Alien is owned by 20th Century Fox
Chapter 1
Public Enemy No. 1
Hot, wet, twisting, living, breathing...
Alive.
Those were the words to describe the biomechanical mass of sleek moving body parts the woman was sinking through. Her naked skin was weak against the strength of the pile, but she knew she was home. Those other forms around her were family and they welcomed them into their living orgy of mass.
She recognized the bodies that gyrated against her. They were her children. They lived to protect her. Their longer fingers tore at her weak, soft flesh freeing the large, hard black body beneath. It was her true body...The body of a Queen.
She was beautiful.
Orange light broke through the mass, the bodies broke away from her, and suddenly she was suspended from the ceiling looking over a chamber full of her future children. Metal structures of the inferior structure had been incased, sculpted, and converted into the glory of the hive.
Trailing behind her, suspended as the Queen, was her massive reproductive track. Even though they were nothing more than floating strands of cells and protein she could feel them. She could feel her children taking shape from bio matter into glorious, leathery eggs. When they were ready she deposited them gently on the floor.
She was mother and that thought filled her with comfort and ease. They lived to survive. They survived to live. If one, two, even a hundred of them fell it wouldn't matter. One seed was all it took for them to proliferate. Any that came in their path would be consumed and contribute to their numbers. They were destiny.
From her throne high above the Queen could sense all her children large and small. She knew they worked tirelessly to please her, and that those inferiors who had sought to destroy their peace had been taken care of.
Humans they called themselves. They were the latest in a long line of races who attempts to oppose the will of the Hive. Like so many others before them they had believed technology could overcome the will of the Hive; that they could beat off Destiny.
Humans would come for those who had attacked the hive. They would land but this time the Hive would be ready. The hive would be ready for their bullets and fire. Whatever vessels the humans brought would only aid in the distribution of the hive.
These humans reminded the Queen of distant memories of the Hive's first hosts. Human minds were powerful but they couldn't comprehend the ultimate path of Destiny. As the original hosts they would be consumed; integrated into their ultimate purpose. They would fail. Their bodies would serve as vessels for her children. The cycle would continue .
That knowledge pleased the Queen.
Then she felt a disturbance. A stranger had entered her chamber. Her blissful rest had been broken. A hiss slipped through her translucent fangs and the Queen looked down to face her threat.
She could see the stranger. A lone figure stood at the entrance to her throne room. The intruder carried fire in one hand, a smaller member of her species in the other. It was the fire that frightened the Queen most. She hated it. Hated what it represented, but more importantly hated what it could do.
Her grown children moved in, flanking the stranger. They were determined to put their Queen Mother's mind at ease.
The human pointed the fire towards the Queen's unborn brood. Panicked the Queen hissed and her children stopped their advance.
Slowly the human backed away, keeping the fire directed at the eggs. The Queen was hoping the human's base instincts would drive it out. When the human was gone, when it no longer threatened the unborn masses her children would descend and tear the woman piece to piece.
The intruder stopped. She looked the human in the eyes. Understood that, like her, this human knew what it was like to bring life into the world. They were both mothers. She understood that this human would do anything to protect the small human carried upon her shoulder. She speculated what kind of host the human would make. Ideal stock for another Queen...
Then chaos erupted.
Swift and violent the fire spread, spat from the human's weapon across a great distance and quickly covering the floor in that violent heat which consumes all. Suspended as she was she was forced to watch as the figure unleashed the flame upon her defense young. She could feel them go and she began to scream.
Bang! Another of the human's machines, another weapon unloaded its wrath.
There was an explosion within her and she released her life giving organ had been punctured, torn apart from the inside. Her life giving chalice spilled out onto the floor, sizzling in the destructive flames.
Her grown children attempted to charge, but the human and its weapon were too fast. Tatatata! Tatatata! The children fell, shredded by the explosive force of the rifle's bullets.
The Queen was now alone with the stranger.
Defenseless.
Bang-bang!
Her supports gave way. She fell into puddles of her own fluid and the burst remains of her unborn young. So she screamed in pain and sorrow and began to tear at her desecrated, life giving organ. She couldn't cope. Not with this.
With great, searing pain she broke free from her reproductive organ...
And Ripley 8 woke with a gasp, brown eyes wide with terror. She was sweating profusely. Her abdomen felt as if it were on fire. Pain raced through her spine and caused her to writhe in her bunk.
