'You're all crazy,' he muttered. 'You know that.'
'Man,' Vasquez told him softly, 'why else would anyone join the Colonial Marines?' She glanced over at the corporal. 'Tell me something, Hicks: Does that mean I can plead insanity for shooting this mierda? If I can, I might as well shoot that sorry excuse for a lieutenant while I'm at it. Don't want to waste a good defence.'
'Nobody's shooting anybody,' the corporal informed her firmly. 'We're getting out of here.'
Ripley met his eyes, nodded once, then turned and sat down She put a reassuring arm around the only conscious nonparticipant in the discussion. Newt leaned against her shoulder.
'We're going home, honey,' she told the girl.
Now that their course of action had been determined, Hicks took a moment to check out the interior of the APC. Between the fire damage and the holes eaten by alien acid, it was clearly a write-off.
'Let's get together what we can carry. Hudson, give me a hand with the lieutenant.'
The comtech eyed the paralyzed form of his commanding officer with undisguised distaste. 'How about we just sit him up in Operations and strap him to the chair? He'll feel right at home.'
'No sell. He's still alive, and we've got to get him out of here.'
'Yeah, I know, I know. Just don't keep reminding me.'
'Ripley, you keep an eye on the child. She's sort of taken to you, anyway.'
'The feeling's mutual.' She clasped Newt tightly to her.
'Vasquez, can you cover us until the dropship touches down?'
She smiled at him, showing perfect teeth. 'Can pigs fly?' She tapped the stock of the pulse-rifle.
The corporal turned to face the landing team's last human member. 'You coming?'
'Don't be funny,' Burke grumbled.
'I won't. Not here. This isn't a funny place.' He switched on his headset pickup. 'Bishop, you found anything out?'
The synthetic's voice filled the passenger bay. 'Not much The equipment here is colonial-style basic. I've gone about as far as I can go with the tools available.'
'It doesn't matter. We're getting out. Pack it up and meet us on the tarmac. Can you make it okay? I don't want to abandon the APC until the dropship's on final approach.'
'No problem. It's been quiet back here.'
'Okay. Don't take anything you can't carry easily. Move it.'
The dropship rose from its place on the concrete pad fighting the wind as it lifted. Under Ferro's steady hand it hovered, pivoted in midair, and began to move over the colony toward the stalled APC.
'Got you on visual. Wind's let up a little. I'll set her down as close as I can,' Ferro informed them.
'Roger.' Hicks turned to his companions. 'Ready?' Everyone nodded except Burke, who looked sour but said nothing 'Then let's get out of here.' He cycled the door.
Wind and rain poured in as the ramp extended. They filed rapidly out of the vehicle. The dropship was already in plain sight, edging toward them. Searchlights blazed from its flanks and belly. One illuminated a single human shape striding through the mist toward them.
'Bishop!' Vasquez waved. 'Long time no see.'
He called across to her. 'Didn't work out so good, huh?'
'It stank.' She spat downwind. 'Tell you all about it sometime.'
'Later. After hypersleep. After we've put this place far behind us.'
She nodded, the only one of the waiting group whose attention was not monopolized by the approaching dropship Her dark eyes continuously scanned the landscape around the personnel carrier. Nearby, Ripley waited, gripping Newt's small hand tightly. Hudson and Hicks carried the stillunconscious Gorman between them.
'Hold it there,' Ferro instructed them. 'Give me a little room I don't want to come down on top of you.' She thumped her headset pickup. 'It'd be nice if I had a little help up here Spunkmeyer. Get off the pot.'
The compartment door slid aside behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder, angry and not bothering to hide the fact. 'It's about time. Where the . . .?'
Her eyes widened, and the rest of the accusation trailed away.
It wasn't Spunkmeyer.
The alien barely fit through the opening. Outer jaws flared to reveal the inner set of teeth. There was a blur of movement and an explosive, organic whoosh. Ferro barely had time to scream as she was slammed backward into the control console.
From below, the would-be refugees watched in dismay as the dropship veered wildly to port. Its main engines roared to life and it accelerated even as it lost altitude. Ripley grabbed Newt and sprinted toward the nearest building.
'Run!'
The dropship clipped a rock formation at the edge of the causeway, slewed left, and struck a basalt ridge. It tumbled turning completely on its back like a dying dragonfly, struck the tarmac, and exploded. Sections and compartments began to break away from the mainframe, some of them already afire. The body of the ship arced into the air once more bouncing off the unyielding stone, fire blazing from it engines and superstructure.
Part of an engine module slammed into the APC, setting off its armament. The personnel carrier blew itself to bits as shells and fuel exploded inside it. A flaming Catherine wheel, the remains of the dropship skipped past and rolled into the outskirts of the atmosphere processing station. A tremendous fireball lit the dark sky of Acheron. It faded rapidly.
Emerging from concealment, the stunned survivors stared at the debris in disbelief as their superior firepower and hopes of getting off the planet were simultaneously reduced to charred metal and ash.
