Only Apone fiddled with his headset, trying to make sense of the garbled orders. Gorman's voice was distorted beyond recognition. The headsets were designed to operate and deliver a clear signal under any conditions, including under water, but there was something happening here that hadn't been anticipated by the communications equipment designers something that couldn't have been foreseen by anyone because it hadn't been encountered before.
Someone screamed behind the sergeant. Forget Gorman. He switched the headset over to straight intersuit frequency 'Dietrich? Crowe? Sound off! Wierzbowski, where are you?'
Movement to his left. He whirled and came within a millimetre of blowing Hudson's head off. The comtech's eyes were wild. He was teetering on the edge of sanity and barely recognized the sergeant. No bold assertions now; all false bravado fled. He was terrified out of his skin and made no effort to conceal the fact.
'We're getting juked! We're gonna die in here!'
Apone passed him a rifle magazine. The comtech slapped it home, trying to look every which way at once. 'Feel better? Apone asked him.
'Yeah, right. Right!' Gratefully the comtech chambered a pulse-rifle round. 'Forget the heat exchanger.' He sensed movement, turned, and fired. The slight recoil imparted by the weapon travelled up his arm to restore a little of his lost confidence.
Off to their right, Vasquez was laying down an uninterrupted field of fire, destroying everything not human that came within a metre of her—be it dead, alive, or part of the processing plant's machinery. She looked out of control Apone knew better. If she was out of control, they'd all be dead by now.
Hicks ran toward her. Pivoting smoothly, she let loose a long burst from the heavy weapon. The corporal ducked as the smartgun's barrel swung toward his face, stumbling clear as the nightmarish figure stalking him was catapulted backward by Vasquez's blast. Biomechanical fingers had been centimetres from his neck.
Within the APC, Apone's monitor suddenly spun crazily and went dark. Gorman stared at it, as though by doing so, he could will it back to life, along with the man it represented.
'I told them to fall back.' His tone was distant, disbelieving 'They must not have heard the order.'
Ripley shoved her face into his, saw the dazed, baffled expression. 'They're cut off in there! Do something!'
He looked up at her slowly. His lips worked, but the mumble they produced was unintelligible. He was shaking his head slightly.
No help from that quarter. The lieutenant was out of it. Burke had backed up against the opposite wall, as though by putting distance between himself and the images on the remaining active monitors he could somehow remove himself from the battle that was raging in the bowels of the processing station.
There was only one thing that would do the surviving soldiers any good now, and that was some kind of immediate help Gorman wasn't going to do anything about it, and Burke couldn't. So that left Jones's favourite human.
If the cat had been present and capable of taking action on Ripley's behalf, she knew what he would have done: turned the armoured personnel carrier around and driven that sucker at top speed for the landing field. Piled into the dropship, lifted back to the Sulaco, slipped into hypersleep, and gone home. Not likely anyone in colonial administration would dispute her report this time. Not with a shell-shocked Gorman and halfcomatose Burke to back her up. Not with the recordings automatically stored by the APC's computer taken directly from the soldier's suit cameras to flash in the faces of those smug content Company representatives.
Get out, go home, get away, the voice inside her skull screamed at her. You've got the proof you came for. The colony's kaput, one survivor, the others dead or worse than dead. Go back to Earth and come back with an army next time not a platoon. Atmosphere fliers for air cover. Heavy weapons Level the place if they have to, but let 'em do it without you.
There was only one problem with that comforting line of reasoning. Leaving now would mean abandoning Vasquez and Hudson and Hicks and everyone else still alive down in C-level to the tender ministrations of the aliens. If they were lucky they would die. If they were not, they'd end up cemented into a cocoon wall as replacement for the still-living host colonists they'd mercifully carbonized.
She couldn't do that and live with it. She'd see their faces and hear their screams every time she rested her head on a pillow If she fled, she'd be swapping the immediate nightmare for hundreds later on. A bad trade. One more time the numbers were against her.
She was terrified of what she had to do, but the anger that had been building inside her at Gorman's ineffectiveness and at the Company for sending her out here with an inexperienced field officer and less than a dozen troops (to save money, no doubt) helped drive her past the paralyzed lieutenant toward the APC's cockpit.
The sole survivor of Hadley Colony awaited her with a solemn stare.
'Newt, get in the back and put your seat belt on.'
'You're going after the others, aren't you?'
She paused as she was strapping herself into the driver's chair. 'I have to. There are still people alive down there, and they need help. You understand that, don't you?'
The girl nodded. She understood completely. As Ripley clicked home the latches on the driver's harness, the girl raced back down the aisle.
The warm glow of instruments set in the hold mode greeted Ripley as she turned to the controls. Gorman and Burke might be incapable of reaction, but no such psychological restraints inhibited the APC's movements. She started slapping switches and buttons, grateful now for the time spent during the past year operating all sorts of heavy loading and transport equipment out in Portside. The oversize turbocharged engine raced reassuringly, and the personnel carrier shook, eager to move out.
The vibration from the engine was enough to shock Gorman back to the real world. He leaned back in his chair and shouted forward. 'Ripley, what are you doing?'
Easy to ignore him, more important to concentrate on the controls. She slammed the massive vehicle into gear. Drive wheels spun on damp ground as the APC lurched toward the gaping entrance to the station.
Smoke was pouring out of the complex. The big armoured wheels skidded slightly on the damp pavement as she wrenched the machine sideways and sent it hurtling down the wide, descending rampway. The ramp accommodated the APC with room to spare. It had been designed to admit big earthmovers and service vehicles. Colonial construction was typically overbuilt. Even so, the roadway was depressed by the weight of the APC's armour, but no cracks appeared in its wake as Ripley sent it racing downward. Her hands hammered the controls of the independently powered wheels as she took out some of her anger on the uncomplaining plastic.
Mist and haze obscured the view provided by the externa monitors. She switched to automatic navigation, and the APC kept itself from crashing into the enclosing walls, ranging lasers reading the distance between wheels and obstacles twenty times a second and reporting back to the vehicle's central computer. She maintained speed, knowing that the machine wouldn't let her crash.
Gorman stopped staring at the dimly seen walls rushing by on the Operations bay screens, released his suit harness, and stumbled forward, bouncing off the walls as Ripley sent the APC careening wildly around tight corners.
'What are you doing?'
'What's it look like I'm doing?' She didn't turn to face him absorbed in controlling the carrier.
He put a hand on her shoulder. 'Turn around! That's an order!'
'You can't give me orders, Gorman. I'm a civilian remember?'
'This is a military expedition under military control. As commanding officer, I am ordering you to turn this vehicle around!'