Story Alien III

I'm working on a concept for a "re-trying" of the third Alien film, because I was rather unimpressed with the one we got in 1992. It's not entirely nailed down yet, but you can enjoy this hastily cobbled-together little image gallery of my idea for the film's title sequence. It was made in MS Paint, so pardon the unprofessional look.

http://imgur.com/a/wBrzd#0






DAY ONE


The USS Sulaco, on a course for Gateway Station above Earth (by orders of the Colonial Marine Corps) is intercepted in deep space by an interstellar shuttle adorned with the insignia of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation. The only apparent inhabitants of the Sulaco are the sleeping forms of Ellen Ripley, Dwayne Hicks, Rebecca "Newt" Jorden, and the artificial person known as "Bishop", all secure in their cryo-pods.



The Company cruiser (only about twice the size of the escape shuttle Ripley uses at the end of Alien) matches speed with the Sulaco and extends a docking walkway to one of the military vessel's airlock ports. Four figures in space suits clamber through the walkway, the flexible transparicrete alloy of the unfolding tunnelway being one of only two boundaries separating their bodies from the infinite void of the cosmos.



They reach the airlock to the Sulaco. One of the spacewalkers, whose suit is labeled "MACK", orders another walker, whose suit is labeled "CALVIN", to use a laser cutter to open the doorway.



After thirty seconds of bright light and sparks, the metal bulkhead of the Sulaco topples over like domino. The four walkers enter the ship, taking a second to adjust to the artificial gravity. After Calvin reads a positive check on his wrist-mounted atmosphere scanner, Mack orders the squad to remove their helmets.

Mack, the squad leader, is revealed to be a short-haired blonde female in her late thirties. She readies her pistol, an efficient killing tool of finesse and precision.

Calvin, the technician, is a somewhat diminutive-looking man of bronze complexion.

The third squad member, Portnoy, the doctor, is a balding, bitter-eyed man who appears to be pushing 50.

The last squad member, Rodan, the security operative, is a tall, musclebound, goatee'd black man with a steely look of grim resolve in his eyes at all times. He clicks on the sparker of his flamethrower, ready to meet any threat with a storm of fire.



Mack sends a message to their cruiser's computer, causing another figure to cross over to the Sulaco. This last member of the group is O'Neill, the Company executive in charge of facilitating mission outcomes, a somewhat portly man with an overfriendly demeanor befitting a corporate weasel.

The Company detachment moves down a cavernous, poorly-lit hallway towards the cryo-pods.



The cryo-pod area of the Sulaco.

The four survivors of the Hadley's Hope incident lay tranquil and oblivious.



Then the five Corporates show up, with Rodan taking point. He holds his flame unit at the ready, having heard tales about the monstrous creatures of Hadley's Hope, he keeps his eyes peeled more than the others.

Rodan is followed by Mack, with Portnoy, Calvin, and O'Neill at the rear. On beholding the sleeping forms of the four survivors, Portnoy begins accessing the cryo-pods' computers. After a brief analysis, the doctor determines that the three human subjects have not suffered any permanent physical injury and can be safely re-awakened. Calvin examines the deactivated Bishop and determines that he can be only be re-activated for a short amount of time.

Calvin wonders aloud what in the universe was strong enough to rip a Synthetic in two like that...

At first, only Bishop is brought out of hypersleep by the Corporates. Calvin uses a work terminal in the Sulaco's engineering deck to give the bisected android a few minutes of life before permanent shutdown. In his last few moments "alive", Bishop tells the expedition group numerous details of the LV-426 incident.

O'Neill asks Bishop if any Xenomorphs made it onto the Sulaco. Bishop replies by telling him that a single egg-laying Queen stowed away on a dropship. The android ends his account by mentioning that it would be very inadvisable to try to interact with the Xenomorphs in any way besides eliminating them, precluding the Company's goals of capturing and harnessing them as bio-weapons.

Bishop finally gives out. His remains are folded up and stuffed into a storage locker.



Calvin reaches the Sulaco's bridge to get a full assessment of their location and trajectory. He consults the ship's artificial intelligence CISTR (Command Interface and Synthetic Tactical Rendering), or "Sister". This leads Calvin to deliver the news to the other Corporates, who have moved back to the cryo-pod area, that the ship will dock at Gateway Station in just under two days.

