Aliens Mission to Hell Chapter 1, an aliens/predator fanfic

Aliens: Mission to Hell

Summary: Ripley thought the nightmare was over once she was rescued and brought back to civilization. However she now faces new struggles with the company and secrets pertaining to her daughter and finally she will be forced to confront her nightmare once more.

Aliens: Mission to Hell
By Razial

Disclaimer: I don't own the Alien franchise or anything from its connected media, they belong to whoever owns the rights whoever that maybe these days.

Pairings: Ripley/Hicks, Alexander/Kara, Hudson/Tessa

Notes: This is a very au version of Aliens with a few more marines added to Gorman's unit as I always thought their team was a little light, in regards to how many colonists were missing and the company's suspected plans for the capture of a Xenomorph. I'm also increasing the number of colonists that survived as the idea that Newt did on her own at her age was always a little hard to swallow. I'm also adding in the fact that the events from the game Alien: Isolation happened in cannon.

Chapter 1

(USS Sulaco)

Ellen Ripley lay in her cryotube dreaming alongside a dozen other people, her dreams were far from restful and centered on events before coming aboard this ship. A choice she still wasn't sure was the correct one. Unable to help herself she found her thoughts focused on meeting her daughter's family and learning that she too had faced the same Alien she had. That in trying to find the truth about what happened to her Amanda had fallen into the same nightmare she herself had.

+AMTH+

(Gateway Station)

Ripley stared at the wall of her small apartment wondering not for the ninth time whether surviving the hellish ordeal had been worth it, her crew was dead. Plus there was the fact that Dallas had been more than just her captain he had been the father of her daughter, not that he had ever known that. They'd had a brief romance which had quickly petered out, but she'd become pregnant with her daughter Amanda and decided to keep it to herself, because she had known that Dallas had little interest in gaining a family. When Dallas had hired her onto the Nostromo a year or two after Amanda's birth, he had not even bothered to inquire as to whether the girl was his or not and thus that had sealed her choice. Also he had begun a relationship with Lambert, which was one of the reasons she and Lambert never saw eye to eye on things especially once things fell apart as the Xeno attacked and Dallas was killed.

She'd had ten years with her daughter, she'd loved her from the moment she was born and many a time had thought about quitting her job and getting a job earth side, but her love of space kept her from doing it every time. Now she deeply regretted not quitting as her daughter was now dead, two years before finally been found. She couldn't help but think that her daughter must had grown up hating her for breaking her promise to be back in time for her birthday. She prayed that her daughter had a happy life despite her disappearance. She knew thanks to Burke that she had married and had kids, but hewarned her away from trying to make contact till things settled down. Her review had not exactly gone her way and she was not in the Company's favor. Not that she cared one way or the other. The Company was the reason her crew was dead, they were the ones who ordered them to check out LV-426 and it was them who basically wrote them all off as expendable once they knew about the Alien they had found. They somehow ordered Ash to even kill them should they pose a threat to the Alien's life, which she would never forgive. None of them had known about Ash been an android. At least not that she knew although it was possible Kane and Dallas had known as they had been the captain and first officer of the Nostromo, but if they had they had not shared that knowledge with the rest of the crew.

Thinking about her review made her anger come back, those stupid idiots were as always more concerned about money and profit than they were about the lives of the people who work for them. She hated them, she cursed them and she hoped one day they would live to eat their stupidity somehow although she prayed it had nothing to do with that damn Alien. Although the nightmares from that whole thing continued to haunt her, she hoped that it was the last she would ever hear or see about it. Letting out a sigh she got up and prepared for bed, she wondered how the next year on Gateway would go for her. She had a simple job now, but she couldn't leave until her year of observation was over and the Company finally decided to discharge her. Laying down on her bunk after changing she closed her eyes and hoped for a dreamless sleep, but she knew better that she darkness would find her again.

+AMTH+

(Gateway Station, a few days later)

Ripley looked up as there was a knock on her door. She wasn't expecting any visitors not that she would be getting any except maybe Burke who had visited once or twice to check up on her on the Company's behalf she was certain no matter what he said otherwise. Opening the door she found someone she did not know, he was clearly not Company, nor was the woman with him but what really drew her attention was the slight resemblance the woman had to her last memory of Amanda. She felt a chill run down her spine as she stared into the woman's eyes, eyes that looked so very like her daughters and her own.

"Ellen Ripley?" the older man inquired.

