Alien, page 19
“There,” he said as he pushed the panel back into place with a small grunt. “Gavin, my man, the ship is yours. Well, it will be once I reboot the system.” He flipped a small switch on the underside of the dashboard, clicking it one way and then the other. The lights across the top flickered off and then on again with a low hum. “I broke one of the connections so the corporation can’t take control of the ship again, but they’re going to be pissed.”
Sam stirred lightly in his chair, and Elkins added, “You may want to set the maps to non-transmissible going forward, at least until we get to LV-846. I’ll remind you when you wake up. Or you might want to think about dumping this rig entirely. Fowler may not be right about much, but he’s right about Weyland-Yutani. These Company fuckers… they find ways to screw people over, make them disappear. Take your credits and go to some nice ICS planet—I’d suggest LM-490. I hear the beaches there are beautiful.”
No response.
Elkins stood with a small groan.
Marine life was starting to take its toll on him. Thirty-four was too young to have creaking joints and aching muscles. True, he hadn’t slept much, and the evacuation from BG-791 had been less than smooth, but he just didn’t bounce back as quickly as he used to. A body could only keep going for so long before downtime, any bit of downtime, allowed the wear and tear to set in.
As if to confirm his thoughts, when he leaned over the dashboard to reprogram the coordinates into the autopilot, his back twinged.
“Okay, all set,” he said, straightening. He looked at Gavin. The man had stopped snoring. His chest still rose and fell, but it was irregular now, and a little jagged. Silently, Elkins cursed Fowler for risking the lives of the only two people who could actually fly the ship. The moral issue aside, that damned nutjob had risked all their lives in taking down the crew. Autopilot was one thing, but fifty-four hours from now, someone human was going to have to land the thing.
Suddenly, the bridge shook, a thunderous metallic bang echoing through the room. Elkins reeled, trying to maintain his balance. Leaning against the dashboard for support, he looked up and through the front view port. There, he saw a looming metal ship at least twice the size of the Astraeus.
“Oh shit,” Elkins said.
* * *
When the retraction device sent out by the USCSS Demeter made contact with the Astraeus, the reverberation shook the hallway where Siobhan and Alec were making their way from the medbay, stabilizers in hand. They were headed to Kira’s room to check on her.
“What was that?” she asked, pocketing the stabilizers. Her hands were shaking.
“I don’t know,” Alec admitted.
“We’ve got to get to Kira!” Siobhan sprinted ahead. Alec followed.
Just as she was about to slip the key card into the door lock, the door slid open. Roots stood in the doorway, gun in hand. Kira, looking sleepy, stood behind him, clutching Mr. Bones.
“It’s another ship!” Roots looked into the hallway. “That son of a bitch called them to come get him!”
“Are you sure?” Siobhan took Kira’s hand, and they rushed to catch up as he jogged down the hallway, with Alec right behind him.
“I’d bet my pension on it!” Roots called over his shoulder.
When the four of them reached the bridge, Elkins was there to meet them.
“It’s a ship,” he said. His voice was calm, but Siobhan could tell from his body language that he was worried. “The USCSS Demeter, it says on the side. How much you want to bet that’s a Weyland-Yutani ship?”
“Roots thinks it’s here to get Fowler,” Alec said. “Either he called them, or they tracked us.” He ran to the front window and looked out. The others followed.
Most of it was angled around in front of them, as if to block their way, but the apparatus for the retraction arm curled around the left side of the Astraeus. Siobhan thought it felt like they were heading into the open claws of some predatory beast.
“It’s looking like a solid theory, Roots,” Alec said. “Elkins, do we have control?”
“We do now, yeah. Our ship’s on autopilot. Coordinates are set for LV-846.”
“Can you fly it?”
Elkins frowned. “I’m a mechanic, Sarge, not a pilot.”
“You don’t need to fly it the whole way. We just need to shake off the Demeter. Can you do that?”