'Well that's great,' said a near hysterical Hudson. 'That's just great, man. Now what are we supposed to do? We're in some real fine shape now.'
'Are you finished?' Hicks stared hard at the comtech unti Hudson looked abashed. Then he glanced at Ripley. 'You okay?'
She nodded and tried to hide her real feelings as she looked down at Newt. She could have spared herself the effort. It was impossible to hide anything from the child. Newt looked calm enough. She was breathing hard, true, but it was from the effort of racing for cover, not from fear. The girl shrugged sounding remarkably grown-up.
'I guess we're not leaving, right?'
Ripley bit her lip. 'I'm sorry, Newt.'
'You don't have to be sorry. It wasn't your fault.' She stared silently at the flaming wreckage of the dropship.
Hudson was kicking aside rocks, bits of metal, anything smaller than his boot. 'Just tell me what we're supposed to do now. What're we gonna do now?'
Burke looked annoyed. 'Maybe we could build a fire and sing songs.'
Hudson took a step toward the Company rep, and Hicks had to intervene.
'We should get back.' Everyone turned to look down at Newt who was still staring at the burning dropship. 'We should get back 'cause it'll be dark soon. They come mostly at night. Mostly.'
'All right.' Hicks nodded in the direction of the ruined APC. It was mostly metal and composites and shouldn't burn much longer. 'The fire's about had it. Let's see what we can find.'
'Scrap metal,' suggested Burke.
'And maybe something more. You coming?'
The Company rep rose from where he'd been sitting. 'I'm sure not staying here.'
'Up to you.' The corporal turned to their synthetic. 'Bishop see if you can make Operations livable. What I mean is, make sure it's . . . clear.'
The android responded with a gentle smile. 'Take point? I know what that means. I'm expendable, of course.'
'Nobody's expendable.' Hicks started across the tarmac toward the smoking APC. 'Let's move it.'
Day on Acheron was dim twilight; night was darker than the farthest reaches of interstellar space, because not even the stars shone through its dense atmosphere to soften the barren surface with twinkling light. The wind howled around the battered metal buildings of Hadley town, whistling down corridors and rattling broken doors. Sand pattered against cracked windows, a perpetual snare-drum roll. Not a comforting sound to be heard. Inside, everyone waited for the nightmare to come.
Emergency power was sufficient to light Operations and its immediate environs but not much else. There the weary and demoralized survivors gathered to consider their options Vasquez and Hudson had made one final run to the hulk that was the armoured personnel carrier. Now they set down their prize, a large, scorched, dented packing case. Several similar cases were stacked nearby.
Hicks glanced at the case and tried not to sound too disappointed. He knew what the answer to his question would be but asked it, anyhow. Maybe he was wrong.
'Any ammo?' Vasquez shook her head and slumped into an office chair.
'Everything was stored in the airspace between the APC's walls. It all went up when it caught fire.' She pulled off her sweat-soaked bandanna and wiped a forearm across her hairline. 'Man, what I wouldn't give for some soap and a hot shower.'
Hicks turned toward the table on which reposed their entire weapons inventory.
'This is it, then. Everything we could salvage.' His gaze examined the stock, wishing he could triple it by looking at it 'We've got four pulse-rifles with about fifty rounds each. Not so good. About fifteen M-40 grenades and two flamethrowers less than half full—one damaged. And we've got four of these robot-sentry units with their scanners and display relays intact. He approached the stack of packing cases and broke the seal on the nearest. Ripley joined him in inspecting the contents.
Stabilized in packing foam was a squat automatic weapon Secured in a separate set of boxes next to it was matching video and movement-sensor instrumentation.
'Looks pretty efficient,' she commented.
'They are.' Hicks shut the case. 'Without them I'd say we might as well cut our wrists right now. With them, well, our chances are better than none, anyway. Trouble is we need about a hundred like this one and ten times the ammunition But I'm grateful for small favours.' He rapped his knuckles on the hard plastic case. 'If these hadn't been packed like this, they would've gone blooey with the rest of the APC.'
'What makes you think we stand a chance, anyway?' Hudson said.
Ripley ignored him. 'How long after we're declared overdue can we expect a rescue?'
Hicks looked thoughtful. He'd been too absorbed with the problems of their immediate survival to think about the possibility of help from outside.
'We should have filed a mission update yesterday. Call it about seventeen days from tonight.'
The comtech whirled and stomped off, waving his arms disconsolately. 'Man, we're not going to make it seventeen hours. Those things are going to come in here just like they did before, man. They're going to come in here and get us long before anyone from Earth comes poking around to see what's left of us. And they're gonna find us, too, all sucked out and blown dry like those poor colonists we cremated down on Clevel. Like Dietrich and Crowe, man.' He started to sob.
Ripley indicated the silently watching Newt. 'She survived longer than that with no weapons and no training. The colonists didn't know what hit them. We know what to expect and we've got more than wrenches and hammers to fight back with. We don't have to clean them out. All we have to do is survive for a couple of weeks. Just keep them away from us and stay alive.'