"I'm yes," she managed to respond with a nod of her head.

"It is a great pleasure to finally meet you. I'm not sure how much you've found about Amanda's life, but I was her husband," the man informed her with a gentle smile. "My name is John McClaren and this is mine and Amanda's daughter Jennifer, your granddaughter," he introduced himself and the woman confirming what Ripley had already suspected.

Ripley backed away from the door and allowed them to enter before closing it and heading for her couch, sitting down she wondered how they had tracked her down and more importantly how they had known she had been found in the first place especially as Burke had insisted that she would not contact them for a while.

"How did you find out I was back?" she managed to inquire. "The Company rep suggested it was better that my return was kept quiet and that I will not contact you for a while since I was found guilty during my review," she explained.

"Amanda made a lot of friends during her life, especially after she discovered the truth about your disappearance," John answered much to Ripley's confusion.

"I don't understand?" Ripley said feeling a sick feeling well up in her for reasons beyond her because it was impossible that Amanda could have found out the real truth about why she never came home.

"I can understand that, no doubt the Company would not wish you to know the truth about Amanda's own dealings with them and especially not with the Alien organism she and you both encountered," John responded with a nod of understanding.

Ripley felt the blood drain out of her face at John's words, it couldn't be. Her baby couldn't have somehow faced the same evil. 'How?' she wondered as she rubbed her head and quickly got up and headed to her fridge and pulled out a bottle of whiskey and poured three glasses before handing them out. She took a deep gulp from her own; somehow she knew she would need it.

"How? The Company would never have told her the truth," Ripley demanded to know.

"No, they wouldn't, but while we were dating, she was constantly looking for you or whatever happened to you and your ship," John answered. "She was working as a welder when she was approached by someone in the Company who told her the flight recorder of the Nostromo had been found. He offered a place for her on the crew been sent to recover it from the station holding it," he explained. "She agreed. The day we said goodbye before she departed I made her understand I knew she had to do this or she would never forgive herself," he continued. "I would wait for her return for five months. When she did finally return she was not the same woman who had left, but she told me she now knew the truth about what happened to you and that unlike she had previously believed as a child you had not abandoned her," he went on, pausing only to take a gulp from his glass while Ripley digested what he had told her. "She was scarred and had constantly nightmares for months even a year afterwards, Weyland-Yutani never left her alone and constantly hounded her for some time afterwards," he said.

"Why?" Ripley demanded to know.

"Because she would not tell them what she had found out about the Aliens and especially not what had taken place on Sevastopol station. She did however find the flight recorder on the ship that first discovered it after dealing with some problems. She found the message you left for her on the recorder as well as your final report," John informed her. "Her fight against the Alien changed her. She became harder and somewhat cynical, but she felt more at peace with the fact that you were out there somewhere, that it was possible you may yet still be found and she kept that hope right up to her death," he assured her while Ripley did her best not to cry at finally accepting her daughter had indeed faced the same nightmare that she herself had. "She hid everything she wrote about it in the hopes you would eventually be found, as I said she made many friends even within the Company who like you and her had fallen afoul of their politics and money grabbing and thus one of them called me to inform me you had been found and where you were," he told her as he finished his drink. "Travelling under false documentation we got here as soon as we could. I made one final promise to Amanda and that was to deliver this case with her diaries. She wrote them for you and you only, so you'd know what she went through and her understanding of why you broke your promise to come home," he finished as he handed the case over.

"Thank you," Ripley managed to say as she ran her hand over the case wondering just how bad her daughter's nightmare had been. "What should I do with them once I've read them?" she inquired.

"That is of course up to you Ellen, but if it were me I would destroy them so that Weyland-Yutani doesn't get their hands on them. Amanda went to a lot of trouble to keep them away from the Company," John stated.

Jennifer who had stayed quiet through the entire conversation finally spoke up. "I would destroy them to. Mom was worried that they would use her diaries to find some way to the relict and the eggs it contained," showing that she too knew the entire story which was why she had not seemed doubtful once her father started talking.

"We know they formed a colony on the planet LV-426, but we also know for certain they have not found the ship as they did not know about it or if they did they didn't know its location," John added.

Ripley suddenly felt her stomach drop as she realized her review inquiry may have given them clues as to the ships location, she cursed herself and prayed she was wrong. John and Jennifer stood and Ripley quickly followed, it was clear they intended to leave.