“Sure,” Elkins replied. “In theory, I guess. I could try to run some evasive maneuvers—”
“Do it,” Alec said. “Roots, I need you to secure Dr. Fowler. Find him, restrain him, confine him to his room. We can’t have him running around causing more problems, and we sure as hell don’t want him contacting them.” He gestured at the big ship outside.
“Copy that,” Roots said, a small grin on his face. “Looking forward to it.” He took off to find the scientist.
“Can I do anything to help?” Kira asked Alec. The sleep had mostly faded from her face, and while there was still a remnant of sadness there, her eyes held a kind of determination that Siobhan admired. She was tough stuff, that little girl, trying not only to bounce back, but to be an active part of things.
Alec looked down at her and smiled. “Yeah, you and Siobhan can be my eyes and ears when I go out there to detach the retraction device.”
“Wait, what?” Siobhan clutched his upper arm. “You can’t go out there! It’s too dangerous!”
“What are they going to do, fire on me? They’ll hit the ship—and they won’t risk that.”
“How do you know?”
“Fowler seems pretty sure of it.”
Siobhan rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Fowler’s a lunatic!”
“Look,” Alec said gently, putting his hand over hers. “If they had written this ship off as a loss, they wouldn’t have bothered with the retraction device—they would have just fired on us already.” He let that sink in, then added, “We can’t detach the retraction arm from here unless we do it manually, and we have to do it quickly. Any minute now, they’re going to start towing us away. I have to, Von.”
“Sarge,” Elkins cut in, “Deep-space external repairs are supposed to be two-man jobs.”
“Well, we’re going to have to settle for one,” Alec replied. “I need you here, ready to get the ship away from the Demeter, out of retraction distance. Roots needs to keep an eye on Fowler.”
“Well, then, let me come with you,” Siobhan said.
“Von, I appreciate the offer, but—” He stopped when Siobhan narrowed her gaze.
“Now you listen,” she said in a low, firm voice. “There’s no time to argue. I’m coming with you. Kira will stay with Kenny and keep eyes and ears on what the Demeter is doing and report to us.” She looked down at Kira and smiled. “Will you do that, honey?”
Kira nodded. “I can help. I can.”
Siobhan cupped her cheek. “I know.”
“Siobhan—”
“Let’s go,” she said, ignoring the argument she knew was coming, and started across the bridge.
* * *
Siobhan and Alec found a large metal toolbox painted yellow, as well as space suits, in a closet room near the airlock. As they slipped into the suits, Alec made another attempt to talk Siobhan out of going outside.
“Really, Von, I don’t think—”
“Alec,” Siobhan broke in, “I know you’re trying to protect me. I appreciate that. I love that you care enough to worry about what happens to me way out here in the middle of space. But I need to do this. I’ve been… helpless. Helpless this entire time, and when I have nightmares about everything that’s happened—which I do—I dream of being unable to act, of having to watch as things happen to me, which is so much worse than trying and failing to make things happen myself.” She paused, looking into his eyes. “When I picked up that flamethrower, I felt like I finally got back some of the control I’d lost the moment we arrived at the Menhit Lab. I could do something to protect myself and the people I care about, and I can’t go back to feeling helpless. I can’t sit on the sidelines, relying on everyone else to make things happen, or the nightmares are never going to stop. Do you understand?”
Alec gave her a small smile. “I think I do.” He hefted the toolbox.
“Good,” she said, putting on her helmet. Through the comm system, she said, “Let’s do this.”
They passed through the inner door, fastened tethers to their suits, and then pushed the button to depressurize the airlock. The outer door opened. For a brief, absurd moment, Siobhan tensed, but not from the thought of walking out into space. She had done this before, though it had been a while. In her peripheral vision, a darkness flickered just outside, and she braced herself for a Xenomorph hand to curl its fingers around the opening.
It was nothing, though—a shadow from the retraction arm, maybe, or a passing cloud of dust.
The two moved out along the edge of the ship, following its maintenance ridge, a large, segmented seam of metal along the ship’s side that crew members could use as a guideline to get to the outer control panel. The clamp of the retraction arm had hooked onto that ridge a few feet shy of the panel, denting the metal with its force but holding tight. The clamp itself looked to Siobhan like a huge metal “C,” exerting pounds of pressure she couldn’t begin to guess.
