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“Ripley, if those things you talked about are real and threatening the colony, we’re going to need your expertise to formulate a plan to beat them back.”
Ripley scoffed. “You don’t ‘beat them back’, Burke. You either wipe them out, or they wipe you out. And if you’ve only just heard from the colony about this, then they’re probably already dead.”
“But…”
“The answer is no, Burke. And it’s going to keep being no no matter how many times you ask me. Best of luck with your mission; you’re going to need it.”
And with that, Ripley closed the door in Burke’s face and resumed making dinner.
***
Six months later…
Ripley was in the middle of looking for a clean (or clean enough) plate to eat off of when there was a chime at the door. Peering through the keyhole, she was both surprised and exasperated to see an unfamiliar man standing there, a patch on his shoulder signifying that he was a member of the Colonial Marines. Opening the door, she gave him her best glare. “What now?” she snapped, “Has Burke finally realized he’s in over his head?”
The soldier blinked at her vehement response, but otherwise remained unruffled. “I wouldn’t know,” he responded, “But I’m hoping he’s been eaten by now, or maybe strung up like the others. Least he deserves.”
That got Ripley’s attention, and a cold tendril curled around her heart. “What do you mean?”
“Listen, I’m not here on behalf of Weyland-Yutani. In fact, they’ve done a lot to make sure it’s hard to find records of you. Will you at least let me in so I can explain?”
Ripley stepped inside, and the man squeezed into the room, remaining standing while Ripley sat down and looked at him expectantly. “I’m Corporal Hicks,” he said, “And I was on the mission to Hadley’s Hope to investigate the distress call. When we got there, nearly all the colony had been wiped out. Eventually, we found out why.”
Ripley’s hands curled into fists, and she willed herself not to start shaking. “So Burke saw them for himself, did he? Hope it scared the shit out of him.”
“I think it did, but not enough. Certainly scared us, even if we’d deny it in the locker room. The—I guess Gorman started calling them xenomorphs—the xenomorphs had overrun the colony, killing some of the colonists but dragging most of them to a sort of nest they’d made in the processing station. They being were used to…make more of the xenos.”
Ripley’s hand moved involuntarily to her stomach, though she tried to disguise it by quickly reaching for a packet of cigarettes. If Hicks noticed, he didn’t comment. “There was nothing we could do for any of them, especially when the xenos started coming out of the walls. We lost half our squad in that fight alone. I just hope they were killed rather than…” he trailed off and nodded at the pack of cigarettes. “Mind if I have one of those?”
Ripley hesitated, then tossed him the pack. Hicks took one, lit it, and took a long drag before he continued. “While we were in the processing station, our dropship was destroyed by the xenos, so we had to wait a day while Bishop brought the spare down remotely. We held out pretty well, all things considered, but the bastards overran us just like they did the colonists. If it wasn’t for Newt, we’d probably have wound up just like them.”
“So you got lucky and made it out,” Ripley said curtly, “I still don’t see what this has to do with me.”
Hicks took another deep drag on the cigarette, looking up towards the ceiling. When he spoke again, his voice was full of barely-contained anger. “When we were getting out of the habitation building, I noticed that the xenos weren’t attacking us quite as furiously. At the time, I thought it was because we were moving quickly, or that we had managed to thin their numbers. I was just glad to get out of there with what was left of the squad. When we got back to Earth, we were given leave after the debrief, though Gorman, Bishop, and Drake were asked to stay behind. I figured Gorman was going to have to deal with the bureaucracy, Bishop had to talk to the suits about his scientific findings concerning the xenos, and Drake had been hit in the face by the xenos’ acid blood, so I thought he was getting sent somewhere for treatment. But now…”
The tendril of fear now felt like it was encircling Ripley’s whole heart. “Burke used them as incubators.”
Hicks nodded. “There were two living…larvae?…inside the medical bay when we first arrived. I was only there once or twice, so I assumed they were just left alone. And both Drake and Gorman got hurt in the initial fight, so they spent a lot of time in there. It all fits.”
“What about Bishop?”
“He’s a synthetic, so I don’t know if he’d have been a candidate for implantation. He was probably reprogrammed or deactivated for knowing too much.”
Ripley took a deep pull of her own cigarette, using it as an excuse to try to steady her breath. “When and why did you start thinking Burke had brought the xenos back?” Much as it caused her insides to clench when she said the word, she did think it was a fitting name for them, something curt that you could spit out in hatred while also sounding unnatural and kind of sinuous. It was certainly better than alternating between calling it “alien”, “creature”, “thing”, or “monster”. In fact, settling on a name for it demystified it just a little. It would never stop being terrifying, but it was like knowing you were being stalked by a wild animal. Once you knew if it was a tiger or a wolf, you at least had some idea of how to deal with it. Even if you knew deep down that you were almost certainly screwed.
“Not getting any news about Drake was the first clue. Hearing rumors that Weyland-Yutani’s weapons research lab had abruptly gone silent was another. When one of my buddies in another squad told me that there’s talk about sending his group in to investigate, I realized the same damn thing was about to happen all over again, only worse because now the xenos have a much larger, more populous planet to work their way through. That’s when I started poking around to try to see if anyone else had ever encountered xenos before. Like I said, the brass have tried to scrub your name from the record—more signs that something’s gone FUBAR and they’re trying to cover it up—but I followed enough leads that eventually I got your name.”
“What exactly do you think I can do?” Ripley said, her anger tinged with frustration and a little bit of fear, “I only made it out because of dumb luck, and I was just facing one of them. If you faced a whole colony’s worth, you’re way more experienced in fighting them than I am.”
“I know,” Hicks said, “And I admit I’m grasping at straws. But you’re one of the only other people alive who have dealt with them and see them as a threat. I need all the help I can get.”
Ripley looked at her cigarette. On the one hand, everything she’d said to Burke still applied to this situation. On the other, the xenos were actually on Earth now, threatening several billion people. Her conscience probably couldn’t take it if she stayed out of this one. And maybe, just maybe, working with experienced fighters and on more familiar terrain would give her an advantage over the xenos…and help lay some demons to rest.
She ground out her cigarette and looked back at Hicks. “What’s the plan?”
***
“This way,” Hicks said, leading Ripley down the barracks’ hallway. Ripley adjusted her bags (earning her yet another annoyed growl from Jonesy) and followed, ignoring the sideways looks she was getting. She was actually used to this sort of thing by now, and at least these glances were confused more than condescending.
Hicks eventually stopped in front of a door about halfway down the hall and started keying in a code. “Let’s see if she’s here, or if she’s managed to sneak her way into the ducts again.” The door slid open, and Hicks slowly stepped inside. “Newt?” he called, voice raised but tone calm, “It’s me.”