This gives the group a tight deadline to meet. O'Neill delegates tasks to help accomplish the Company's objectives: locate and harness any trace remnants of the Xenomorph presence encountered on LV-426. He orders Mack and Rodan to search the hangar bay, the Queen's former location as indicated by Bishop, for any Xenomorph activity. O'Neill wants the team out of the Sulaco (preferably with something or someone carrying Xenomorph biological matter) before it enters the Solar System so the Colonial Marine Corps will be none the wiser by the time the troop carrier reaches Gateway Station.



The dropship hangar. Where Ellen Ripley faced off against a Xenomorph Queen in single combat. The dropship flown by Bishop rests on the deck.

The shallow puddles of white Synthetic blood still haven't been cleaned up.

Mack and Rodan enter, weapons drawn. They vigilantly scan every nook and cranny they can in anticipation of Xenomorphs, but none appear. Rodan carries a stepladder to the front end of the craft, climbs to the top, then takes out his laser cutter.

After cutting a large hole through the dropship's canopy, Rodan crawls through and scouts the craft's interior. Mack slithers through the hole in the glass shortly after.

The two enter the rear compartment of the craft, a claustrophobic area bathed in red light.

And it is there that the two lay eyes on an unhatched Xenomorph egg.

Mack communicates their finding to O'Neill over her headset. The executive's voice tells the two not to go near the egg and that the specimen is very valuable to the Company. Mack and Rodan leave the egg undisturbed and report back to the cryo-pod area.



The cryo-pod area. Ripley, Hicks, and Newt are still sound asleep.

O'Neill tells Portnoy his next assignment: determine the best possible test subject from the three people sleeping in the cryopods and expose them to the Xenomorph egg on the dropship.

Portnoy casts a glare over the three sleepers.

He decides that the little girl would be the best choice for Xenomorph implantation.

Eyes open. The comfortable resting place of a cryopod. The glass door opening outward.

The old man looks down at Newt laying in her cryopod.

She is still groggy from hypersleep and needs to be helped out of her pod. She asks the man if they have reached home yet. He tells her that she needs some shots before she can be allowed to come home.

Little Newt asks why Ripley and Hicks haven't been woken up yet, but Portnoy simply shushes her and walks her over to the infirmary. She starts to suspect that not all is right.



Mack decides that the bridge will be the best place to serve as a temporary base of operations. She returns to the Company cruiser attached to the Sulaco's hull and brings back a clear glass cage containing her pet: a boa constrictor named Ahab.

Back on the bridge, Calvin is parsing through navigational and environmental data with Sister. A door slides open and in walks Mack with her pet snake.

The infirmary of the Sulaco. Several rows of stretchers resting on movable power-assisted gurneys. Medical computers ready to scan for patients' vital signs, such as heart rates, blood pH levels, and other biometrics.

Portnoy picks up Newt and places her on a stretcher, laying her flat on her back on top of the soft surface. She immediately sits up and turns to her captor.

"Where are we going, doctor? Will we be home soon?" she asks.

His back turned away from the little girl, Portnoy fills up a syringe with a sedative compound. He tries to placate the little girl, but it is of little avail.

Newt starts to panic and gets up off the stretcher.

Portnoy is forced to chase her through the infirmary.

The little girl flips over several carts loaded with pill bottles and flasks of anesthetic liquid in an attempt to slow down Portnoy. But the old man eventually catches up to her and grips her from behind with both arms. She whines and cries out for help,

"RIPLEY!!!"

Portnoy deftly maneuvers the needle to a vein in her neck and delivers its liquid payload. The little girl is quickly pacified. Sedative runs through her young veins.

Portnoy picks the little girl up and places her on the stretcher again, this time crudely strapping her limbs to the siderails with a few leather belts.

Hicks is woken up from cryo-sleep by Mack and Rodan and taken to the infirmary.

He recognizes the two Corporate guardsmen as having once been Colonial Marines. He remarks that they have stopped fighting for real ideals and instead embraced the cold life of mercenaries. Fighting for money and money alone. Hicks sees their choice as dishonorable. Rodan tells Hicks that he is missing out on a hefty paycheck by staying in the Marines and not joining Weyland-Yutani private security.

In the infirmary Hicks is patched up by Portnoy. A special sterilized patch is placed over his eye, far more effective at protecting against infection and irritants than the simple cloth bandage he improvised on LV-426. With his one good eye, Hicks spots Newt unconscious and strapped to a stretcher.

Hicks asks why they have done that to a little girl. He is visibly angry.