She'd been having the dreams again. Ripley 8 had no way of being sure but she knew that she'd just relived a moment from the life of the Queen of Hadley's Hope. The one Ellen Ripley killed 200 years ago. The mother of the young Queen which had died with Ellen Ripley on Fiorina 161...whose DNA now existed within Ripley 8.
These weren't dreams. They were echoes of her past lives. The life of Ellen Ripley...and the life of the Queen. She wasn't Ellen Ripley and wasn't a Xenomorph, but every night the dreams cast her in one of the roles. More and more she found her dreams filled with visions of the Hive.
Looking around she was relieved to see that currently she was the only one in the Betty's crew quarters. There were no eyes in these rusty walls to see her weakness. Reaching back she could feel slight, unusual bumps along her spine. Marks of her deformity which the scientists had tried to remove. A passerby wouldn't see anything but scars, but Ripley wouldn't forget them. They would be a constant reminder of the monster whose DNA she shared.
Ripley wanted to believe that the Xenomorph threat had ended with the Auriga. But in her sleep she could hear voices calling to her and knew it wasn't so. The Xenomorphs were alive somewhere in the universe and they would continue to thrive. Eventually they would come and mankind would be consumed by it.
"Hey Ripley, you awake?" Ripley 8 recognized the plucky voice on the intercom as Call. One of the other survivors of the USM Auriga.
"Yeah, I'm up..." Ripley groaned and ground her right palm against her forehead. Her green finger nails caressed her brown hair. "What do you need?"
"Captain Johner would like you on the flight deck."
"I'll be right up."
Ripley entered the Betty's flight deck. She wore a form-fiting brown outfit of a leather-like material. Another person might have discarded the clothing due to the heat of the Betty, or even fear of heatstroke, but not Ripley. She enjoyed the heat and humidity. In fact she thrived in it.
"Took you sweet time getting here." Big, scarred, and ugly Johner stood illuminated by the monitors of the Betty's flight deck. Johner had the appearance of a caveman, and the attitude to match. "I've been waiting to share the big news with you all."
Her fellow survivors. Vriess the ship's primary mechanic who was paralyzed from the hip down, and Call, a second generation synthetic who had known about the USM's attempt to breed the Xenomorph.
Johner had named himself captain moments after they'd escaped the Auriga...although it was in name only. Truth was none of them knew what the hell they were doing. After crashing the Auriga they gathered as many supplies as they could on Earth, replaced some of the Betty's parts and made sprint for the Outer Colonies.
"She's here, now Get on with it, you git," Vriess said, repositioning himself in his seat.
"We're celebrities." Johner pressed a yellow switch and a news headline appeared across the primary display screen. "Read 'em and weep."
Auriga Hijackers are Public Enemy No. 1
Vriess and Call exchanged an anxious glance. The two mechanics were sharing their concern. Ripley supposed it was a sort of mental communication between the two mechanics; an exchange without words.
Johner read the following text aloud:
"The crew of the Betty, captained by Frank Elgyn, commandeered the USM Auriga and set the vessel on a collision course with earth. 3,239 are reported dead or missing after Auriga crashed into the African continent. President Woodall has declared the Betty and its crew as of this time the United Systems' Public Enemy No. 1. United Systems Marshalls have been dispatched at this time. We will see that these terrorists pay for their crimes."
Johner ended his reading with a grunt and scrolled to the next portion of the article. Pictures lined up the bottom of the screen with their names listed. The pictures of Captain Elgyn, Sabra, and Christie were solemn reminders of what rag tag crew had lost aboard the USM Auriga. Even the crude Johner tilted his head in a moment of reverence for their friends. The Betty crew might have been rough around the edges, a company of scoundrels, but they were a team.
"Fucking government." Vriess swore. "Always blaming the little guy. We weren't the ones growing fucking monsters!"
Ripley leaned forward, surprised to see her picture was included with the Betty crew, but under a false name.
"Olga Salanas?" Ripley's nose wrinkled. That name just felt all wrong next to her face. Of course the name Ellen Ripley didn't fit well either. She would always be Ripley 8. A lab experiment.
"Guess they don't want to put a 200 year old dead woman's name in the press." Vriess said with a shrug.
"What I want to know is how the fuck they know she's with us if they don't already know half our fucking crew is dead." Johner said, sharpening his knife.
"Maybe they don't know if anyone's alive." Call's chimed in. "Perhaps they consider Ripley such a great liability that they don't want any chance of her escaping. They must realize that if she got off the Betty was the only way."