There was silence for a moment. Then, just as Hicks was sighing, there was a rustle in the far corner, and a small blonde head poked out from a cupboard. “Did you get the person who can help us?”
Hicks nodded and stepped out of the doorway so Newt could see Ripley. Ripley gave her what she hoped was a reassuring smile and entered the room, putting down her bags. “Hey, Newt,” she said gently, “Hicks has been telling me all about you.”
It was true; in the course of outlining his plan (or what little he had of it), Hicks had told her that he’d been adopted by the one survivor of Hadley’s Hope, a girl who’d escaped the xenos by hiding in the various vents and ducts. She’d wound up sticking to Hicks like glue for the rest of their mission, a trend that had continued when they got back to Earth. Since she didn’t seem to have any family on Earth, the Marines had reluctantly allowed her to stay with Hicks for the time being, hence the private quarters.
Newt clambered out of the cupboard and approached them cautiously. “You’ve fought the xenos before?”
“Not the same way Hicks has,” Ripley admitted, “But I know what they’re like, and I have some experience in avoiding them. I think you were smarter than I was, though; you figured out how to sneak around the air ducts without alerting them. I just ran around making lots of noise.”
Newt smiled a little, and Ripley smiled back. “Here, I want you to meet a friend of mine,” she said, crouching down to be at Newt’s eye level, “He’s seen the xenos too, and lived to tell the tale.”
With that, she picked up Jonesy’s carrier and set it on her lap. Newt peered inside, and her eyes lit up. “What’s his name?”
“Jones,” Ripley said, opening the lid, “Though I tend to call him Jonesy. You can try to pet him if you want; he shouldn’t scratch, but he may be skittish from the travel.”
Jonesy poked his head out from the carrier, letting out an annoyed (or possibly a “feed me”) meow. Newt carefully reached out a hand to him, and Jonesy recoiled for a moment before leaning forward and sniffing it. Apparently liking the smell, he nosed Newt’s fingers, and she smiled and started patting his head. “Is he staying here too?”
“For a little while,” Ripley answered, “But he may be going out to deal with the xenos. It depends on if Hicks can talk Sergeant Maybrek into letting him come and act as an early warning system. If not, though, he’ll stay on base. You can help me look after him, all right?”
Newt nodded solemnly, still petting Jonesy. Ripley shifted the carrier down to the floor so the two could keep getting to know each other, then stood up and looked at Hicks. “What now?”
“Well, you can either unpack and try to get settled,” Hicks said, smiling faintly, “Or we can track down Maybrek and see if we can
convince him to listen to us.”
“Let’s get going,” Ripley responded immediately, “The sooner we get him on our side, the better.”
Hicks’ smile got a little wider. “You got it.”
Ripley was about to head to the door when something occurred to her. Kneeling down by her bags, she rooted through one of them to pull out Jonesy’s bowls and a bag of cat food. “If he starts meowing too much, give him this,” she told Newt, “Then put it away where he can’t get to it. He’ll eat the whole bag if you aren’t careful.”
Newt nodded and immediately set the bag on top of one of the cabinets. Jonesy could probably get up there if he really wanted to, but for now he seemed content to look around the barracks to get a sense of the place. “All right, stay frosty, Newt,” Hicks said, opening the door, “We’ll probably be back in an hour.”
“Affirmative.” Newt said, giving a quick salute, and Ripley couldn’t repress a chuckle. The kid seemed like a pretty quick learner. Then again, given what she’d been through, she kind of had to be. Ripley knew that experience all too well herself, and if she could have her way, she’d try to stop it from happening to anyone else.
***
“All right, listen up!” Maybrek barked, his squad falling silent immediately. He nodded curtly before continuing, “I’ve dragged us all off base to make absolutely sure we aren’t overheard. None of what’s said here leaves this squad, you got me? I catch any whiff of gossip about this, and you’ll have a lot more to worry about than KP, am I understood?”
“Yes, sir!” came the response, prompt and sharp but with the occasional sarcastic tone thrown in there.
Maybrek nodded. “Good. Now, we’re out here to talk about that mission we got assigned to. I’ve finally been given a bit more information.”
“‘Bout time,” grumbled one of the men in the front, “Going in unprepared almost always cocks things up.”
“Well, looks like there was a reason they were keeping us in the dark,” Maybrek said, before nodding to the small group beside him. “They’re all yours.”
One by one, Ripley, Hicks, Newt, Hudson, and Vasquez told the squad about their encounters with the xenos. The group initially snorted derisively and made snarky comments, but when Vasquez showed them the acid burn on her leg, and Newt had to stop talking five minutes into her report, they got very quiet very quickly. When Hicks told them about what he thought had happened to Gorman and Drake, however, they all immediately threw out a lot of curses, sounding absolutely furious. “They used the Marines as cannon fodder and test subjects?” one of them said, “And now they want to do the same thing to us? Well, they can just go fuck themselves!” Based on the way everybody in the squad looked at him in surprise (and in a few cases, approval), he wasn’t the swearing type. It was enough for Ripley to know that the squad was going to be on board with their plan long before Maybrek put it to a vote. When asked for a show of hands, twelve arms went up almost as one.
“All right, then,” Maybrek said as he lowered his hand, “Here’s our new marching orders. We’ll keep prepping for a search-and-rescue, just like we were told. But we’re going to call in as many favors as we can to get our hands on extra weaponry, or at least ammo. Reed, we’re going to need you to get busy making or acquiring explosives. Lots of explosives. We’re turning that research site into a crater so there’s no chance of anything getting loose.”
One of the men got an excited gleam in his eye as he saluted. Maybrek nodded at him briefly and continued. “Morgan, you’ll be hanging back at our base of operations to treat casualties. Sounds like we can’t expect much in the way of survivors, and there’s not going to be much you can do if we get pounced on by those larvae-things, but pack plenty of painkillers and anything you think can help with acid burns.”
The guy who had sworn nodded grimly. “The rest of you, try to practice your defensive melee moves,” Maybrek said, looking like he was making eye contact with every member of the squad, “Every second you can keep the larvae from latching onto you is a second for the rest of the squad to take it down. Rook, you’ll take point. Seems less likely that they’ll be able to knock up an android.”
One of the female soldiers smiled wryly as she nodded, and Ripley couldn’t help but look her over warily. Hicks had warned her that it was standard operating procedure for each squad to have an android and that personality malfunctions were rare, but given her experiences with Ash in addition to the current situation, she couldn’t help but be skeptical.
“All right,” Maybrek said again, “That’s all I’ve got for now, so get going. Dismissed!”
There were a few salutes as the Marines began to disperse. Maybrek turned to Ripley and the LV-426 survivors. “So what about you guys? We can finagle it if you want to come along and air your grievances with these things personally.”