Portnoy simply tells the Marine that little Rebecca Jorden is an important asset to the Company, especially considering what was accidentally smuggled aboard via the dropship. It dawns on Hicks that she is going to be exploited by the Bio-Weapons Division, just as Ripley revealed on LV-426 shortly before Carter Burke's death. The Queen must have laid an egg on the dropship while Bishop was flying him, Ripley, and Newt off of LV-426.

Without a weapon, Hicks decides that he cannot physically resist his captors. He regards his captors with a weary eye, sizing them up to see what it would take to get past them. The fragile old doctor would pose no problem, but Hicks knows that Rodan and Mack are both formidable in combat (from his experience serving alongside them).

The Marine lies back on the stretcher and lets the recovery drug cocktail take effect. Better to not fight now if it means living to conquer another day.

Newt, who is completely out cold, is wheeled out of the infirmary by Portnoy.

In the cryo-pod area, O'Neill taps several keys on the last occupied pod. The glass canopy slowly flips open, exposing Lt. Ellen Ripley to the stale, recycled air of the Sulaco.

Ripley curls upward and takes a moment to adjust to her surroundings.

It seems like no time has passed since her fight with the Queen. One minute she is drifting off to sleep, near Newt, Bishop, and Hicks; the next minute she is awake again and those three are no-where to be found.

O'Neill sits on the side of the cryo-pod.

"Do you hear me? Do you know where you are?"

Ripley is somewhat dazed from hypersleep. "USS Sulaco...What's going on? Have we reached Gateway Station?" she asks.

"Lt. Ellen Ripley?"

"Yes, that's me. Who are you?"

"I'm Brandon O'Neill; I represent the Company. We'd like to have you examined before you get to Earth, make sure everything's okay."

Ripley's eyes widen. She stands bolt upright and faces O'Neill.

"bull****. This is not a corporate operation; the Sulaco is a military vessel," she gestures around the starship containing them.

O'Neill tries to adopt a reassuring manner to put her at ease, but Ripley quickly becomes more agitated. She looks around and asks "Where are the others?"

Then she turns back to O'Neill. "Where is this ship?"

O'Neill tries to get Ripley to calm down. "It's okay, Ripley. You're still on the same course. We'd just like to run a few tests on you and ask you a few questions before you report to Gateway, that's all."

Ripley will not have it. She bolts out of the room, but turns a corner only to be blocked by the looming mass of Rodan. His flamethrower's barrel tip scintillates with a small flickering fire.

"I'm afraid I cannot allow you to pass, Lieutenant."

We cut to the dropship in the hangar. The craft's rear door is now open. Red light fills the interior of the parked vessel. The Xenomorph egg sits patiently in the back of the dropship's payload compartment.

Portnoy enters the hangar, wheeling the unconscious Newt forward on the stretcher. She will regain consciousness soon.

He wheels the stretcher up the ramp and into the cramped red-tinted interior of the dropship. All the way over to the egg, then he leaves.

Newt's lolling head rights itself as she blinks her eyes open. Her limbs are still strapped to the stretcher, but it looks like the old man re-configured the stretcher so that now she is lying at an angle to the floor instead of parallel.

Now all Newt sees is the Xenomorph egg bathed in red light.

The flaps at the top of the egg fold open, revealing the Facehugger inside. Three yellow fingers of the creature extend from the oval's orifice.

Newt screams louder than she ever did on LV-426.

Ripley sits in the brig. A grid of metal bars separates her spartan accommodations from the two men peering at her. Rodan stands guard with his flamethrower. O'Neill brings more questions in front of Ripley.

"Look, Ripley, we're just trying to help you out here. Now when you signed on to that mission to LV-426, part of your contract with Burke stipulated that you had to provide consulting to the Weyland-Yutani Corporation regarding these Xenomorphs. Now we need you to do so."

"Forget it, O'Neill. I'm done working with the Company," Ripley says. Her arms are crossed in defiance. She gets up and begins to pace back and forth like a caged lioness.

"Your contract still stands, Lieutenant."

She rushes right up the bars of her cell. "**** the contract! Don't you realize what those things are capable of doing? You people are insane, you know that? Those creatures can't be allowed on Earth for any reason."

O'Neill sighs. "Now Ripley, LV-426 was one story. It was a bad situation, but this time we've got top-of-the-line private security on the job. We can keep these things contained easy."

"What do you know about them?" she asks.