Hudson laughed bitterly. 'Yeah, no sweat. Just stay alive Dietrich and Crowe are alive too.'
'We're here, we've got some armaments, and we know what's coming. So you'd better just start dealing with it. Just deal with it, Hudson. Because we need you and I'm tired of your comments.' He gaped at her, but she wasn't through.
'Now get on that central terminal and call up some kind of floor-plan file. Construction blueprints, maintenance schematics, anything that shows the layout of this place. I want to see air ducts, electrical access tunnels, subbasements, water pipes: every possible way into this wing of the colony. I want to see the guts of this building, Hudson. If they can't reach us, they can't hurt us. They haven't ripped through these walls yet, so maybe that means they can't. This is colony Operations. We're in the most solid structure on the planet, excepting maybe the big atmosphere-processing stations. We're up off the ground, and they haven't shown any signs of being able to climb a sheer wall.'
Hudson hesitated, then straightened slightly, relieved to have something to concentrate on. Hicks nodded his approval to Ripley.
'Aye-firmative,' the comtech told her, a little of his cockiness restored. With it came a dram of confidence. 'I'm on it. You want to know where every plug is in this dump, I'll find it.' He headed for the vacant computer console. Hicks turned to the synthetic.
'You want a job or have you already got something in mind?'
Bishop looked uncertain. This was part of his socia programming. An android could never be actually uncertain 'If you require me for something specific . . .' Hicks shook his head. 'In that case I'll be in Medical. I'd like to continue my research. Perhaps I may stumble across something that will prove useful to us.'
'Fine,' Ripley told him. 'You do that.' She was watching him closely. If Bishop was conscious of this excessive scrutiny, he gave no sign of it as he turned and headed for the lab.
X
Once Hudson had something to work on, he moved fast Before long, Ripley, Hicks, and Burke were clustered around the comtech, peering past him at the large flat video display. It illuminated a complex series of charts and mechanical drawings. Newt hopped from one foot to the other, trying to see around the adults' bulk.
Ripley tapped the screen. 'This service tunnel has to be what they're using to move back and forth.'
Hudson studied the readout. 'Yeah, right. It runs from the processing station right into the colony maintenance sublevel here.' He traced the route with a fingertip. 'That's how they slipped in and surprised the colonists. That's the way I'd come too.'
'All right. There's a fire door at this end. This first thing we do is put one of the remote sentries in the tunnel and seal that door.'
'That won't stop them.' Hicks's gaze roved over the plans 'Once they've been stopped in the service tunnel, they'll find another way in. We gotta figure on them getting into the complex eventually.'
'That's right. So we put up welded barricades at these intersections'—she pointed to the schematic as she spoke—'and seal these ducts here, and here. Then they can only come at us from these two corridors, and we create a free field of fire for the other two sentry units, here.' She tapped the location, her nail clicking on the hard surface of the illuminated screen. 'Of course, they can always tear the roof off, but I think that'd take them a while. By then our relief should arrive, and we'll be out of here.'
'We'd better be,' Hicks muttered. He studied the layout of Operations intently. 'Otherwise this looks outstanding. Seal the fire door in the tunnel, weld the corridors shut, then all we need is a deck of cards to pass the time.' He straightened and eyed his companions. 'All right, let's move like we got a purpose.'
Hudson half snapped to attention. 'Aye-firmative.'
Next to him Newt copied the gesture and the inflection 'Aye-firmative.' The comtech looked down at her and smiled before he caught himself. Hopefully no one noticed the transient grin. It would ruin his reputation as an incorrigible hardcase.
Hudson grunted as he set the second heavy sentry gun onto its recoil-absorbing tripod. The weapon was squat, ugly unencumbered by sights or triggers. Vasquez locked the weapon in place, then snapped on the connectors that led from the firing mechanism to the attached motion sensor. When she was certain the comtech was out of the way, she nudged a single switch marked ACTIVATE. A small green light came to life atop the gun. On the small diagnostic readout set flush in the side, READY flashed yellow, then red.
Both troopers stepped clear. Vasquez picked up a battered wastebasket that had rolled into the corridor and shouted toward the weapon's aural pickup. 'Testing!' Then she threw the empty metal container out into the middle of the corridor.
Both guns swiveled and let loose before the basket hit the floor, reducing the container to dime-size shrapnel. Hudson whooped with delight.
'Take that, sucker
s!' He lowered his voice as he turned to Vasquez, his eyes rolling. 'Oh, give me a home, where the firepower roams, and the deer and the antelope get shot to hamburger.'
'You always were the sensitive type,' Vasquez told him.
'I know. It shows in my face.' Turning, he put a shoulder against the fire door. 'Give me a hand with this.'
Vasquez helped him roll the heavy steel barrier into place Then she unpacked the high-intensity portable welding torch she'd brought with her and snapped it alight. Blue flame roared from the muzzle. She turned a dial on the handle refining the acetylene finger.
Aliens Page 16