“Not me,” Hudson said immediately, “I’ve finished my tour, and one encounter with those fu…xenos,” he quickly corrected himself when Hicks flicked his eyes between Hudson and Newt, “Was more than enough for me.”
“I’m in,” Vasquez said, “They need to be paid back for Drake. And I wouldn’t mind leaving a few scars of my own.”
Hicks frowned pensively. “I’m tempted, I won’t lie. But I don’t want to leave Newt alone. Not after everything she’s gone through.”
“No, you should go.”
Everyone looked down at Newt in surprise. She looked at Hicks solemnly. “If the xenos are on Earth, nobody’s going to be safe. I’d feel better if I knew you were one of the ones fighting them. You know what they’re like. You can help the others survive long enough to stop them. And if you don’t come back…” she swallowed, but continued, “Then at least I’ll know I need to run.”
“I can take her with me,” Hudson volunteered, “That way, she’ll still be with someone familiar. Besides, it might make it easier for me to get a decent apartment if I’ve got a kid with me.”
“So altruistic, Hudson.” Vasquez scoffed, though there was affection in her tone.
“Would you be all right with that, Newt?” Hicks asked.
Newt looked between him and Hudson, then nodded. “Ok,” Hicks said, resting a hand on her shoulder, “In that case, I’ll join the mission.”
“Welcome aboard,” Maybrek said with a slight smile, before looking at Ripley. “How about you? I’m sure we can figure out some sort of excuse to bring you along. Worst case scenario, we smuggle you in, though officially I’ll have no idea how Cooper pulled it off.”
Ripley pulled out a pack of cigarettes to give herself a few seconds to think. Her first instinct had been to stay as far away from the xenos as possible, leaving the job to people who at least knew their way around weapons. But Newt’s words had struck a chord. It was fine, relatively speaking, to bury her head in the sand when the xenos were far away on LV-426. But now they were much closer to home—at home, in fact—and her nightmares had a much greater chance of coming true. Would she really be able to go about her life knowing what was out there?
She lit the cigarette and took a deep drag. Then she lowered it and looked at Maybrek.
“All right, I’m in. But I’d appreciate getting some weapons training. You probably don’t want me on the front lines, but I want to be able to defend myself, just in case.”
“You got it,” Maybrek said, “I’ll leave most of that up to Hicks, since he’s technically not assigned to a unit right now. But I’ll have some of my squad swing by when I can to give you a crash course in some of the specialty ordinance. I hope you’re a quick learner; we leave in a week.”
***
“Keep the radio on and the key in the ignition,” Maybrek told O’Reilly over the radio, “We may need either a quick getaway or missile support.”
“Copy that,” O’Reilly said, “Give them hell.”
“Plan to.” Maybrek responded, ending the call before turning his attention to the group in the APC. “All right, shut your mouths and open your ears! The brass only provided me with a rudimentary map of the lab, probably in the hopes that we don’t damage the ‘assets’. So we’re going in semi-blind, and our first order of business is going to be to try to find a proper schematic. Except for you, Reed; your job is to start planting explosives anywhere you think will stick. Volkova, you're in charge of watching his back.”
Reed grinned as he saluted. “I'll wire that place up like a Christmas tree. Complete with plenty of blinking lights.”
“That's what I like to hear. Everyone else, we're advancing slow and steady. We find what's left of these not-so-poor bastards for the sake of the report, we set charges, and we kill anything that gets in our way. Everyone clear?”
“Yes, sir!” everyone responded, their tones a mixture of excitement, nerves, and angry satisfaction.
“Good. Palmer, take us in. Bring us to a halt 500 meters from the entrance. That should hopefully be close enough for our squad to run to and far enough that we'll be able to shoot down any xenos that head our way without getting swarmed.”
Palmer nodded and pushed the APC forward. “Next order of business, everybody turn your cameras on,” Maybrek said, “We need to make sure we've got a clean signal.”
The squad all tapped devices on the sides of their helmets, and the screens built into the walls flickered to life. The footage was blue-grey, but the images were clear. “Looking good,” Maybrek said, “These things are our lifeline. We may not know we're walking into big trouble, but Ripley and Hicks will.”
“What am I, just muscle?” Vasquez chimed in, even as she smirked.
“You're the first warning. They'll have a better view of what's going on. Especially once we've got the face shields down.”
Vasquez nodded and looked over at Hicks. “You hear that, Hicks? Any other burns I get, I'm blaming them on you.”
“Just don't go rushing into trouble. If you need to sling your weapons again, let the gun go this time.”
“Yeah, yeah, fair.”
“Cut the banter,” Maybrek said, looking through the screens that functioned as the APC's window, “The site's coming into view. Time to get serious.”
Everybody shut up and started removing their safety harnesses. Ripley looked through the screens as the building slowly started taking shape. It was an ugly thing, a rectangular block of grey concrete and metal. It might have been unassuming if it had been in the middle of a populated area, but here in the middle of nowhere, it looked imposing and faintly sinister. Or maybe that was just because she knew what its purpose was, and more importantly, what was waiting for them inside.
“Looks like we've got one bit of good news,” Palmer said as he peered at the building through the screens, “Based on what I can see of the windows, someone initiated lockdown procedures before things went FUBAR. Might make it harder to get in, but at least that increases the odds that nothing got out.”
“We're still napalming everything in a ten-mile radius once we're airborne,” Maybrek said, “Just to ensure nothing gets out alive. In the meantime, here's the plan. Incendiary units and heavy weapons take the lead. Everybody else, hang back and take down anything that comes at us from the walls or the ceiling. And if you see anything remotely egg-shaped, you take that down first.”
“Yes, sir!” the Marines rapped out, a few of them slapping magazines into their guns for emphasis.
“ETA one minute.” Palmer said, the APC already slowing down.
“If anyone's found religion, now's the time to pray.” someone (Freese, maybe; Ripley hadn't had time to figure out who was who) said dryly.
“How about I pray you get jumped instead of me?” said Ames (Ripley recognized the southern drawl), “After all, you don't have to be fast, just faster than someone else.”
“Bite me, Freese.”
“Better me than the xenos.”
“Shut up!” barked Maybrek as the APC rolled to a stop, “And shields down.”
Eight visors were almost simultaneously flipped down, black pieces of sturdy metal with a plastic window held in place by horizontal mesh. Both Hicks and Ripley agreed that it wouldn't be enough to stop one of the larvae from eventually latching on, but it would buy the wearer a few extra seconds. Maybrek positioned himself by the door, took one last look at his squad, nodded grimly, and pulled the door open. “Go go go!”
