'It's okay, baby. We made it. It's over.'
Ahead of them the great, ungainly bulk of the Sulaco hung in geo-synchronous orbit, awaiting the arrival of its smaller offspring. On Bishop's command the dropship rose unti docking grapples snapped home, lifting them into the cargo bay. The outer lock doors cycled shut. Automatic warning lights swept the dark, deserted chamber, and a warning horn ceased hooting. Excess engine heat was vented as the cavernous hold filled with air.
Within the ship Bishop stood behind Ripley while she knelt beside the comatose Hicks. She glanced questioningly at the android.
'I gave him another shot for the pain. He kept insisting that he didn't need it, but he didn't fight the injection. Strange thing pain. Stranger to me still, this peculiar inner need of certain types of humans to pretend that it doesn't exist. Many are the times I'm glad I'm synthetic.'
'We need to get him to the Sulaco's medical ward,' she replied rising. 'If you can get his arms, I'll take his feet.'
Bishop smiled. 'He is resting comfortably now. It will be better for him if we jostle him as little as possible. And you are tired For that matter, I'm tired. It'll be easier if we get a stretcher.'
Ripley hesitated, looking down at Hicks, then nodded 'You're right, of course.'
Picking up Newt, she preceded the android down the aisle leading to the extended loading ramp. They could have a self-propelling stretcher back for Hicks in a few minutes. Bishop continued to talk.
'I'm sorry if I gave you a scare when you emerged onto the landing platform and saw the ship missing, but the site had simply become too unstable. I was afraid I'd lose the ship if I remained docked. It was simpler and safer to hover a short distance away. Close to the ground, the wind is not as strong. I had a monitor on the exit all the time so that I'd know when you arrived.'
'Wish I'd known that at the time.'
'I know. I had to circle and hope that things didn't get too rough to take you off. In the absence of human direction I had to use my own judgment, according to my programming. I'm sorry if I didn't handle it the best way.'
They were halfway down the loading ramp. She paused and put a hand on his shoulder, stared evenly into artificial eyes.
'You did okay, Bishop.'
'Well, thanks, I—?' He stopped in mid-sentence, his attention focused on something glimpsed out of the corner of one eye Nothing, really. An innocuous drop of liquid had splashed onto the ramp next to his shoe. Condensate from the skin of the dropship.
The droplet began to hiss as it started to eat into the metal ramp. Acid.
Something sharp and glistening burst from the centre of his chest, spraying Ripley with milky android internal fluid. An alien stinger, queen-size, driving straight through him from behind. Bishop thrashed, uttering meaningless machine noises and clutching the protruding point of the spear as it slowly lifted him off the landing ramp.
The queen had concealed herself among the landing mechanism inside one strut bay. The atmospheric plates that normally sealed the bay flush with the rest of the dropship's skin had been bent aside or ripped away. She'd blended in perfectly with the rest of the heavy machinery until she began to emerge.
Seizing Bishop in two huge hands, she ripped him apart and flung the two halves aside. Rotating warning lights flashed on her shining dark limbs as she slowly descended to the deck, stil smoking where Ripley had half fried her. Acid dripped from minor wounds that were healing rapidly. Sextuple limbs unfolded in unhuman geometries.
Breaking out of her paralysis, Ripley lowered Newt to the deck without taking her eyes off the descending nightmare.
'Go!'
Newt bolted for the nearest cluster of packing crates and equipment. The alien dropped to the deck and pivoted in the direction of the movement. Ripley backed clear, waving her arms and shouting, making faces, jumping up and down— doing anything and everything she could think of to draw the monster's attention away from the fleeing child.
Her decoying action was successful. The giant whirled moving much too quickly for anything so huge, and sprang as Ripley sprinted for the oversize internal storage door that dominated the far end of the cargo hold. Massive feet boomed on the deck behind her.
She cleared the door and flailed at the 'close' switch. The barrier whirred as it complied with the command, moving much faster than the doors of the now vanished station. An echoing whang reverberated through the storage room as the alien struck the solid wall an instant too late.
Ripley didn't have time to stand around to see if the door would hold. She moved rapidly among bulky, dark shapes searching for a particular one.
Outside, the queen's attention was drawn from the stubborn barrier to visible movement. A network of trenchlike service channels protected by heavy metal grillwork underlaid the cargo bay deck like the tributaries of a river system. The channels were just deep enough for Newt to enter. She'd dropped through one service opening and had begun crawling, scurrying toward the other end of the cargo bay like a burrowing rabbit.
The alien tracked the movement. Talons swooped, ripped up a section of grillwork just behind the frantic child. Newt tried to move faster, scrambling desperately as another piece of grille disappeared right at her heels. The next to go would be directly above her.
The alien paused in mid-reach at the sound of the heavy storage room door grinding open behind her. In the opening stood a massive, articulated silhouette.
Riding two tons of hardened steel, Ripley strode out in the powerloader. Her hands were inside waldo gloves while her feet rested in similar receptacles attached to the floor controls of the safety cab. Wearing the loader like high-tech armour she advanced on the watching queen. The loader's ponderous feet boomed against the deck plates. Ripley's face was a mask of maternal fury devoid of fear.
'Get away from her, you!'
The queen emitted an inhuman screech and leapt at the oncoming machine.
Ripley threw her arm in a movement not normally associated with the activities of powerloaders or similar devices, but the elegant machine reacted perfectly. One massive hydraulic arm slammed into the alien's skull and threw it back against the wall. The queen reacted instantly and charged again, only to crash into a backhand that literally landed like a ton. She fel backward into a pile of heavy loading equipment.
'Come on!' Ripley wore a frenzied, distorted smile. 'Come on!'
Tail lashing with rage, the queen charged the loader a third time. Four biomechanical arms swung at the loader's two. The great stinger stabbed at the flanks and underside of the loader glancing harmlessly off solid metal. Ripley parried and struck with sweeping blows of the steel tines, backing up the loader then advancing, pivoting to keep the machine's arms between her and the queen. The battle moved across the deck demolishing packing crates, portable instrumentation, small machinery, everything in the path of the fight. The cargo bay echoed with the nightmarish sounds of two dragons battling to the death.
Getting the two powerful mechanical hands around a pair of alien arms, Ripley clenched her own fingers tight inside the waldoes, crushing both biomechanical limbs. The queen writhed with outrage, the talons of her other hands coming within inches of penetrating the safety cage to tear the tiny human apart. Ripley raised her arms, lifting the queen off the deck. The loader's engine groaned as it protested against the excessive weight. Hind legs ripped at the machine, denting the safety cage protecting its operator. The alien skull inclined toward her, and the outer jaws began to part. Ripley clung grimly to her controls.
The inner striking teeth exploded toward her. She ducked and they slammed into the seat cushion behind her in an explosion of gelatinous drool. Yellow acid foamed over the hydraulic arms, crawling toward the safety cage. The queen tore at high-pressure hoses. Purple fluid sprayed in al directions, machine blood mixing with alien blood.
As it lost hydraulic pressure on one side the loader crumpled and fell over. The queen immediately rolled to get on top of it avoiding the crushing metal arms, trying to find a way to penetrate the safety cage. Ripley hit a switch on the loader's console, and its cutting torch came to life, the intense blue flame firing straight into the alien's face. It screamed and drew back, dragging the loader with it. As she fell and the world was turned upside down around her, Ripley's safety harness kept her secured to the driver's seat.