"Just what you've described. Sharp teeth, acid for blood, kills on sight. Sounds like my ex-wife, " O'Neill says to try to lighten the mood.

Ripley is not amused. "Why are you people even here? Those things are all dead. The colony's gone and so is the Queen. I killed her myself."

"A fact for which we are very thankful. But as it turns out, that goose laid one last golden egg. It's in the dropship that brought you back from the colony," O'Neill says.

Ripley grabs O'Neill's tie through the bars and yanks him closer. "Don't you ****ing think about it! You're not getting that thing off this ship! So help me God I will make sure of that!"

Rodan grabs O'Neill's shoulder and pulls him back away from Ripley's grip.

 

I've never seen any of the alien films, but this sounds like an interesting story concept.

 

This is meant to pick up a few days after the events of the series' second (and arguably best) film, Aliens.

I have more material to post soon if you guys are interested!

 

Double post deleted.

 

In the infirmary, Hicks wakes up and feels noticeably better. His acid wounds have healed at a remarkable pace.

Portnoy wheels Hicks' stretcher towards the brig. Hicks turns his head to get one last view of infirmary, seeing Newt on another stretcher...with a Facehugger busy planting its egg inside her chest.



In her cell, Ripley sits on the edge of her bunk with her head down. She is alerted by the noise of the brig entrance opening, revealing an old man (a Company science officer, by her reckoning) wheeling Dwayne Hicks on a stretcher. Ripley's heart skips a beat. Something like a smile briefly dances across her lips.

Per the old man's instruction, Hicks leaves the stretcher and gets locked into a cell adjacent to Ripley's. The two cannot see each other, but they can still hear each other.

The old man leaves the brig.

"Dwayne!" exclaims Ripley.

"I'm here, Ellen."

They both rush to opposite sides of the wall separating their cells. They clasp the ends of their fingers together, reveling in the brief respite from their continuing ordeal.

"What's the goddamned Company doing here?" the Marine asks.

"They want one of those things on Earth. They're working for Bio-Weapons, just like that bastard Burke. Are you OK, Dwayne?"

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine. I need to tell you something about Newt." Hicks says.

Ripley fears the worst. "Is she awake?"

"Yeah, and they're planting one of those things inside her."

Ripley gasps and lets out a painful tear. With her unoccupied hand, she covers her mouth to contain a sob.

"It's OK, Rip. There's still time. I know where she is. We can still get her out of here."

"What about that thing inside her?" Ripley says.

"I overheard them talking about how they got here. They've got enough cryopods on their shuttle to get all three of us back to Earth safe and sound." Hicks explains.

Ripley regains her composure, but her voice is still quivering. She sees the reason behind Hicks' plan. "Ok. And then we can keep her frozen in the pod so the Gateway docs can get that thing out of her."

"Exactly. We made it off that rock, we can get through this, OK?" Hicks says.

Ripley lets out an anguished sigh, trying to keep her thoughts away from the horrifying things the Company has done to Newt.

Hicks reaches into his left boot and pulls out a small dental probe, swiped from the infirmary while Portnoy was not looking.

"What are you doing?" Ripley asks.

"Getting us out of here," Hicks says as he carefully reaches past the bars of his cell with the odd-shaped instrument. After a few seconds of twisting and turning, the lock disengages with a clicking sound. Hicks pushes open the door and gets to work liberating Ripley.

"Now listen, Rip. I just tripped the silent alarm by breaking out. If these Company guys have access to the bridge, then CISTR's gonna alert them that we've escaped." Hicks says.

"CISTR?" Ripley asks.

"Command Interface and Synthetic Tactical Rendering. Follow my lead and we'll get to Newt."

Hicks breaks through the lock on Ripley's cell. She rushes out and the two share a brief hug.

"Come on, we haven't got much time, Rip."

Hand-in-hand, the two run out of the brig.

 

Another interesting concept.

 

Hicks and Ripley are running through a corridor towards the infirmary. Emergency lights are flashing, alerting the other crew members that their prisoners have escaped.

Behind the pair, a door slides open. In strides Mack, pistol at the ready. She takes aim, but the two targets rush into alcoves on opposite sides of the hallway. Mack lets loose a torrent of lead that creates sparks on impacting the ship's inner walls. A couple of bullets penetrate vapor lines and let loose rapid jets of pressurized gas.

Hicks urges Ripley, "Go! Get Newt! I'll hold her off!"

"We can't go without you, Dwayne!" Ripley yells over gunfire.