The squad poured out of the car, Rook, Vasquez, and Ames taking point. As soon as Maybrek closed the door behind him, Morgan started opening bags, laying medical supplies out on the empty chairs and spreading a mat on the floor. “It's hardly sterile,” he admitted when he saw Ripley looking, “But it'll do in a pinch.” Hicks, meanwhile, was setting up control panels for the sentry guns the squad had brought along, wanting to be ready to activate them the moment they were in place. Ripley turned her attention to the screens, ready to be the eye in the sky if necessary.
The approach to the entrance was quick and quiet, the Marines taking cover whenever they could before getting the all-clear from the three in front. Occasionally, a face would pop into someone's frame, but mostly they kept some distance between them so they'd be out of the line of fire. Ripley had a brief start of surprise when one of the pieces of cover turned out to be a power loader similar to the ones she used at her job, though it quickly passed; it made sense that some of their experimental weapons or materials would require heavy lifting, and she had more important things to worry about.
Despite their gear, the squad made it to the front door in three minutes. While the squad covered her, Rook bypassed the entrance, Cooper (according to the feed) creeping up to supply her with an extra, decidedly non-standard looking tool when it looked like it was giving her some trouble. As the door rumbled open, Ripley held her breath. She had a feeling the squad was doing the same thing, even as Vasquez and Ames pointed their guns into the dimness inside. Rook activated a device and held it inside, swinging it from side to side before reattaching it to her belt. “Clear.” she said, her low tone sounding loud compared to the extended silence they'd just endured.
“Get to work on the outside, Reed,” Maybrek said,“We'll let you know when it's safe to move up.”
“Take these,” Reed responded, and Ripley turned her head in time to see a bag being passed to Freese, “If worst comes to worst, torch that and run like hell.”
The squad filed into the building and started spreading out, while Reed started placing charges on the outer wall and Volkova stood by the entrance, gun presumably at the ready. “Get the motion trackers online,” Maybrek said once the other six were inside, “Middleton, light up. Freese, Cooper, start setting up the sentry guns. We'll figure out where to place them once we know where we're heading.”
Silence fell again as everyone got to work. Middleton, Rook, and Vasquez did a sweep of the first level, while Maybrek and Ames took the upstairs (they'd been told there was a basement, but thanks to Hicks' intel, they were avoiding it for the time being until they'd secured the upstairs). As they peered into rooms, they began to see signs of a struggle. Tables were broken or overturned, papers and glass were scattered everywhere, and some of the walls showed traces of weapons fire. Middleton broke radio silence when he spotted a burned through section of floor, Ripley confirming it was from acid blood, and Hicks jumped in at one point when he spotted claw marks on a wooden floor. But while those signs and the emptiness of the building confirmed that the xenos were active, everyone maintained their composure. Until...
Vasquez poked her head into the medbay, her light glinting off several long glass pods. When Ripley saw the spindly appendages and the curled tail, she let out a sharp intake of breath, involuntarily pushing back from the desk. Hicks let out a low curse. “Vasquez, you and Middleton be very, very careful. Those are the larvae I told you about.”
“Damn,” Maybrek said, “So much for the hope that we only had two xenos to deal with. They must breed like rabbits.”
“It might be worse than that,” Ripley said as she regained her composure, “Everything points to them coming from eggs, remember? And based on Hicks' descriptions, the eggs are at least half the size of a fully-grown xeno. So they've got to be being laid by something bigger.”
“Some sort of queen, like ants or bees,” Rook said, her camera bobbing in a nod, “That would make sense, as would the behavior Hicks described. The xenos at Hadley's Hope were probably dragging the colonists to a nest to better service their queen. Which means the ones we're dealing with now are probably doing something similar.”
“Fan-fucking-tastic,” sighed Maybrek, “All right, new plan. We try to fight our way through this nest to get to the queen and take her out. We kill her, we hopefully cut off the source of our problems. If resistance is too high, though, we fall back and hope the bombs and napalm are enough to do the job. We clear?”
Everyone murmured assent. “Sitrep,” Maybrek said, “Are we making progress?”
“We're working on the third sentry gun,” Cooper said, “Should be ready in five minutes.”
“I'm on the final wall of the exterior,” Reed said, and Ripley looked over to his camera to see him planting yet another explosive, “I'll be more than ready to start mining the inside by the time you finish your sweep.”
“APC's ready and waiting.” Palmer said.
“We're nearly finished on the ground floor,” Rook said, “No sign of a map yet, but at least we haven't encountered any hostiles...other than the larvae, and at least they're contained.”
“We saw what looked like a control room several rooms back,” Maybrek responded, “You can come up here and take a look once we've got the all-clear.”
“Copy that,” Rook said, “Any advice on how to deal with our little 'friends'?” The contempt on her last word was palpable, and Ripley felt a little bit of her mistrust slip away. Only by a fraction, though; as Ash had proven, androids could be excellent liars.
“Leave them for now, as long as they're not a threat,” Maybrek said, “Once we're done, we can disable the alarms and fry 'em to our hearts content. Now get moving.”
The two teams completed their sweep within ten minutes. After that, Reed and Volkova moved inside to start wiring up the interior, Palmer was instructed to keep an eye on the entrance to make sure there weren't any surprises, and Rook went up to the second floor to examine the control room. Vasquez and Middleton returned to the medbay, waiting for the order to destroy the larvae. Rook, in an impressive display of efficiency, got the computers online, located a schematic of the building, and disabled the place's alarms in under three minutes. “Reed, are you at a safe distance from the medbay?” Maybrek asked.
“I'm pretty sure I'm at the near-opposite end of the complex. Just try to keep the flames contained within the medbay, and we shouldn't have any trouble.”
“In that case, light 'em up.”
Ripley immediately turned her attention to Middleton's screen, just in time to see a blast of flame heading right for the pods. She thought she saw one of the larvae flinch before the fire hit, all of the pods shattering and spilling glass and liquid across the floor. Middleton sent out another blast towards the floor, while Vasquez, having pulled out a pistol to reduce the noise levels, emptied a clip into the inferno. “Rook, reactivate the sprinklers,” she said as she reloaded, “We need to make sure they're down.”
Rook complied, a shower of water quickly making the scene in the cameras even harder to make out. Once the flames subsided a little, Middleton carefully entered the room, Vasquez right behind him. The cameras slowly tracked across the floor, the muzzle of Middleton's flamethrower occasionally coming into view to nudge at a charred mass, particularly those that were lying next to areas where the floor showed signs of being eaten away. “Threats eliminated,” Middleton said at last, “Scratch three parasites.”
Ripley felt a little tension leave her shoulders as Vasquez confirmed the kills. All evidence suggested they still had a hell of a fight in front of them, but at least they'd ensured three less deaths. And a small part of her felt like she'd just gotten revenge for Kane.
