She nodded, the only one of the waiting group whose attention was not monopolized by the approaching dropship Her dark eyes continuously scanned the landscape around the personnel carrier. Nearby, Ripley waited, gripping Newt's small hand tightly. Hudson and Hicks carried the stillunconscious Gorman between them.
'Hold it there,' Ferro instructed them. 'Give me a little room I don't want to come down on top of you.' She thumped her headset pickup. 'It'd be nice if I had a little help up here Spunkmeyer. Get off the pot.'
The compartment door slid aside behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder, angry and not bothering to hide the fact. 'It's about time. Where the.?'
Her eyes widened, and the rest of the accusation trailed away.
It wasn't Spunkmeyer.
The alien barely fit through the opening. Outer jaws flared to reveal the inner set of teeth. There was a blur of movement and an explosive, organic whoosh. Ferro barely had time to scream as she was slammed backward into the control console.
From below, the would-be refugees watched in dismay as the dropship veered wildly to port. Its main engines roared to life and it accelerated even as it lost altitude. Ripley grabbed Newt and sprinted toward the nearest building.
'Run!'
The dropship clipped a rock formation at the edge of the causeway, slewed left, and struck a basalt ridge. It tumbled turning completely on its back like a dying dragonfly, struck the tarmac, and exploded. Sections and compartments began to break away from the mainframe, some of them already afire. The body of the ship arced into the air once more bouncing off the unyielding stone, fire blazing from it engines and superstructure.
Part of an engine module slammed into the APC, setting off its armament. The personnel carrier blew itself to bits as shells and fuel exploded inside it. A flaming Catherine wheel, the remains of the dropship skipped past and rolled into the outskirts of the atmosphere processing station. A tremendous fireball lit the dark sky of Acheron. It faded rapidly.
Emerging from concealment, the stunned survivors stared at the debris in disbelief as their superior firepower and hopes of getting off the planet were simultaneously reduced to charred metal and ash.
'Well that's great,' said a near hysterical Hudson. 'That's just great, man. Now what are we supposed to do? We're in some real fine shape now.'
'Are you finished?' Hicks stared hard at the comtech unti Hudson looked abashed. Then he glanced at Ripley. 'You okay?'
She nodded and tried to hide her real feelings as she looked down at Newt. She could have spared herself the effort. It was impossible to hide anything from the child. Newt looked calm enough. She was breathing hard, true, but it was from the effort of racing for cover, not from fear. The girl shrugged sounding remarkably grown-up.
'I guess we're not leaving, right?'
Ripley bit her lip. 'I'm sorry, Newt.'
'You don't have to be sorry. It wasn't your fault.' She stared silently at the flaming wreckage of the dropship.
Hudson was kicking aside rocks, bits of metal, anything smaller than his boot. 'Just tell me what we're supposed to do now. What're we gonna do now?'
Burke looked annoyed. 'Maybe we could build a fire and sing songs.'
Hudson took a step toward the Company rep, and Hicks had to intervene.
'We should get back.' Everyone turned to look down at Newt who was still staring at the burning dropship. 'We should get back 'cause it'll be dark soon. They come mostly at night. Mostly.'
'All right.' Hicks nodded in the direction of the ruined APC. It was mostly metal and composites and shouldn't burn much longer. 'The fire's about had it. Let's see what we can find.'
'Scrap metal,' suggested Burke.
'And maybe something more. You coming?'
The Company rep rose from where he'd been sitting. 'I'm sure not staying here.'
'Up to you.' The corporal turned to their synthetic. 'Bishop see if you can make Operations livable. What I mean is, make sure it's. clear.'
The android responded with a gentle smile. 'Take point? I know what that means. I'm expendable, of course.'
'Nobody's expendable.' Hicks started across the tarmac toward the smoking APC. 'Let's move it.'
Day on Acheron was dim twilight; night was darker than the farthest reaches of interstellar space, because not even the stars shone through its dense atmosphere to soften the barren surface with twinkling light. The wind howled around the battered metal buildings of Hadley town, whistling down corridors and rattling broken doors. Sand pattered against cracked windows, a perpetual snare-drum roll. Not a comforting sound to be heard. Inside, everyone waited for the nightmare to come.
Emergency power was sufficient to light Operations and its immediate environs but not much else. There the weary and demoralized survivors gathered to consider their options Vasquez and Hudson had made one final run to the hulk that was the armoured personnel carrier. Now they set down their prize, a large, scorched, dented packing case. Several similar cases were stacked nearby.
Hicks glanced at the case and tried not to sound too disappointed. He knew what the answer to his question would be but asked it, anyhow. Maybe he was wrong.
'Any ammo?' Vasquez shook her head and slumped into an office chair.
'Everything was stored in the airspace between the APC's walls. It all went up when it caught fire.' She pulled off her sweat-soaked bandanna and wiped a forearm across her hairline. 'Man, what I wouldn't give for some soap and a hot shower.'
Hicks turned toward the table on which reposed their entire weapons inventory.
'This is it, then. Everything we could salvage.' His gaze examined the stock, wishing he could triple it by looking at it 'We've got four pulse-rifles with about fifty rounds each. Not so good. About fifteen M-40 grenades and two flamethrowers less than half full—one damaged. And we've got four of these robot-sentry units with their scanners and display relays intact. He approached the stack of packing cases and broke the seal on the nearest. Ripley joined him in inspecting the contents.
Stabilized in packing foam was a squat automatic weapon Secured in a separate set of boxes next to it was matching video and movement-sensor instrumentation.
'Looks pretty efficient,' she commented.
'They are.' Hicks shut the case. 'Without them I'd say we might as well cut our wrists right now. With them, well, our chances are better than none, anyway. Trouble is we need about a hundred like this one and ten times the ammunition But I'm grateful for small favours.' He rapped his knuckles on the hard plastic case. 'If these hadn't been packed like this, they would've gone blooey with the rest of the APC.'
'What makes you think we stand a chance, anyway?' Hudson said.
Ripley ignored him. 'How long after we're declared overdue can we expect a rescue?'
Hicks looked thoughtful. He'd been too absorbed with the problems of their immediate survival to think about the possibility of help from outside.
'We should have filed a mission update yesterday. Call it about seventeen days from tonight.'
The comtech whirled and stomped off, waving his arms disconsolately. 'Man, we're not going to make it seventeen hours. Those things are going to come in here just like they did before, man. They're going to come in here and get us long before anyone from Earth comes poking around to see what's left of us. And they're gonna find us, too, all sucked out and blown dry like those poor colonists we cremated down on Clevel. Like Dietrich and Crowe, man.' He started to sob.
Ripley indicated the silently watching Newt. 'She survived longer than that with no weapons and no training. The colonists didn't know what hit them. We know what to expect and we've got more than wrenches and hammers to fight back with. We don't have to clean them out. All we have to do is survive for a couple of weeks. Just keep them away from us and stay alive.'