"Just go, Ellen!"

Ripley chokes back a tear as Hicks charges into the open hallway. There is a lull in the gunfire as Mack reloads her weapon, but Hicks tackles the mercenary before she can complete the task. As the two exchange furious punches, kicks, and throws, Ripley hurries forth towards the infirmary.

 

Ripley slides open the door to the infirmary. She sees Portnoy standing over a dazed Newt, her limbs no longer tied to the rails of her stretcher. The doctor is readying a syringe of an unidentified chemical when he spots the panicked Ripley.

"You're not authorized to be here. Security!" he yells and points with a wiry finger.

Ripley tosses the old man onto his side with a single powerful flail. He topples an entire cart of medical equipment and knocks his aged hip bone against the cold steel of the Sulaco's deck.

"Ripley!" cries out Newt when she comes to in the midst of the noise and commotion. She gets up out of the stretcher and rushes to hug her protector.

"Newt! You're going to be fine," Ripley says with a bead of sweat trickling down her throbbing temple.

The little girl turns to her second mother. "Ripley...I don't-," she coughs dryly several times, "-feel so good."

Ripley brushes aside Newt's hair and tries to protect her from the the panicked, fast-paced mood of the moment. "You're going to be OK. We've got to get off this ship. Just follow me, Newt."

 

Cradling Newt in one arm, Ripley rushes to the other door leading out of the infirmary. Portnoy barely recovers his voice as Rodan strides in with his flamethrower. Thinking on her feet, Ripley grabs a beaker full of disinfectant liquid with her free hand.

"She's got the girl, over there!" the doctor croaks, aimlessly waving an arm in the general direction of the two escapees, trying not to lose his fragile balance.

Rodan clicks his weapon's sparker, causing a small flame to simmer at the end of the muzzle. "Stop right there. You can't escape!" he yells with the roar of a lion.

After the door closes behind her, Ripley pries open the insulation on an adjacent control panel and douses the complex innards with the beaker of disinfectant liquid. Sparks fly out of the circuit board and wire bundles. A llight on the door frame changes from green to red, signifying a critical electric failure.

On the other side of the door's viewing glass, Rodan can be seen trying to slide the door open manually. He grunts and brings all of his strength to bear, but the door will not budge. Rodan lets out a curse and exits the infirmary through the other door, determined to find another way to get to Ripley.

 

Yellow lights flashing. Sirens blaring. Thick clouds of white smoke obscuring the air of the cramped hexagonal corridor. CISTR repeatedly announces over the ship's intercom, "Attention, all Marines. Security breach on deck 4C. All personnel must enter lockdown positions. This is not a drill."

Ripley finally arrives at the opening where the Company ship attached itself to the Sulaco. She leans Newt's head away from her shoulder and she starts violently coughing and convulsing.

Ripley's eyes widen until they are they are the size of saucers. She is breathless and speechless at the realization of what she is witnessing. Her knees turn to jelly and she drops down to the floor. Newt's head violently jerks back and forth. Ripley sobs.

The little girl's movements threaten to wriggle her body away from her second mother's cradling arms. She squeals in continuous, wrenching pain for close to a minute.

Ripley becomes manic, completely unhinged from reality. "NOOOOO! GOD NOOOOOO!" she screams at the Xenomorph gnawing its way out of the little child. Her protests devolve into wordless howls. Intelligible language ceases to be of any use.

Newt gasps a horrible sucking sound, like the sound of a malfunctioning respirator. One final thrust of her chest leads to an explosion of blood above her solar plexus. Ripley's face is smeared in the visceral bits of her own adopted daughter from LV-426. She cannot bear to hold the body of the little girl anymore, collapsing down in a heaving, sobbing, screaming mess.

The Chestburster squawks in newborn agitation, tiny limbs hanging at its sides like remoras, caked in a bloodied, transparent membrane of human tissue matter. It slithers out of the girl's body, dislodging a few tendons, rib bones, and other parts with a sickening, sludgy sound. The foul thing disappears into the congested, smoke-filled surroundings of the corridor, towards parts unknown.

Ripley sits sobbing on the floor when a nearby door slides open. O'Neill appears followed by Rodan. Ripley's sorrow turns to animalistic rage as she leaps at the portly Company executive and wraps her bloodied hands around his neck. The pair rests against the wall, locked in a mortal struggle.

"Get her- get her off!" O'Neill pleads to Rodan.