“Hicks?” Maybrek's voice brought Ripley back to the present, “We're looking over the basement layout right now, and it's way bigger than it looks. Give us an idea of where we should be looking for the bodies.”
Hicks looked at Rook's screen. “Based on the map, where do you think the warmest spot down there is?”
Rook panned over the blueprint. “The east sector,” she said at last, “That's where central heating is located.”
“That's probably where they'll be,” Hicks said, “They like it hot.”
“Oh, they'll get it hot, all right,” Maybrek said, “What's the status on the sentry guns?”
“Only one left to set up.”
“We're on our way down to help you haul 'em down the stairs. We'll figure out where to place them once we get down into Hell. But we're going to have to forego testing them; the xenos may already know we're here, but we'll take what little elements of surprise we've got. Rook, send the schematics to the APC so Hicks and Ripley can help us identify choke points. Volkova, keep guarding our powder monkey. And Reed, once we head down to the basement, take a break from the first floor and plant something particularly damaging on the computers in here. Wey-Yu may still have some of the data these morons collected, but we'll make sure the rest of it gets incinerated. Everyone else, rendezvous at the sentry guns.”
Rook pressed some buttons, and Hicks activated one of the unused screens to start receiving the transfer. Once the map of the basement appeared, he and Ripley examined it carefully, looking for hallways or vents where the xenos might be inclined to lurk. By the time Maybrek let them know all eight of the sentry guns were by the basement staircase, they'd formulated a plan of action.
“Ok,” Hicks said, “Set up one gun at each of the entryways to the north, south, and west sectors, just in case they've been spreading out. Then get a fourth to cover the hallway next to the door to central heating. Aim one of them at the ceiling off on the right side; there's a vent there. Put two of them on either side of the staircase, and I'll activate them to cover your retreat if necessary. And if you think you can take the weight, I'd suggest saving the last one for when you face the queen.”
“You heard the man,” Maybrek said, “Let's get these downstairs and properly situated. Check the letters carefully before you radio Hicks to activate the guns; I don't want them shooting us in the back. Rook, you willing to play pack mule?”
“Sure. If worst comes to worst, pick me up and throw me at the queen. Maybe the combined weight of me and the gun will be enough to do some damage.”
Another twenty minutes was spent lugging the guns downstairs and placing them in locations where they'd have the widest targeting area. In other circumstances, Ripley got the sense the Marines would have been grousing about the weight to keep the mood light, but they were forcing themselves to stay quiet to avoid alerting the xenos. Every time a gun was ready, Hicks would activate it, the gun whirring to life and beeping softly as it scanned for targets. Only C, D, and H guns remained offline, with C and D guarding the stairwell and H strapped to Rook's back.
“Everything in place?” Maybrek asked as he stepped away from F gun (the one pointed at the vent).
Hicks checked the panels, then said “Affirmative.”
“Ok, Marines. We're heading into the belly of the beast. Keep your guns ready, your eyes on the walls, and your legs moving. The deeper we can get, the better. And for the love of God, keep your fingers off the trigger until we actively know there's a threat. Jumping at shadows is just gonna get us killed. Now move out.”
Middleton, Vasquez, Rook, and Ames went in first, Rook sandwiched between the heavy guns while Middleton stayed off to the left, flamethrower pointed straight ahead. The other three followed close behind. Ripley watched as the images on the screens bobbed, the view constantly changing as the Marines scanned for threats. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to steel herself for what was coming.
“Oh, shit...” Hicks murmured, as his eyes flicked between the screens. A moment later, Vasquez's voice came through saying the same thing.
The walls were covered in something that looked vaguely skeletal, and which glinted in the marines' flashlights. “What are we looking at?” Maybrek asked.
“Trouble.” Vasquez answered.
Hicks tried to be a little more helpful. “We never figured out what they were, but they're made by the xenos. It means you're really entering into their territory. Get your weapons ready.”
Ripley felt a swell of anxiety. Despite all their precautions, nobody really had any idea of what they were about to run into. She could only hope she wasn't about to helplessly observe—or worse, be part of—a bloodbath.
“Ripley.” Hicks said softly. Turning her head, she saw him offering her a cigarette. She took one immediately, grateful for something to keep her busy. Hicks lit it for her, then lit his own and turned his attention back to the screens. Ripley took her first drag, the familiar burn and smell of tobacco helping to ground her. It didn't do much for the anxiety, but at least it was keeping her from shaking.
The squad moved deeper into the nest, the cameras bobbing a little faster now. Then the hallway widened, and the whole team abruptly stopped moving. “God damn...” someone murmured, while Vasquez swore in Spanish. Moments later, Ripley's anxiety kicked in full-force when she realized what she was seeing.
Hicks had told the squad about how the colonists had been cocooned against the walls to make it easier for the larvae to latch on to them, but actually seeing it, even from a “safe” distance, made her stomach turn and her skin crawl. In a small mercy, the cameras weren't close enough to pick up all the details, but she could still see the limply dangling hands and feet, and even from a distance, it was obvious that mouths of the victims were open in screams of pain and horror. Awful as the sight was, though, she tried to keep her attention on their faces, instead of letting her eyes drift down towards their chests.
“How many people were supposed to be working here?” Ames asked.
“Eighty-six,” Maybrek answered, “Now, our orders are to look for survivors and account for everyone else. Is anybody inclined to make a headcount?”
Everyone immediately responded with some variant of “Fuck no.” “That's what I thought,” Maybrek said, “Officially, we found them all dead, with nothing we could do. That's probably pretty close to the truth, anyway. Ok, keep moving. Let's find the queen.”
“What if some of them are still...gestating?” Middleton asked.
Ripley sucked on her cigarette, which helped steady her enough to respond. “The one on the Nostromo was fully-grown in a matter of hours. And if the lab went dark several weeks ago, then almost everyone here was probably caught and implanted long before we got here. Besides, that stage of the xeno's life cycle seems comparatively harmless. It's their siblings you have to worry about.”
“So it either attacks us, at which point we shoot it, it gets shot by the sentry guns, or it gets blown up with the rest of this place,” Maybrek said, “I'm willing to take my chances. Now move out!”
Everyone started moving again, although a few people couldn't help but glance at the bodies as they moved past them. As they moved towards the far end of the room, Vasquez glanced off to her right, and then stopped. “Hicks.” she said, her voice low but an obvious note of dark satisfaction in her tone. She turned her head towards one of the bodies, and although it took Ripley a minute to make out what was on screen, she immediately understood Vasquez's reaction.
The body in question was of a man with short curly hair. His face was twisted into an agonized scream, but Ripley knew Burke's face all too well. Despite her anxiety, she couldn't stop herself from letting out a curt laugh. Beside her, Hicks nodded, mouth twisting into a bitter smirk. “Hope it was worth it, Burke.”