"We would love to stay and get to know one another, I know Jennifer would especially like that, but we can't," John explained before Ripley could say anything. "If the Company knew we were here they could arrest us and you. They would find the diaries and then they may open the Pandora's Box you and Amanda have sacrificed so much to keep closed," he added with a smile. "But we will keep in touch and hopefully once you've been released from Gateway you can visit us on Earth," he offered before he guided Jennifer towards the door.

"Thank you for coming and telling me about this," Ripley said. "I hope we will meet again. If not I'm glad to know Amanda had at least a good a life and to have had a family who clearly loved her and she loved in return," she continued.

Jennifer smiled and nodded before stepping forward and enclosing Ripley in a hug much to Ripley's surprise. "Goodbye Grandma, hope to see you soon," Jennifer said before she followed her father out of the apartment, leaving Ripley to collapse against the door and finally begin to weep for the loss of her daughter and the life she would never have.

It took her sometime to get herself back together and move back to the case and open it to find several diaries within it, each had a number on it. Opening the first she began to read, her hand absently trailing over her daughter's neat handwriting

+AMTH+

(USS Sulaco)

Ripley shifted in her cryotube as the dream faded and her mind wandered around. No one really knew how one could dream during cryosleep, but Ripley still recalled some of the nightmares she had suffered during her long journey back to civilization although she shouldn't. Her mind soon drifted to the memory of been recruited for this mission, a mission to once again face the nightmare that had destroyed her life.

+AMTH+

(Gateway Station)

It had been a few months since her visit from her son in law and granddaughter and Ripley had finally finished going through the diaries of her daughter. She was truly horrified to learn of just how close her Amanda had come to dying. She had faced not only the same threat of the Alien that had decimated the crew of the Nostromo, but had also found herself facing more than one of them and somehow escaped. Her daughter had proven more than up to the challenge and survived. She felt great pride in Amanda's success against the Alien, but also sorrow that she ever had to face the same nightmare. As advised by John and Jennifer she had burnt the diaries once she had finished reading them. There was no way in hell she was risking Weyland-Yutani getting their hands on them.

The company could track the location of the derelict from them, that would be a disaster waiting to happen and she wouldn't risk it. Her daughter had clearly sacrificed a lot to keep everything hidden from the damn Company. She just hoped she hadn't let anything slip during her review by the board.

A sudden knock on her door startled her and she quickly moved to it and opened it. She almost let out a groan of annoyance at seeing Burke, but her attention was suddenly focused on the man next to him who was clearly military.

"Hey Ripley, how're you doing?" Burke said in greeting before swiftly moving on clearly in a rush. "I'd like to introduce" was as far as he got before Ripley slammed the door in his face.

Burke exchanged a short look with the man next to him having expected Ripley to be less than welcoming. Her feelings towards the Company were no secret and he knew been robbed of her flight status and rank had to have helped make that anger and maybe hatred worse. Still he had a job to do here and he desperately needed her cooperation, hence he took a deep breath and knocked again. As there came no response he decided to shout as best he could through the door. "Ripley we need to talk please it is really important. We've lost contact with the colony on LV-426," he explained and he was unsurprised as the door immediately opened and Ripley stared at him with a focused and dark expression before allowing him and his companion to enter. "This is Lieutenant Gorman of the Colonial Marines," he said finishing his original greeting and introduction. "We have an unknown situation and they may be needed. The colony has been dark now for three weeks past their last scheduled check in and that has many people worried," he explained as Ripley poured them all some coffee and handed them out.

"So why come to me Burke? Why do I need to know about this?" Ripley inquired as she sat and drunk her coffee ignoring the slight burning it caused as it went down. "As far as I can tell I'm not exactly on the Company's go to list," she spat sarcastically.

Burke smiled, not taking any offence at her sarcastic comment. He knew she had every right to be sarcastic, but he needed her for this mission especially since everything that he feared had happened to Hadley's Hope was on his head. Right after the review hearing concerning Ripley he had ordered an expedition to be sent from the Colony to the coordinates contained in the data log of the escape shuttle she had been aboard. Within several days of his transmission the colony had gone dark and no further communication had come and he now had a disaster to cover up before it blew up in his face. To do so he had played dumb as to why the colony had gone dark. He had also wiped all traces of his transmission to Hadley's hope from the mainframe thus nothing could be traced to him from this end. However the problem was any search team sent could find traces of his transmission in the colony mainframe, hence he had volunteered to be the company representative for the search and rescue mission and thankfully there had been no argument. Now he just had to convince Ripley to join them. He would need her knowledge of the creatures just in case it turned out they were behind the colony going dark. Also he decided she may prove useful in gaining a specimen he could bring back for the bio labs to study. He was certain he could manipulate her hatred of the things to help him as a way of finding a way to kill them more effectively.