Rodan slings his flamethrower over his shoulder and tries to pull Ripley back away from O'Neil, but her position holds more leverage. She shrugs off his attempt to seize her.

And with one last death-grip of anger-propelled strength, Ripley snaps O'Neill's neck like a twig. The man slumps over dead. She turns around to face her other attacker.

But Rodan has already deployed his weapon at the hip. He lets loose a torrent of fire at the crazed Ripley. She falls back on top of O'Neill's body and manically convulses and screams while fully aflame. Now both she and the executive are burning. Rodan lets out another flame burst and silences her for good. The bodies remain on fire.

Mack strides in with her pistol at the ready. She brings her weapon down o seeing the threat having been burned to death.

Her first reaction is "...****."

 

Author’s note: As this is a pretty rough draft, I am revising the story as I put up these posts. From this point on, I am retconning Ahab the snake out of existence. He had a plot function in another draft of the story, but has since become superfluous.

 

DAY TWO

Hours have passed since the birth of the creature. The bodies of the three dead are tumbling through space in sealed burial capsules.

Hicks, Mack and Calvin have holed up on the bridge, the most secure area of the ship. Perimeter-mounted motion trackers, feeding off of the ship's fusion reactor, keenly listen for activity. Rodan and Portnoy are still in the infirmary, treating the old man’s injury.

Hicks determines that CISTR has sealed the armory door shut due to the lockdown, rendering the weapons inside completely inaccessible. He does not have the code-key needed to retrieve the weapons. Lieutenant Gorman carried them at the time of his death. As of now the survivors’ only defenses are Rodan's flamethrower and Mack's pistol.

Because she is the highest-ranking official on the ship, command falls on Mack's shoulders. She decides that the original mission has gone FUBAR*. Their priority now is to eliminate the creature and make it off the ship alive so they can expose what the Company has tried to do.

Calvin tells the others that in order to defeat the Alien, he has to hack into the locked portions of CISTR’s mainframe. In the absence of Lt. Gorman’s code-key, that is the only way to access the weapons in the armory, as well as directly control the ship’s sub-systems such as communications and navigation.

The bridge door slides open. Rodan helps Portnoy walk into the room, the old man’s arm draped around one of Rodan’s massive shoulders. Portnoy sets himself down on a console chair. He carries a look of remorse for what happened to the little girl.








*FUBAR stands for "****ed Up Beyond All Repair"

 

Hicks becomes visibly angered and perturbed at the arrival of Portnoy. He holds himself back from physically striking the old doctor, instead shooting the man with an intense death-glare.

“What were you thinking? A child?!” Hicks exclaims.

Portnoy leans his head up and cringes his eyes shut. He seems on the verge of tears. “It was on O’Neill’s orders, son. He was the Company man. You don’t ask questions of the Company!”

Mack eyes the two inquisitively, then settles on a question. “How was that thing supposed to be contained anyway?”

Portnoy sets his head back down and sighs. “Before Lieutenant Ripley rudely interrupted my procedure, I was about to administer an injection to paralyze the girl and slow down her metabolism.”

Hicks asks, “And what was that supposed to do?”

Portnoy exhales sharply through the nose. “Were you out sick for that day in biology class, son? If the girl’s metabolism could be slowed down, then that thing inside her would stay dormant. We’d have plenty of time to lay her in a pod, ship her to our doc team planetside and pull the little sucker out of her safely.”

 

Hicks lets out a rueful chuckle. “Well, son of a bitch...when were you going to tell us about that?”

Rodan says, “You were a prisoner, Corporal. Just let it go.”

“‘Let it go?’ I don’t think that’s gonna cut it. Now we’ve got one of those bastards crawling around on a ship that’s headed towards Earth. And you just torched our best chance at wasting it.”

Rodan jabs Hicks’ eyes with his own. “Soldier, if you and the lady were so tough, we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place.”

Hicks raises his voice and steps towards Rodan, “Well I’ve got a half a mind to-”

“HEY. GUYS,” yells Mack over the two bickering men.

The two turn to her.

“Now’s not the time. You can settle your dick-measuring contest later. We need to start sealing doorways and blocking off air ducts. Whatever it takes to corner this ****er,” Mack says.

Hicks regards Rodan for another tense moment, then settles himself down. “Ok. What exactly is the plan here?”

 

Mack turns to the team's engineer, "Calvin?"

"Well, CISTR's mainframe's packing some serious encryption. You sure there wasn't another code-key lying around?" Calvin says.