A pistol came into view on Vasquez's camera. “For Drake, you bastard.”
“Vasquez!” Maybrek growled, “We don't have time. Save your ammo and keep the noise down.”
Vasquez muttered something, but the pistol disappeared, and a few seconds later, her camera started moving again. Silence descended for a minute or so as the squad continued to move forward, then Hicks began to drum his fingers on the desk nervously. “I don't like this. The xenos had shown themselves before now when we were at Hadley's Hope. There's no way they don't know we're here.”
“They're trying to trap us,” Maybrek agreed, “Probably waiting for just the right moment to box us in.”
“Perhaps they want us to see the queen,” Rook suggested, “That would make it easier to feed us to her.”
“Freese, Cooper, about face,” Maybrek said, his own camera moving to look back the way they'd come, “They may get the drop on us, but we're not making it easy for them.”
The squad continued to make their way forward, the three in the back moving more slowly now due to walking backwards. Then, as they started to round a corner, Rook spoke up.
“Everybody stop. I think Her Highness is up ahead. Middleton, Ames, with me. Freese, give me Reed's explosives. Everyone else, hold position and get ready.”
Ripley's fingers stung, and she realized she'd let her cigarette burn down to ash. Quickly putting it out, she leaned forward, not sure she wanted to see what was coming but also knowing she needed to make sure this thing was destroyed. It was the only way she'd ever be able to breathe easy again.
Rook, Middleton, and Ames took the corner, entered the new room, and immediately stopped again. “Mother...” Ames said softly.
Ripley's blood ran cold. Every square inch of the room before them was covered by large, oval objects, except for the very back of the room. A large, spindly figure was squatting against the wall like a giant spider, a long, grub-like tube attached to its abdomen. Even as she watched, the figure twitched slightly, and a loud hiss echoed through the speakers. Ripley swallowed, her heart pounding. She'd been starting to convince herself that the squad was capable of bringing the place down, but with a threat of this magnitude...their chances had dropped to zero.
Ames' camera view was abruptly blocked by a dark shape. Ripley had a brief moment of panic, then realized he must have brought his gun perpendicular to his face to provide extra cover against the larvae. Glancing at Middleton's and Rook's cameras, she saw that Middleton was scanning the room carefully, while Rook's was trembling slightly. Was an android actually showing fear?
Then there was a wet rustling noise, and Ripley had to clap her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming. One of the eggs close to Middleton had just opened.
“Shit,” Rook said, “Torch it.”
A jet of flame blasted out, promptly incinerating the egg and several of the ones around it besides. The queen shrieked, and Ripley looked at Rook's screen to see its head and arms thrashing around. Then something large was hurled into the center of the room. “Hicks, activate H gun!” Rook yelled, “Middleton, two more blasts! Everyone else, we're falling back!”
Hicks immediately grabbed H gun's control panel. Ripley saw the bag of explosives flying somewhere towards the right side of the room, followed by two more bursts from the flamethrower. The queen was still screaming, and to Ripley's horror, it looked like it was standing up.
“Go go go!” Maybrek yelled, and Ripley's eyes snapped to his camera. He and the other four were running back into the incubation room, and now there was a sound of angry hissing. As the sound of pulse rifles joined the cacophony, Ripley looked back at Rook's screen, and caught one last glimpse of the central chamber before the android turned to run. It was enough to determine two things. One, it looked like at least half the room was on fire. And two, she hadn't been wrong before; the queen had stood up, and it looked like it was preparing to give chase.
“How long do you think it'll take the squad to get back here?” she asked Hicks.
The sound of a violent explosion came through the speakers, and Ripley thought she felt the APC shake. Hicks glanced at the blueprints. “Moving at full sprint, I'm guessing ten minutes. Maybe fifteen if they meet heavy xeno resistance. Why?”
“We've got ten minutes before the queen gets here,” Ripley said, standing up, “And if it gets out, it might be able to destroy the APC and then escape to start this all over again. We need to stop it.”
“How?”
Ripley sighed and removed her comm unit. Even as almost every fiber of her being was either reliving her terrified flight from the Nostromo or begging to flee, her brain had helpfully supplied one last-ditch way to try to keep the xenos contained in the building.
“I'm getting in the power loader near the entrance.”
“What good will that do?” Palmer asked, his face chalk white.
“Maybe nothing. But those things can lift quite a bit. And they're heavy enough that even a steel staircase probably won't hold its weight.”
Hicks nodded in understanding. “It's worth a shot. But you're going to need some help. Get over there and start setting up.”
As Ripley crossed to the door and pulled it open, she heard Hicks speaking into the comms. “Reed, Volkova, what's your status?” She heard Reed start to respond, but by then the door was open, and she sprinted towards the site, keeping her eyes locked first on the building, then, when it finally came into view, the power loader.
She had just reached the loader and was taking a second to take a breath when she saw Reed and Volkova emerge from the entryway at a run. They nodded at her (or at least tossed their heads in her direction), then dashed back towards the APC. As Ripley took another gulp of air and started to clamber into the power loader, she realized someone was running up to join her. “Morgan?” she said, confused. She'd completely forgotten he'd been in the APC with her, and was equally baffled that he hadn't stayed there.
“Hicks will be joining us to provide some real cover once Reed and Volkova are secure,” Morgan said between pants, “But he sent me to help you, and then to assist with carrying any wounded back to the APC.”
“ Are there wounded?” Ripley asked as she started to strap herself in. After a pause, she decided to leave the second set of restraints undone, to make it easier to bail out if she was allowed that opportunity.
“Hard to say,” Morgan replied as he straightened up and took a firmer grip on his pulse rifle, “The cameras are showing nothing but chaos, but all their vital signs were active when I left. But if that acid blood's as bad as you and Hicks say, I'm expecting at least a few burns, given the close quarters in there.”
“Probably,” Ripley agreed, locking the loader's chestpiece into place, “Good luck.”
“I think we should be saying that to you,” Morgan said, as Ripley started activating the loader, “This is a...what's the term? A Hail Mary?”
“Amen.” Ripley said, as she tested out the equipment. The controls were a bit sluggish, possibly from age or being left out in the elements, but as long as she could move, she'd take it. Taking another deep breath, she started to move towards the entrance.
As soon as she crossed the threshold, she could hear the faint sounds of gunfire, and knew some of the sentry guns must have joined the fray. She pushed the loader towards the noises, vaguely noticing the blinking red lights on either side of her. Reed had been very thorough, which gave Ripley a flicker of hope. Even if she didn't get out of this alive, at least the odds were good that there'd be nothing left of this building. Weyland-Yutani probably still had other bio-weapon facilities, but if they were so determined to get their hands on a xeno, they'd have to start from scratch.