Ripley 8 didn't object to anything they said. She didn't know why her face was on that article, but she knew as long as she lived she'd be hunted by those who created her. They considered her property and if they knew she was alive they'd hunt her to the edge of the known galaxy. Some things never changed. Man's obsession with conquering the unknown would be its undoing.
"Do they even know if the Betty made it off the Auriga in the first place?" Johner asked.
"They need someone to blame the incident on." Call got up from her chair and paced the deck. "Who makes the better villain? The USM or the Betty and its crew of criminals?"
"What does it matter how or if they know? How the hell are we going to evade USM Marshalls?" Vriess exclaimed moving his arms up and down in short, frantic motions that made his whole body shake. "Betty would have had a hard enough time evading local system police when we had Sabra behind the wheel. Now we have no pilot, no captain, we're Public Enemy Number fucking One and before we know it Marshalls will be breathing down our necks. We're screwed!"
"Hey!" Johner shouted. "We've been over this: I'm the new captain."
"Well ain't that a fucking relief."
Vriess and Johner began cursing at each other, the brutish Johner standing up to physically menace the crippled mechanic. Ripley watched as Call got up to stand by Vriess, the Auton undoubtedly wishing to put something between the crippled Vriess and Johner in case things got dicey.
Humans. So easy to panic. Ripley thought. Call was cursing up a storm same as the men, and even looked as if she were about to trade blows with the larger Johner. But why? A fight would serve no one. Xenomorphs were organized and each one knew what it had to do. Ripley found herself wishing the same could be said of the two men and the synthetic in front of her.
"Shut up, all of you!" Ripley barked. Her tone caught everyone off guard, and -though some might not openly admit it- frightened them. "I didn't come back from the dead to hear your squawking."
Johner turned to face Ripley. Call meanwhile used Ripley's distraction as her chance to physically put herself between Johner and Vriess.
"Fine!" Johner threw his hands up. "What does the uterus squad suggest we do?"
"We go into cryo sleep." Ripley said without hesitation in a cold, machine like tone. "Freeze ourselves and put distance between ourselves and Earth."
"And where the fuck do we go?" Johner asked, physically advancing on Ripley. He was a large man, but he remembered his confrontation with Ripley aboard the Auriga, so he made sure to keep some distance between himself and the hybrid. Ripley knew it must have been hard for an Alpha Male type such as Johner to not stick his nose into it, but he was keeping out of her reach now.
"I know places...places the USM wouldn't think to look." Call suggested. Good old Call, always a diplomat when the moment called for it. "I'm an Auton. In my life I've learned how to avoid the USM. I know safe places."
"And what happens when the Marshalls find us all napping?" Johner turned his attention to Call; back to someone he knew he could beat in a fight. "What then, rust bucket?"
"I'm a synthetic. I don't need to be put into cryo." Call paused and looked at each of her fellow survivors one by one. Then turned to face Johner dead on. "You three enter cryo. Life support will be shut off, but I'll be online. During our journey I'll constantly monitor our position, evade USM patrol, and make sure we reach a safe destination."
Call paused and waited for response. Vriess looked down at his legs as if in deep thought and Johner scratched his head like an ape who didn't know what to think. Everyone could tell that Call hated discussing what she was in front of the other members of the Betty. It took a lot for the Auton to say all this.
"I don't see any better ideas on the table." Ripley finally said. "Any of you fucks going to object?
There were no more arguments.
"Thanks for standing up for me earlier." Call said, standing beside Ripley.
"Men like Johner just need to be hit on the nose." Ripley retorted. "I hope he didn't offend you."
"He didn't...You know things like rust bucket and screwhead are actually affectionate compared to things other people have called us Second Generation synths."
Ripley peeled away her clothes in preparation for the cryosleep. Although Call's body had be artificially created she knew an attractive human figure when she saw it. Ripley's body was ripe with muscle which Call could see twitching ever so slightly beneath the woman's bare flesh.
"Sorry you have to go through this." Call said, feeling embarrassed about having had to ask the hybrid to strip.
"This is nothing." Ripley said not wasting a second disrobing. In seconds she'd handed the waiting Call her clothes ready for storage. "You're not hovering over me with a scalpel."
Walking confidently towards the tight corridor that connected the Betty's locker room to its cryo tubes with Call behind her. Call had yet to get used to Ripley's confident, take action character. Every time the Auton expected human hesitation, or anxiety Ripley defied it.
