CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

Determination. You could see it in his eyes. The way he walked. The way he held the file that was in his hand. He was determined. He worked his way up from the bottom, manipulated his enemies to get where he was today. He had been waiting for this moment his entire life and wasn't going to miss the chance.

Too many people before him had rushed in hoping to secure victory and as a result, secured failure. Too many people had died for him to go down that road. He was determined not to fail.

As he walked towards his destination, he thought about the past events leading up to this. How many people died because they hadn't listened to that woman? Well he would listen to what she had to say. Ripley was no fool. She went up against these things more than once and had only just gotten away with her life. There was no one dead or alive who knew more about these creatures than her. Not even himself. Even so, death still caught her. In the end, he thought, these creatures had always won.

He came to a door with a security keypad next to it. He entered his number that allowed him access and the door opened. He walked through, down another hallway.

He just couldn't understand how after all she had told them, they had still insisted on trying to capture one of these creatures the hard way. He knew why. They were dumb. Too worried about dollar signs.

He came to another door, this one with an armed guard standing next to it.
He didn't give the guard a second thought as he signed his name in the book and read his access card through the slot.

Once through that door he began to think about what he was about to ask the Board of Directors to do. They wouldn't come to the decision lightly. He would make sure of that.

He came to another door. He stopped to take a breath. This was it, what he had been waiting his entire life for. He took one glance at the Weyland Yutani Corporation sign on the door and entered.

Eleven pairs of eyes watched him enter. They were all seated at a big oak table. One of those long tables you would normally find in a mansion. He came to his chair at the head of the table and dropped the file on the desk. He didn't sit. He wanted everyone to look up at him.

He made eye contact with everyone, hoping to see signs of commitment. Instead he saw signs of bewilderment. At the other end of the table sat a General. General of the United Systems Military. He had a cold look in his eyes. He was probably the only other person in the room that understood what they were up against.

"I guess by now you all know why you're here," he began. "I'll cut straight to the chase, Another site has been found. We have another opportunity to go after the alien." No one made a sound.

"We all know the legend of Ripley. I doubt that you know the details. This is not something we should rush into." He leaned on the desk, "before we even begin to contemplate going through with this, we will listen to what Ripley has to say and to what my men have to show you. Let me tell you that this information was not easy to come by."

He started to walk around the table, making eye contact with every member there. Andrew Franks, Chairman of the board of directors of the Weyland Yutani Corporation needed everyone's attention. "In front of you there will be a file. This file is Ripley's first statement. The one she gave to the board of inquiry after they found her floating around for almost sixty years in hypersleep. She still holds the record for the longest hypersleep. You will note that she gives a fairly detailed statement from when they woke up to when she detonated the Nostromo. These are her words gentlemen. This is primary evidence."

He paused to let that sink in. "Considering the events that have taken place since then, we must assume everything that Ripley has told us, is correct."

"This event took place 257 years ago. 57 years later she is found in the shuttle having drifted through the core systems. Now is where the # really hits the fan," Franks said as he came to his chair and sat down. "After giving this statement to a board of inquiry," he tapped the file with his finger, "she finds out that terraformers have set up a colony on LV426. Naturally she assumes the worst. However, it took a company man to sentence those colonists to death. He made a call to LV426 and gave them the coordinates that Ripley had. Guess what happened?"

"What was his name?" someone asked. Franks looked at him with a glare that would melt ice. "Burke. Carter Burke. Just a low down shit kicker trying to make it in the big time."
"How did he ever find out about Ripley?"
"He was the company rep for the deep salvage team that found her. All reports from that team went through him."

"Wait a minute," someone else said, "didn't Ripley say that they set down there on Company orders? Who gave them the orders?"
"That is something we don't know. We do have our theories," he replied.
"Such as..."

"Looking at the records we believe that another ship passed close to LV426 before the Nostromo. There are no records of it having landed on LV426 but they could have altered them. My theory is that they landed under the same impression, the acoustic beacon. Once they saw the Alien Ship they got out of there and fixed the recorders so they would get their bonus money. Maybe the guy who gave the orders was on that ship and decided to have someone else take a look. He saw that the next ship to pass near there was the Nostromo, being a company rep he took off the current science officer and replaced him with Ash and also changed the flight plan so that they would pass close enough. When they went missing, he shut his gob so as not to get into trouble. There are no records of any such thing happening but it's the closet I can come to explaining it."

He paused waiting to see if there were going to be any more interruptions.