"Yeah, I'm sure. They don't issue those to enlisted folk," Hicks says.

Calvin clasps his hands together. "Well, then. I've got some bypassing to do. This could take a while."

Mack asks, "How long?"

"Difficult to say, but I think it might-,"

"How long?"

Calvin sighs. "It'll be done before we get to Gateway. The system's multi-tiered. A damn fine piece of programming, that CISTR. But once I'm in, we'll have a lot more options."

Mack says, "Ok. You do that. Still got that laser torch?"

Calvin dutifully hands the tool to Mack. "Here's the plan. We've got to push this thing onto our cruiser. For that we should seal off as many pathways as possible."

The group goes over the plan using a schematic map of the various decks of the ship. Calvin says that he can break through the first few layers of CISTR's mainframe by the time they get back, possibly allowing them to send a distress signal to the USS Aimayer, another Marine vessel stationed over Earth.

"What about Portnoy?" Hicks asks.

"I'm coming," the old man says. He knows that this journey will be his last.

Cut to deck 4C. Hicks and Portnoy are carrying motion trackers, jury-rigged by Calvin from two of the stationary ones posted around the bridge. Calvin remains on the bridge while the other four people have gone out.

Hicks and Rodan are on one end of deck 4C, the latter busy shutting a duct opening with his laser torch.

Portnoy and Mack are at a door on the other side of 4C. Mack is focused on sealing the door shut. Portnoy waves the tracker around for any sign of motion.

Both pairs of people are in contact with each other as well Calvin over their headsets.

Mack switches the battery on her laser torch. Portnoy's motion tracker beeps with the haunting sound of movement. He asks over his headset, "Hicks, are you boys in the starboard maintenance alcove? Over."

"That's a negative. We're sealing off the provisions storage room. Over."

Mack's heart tenses up when she hears the transmission. She tries to calm herself so she does not accidentally burn her own finger off with the laser torch. She was always better at close-quarters combat operations than welding duty; it was part of the reason she went to W-Y private security.

Her tangent thoughts go away when she notices a curious silence behind her. She turns around after having finished the welding job.

Portnoy is gone.

"Doc? Doc? Hello?"

Nothing. Just the steady hum of the ship's reactor.

"****," she quietly mutters. Her teeth start grinding in panic, causing her jawbones to jut out slightly. "Calvin? Got a reading on Portnoy? Over."

"Negative, sir. His reading's just...gone."

Mack's breathing becomes more and more like gasping. She had never actually seen a creature like this before, but based on Ripley's account...it should be the size of a man by now.

"Mack, I've got something," Calvin says, almost causing Mack to erupt in a spasm of tension-fueled surprise.

"****ing Christ, Calvin. What is it?"

"Portnoy's back. What in the hell is he doing?"

Portnoy's channel switches on with activity. "I can't take it anymore," he says.

Calvin stops typing for a minute. "Doc! What's your status?"

"I'm finishing what I've started, son. This thing isn't getting off the ship. Good-bye," Portnoy cryptically replies. On the bridge, Calvin witnesses the channel shut off for good.

In the dark depths of 4C, Portnoy ambles through carrying the motion tracker at his hip. He tosses aside the headset and continues in the direction of the Company ship. Small yellow emergency lights illuminate points along the edges of the corridor, but still leave vast swaths of impenetrable darkness. The doctor remembers the bodies that lay here only a few hours ago. He realizes that since he chose to condemn the little girl to death, he has to answer for what he has done.

"Newt!" the old man calls out repeatedly. The motion tracker is silent except for its regular pinging sound.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Portnoy's taunts are interrupted when he steps on something squishy. He tries to free his foot from the floor, but he must pull hard. He kneels down with the caution for his leg joints. He manually pulls aside sticky strands of the filmy material. "My god," he whispers. Sheddings. These must be the sheddings he was briefed about.

He pulls his foot away from the material strand by strand. But then the motion tracker rings with a signal a dozen or so meters behind him. Then it is gone. Portnoy did not get a good look at the signal, but there was something about that irked him. Almost as if the creature knew it was being tracked.

Finally it dawned on the old doctor. He was being hunted.

He knew it was already too late to run. Even if he wanted to run, he was too injured and frail to do so.

Portnoy starts stepping backwards holding the motion tracker out in front, eagerly awaiting the slightest signal. Nothing.

"Little girl! Come, Newt!" he calls out again.