"You're right Ripley, you don't have great standing with the board but they are hedging their bets that this may be more than a downed transmitter which was the original idea behind the blackout with the colony," Burke finally spoke before taking a quick sip from his cup of coffee. "It was me who raised the possibility that this might be more than that, that perhaps they were wrong to ignore your warnings so quickly," he explained doing his best to paint himself in a good light as an ally. "I suggested that the outcry that may come should it be found out that the Alien species you described in your report was responsible for an entire colony's death and that they did nothing would have serious repercussions for the board as a whole," he continued. "I also suggested it might damage the Company's image and profit to such an extent that it could open up a shot at a corporate takeover from one of our few rivals. That shock them up and made them agree to bring you on as an adviser," he finished with a pleased smile as everything he had said was true.

He had easily manipulated the board's fears as he knew very much what was important to them and what it was they feared the most. He had spent his early career studying the board members and their reactions to events around them. He had done his best to get close to some of them or at least those in positions to know the board members well. He had learned a lot in that time hence when it came time to put it to use it did not fail him.

"An adviser?" Ripley asked in surprise as she finished her coffee and stood up in slight agitation.

"If this is a downed transmission then no muss no foul, but if this is something more and if it does have something to do with your Alien menace I want you there to advise the marines we are sending in," Burke explained. "They are highly trained to combat many situations. Am I not correct Lieutenant?" he asked turning to Gorman who was finishing off his own coffee having stayed quiet up till now.

"That's correct. My men are highly trained to face many situations, but it is always nice to have someone who might have some information we can use in the case of meeting something new," Gorman responded confidently, even though he failed to point out he had not commanded his new company for more than a month or two or that his own experience in actual combat was limited to one combat drop a few years before.

He did question internally why he was put in charge of this mission. There were plenty of more qualified commanders, but he had decided not to question it and instead use it to try and prop up his own career which had faltered since making the rank of Lieutenant. "I have been briefed on your report by Mr Burke and I can say no one in the marine core or anywhere else has reported anything like your Alien before," he stated.

"Good I would hope not Mr Gorman, these things are out of your worst nightmares," Ripley shot back bitterly. "And what makes you think Burke I would ever agree to go on your mission after what the board did to me?" she asked turning back to Burke.

"Because if you agree to help us Ripley I can guarantee you will get your rank and flight status restored plus all pay you are still owed by the Company for the Nostromo's last flight," Burke responded. "And believe me getting that barging out of the board was not easy, but I insisted considering your record before the final flight of the Nostromo was spotless and you could have easily made Captain had the Nostromo not been destroyed said it all about your skill and competence," he added quickly. "You would be an asset on this mission and this mission will be search and rescue, there is an entire colony to be found Ripley. Entire families could be at risk, we need you just in case this is more than it seems," he stated as seriously as he could.

Ripley stared at them both as she considered everything she had heard. A part of her wanted to show them out the door with a good kick in the ass, but another part of her wanted to help. The idea of whole families been at risk from these Aliens made her shiver in horror, but the question in her mind was could she confront this nightmare again. "Let me think about it Burke. I can't make this decision on the fly," she requested after taking a deep breath.

"We are leaving in two days Ripley, so I need an answer by tomorrow night at the least," Burke said with what he hoped was a warm and friendly smile. "Take your time, here's my card and don't worry about waking me if you call late. This mission is as high profile as we get and everyone's ass is one the line," he told her.

"Thank you for the coffee Miss," Gorman said as he handed back his cup and headed towards the door still unable to get a read on how Ripley would work within a military unit, something he had been working on since the door opened.

Ripley watched them leave before resting her head against the door and letting out a sigh as she contemplated what to do. Lives were on the line and it was true that she could help, especially in making sure these marines that were sent did not take this mission too lightly. "Shit," she muttered as she tried to weigh what was the correct call. She looked to where Jones, her cat, the only other survivor of the Nostromo was curled up on her couch. The cat yawned and looked back at her as if sensing her attention and wondered what it would say if it could talk. Putting her mind onto other things she moved to get ready for work and decide to think about it later. Jones watched as she moved about before going back to sleep.

The End?