"Of course the colony is wiped out and we lose contact. The board of directors at the time decided to bring in the military not wanting to go up against these creatures by themselves. They turn all juristriction over to the Marines. Ripley goes along as an adviser. Keep in mind that these Marines were the best of the best. They go in, find the colony wiped out and in turn get wiped out themselves. After the first encounter with the aliens only Ripley, Burke, a synthetic by the name of Bishop, the little girl they found, three Marines and the Lieutenant, who was knocked unconscious survive. To cut a long story short, Ripley, the kid and one marine survive. Bishop survived as well only in a few more pieces then before."

He stood up, looking into the eyes looking back at him. "Now gentleman, what I'm about to show you was not easy to come by. We have the actual recorded images from the individual marine's video cameras. Finding something like this after 200 years was not an easy task. We will now watch the first encounter the marines have with the aliens. We have set it up so that you will be seeing everything that Ripley, Burke and the Lieutenant saw in the APC. This is unedited footage."

He turned to one of his men who was standing by the door and told him to play the tapes. The lights turned off and one whole wall began to slide up, revealing a row of monitors. Everyone turned to watch the monitors. They flicked on, almost simultaneously.

The images they showed were of a dark place, possibly a basement. Everyone watched in silence, as the marines went down stairs to the sublevels.

Someone asked, "why's it all fuzzy?" Just before Franks could answer, the marines on the videotape answered for him.
"Ah, your transmission's showing a lot of breakup," one of them said.
"Probably getting some interference from the structure," another one answered.
Franks looked at the one who asked the question and raised an eyebrow before turning back to the monitors.

Franks had seen it all before. He was one of the ones who put the video back into order. That alone had been quite a job. Getting all the individual videos to link up with all the others. He was now watching the reaction everyone was giving.

"Looks like some sort of secreted resin."
"Yeah, but secreted from what?"
"Nobody touch nothing..."

"Ah, look, Apone, we can't have any firing in there. I want you to collect magazines from everybody."
"Is he fucking crazy?"
"What's he expect us to use man, harsh language?"
"Sir I've..."
"Just do it Sergeant. Flame units only, I want rifles slung. And no grenades."

Franks turned to the General. The General looked back, no emotion showing on his face. He knew what Franks was thinking. That to go up against the aliens with nothing but a handgun and maybe a flame-thrower was sure way to kill yourself. But of course, these marines didn't know that. Yet.

Franks and the General turned back to the monitors. This was where it all happened. Franks would watch carefully the reaction that everyone was about to give. These highly trained marines were about to die.

He watched as a marine moved closer to someone hanging on the wall in the alien secretion. The marine lifted the head up. The eyes opened. Nearly everyone jumped. Only the General and Franks didn't. They had seen it before. The alien came bursting out of her chest, snarling viscously. Twin bursts of flame flew forth to consume the alien and its now dead host. It screamed in its death.

It didn't come through the microphones to well but Franks could hear the aliens screaming at the murder of one of their own. The marines were now alert.

"Movement"
"What's the position?"
"Ah, can't lock in."
"Talk to me Hudson."

Franks could hear the tension in his voice. He knew everyone else could to. He watched one particular monitor. The marine turned in a full circle, looking at the wall as she turned. "Maybe they don't show up on infrared at all," the marine said.

The shit hit the fan. The marine was taken from behind, lifted up into the air screaming. Franks now watched the board of directors for their reactions as the marines were wiped out. There were mixed reactions. Some were impassive, not showing any emotion but most looked terrified. One broke out in a sweat.

"Let's rock..."

"Hudson look out..."

"Drake, we are leaving..."

"Eat this..."

The monitors flicked off and the lights came back on. No one moved. No one made a sound. No one took their eyes off the blank monitors. Franks watched them. He hoped he hadn't scared them enough not to help him go through with his plan. He just wanted them to realise that they had to plan this.

"It had all happened so fast," one of them said.
"I didn't think they were that vicious," said another.
"My God," was all one of them could say.

"You all saw what happened. You now know why this company for 257 years, has been trying to capture one of these creatures for our bioweapons division. Let me tell you some of the alien characteristics. Acid for blood. Its reproductive capabilities. Its strength. It has no sense of self-awareness meaning it doesn't care about itself, but the hive. It doesn't show up on infrared. It can survive in the vacuum of space. It can hibernate for goodness knows how many years, hundreds at least. And how about it's just plain mean."