Just as the staircase came into view, she heard footsteps behind her. Glancing off to the side, she saw Morgan whip around, then half-relax. “Hicks.” he said, nodding in greeting.
Hicks appeared in her line of vision, holding a shotgun. “Time for close encounters?” she asked with a faint smile, remembering what he'd told her when he'd been teaching her in the Marine's armory.
“That, and Morgan's got my pulse rifle.” Hicks replied with a dry chuckle.
“How are the others?”
“Still alive, for now. Sounds like Rook and Middleton got hit by acid, but they're still moving. They should be getting to the staircase around the time we do. What exactly is your plan?”
“We let the squad pass, you and Morgan taking out any xenos they can't handle. What's happening with C and D guns?”
“Volkova's going to activate them when someone gives her the signal.”
“Good. Maybe that'll be enough to stop the queen. If not...I'll do what I can to keep it distracted while the rest of you retreat to the APC. And if worst comes to worst...I'll try to grab onto it and bring the staircase down. The time it takes to dig itself out from under all this metal will hopefully be enough for you to blow this place.”
Hicks looked up at her, nodding grimly. “Copy that.”
There was a pause, during which they could hear faint screeches amidst the gunfire. “Will you promise me something, Hicks?” Ripley said abruptly.
“I'll try.”
“If you guys get out of here...promise me you'll make sure Newt and Jonesy are safe. They deserve a happy ending, if nothing else.”
“Trust me, those two are going to have a lot of heavily-armed aunts and uncles looking in on them regularly when this is all over.”
Ripley managed another smile, bringing the loader to a stop just next to the staircase. “That's what I was hoping to hear.”
If Hicks was going to respond, he was cut off by Morgan saying “Here they come.” Ripley tightened her grip on the controls and looked down the staircase. Maybrek, Freese, and Cooper were sprinting up the stairs, quickly reaching the top and moving by Ripley and the others without a second glance. Either Ames or Vasquez was next, holding their gun close to their chest to make it a little easier to run. She heard two bursts of gunfire and saw the hallway light up briefly, and then the other three finally materialized. Seconds later, the entire building seemed to echo with the sounds of rapid fire as C and D guns were finally deployed.
The other heavy weapons Marine—Vasquez, it turned out, as Ripley caught a glimpse of red headband—made it up the stairs first, partially because she'd ditched her gun. Then Middleton and Rook appeared, Rook supporting Middleton as he did his best to jump his way up the stairs. Both of them had been hit by acid blood, at least if Middleton's limp and the splotches of white dotting Rook's chest were any indication. Morgan immediately ran down to meet them, taking Middleton from Rook and helping him up the stairs, while Rook, who had whipped the flamethrower off Middleton's neck during the handoff, turned back towards the carnage and began to climb the stairs backwards, waiting for opposition. Seven steps in, and three xenos who had somehow managed to survive the barrage appeared at the base of the stairs. Ripley felt a brief jolt of fear as she recognized the familiar features, but then Rook sent a blast of fire their way, and they were all engulfed in flame. One fell down the stairs, another collapsed where it stood, but the third, still burning, ran past Rook and kept doggedly making its way up the stairs. Then Morgan, who had turned around at the sound of the flamethrower, shot it with his pulse rifle. The xeno dropped, flecks of acid spewing from its wounds. Most of it landed on the staircase (Good, Ripley thought, That'll weaken it even more), but a few drops of it hit Morgan's arm. Morgan flinched and dropped the gun, but quickly composed himself and resumed getting Middleton to safety.
Just as he reached the top of the stairs, the guns went silent. Then there was an unearthly screech, cutting through the ringing in Ripley's ears. “Time to go!” Rook said, turning and sprinting up the remaining stairs. Grabbing onto Middleton's other arm, she and Morgan hustled him out of sight. Ripley swallowed, then moved the loader to stand directly in front of the staircase.
For a second or two, everything seemed to stand still. Then there was a crash of metal, followed by the sound of something very large making its way up the staircase. And shortly after that, the queen appeared.
Despite all the fire and bullets that had been tossed its way, the queen didn't appear to have a scratch. It must have been at least twice the size of the xeno Ripley had faced on the Nostromo , complete with an enormous head ridge that looked tough enough to be bulletproof. It had two sets of arms, particularly pointed spines on its back, and a mouth full of translucent teeth. It was a mass of spikes and anger, and it was only two strides away from making it up the stairs.
All of Ripley's experiences on the Nostromo flashed before her eyes in the few seconds it took the queen to take one of those steps. The sight of Kane on the medical bed, the larvae wrapped around his face. The xeno emerging from his chest in a gush of blood. Learning the truth from MOTHER. Ash's attack. Dallas' dot disappearing from their tracker. Her desperate race through the halls first to stop, then to escape the self-destruct. Those horrifying few minutes when it had just been her and the xeno in the escape pod. She had survived it all, but lost nearly everything she cared about in the process. And it was all because of a monster that had come out of that .
Anger surged through Ripley's veins, burning away any fear she might have had. She'd be damned if she'd let anything like that happen again, to her, Hicks, Newt, or anyone else. If flight hadn't worked, maybe fight would do the trick.
The queen caught sight of Ripley and hissed, continuing to advance. Ripley responded with a snarl of her own, lifting her right arm and bringing the “hand” of the power loader directly onto the xeno's face.
A squeal echoed through the stairwell, the queen staggering to the side. Ripley repositioned the “hands” and waited. The queen hissed again, tail lashing back and forth, and straightened up, stepping towards Ripley with its arm raised as though it wanted to strike her in the same way. Ripley blocked the arm with her right arm, using the left to slash at the queen's face. It regained its footing a bit quicker this time, and Ripley had the distinct impression that it was glaring at her. With a shriek, it made a lunge for her.
Then a single, low-pitched shot rang out, and the queen's head recoiled slightly. As it turned its head to the side to hiss at the new threat, Ripley caught sight of a white streak on the head ridge that hadn't been there a moment ago. But it was something that only had her attention for a split second, as she knew she'd been given her opportunity and had to act on it. She took one step forward and closed the pincers of her “hands” around the queen's body, one on the neck and the other around one of its spines. Then she took another step, putting the full weight of the loader onto the staircase. There was a loud, reverberating groan, and then, with a metallic shriek, the stairs gave way. The drop was sudden, causing Ripley to involuntarily release her grip on the controls, but now both she and the queen were falling, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.