While walking behind the nude Ripley Call couldn't help but take not of certain irregularities. Call could sense the predatory movements in Ripley's posture, in the way she walked. It was something distinctly inhuman that seemed to prominently register with Call when Ripley's clothes had been shed. The undeniable truth of the matter was that Ripley 8's entire body was a weapon; a trap waiting to be sprung.
Clothed Ripley 8's permanently green fingernails were all that seemed unnatural about her, but stripped of her clothes Call could see constant reminders of Ripley's unnatural birth. The scar on her chest from where the Queen had been extracted and additional scarring along her spine where scientists had removed vestigial, Xenomorph protrusions from her spine...made Call wonder what other unusual features might lie beneath Ripley 8's skin.
Although the clone had some distant memories, and ideas about the original Ellen Ripley Call knew Ripley 8 was an entirely different being. This Ripley was an echo of the past, grown with the explicit purpose of having her body used as a vessel to breed the very monster the original Ripley had died to protect the human race from. Now back from the dead was a Ripley who looked human but would never be. Her mind had touch the hive and acid ran through her veins. Call sincerely hoped nothing would happen to the hybrid.
Ripley stopped at an open, unfilled cryotube and turned to face Call.
"How long do you think I'll be out?"
"Huh?" Call had been so caught up in thought that she'd lost track of the conversation.
"How long will we be frozen?"
"Anywhere between 10 months and five years, depending on what USM patrols are like." Call didn't look too optimistic about a speedy voyage. "That's if we're lucky."
"And you're sure you don't want to join us in the tube?" Ripley tilted her head curiously. "Betty does have autopilot."
"Synthetics don't benefit any from being in cryo. I don't..." Call struggled to find the proper word to describe it. "We don't have an equivalent to sleep. As such it would be more logical for me to personally monitor the ship's progress and adjust our path accordingly depending on the variables. Autopilot could drive us straight into a USM patrol."
"Alright Call."
Call motioned towards the cryotube and allowed Ripley to enter on her own. She saw Johner and Vriess in their tubes. It was amazing how peaceful humans looked when they were in cryo. Even Johner looked like a model of civility in the deep embrace of cryo sleep. Call often wondered what it was like to sleep. Humans often times were said to vividly imagine fantastical events occurring in their sleep. Call felt sad knowing she'd never experience it for herself.
"Ah!" Ripley arched her back a bit and laughed anxiously as she leaned into the cryo tube. "It's cold."
"It'll get colder." Call chuckled.
"If it makes you feel any better: I'll be waking you up first so you don't have to deal with Johner's bullshit."
"For his own protection." Ripley said with a smug look on her face.
Call laughed reaching down to connect the tube's sensor to Ripley's chest. Her muscles tensed when Call turned the device on. The hybrid's pulse and vital signs appeared on the monitor above her tube.
"I'm not used to putting my life in other people's hands." Ripley added, seeming a bit anxious while Call finished the preparation.
"I know how to fly the Betty on minimum power. The Marshalls won't find us. I'll make sure of that." Call smiled. "All you have to do is sleep."
Call checked Ripley's vital signs. The hybrid's vitals were all normal. Nothing would suggest that she was anything more or less than a typical middle-aged woman in reasonably good health.
"They say some people dream in cryosleep. Do you dream, Ripley?"
Ripley tensed a bit. "Yes."
"I never dream." Call bit her lower lip. "Synthetics can only be on or off."
"Dreams aren't always pleasant." Ripley seemed to be looking through Call. As if her mind had wandered somewhere outside the Betty. "Sometimes I wish I could turn it all off."
Ripley had a distant, morose look in her eyes. Call realized that she may have made Ripley uncomfortable. She didn't want the hybrid entering cryo in any state of discomfort so she gave Ripley the most cheerful smile she could muster.
Call held the lid of the cryo tube and hesitated. For the next year she was going to be alone on this ship. The life support systems would go offline. She'd be alone for months, possibly years. This would be the last human contact she had until she'd safely guided the Betty to a secure landing point.
Call wondered what was the proper thing to say before she closed the lid. If Call were shut down for a period she'd want to know that whoever was in charge had her best interest at heart. She wanted Ripley to enter sleep feeling happy, and secure in the knowledge that she'd be kept safe.
"I wish you sweet dreams, Ripley."
Author's Note: I want to give a special shout out to author A.C. Crispin who wrote the outstanding novelization of Alien Resurrection. If it weren't for the great characterizations and narrative structure of her novelization I'd have never felt inspired to follow-up on the characters of this film. Her novelization showed the potential the story had script and is worth a read for any Alien fans out there.