Franks went on. "I'll tell you what happened after this. Only three marines that went into the nest actually got out alive thanks to Ripley. The Dropship crashed due to alien causes. Everyone left fortified themselves in the operations centre of the complex. The dropship crash caused the plant to overheat and therefore melt. This was going to result in an explosion. Bishop went out to the uplink tower to remote pilot the second dropship down to them. The aliens found their way in and two marines, the Lieutenant and Burke die leaving only Ripley, the kid and Hicks the Corporal. While escaping to the dropship the kid is captured by the aliens and taken to be a host. Hicks is doused in acid but not fatally. Ripley then goes in search of the kid. This is where she meets the queen. After destroying her nest she escapes back to the dropship with only minutes to spare before the explosion, unknowingly taking the queen with them. Ripley then fights the queen in the hanger in a power loader. And that was that. Or so she thought.

"The queen had laid a single egg and the facehugger got onto Ripley while she was in hypersleep. The facehugger cut itself on the glass causing a fire and the eev pods to eject with the hypersleep chambers. They landed, or rather crash-landed on a planet called Fiorona, Fury 161 where there was a prison facility. Only Ripley survived the crash. We think a facehugger captures a dog for its host. Once again, the shit hits the fan. One alien kills over twenty prisoners. After this alien is killed, once again by Ripley, the company shows up ready to take the alien out of Ripley. She declines preferring to kill herself than to let the company have the alien and in turn killing more people. Any questions?"

"Yeah, how did the queen lay an egg?"
"At this point we can only speculate about how she laid the egg. We think that in survival situations where the queen has to leave the nest in a hurry, she rips the egg sac off. She is then able to lay maybe only one egg to keep the species going. That egg is higher up in her abdomen. Of course, this is only speculation."

"You said that one facehugger got Ripley while she was in hypersleep and that another got a dog. If what you said about the queen was true, where did the second facehugger come from?"

"We think it got a dog. We can't be sure. Again, we can only speculate. We think that maybe a facehugger was with the queen when she chased after Ripley onto the dropship. That gives us two facehuggers. One for Ripley and one for the dog. One of them cut themselves on the glass as it was trying to get to the kid. The company was already halfway to LV426 when they got the call that Ripley was on Fury161. All records came back to us and that ship. They changed direction and proceeded to Fury161. That was how the company got there so quick. This team was led by Don Bishop. The man who designed the android Bishop. The android Bishop was a recording device for the company. Bishop was designed with the purpose of recording. Of course bishop was destroyed. This team was launched because the company thought that the marines would all be killed. They were pretty much right. But once they saw that Ripley was infected they went straight for her. Of course, Ripley killed herself.

"Now, after the company left Fury 161, they traced the flight path of the eev back to the Sulaco. There they actually found the egg in a different spot to where they expected it to be. We think that the second facehugger moved the egg through instinct. This was the last egg and so the facehugger moved it so that no one could come and destroy it. We actually have a statement from one of the prisoners that tells us everything that happened on Fury 161. It basically just tells us how the alien killed everyone and their plans to stop it. Any questions?"

Everyone looked at everyone else, trying to think of a question they could ask and hoping that someone else would.

"How long after LV426 did this event take place?" one asked.
"The eev was ejected from the Sulaco between 24 and 48 hours after they entered hypersleep."
"How long was Ripley on the ground?"
"Four days."
"Wait a minute, didn't Ripley say that these things had a gestation period of about 12 hours?"
"Yes she did. But she had a queen in her. We believe, and once again this is only speculation, that because it is a queen, the gestation period is longer. You have to imagine that in the wild when a queen is hatched it must have time to leave the current nest and give the host enough time to get as far away as possible."

"Wouldn't the queen destroy the queen egg if she laid it? That way there would be no compition to compete with."
"Possible. But looking at the history of these creatures, not once have they showed any individualism. It has always been for the species. Maybe that's why the queen doesn't destroy the egg. Or maybe it being the last egg she lays, it is always a queen. Who knows? This is what I want to find out. I've only given you speculative answers. I want proof. If half of what I've told you is correct, these creatures are probably the most amazing and dangerous creatures ever discovered."

The board of directors looked at one another and at the file under Franks arms as he leaned on the desk. Then they looked at the General who stared right back at them.

"That's not all of it," Franks suddenly said, getting everyone's attention.
"What?" one of them said.

"Oh it gets better. Around 100 years ago, the military decided to try and go after these creatures themselves."
"How?"
"They tried to clone Ripley."
"They what?"
"They tried to clone Ripley. They got a blood sample from Fury 161, or according to their mistaken reports, Fury 16."

"What good would cloning Ripley do? Weren't they after the alien?"
"Yes. But they thought that if they cloned Ripley from a blood sample from when she had the alien in her, they would get the alien as well."

"Cloning doesn't work like that. It works on the genetic structure of the blood sample. The alien would have to insert its genetic structure into Ripleys for that to work."
"Correct. They tried anyway, and guess what happened. They got the alien."