The tracker emits a beeping sound and Portnoy gets a clear look. The signal is not well-defined, but it looks like a blob that changes shape. Erratically.

Now this did not fit with the description in the briefing. Portnoy could not make sense of the tracker reading on the assumption that the creature hunting him was humanoid. It must have a different body shape. But what?

Ten meters.

The old man picks up the pace as the signal edges closer and closer. He peers around in the dimly-lit spaces and wonder just where it could be hiding.

Nine meters.

Portnoy has to feel his way around the hallway with one hand while holding the tracker with the other. His steps are hampered by leftover strands of skin shedding stuck to his shoe.

Eight meters.

A gas pipe lets out a burst of white fumes. The old man nearly has a heart attack from the surprise.

Seven meters.

The signal is getting more focused. Where once it was a blob, the reading on the motion tracker has now morphed itself into a narrow shape.

Five meters.

Portnoy suddenly regrets sacrificing himself. He wants to go back to the safety of the bridge. He wants out. He doesn't want to die like this.

Three meters.

He sees it. Some kind of creature. A dark looming mass covered in what looks like saliva.

The dark shape unfurls itself onto the floor. It was hiding in the mess of conduit piping and feed lines somewhere above Portnoy's head.

Portnoy's breathing becomes constricted. All the air has left his lungs.

A hissing sound fills the old man's ears. But it is not like any hissing sound he ever heard on Earth. It is at once too mechanical- and too organic-sounding.

The shape rises from a bundled position on the floor, rearing what Portnoy can only assume is its head. Sharp, lethal-looking black projections emanate from the beast's back and sides. Its head seems unnaturally elongated, lacking any discernible features except for a terrible mouth filled glistening, needle-sharp teeth.

Portnoy is frozen on the spot. He cannot even turn his gaze away from where it had settled, somewhere to the creature's side. Out of the corner of his vision, he sees that the Xenomorph is a giant serpent. One vestigial arm hangs limply off to the side. The torso is thick and muscular. The beast undulates like an angry cobra.

The old man starts tearing up. His mouth-breathing becomes loud and ragged.

The creature opens its maw above Portnoy's shaking head. The old man relieves himself and starts muttering panicked apologies and prayers. "Why? Why? Why?" he asks himself crying.

The small mouth inside another mouth springs out and breaks open the man's skull, eagerly biting into chewy, salty human brain matter. Portnoy screams. Blood flies out and splatters the creature, then runs down the old man's face. He is dead before he hits the floor.

 

Cut back to the bridge. Everyone is under more stress than ever. Rodan is itching to battle the creature toe-to-toe. Calvin has to wipe his forehead with a towel so the fear-sweat on his brow does not drip on CISTR's console. Mack supports herself with both hands on a command table, fervently studying the layout of the Alien's last known location. In the back of her thoughts, she is bitten by the realization that their options for defeating the creature are quickly evaporating. Time is not on their side.

Hicks is the only one who can control his nerves. He is the first to speak up. "Calvin. Any luck with that mainframe?"

Calvin wheels around to face the group. "God, I kill for a smoke right now," he mutters while brushing a hand through his frizzed hair. "The armory's cleared. You guys said you have this thing cornered?"

Mack says, "Yes, we do. Now all that's left is to blow this ****er out into space. Some weapons from the armory would help."

Hicks asks Mack, "The old man was with you the whole time. Why did you let him go?"

"He was delusional! He wanted to see this thing for himself, or something. That ****er always was a little crazy," Mack says.

"Well, at least the thing's cornered now. Did you see it?"

"No, but whatever it was, it must have been big. I saw the hall where he went through a viewport, and he was just...gone. A little blood on the deck, but no body, nothing."

Rodan eagerly brandishes his weapon and says, "Well, what the hell are we waiting for? The armory's open, we can take this bastard down! What have you guys got in there, anyway? Rifles? Smartguns? Grenades?"

Hicks says, "Yeah, all that and more. But this ship wasn't made for on-board action. No ship is, really. We can't use the rifles or anything bigger, or we risk punching a hole in the ship's hull. That'd be bad news for all of us."

Rodan is flustered. "So what's the ****ing point of opening the armory if we can't use the good stuff?"

"There's a bunch of sub-machine guns in there. Fully-automatic, forty-round clips, hollow-point rounds. They're not pulse rifles, but they put out a lot of lead and there's no risk of them blowing open the ship's hull," Hicks says.