The queen hit the ground first, and then, a moment later, the loader fell on top of it with a sickening crunch. Dazed from the fall, Ripley blinked up at the remains of the staircase, temporarily too disoriented to care that she was resting on top of what must have been nearly five hundred pounds of angry xenomorph. Then she heard Hicks call “Ripley, come on!” and she snapped back to herself. Looking up at the staircase and actually seeing it this time, she realized that the banister was still intact, and that a section of it was hanging just above her. If she could climb on top of the power loader, she might be able to jump for it. She'd honestly been prepared to die here, but now that the opportunity had presented itself, she was going to grab for it with both hands.
Undoing the other safety strap, she pushed up the harness and clambered onto the leg of the loader. She could feel it swaying unsteadily as the queen writhed underneath her, alternating between hissing and shrieking. It may have been due to pain, but Ripley wouldn't put it past the xeno to be doing it on purpose, trying to ensure Ripley didn't get out of here alive.
Just as Ripley stood up, trying to balance on the leg, Hicks appeared at the top of the staircase. Immediately taking stock of the situation, he moved out of her way, cocked the shotgun, and fired at something below him. As the queen screamed and thrashed, causing the loader to rise a few inches, Ripley bent her knees and leapt for the banister. Her hands managed to wrap around one of the metal poles, and then her shoulder slammed into the remnants of the staircase, knocking the wind out of her. Shaking her head, she reached up and managed to grab onto the flat railing overhead, and used that to haul herself upwards. Once her chest was resting on the railing, she grabbed for another pole, allowing her to pull herself up a little further. A third pull put her level with the remaining stairs, and she quickly slid onto them, feeling her legs shake but immediately disregarding that bit of info. “Let's go!” she said, already turning towards the top of the stairs. Hicks promptly followed her, the two of them sprinting towards the entryway, the queen's shrieks simultaneously fading and echoing around the metal structure. “I think I got it in the leg!” Hicks said as they ran, “Hopefully that'll slow it down long enough for us to do what we need to!” Ripley didn't bother acknowledging that; right now, all that mattered was getting clear.
The two of them emerged into daylight and made a beeline for the APC. Ripley practically vaulted inside the moment she was close enough, then collapsed in the nearest chair, gasping for breath. Hicks had enough energy to pull the door shut and yell “Drive!” at Palmer before he staggered over to the seat beside her. As the engine revved, Ripley heard Maybrek's voice, and despite the burning in her legs and lungs, hauled herself up so she could get a look at the screens. She needed to see proof that they'd pulled this off.
“Reed,” Maybrek snapped, “Blow it all to hell.”
“Gladly, sir.” And with a soft clicking noise from behind her, Ripley saw clouds of smoke and fire pop into existence across the exterior of the building, followed by a dull boom. Moments later, the APC shook particularly violently, and Ripley saw the upper level of the building collapsing into the first level, more plumes of smoke rising into the sky as the place was turned into rubble. The queen might have somehow been able to survive both fire and a mass of concrete falling on it, but Ripley doubted it would be able to dig itself out fast enough to escape the impending napalm storm. It was over.
All of Ripley's adrenaline drained out of her at the realization, and she only just managed to take a few steps back and sink into a chair. Dimly, she could hear the Marines celebrating, and heard Maybrek alerting the dropship to prepare for pickup and bombardment, but it barely registered through her relief. There would be consequences for Ripley and the squad, but they'd stopped the xenos before they'd really had a chance to gain a foothold. Ripley would take any lectures or penalties Weyland-Yutani had to offer in exchange for being able to sleep at night.
“Hey.” she heard someone say right by her ear, and she managed to turn her head and see Hicks giving her a tired but satisfied grin. “Nice work back there.”
Ripley grinned back. “You're not so bad yourself, Hicks.”
“Dwayne.”
Ripley looked at him in surprise for a moment. Then her grin turned into a more hesitant smile. “Ellen.”
Dwayne held out a hand. “Thanks for helping us saving the world, Ellen.”
Ripley gave a half-laugh and shook his hand. Then, still lightly clasping hands, they both sat back in their seats, staring up at the ceiling as they tried to process everything that had happened in the past...had it really only been two hours? It was only a temporary respite—after all, they still had the napalming to do, and then they'd have to face the brass—but after the Nostromo and Hadley's Hope, any little bit of peace was welcomed.
***
The fallout from the destruction of the Weyland-Yutani Bio-Weapon R&D Lab (or as Ames more sarcastically put it, “The lab of fancy compound words”) was much milder than Ripley had been expecting. The company knew Maybrek's squad had gone against the wishes of the business, but with fifteen people working together to find just the right turns of phrase to put into the official report, it was difficult to find actual fault. That didn't stop them from reassigning the squad to the ass-end of the galaxy, but none of them seemed overly concerned. “With Cooper's acquisition skills, Reed's talent for explosives, Morgan's healing, and Rook's smarts, we can get by just fine,” Maybrek assured Ripley after they got the news, “And we've got enough friends in the Corps that I figure they'll help get us out of the doghouse eventually. Meantime, we'll just kick ass like we've always done.”
Vasquez, meanwhile, got assigned to a new squad, one heading out to what sounded like another unpleasant bug-hunt. She also took it in stride; “I think telling them stories about my last two missions should quickly make me some friends, or at least keep me from making enemies,” she said with a shrug, “And it'll also get the word out about the xenos. I don't know if there are more of them out there, but as long as no more Marines get grabbed by one of the larvae, I'll take whatever Weyland-Yutani can dish out.” It was definitely a position Ripley could get behind.
As for Dwayne, he found himself ousted from the Corps for uncertain but equally incontestable reasons. It definitely qualified as a dishonorable discharge, but Dwayne wasn't bothered by it. “It might make it a bit more difficult to start my civilian life,” he said, “But after everything I've gone through, I'm more than willing to put up with some bureaucratic bullshit as long as it doesn't mean my life is in danger. Besides, I've got some help on the outside.”
And so, two days after getting his discharge papers, Dwayne and Ripley (who officially hadn't been on the mission, but also mysteriously ended up fired from her job) boarded a shuttle headed for Chicago. They each had one duffel bag filled with all their stuff, but that would be sufficient for now. As for where they'd be staying, well, an old squadmate of Dwayne's had offered his couch and living room floor. They both agreed they could work with that.
As they made their way through the crowded streets, looking for the address, Ripley felt a flicker of anxiety. It wasn't as intense as the ones she'd felt whenever she thought about the Nostromo, but it was still enough to dry her throat and get her heart racing. So much had changed since she went into cryosleep fifty-eight years ago, and she'd spent most of her time since waking up in a state of fear. Was it even possible to adjust after all that?
But when Hudson opened up the door to his apartment, and she saw Newt's face light up as she jumped off the couch and ran towards them, Jonesy trotting after her, Ripley got a feeling that it might not be quite as rough as it could have been.