He paused letting that sink in. For a creature like that to be able to play with the genetic structure of its host spoke volumes of its ability.

"However. They botched it up. It took them twenty years and eight physical attempts at cloning to get Ripley and the alien. Even then they botched it up. The seven attempts before the last were completely ruined. Too much alien DNA. We think that the alien acts on a genetic level so that it can take on the characteristics of its host. Not the other way around which is what happened in this case. The aliens had too much of Ripley in them. They weren't a pure strain of alien. They were flawed. And Ripley in turn survived, which hosts aren't supposed to do. Ripley also had alien traits in her. She was not entirely... human.

"With this in mind," Franks went on, "it might be possible to get different strains of aliens in the wild. Ones with different characteristics and behaviour patterns."

"For example…;" one of the members asked.
"Well for example the creature on Fury161 we believe came out of a dog. It's possible that this alien had different characteristics to those on LV426 which of course used humans for their hosts. Maybe it was a faster runner, or more ferocious. Who knows maybe we could even get flying aliens."

"How?"
"Well if a facehugger was to capture a large bird, who knows. Once again, this is all speculation."

This all happened when this company "officially" closed down, 100 years ago. That was when the military was getting to nosy so the board of directors at the time decided to officially close office and instead work in secret until about fifty years ago when they opened back up again."

"What happened with the aliens?"
"Of course they escaped and started a killing spree but in the end they all died because an android crashed the ship they were on."
"Android?"
"Second Gen. She patched into the network and found out about the aliens. Of course what she found out wasn't the truth, the whole truth so help her god. What she patched into was carefully monitored by us. The company made sure that she knew enough to go and try to stop it. She didn't know the half of it and half of what she did know was false. Hell she thought it was a hundred years later for Christ's sake."

"Why did the company let her know?"
"Because we knew all about what the military was doing and knew that they wouldn't have a chance. We let her know so that when she went and was either killed or successful in her mission, we could find out all we want to know by getting her little black box. Her recording device."

"What about Ripley? The clone."
"She lived and died of old age two years ago. Ripley is dead."
"How do you know? Did you see her body?"
"No, I didn't see her body. I saw a grave. A tombstone."
"How old was she?"
"Who knows, but she was older then she had any right to be. We believe that the alien DNA extended her life somewhat."

He looked into everyone's eyes, lastly the General before he went on. "There you have it gentleman. The saga to date. Just for the record, the first encounter on the Nostromo took place in the year 2122. The second encounter on LV426 took place in the year 2179. The third encounter on Fury 161 took place approximately two days after that. The forth encounter on the miltary vessel the Auriga, took place in the year 2279."

Everyone sat silent. Thinking about the information they were just given. "So what's the story now? How can we go after the alien again?" one asked.

"A survey team has landed on a planet on the outer rim. They found another ship, just like the one the Nostromo found on LV426. The team went in and we haven't heard back from them since. We assume that the aliens are there."

"You assume?"
"Yes. I know that it might not be true but we've got to give it a shot. That's one other thing I want to know. What is the connection between the aliens and the creator of that ship on LV426. We don't even know where the alien comes from originally let alone what this creature was doing in a ship with thousands of eggs from the aliens."

"That reminds me," someone said, "Why didn't the colonists on LV426 hear the acoustic beacon?"

Franks answered, "It could be a number of things. It could be as simple as the batteries running out. There could have been an earthquake destroying the mechanism, who knows just that they didn't hear it."

"And why can't we just go back to LV426?"
"Because the derelict spaceship was blown up along with the atmosphere processor."
"How large was the explosion," someone asked sounding as if they didn't believe a word of it.

"Bishop estimated the explosion at 30 kilometres. He underestimated. The blast radius was in fact closer to 70 kilometres, the shockwave itself going out to about 200 kilometres. This in turn caused major earthquakes and with the atmosphere as unstable as it already was, it didn't take much for the spaceship to be destroyed along with it. LV426 is now inhospitable."

"What is it you want us to do?" one of the directors asked.
"I want your authorisation to go ahead in another attempt to capture one of these creatures through any means necessary," Franks said matter-of-factly.

"How do you plan to capture one?"
"That's the Generals' department," Franks said holding his hand out towards the General. "He has a keen interest in these creatures as well and if we agree to this, he will take care of the nasty end while we provide the research, providing the General here gets some, how shall we say, fringe benefits."

Everyone looked around. Stared into each others eyes. Everyone nodded their head. Who knows what recording devices were in this room. No one wanted to go on record but they wanted the creature as much as anyone.

"Thank you gentlemen I'll take care of it from here," Franks said.