When they reached it, Alec looked closely.
“Ah, damn it,” he said. “I was afraid of that. The clamp they’re using is too strong to unhinge with any kind of tools we’d have on this ship.”
“So we remove the segment of the ship it’s attached to.”
Alec looked at her, surprise visible through the visor of his helmet. She gestured to the heavy bolts that held the segments of the metal ridge to the side of the ship.
“This is a maintenance ridge, right? Bolted to the side but not a crucial part of the ship’s structure. We unbolt the segment it’s clamped onto, get back in the ship, and off we go.”
“I’m impressed.” Alec handed her a long thin tool from the series of attachments in the toolbox’s side compartment.
She smiled. “I used to have a friend who worked maintenance for one of the moon’s delivery ships. He was very enthusiastic about his job.”
“A friend, eh?” Alec said, sliding down a little to let Siobhan closer to the ridge’s bolts.
“More of a fatherly figure, really,” she said.
Alec chuckled. “So, I guess I don’t have to explain how to use that industrial screwdriver?”
“No, I think I’ve got it,” she replied, sliding the button to turn it on. It took several minutes of heavy vibrations up her arm, but she managed to free one of the bolts. When it came loose, it floated off. “One down, three to go,” she said.
Alec nodded. He found another smaller version of the screwdriver Siobhan was using and went to work on another of the bolts.
“How is everything going?” Elkins’s voice came through the comm system.
“Almost there,” Alec said, as the bolt he’d loosened floated away.
“Good,” Elkins said. “Because I think they’re starting to get an idea of what you’re doing out there. Better hurry.”
“Roger that,” Alec replied. To Siobhan, he said, “If they begin hoisting us in, we’re screwed. Let’s get these last two bolts off.”
Siobhan applied the screwdriver to the next bolt on the right, while Alec took the one on the left. His bolt came free a few minutes later, just as the ship lurched to the left. The ridge swung outward and Siobhan’s screwdriver skittered off the bolt and toward her hand. A fraction of a second later, its bit slid under her glove, digging a groove into the metal ridge. Her heart pounded.
Elkins’s voice came over the comm system again. “You two all right?”
“You?” Alec asked, touching Siobhan’s shoulder. She nodded, but she could feel her pulse in her ears. If that bit had punctured her space suit… There was no time to think about that now, though. She readjusted the screwdriver bit onto the bolt and began unscrewing it again.
“Guys?” Elkins said.
“We’re okay,” Alec replied. “I guess they’re onto us, huh?”
“You need to get back inside the ship,” Elkins said.
“Almost there.” The vibrations from the screwdriver were making Siobhan’s teeth chatter, but she held on.
“Time’s up.” Elkins’s voice sounded tight. “They’re gonna drag the ship right out from under you.”
“One more second…”
The ship was yanked to the left again, just as the last bolt came free. The ridge slid off the side of the ship, the clamp still clinging to it.
“Sarge…”
“Kenny, we got it off! We’re coming back in.”
Siobhan and Alec pulled themselves along the remaining ridge segments, back toward the airlock door. Behind them, the arm was retracting and opening to free itself of the useless piece of metal. The Weyland-Yutani ship was going to try again.
“Elkins, get this thing moving!” Alec called through the comm system. He reached the airlock door and smacked a gloved hand on the button to open it. The door slid open and Alec took Siobhan’s arm as he floated inside.
“Siobhan—” Kira’s little voice came over the comms. “Look out!”
Alec pulled Siobhan into the airlock and slammed a hand on another button, and the outer door began to slide shut. She looked back on the diminishing sliver of outer space just in time to see a flash of bright light that, moments later, impacted with the spot where they had been, knocking the ship back. Alec hit the button to repressurize the airlock.
“What was that?” Alec asked.
“They’re firing on you,” Elkins said in that same tightly calm voice he’d used in the APC. “Don’t worry, I’m getting us out of here.”
