The fanged skull was horror incarnate. Six limbs, two legs and four taloned arms, were folded grotesquely over a distended abdomen. Swollen with eggs, it comprised a vast, tubular sac that was suspended from the latticework of pipes and conduits by a weblike membrane as though an endless coil of intestine had been draped along the supporting machinery.
Ripley realized she'd passed right beneath part of the sac a moment earlier.
Inside the abdominal container countless eggs churned toward a pulsating ovipositor in a vile, organic assembly line There they emerged, glistening and wet, to be picked up by tiny drones. These miniature versions of the alien warriors scuttled back and forth as they attended to the needs of both eggs and queen. They ignored the staring human in their midst as they concentrated with single-minded intensity on the task of transferring newly deposited eggs to a place of safety.
Ripley remembered how Vasquez had done it as she pumped the slide on the grenade launcher: pumped and fired four times. The grenades punched deep into the flimsy egg sac and exploded, blowing it to shreds. Eggs and tons of noisome gelatinous material spilled over the floor of the chamber. The queen went berserk, screeching like a psychotic locomotive Ripley laid about with the flamethrower, methodically igniting everything in sight as she retreated. Eggs shriveled in the inferno, and the figures of warriors and drones vanished amid frenzied thrashing.
The queen towered above the carnage, struggling in the flames. Two warriors closed in on Ripley. The pulse-rifle clicked empty. Smoothly she ejected the magazine, slammed another one home, and held the trigger down. Her attackers vanished in the homicidal hail of fire.
It didn't matter if it moved or not. She blasted everything that didn't look wholly mechanical as she ran for the elevator, setting fire to equipment and destroying controls and instrumentation together with attacking aliens. Sweat and steam half blinded her, but the flares she'd dropped to mark her path shone brightly, jewels set among the devastation. Sirens howled around her, and the station rocked with internal convulsions.
She almost ran past one flare, skidded to a halt, and turned toward it. She staggered on as if in a dream, her lungs straining no longer. Her body was so pumped up, she felt as though she were flying across the metal floor.
Behind her, the queen detached from the ruined egg sac ripping it away from her abdomen. Rising on legs the size of temple pillars, she lumbered forward, crushing machinery cocoons, drones, and anything else in her path.
Ripley used the flamethrower to sterilize the corridor ahead letting loose incinerating blasts at regular intervals, firing down side corridors before she crossed them to keep from being surprised. By the time she and Newt reached the freight elevator, the weapon's tank was empty.
The elevator she'd used for the descent had been demolished by falling debris. She hit the call button on its companion and was rewarded by the whine of a healthy motor as the second metal cage commenced its slow fall from the upper levels. An enraged shriek made her turn. A distant, glistening shape like a runaway crane was trying to batter its way through intervening pipes and conduits to reach them. The queen's skull scraped the ceiling.
She checked the pulse-rifle. The magazine was empty, and she was out of refills, having spent shells profligately while rescuing Newt. No more grenades, either. She tossed the useless dual weapon aside, glad to be rid of the weight.
The cage's descent was too slow. There was a service ladder set inside the wall next to the twin elevator shafts, and she scrambled up the first rungs. Newt was as light as a feather on her back.
As she dove into the stairwell a powerful black arm shot through the doorway like a piston. Razor-sharp talons slammed into the floor centimetres from her legs, digging into the metal.
Which way now? She was no longer fearful, had no time to panic. Too many other things to concentrate on. She was too busy to be terrified.
There: an open stairwell leading to the station's upper levels It rocked and shuddered as the huge installation began tearing itself to bits beneath her. Behind her, the floor buckled as something incredibly powerful threw itself insanely against the metal wall. Talons and jaws pierced the thick alloy plates.
'You now have two minutes to reach minimum safe distance,' the sad voice of the station informed any who might be listening.
Ripley fell, banging one knee against the metal stairs. Pain forced her to pause. As she caught her breath the sound of the elevator motors starting up made her look back down through the open latticework of the building. The elevator cage had begun to ascend. She could hear the overloaded cables groaning in the open shaft.
She resumed her heavenward flight, the stairwell becoming a mad blur around her. There was only one reason why the elevator would resume its ascent.
At last they reached the doorway that led out onto the upper-level landing platform. With Newt still somehow clinging to her, Ripley slammed the door open and stumbled out into the wind and smoke.
The dropship was gone.
'Bishop!' The wind carried her scream away as she scanned the sky. 'Bishop!' Newt sobbed against her back.
A whine made her turn as the straining elevator slowly rose into view. She backed away from the door until she was leaning against the narrow railing that encircled the landing platform It was ten levels to the hard ground below. The skin of the heaving processing station was as smooth as glass. They couldn't go up and they couldn't go down. They couldn't even dive into an air duct.
The platform shook as an explosion ripped through the bowels of the station. Metal beams buckled, nearly throwing her off her feet. With a shriek of rending steel a nearby cooling tower collapsed, keeling over like a slain sequoia. The explosions didn't stop after the first one this time. They began to sequence as backup safety systems failed to contain the expanding reaction. On the other side of the doorway the elevator ground to a halt. The safety cage enclosing the cargo bay began to part.
She whispered to Newt. 'Close your eyes, baby.' The girl nodded solemnly, knowing what Ripley intended as she put one leg over the railing. They would hit the ground together quick and clean.
She was just about to step off into open air when the dropship rose into view almost beneath them, its hovering thrusters roaring. She hadn't heard it approach because of the howling wind. The ship's loading boom was extended, a single long metal strut reaching toward them like the finger of God How Bishop held the vessel steady in the rippling gale Ripley didn't know—and didn't care. Behind her, she could just hear the voice of the station. It, like the installation it served, had almost run out of time.
'You now have thirty seconds to reach. '
She jumped onto the loading boom and hung on as it retracted into the dropship's cargo bay. An instant later a tremendous explosion tore through the station. The resultant wind shear slammed the hovering craft sideways. Extended landing legs ripped into a complex of platform, wall, and conduit. Metal squealed against metal, the entanglement threatening to drag the ship downward.
Inside the hold Ripley threw herself into a flight seat, cradling Newt against her as she strapped both of them in. Glancing up the aisle, she could just see into the cockpit where Bishop was fighting the controls. As they retracted, the sound of the landing legs pulling free echoed through the little vessel. She slammed home the latches on her seat harness, wrapped both arms tightly around Newt.
'Punch it, Bishop!'
The entire lower level of the station vanished in an expanding fireball. The ground heaved, earth and metal vapourizing as the dropship erupted skyward. Its engines fired hard, and the resultant gees slammed Ripley and Newt back in their seat. No comfortable, gradual climb to orbit this time Bishop had the engines open full throttle as the dropship clawed its way through the blighted atmosphere. Ripley's back protested even as she mentally urged Bishop to increase the velocity.
As they left blue for black, the clouds lit up from beneath. A bubble of white-hot gas burst through the troposphere. The shock wave from the thermonuclear explosion rattled the ship but didn't damage it, and they continued to climb toward high orbit.
Within the metal bottle Ripley and Newt stared out a viewport, watching as the blinding flare dissipated behind them. Then Newt slumped against Ripley's shoulder and began to cry quietly. Ripley rocked her and stroked her hair.
