the dying adult’s more tempered cry. Sneddon could not scream because her breath had been stolen. But she spoke in another way.
He heard the soft mechanical click. Then the connection was cut.
Moments later a distant rumble turned from a moan into a roaring explosion that blasted a wall of air through the corridors. A heavy thud worked through the entire ship, pulsing through floors and walls as Hold 2 was consumed by the massive blast.
A long, low horn-like sound echoed as incredible stresses and strains were placed on the superstructure, and Hoop feared they would simply tear apart. The tension of skimming the planet’s atmosphere, combined with the results of the explosion, might break the ship’s back and send it spinning down, to burn up in the atmosphere.
He slid down one wall and held Ripley across his legs, hugging her head to his chest to prevent it bouncing as the metal floor punched up at them again and again. Kasyanov crouched next to them.
Metal tore somewhere far away. Something else exploded, and a shower of debris whisked past them, stinging exposed skin and clanging metal on metal. Another gush of warm air came, and then the shaking began to subside.
“Will she hold?” Kasyanov asked. “Will the ship hold?” Hoop couldn’t answer. They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Kasyanov slumped down. “Sneddon.”
“She took it with her,” Hoop said. “Took both of them with her.” Kasyanov glanced at Ripley, then crawled quickly closer. She lifted an eyelid, bent down to press her ear to the injured woman’s open mouth.
“No,” Hoop breathed.
“No,” Kasyanov said. “But she’s not good.”
“Then let’s go.” He dropped the spray gun, heaved her over his shoulder again, and set off toward med bay. Kasyanov followed, her plasma torch clattering to the floor.
Now they were three, and he wouldn’t let anyone else die.
Amanda watches her. She’s eleven years old today, and she sits in a chair beside a table scattered with half-eaten pieces of birthday cake, opened presents, discarded wrapping paper. She’s on her own and looking sad.
Her birthday dress is bloodied and torn, and there is a massive hole in her chest.
I’m sorry, Ripley says, but Amanda’s expression does not change. She blinks softly, staring at her mother with a mixture of sadness at the betrayal and… hatred? Can that really be what she sees in her daughter’s eyes?
Amanda, I’m sorry, I did my very best.
Blood still drips from the hole in her daughter’s chest. Ripley tries to turn away, but whichever way she turns her daughter is still there, staring at her. Saying nothing. Only looking.
Amanda, you know Mommy loves you, however far away I am.