They felt a vibration begin to run beneath their feet. When the airlock chamber had repressurized, they hurriedly took off the space suits and made their way back to the bridge.
Gavin and Sam, still asleep, had been strapped into the side chairs near the big star map, and Kira was sitting in Sam’s chair on his side of the dashboard, belted in and studying a flat dashboard monitor which had constructed a 3-D view of the Demeter. The image’s retraction arm was swinging toward the back of their ship.
“It’s getting ready, Kenny,” she said, waving distractedly at Siobhan and Alec. A moment later, the 3-D arm shot forward.
“I’m on it, little co-pilot,” Elkins said from Gavin’s chair, and the Astraeus moved forward too. There was a groan of metal as the arm grazed the hull but found nothing onto which it could clamp. The 3-D image of the arm retracted, sliding in the other direction.
“They’re trying again,” Kira said.
Siobhan and Alec reached them at the dashboard.
“What can I do to help?” Alec asked Elkins.
“Hold on,” Elkins replied. “I don’t exactly know—”
The ship catapulted ahead with such force that it knocked Alec and Siobhan to the floor. Elkins maneuvered over the part of the Demeter still visible in front of them. Another flash of light connected with the back side of the ship and shook it violently. Elkins held tight to the wheel and pulled far ahead of the Demeter.
They were moving fast.
The stars ahead became a blur.
Alec looked to Siobhan, who had crawled toward the star map table and was using it to pull herself up.
“You okay?” she asked Alec. He nodded.
“Just glad to be moving,” he replied with a smile. “Nice work out there.”
She returned the smile. “Thanks. You, too.”
“Siobhan, I’m helping Kenny!”
“I see that,” Siobhan replied, making her way over to the girl.
“She’s actually really good at this,” Elkins said with genuine appreciation. “She’s taking to it like a fish to water.”
“What’s a fish?” Kira asked, and Kenny laughed.
“Her warning may very well have saved my life,” Siobhan said, hugging the girl around the shoulders.
“Can I be a Colonial Marine when I grow up?” Kira asked Elkins.
“The marines would be proud to have you,” he replied.
Alec joined Elkins at the dashboard. “Good hustle, man. Any word from Roots?”
“Not yet, Sarge.”
“I should go find him,” Alec said.
“Vaya con Dios,” Elkins added. “Isn’t that what your people used to say?”
“Not bad,” Alec said with a small smile. “Not bad at all.”
21
Roots crept silently down the hall, gun in hand.
He’d checked Dr. Fowler’s room, but the mad scientist hadn’t been there, so Roots had moved on to the medbay. No luck there, either. The ship wasn’t that big, maybe two-hundred-fifty or two-hundred-sixty meters at best. Fowler had to be somewhere, and given the fact that there was another, larger Weyland-Yutani ship nearby, Roots thought Fowler might be heading for the emergency escape pods.
Part of him thought that if Fowler wanted to leave, so be it. Taking himself out with the trash would be doing Roots and everyone else on board a favor. An order was an order, though, and another part of him—the part built from experience and instinct—told him that letting Fowler get away would be a gross oversight. He wasn’t sure if it was the idea that Fowler might take something crucial with him if he left, or that he might leave something terrible behind. Either way, it seemed smart to keep the scientist with them.
The way Fowler went to such lengths to keep himself alive, maybe he knew something the rest of them didn’t, at least about surviving in the wake of contact with the Xenomorphs.
The emergency escape pods were on the lower deck of the ship. A metal ladder led down into a gloomy silence below him. Ever since his stint on Nungal, he’d developed a distinct unease of lower decks, along with his dislike for synthetics. He wouldn’t have said he was afraid of either, exactly; he preferred to think of it as a healthy and well-placed mistrust.
It would figure, finding Fowler down there in the dark. The guy was going to be a pain in the ass to the very end.
Roots dropped as silently as he could to the metal floor beneath the ladder. The hull curved up and around him and he shivered. Faint running lights illuminated a path leading toward the emergency pods. His eyes adjusted to the gloom, and he moved quickly.
