The flight wasn't that long, and I slept for the majority of it. As far as I know, Anubis was well-behaved, not making much of a peep during the whole flight.

I had to quickly change into civilian clothing in order to blend in, and look like a tourist. The tropical heat and humidity of the Bahamas was very welcome after the miserable, cold, wetness in D.C., and the equally miserable weather in the Mediterranean. I realized I wasn't going to look like I travel often, no matter what outfit I chose; I'm ridiculously pale.

There was a small clothing shop right in the airport, so I figured I'd grab a few cheap things there. Anubis lay at my boots while I browsed the racks.

"Definitely no Hawaiian shirts," I muttered, showing Anubis the colorful floral patterns. "No bright colors." I was still a little drowsy, so it wasn't a surprise that I was talking to myself.

I picked out some T-shirts and cargo shorts, and had to carry around my military clothing in a black backpack. Aside from the fact that I have an alien on a leash, I looked pretty normal.

The facility where this antidote is made is most likely on another island, but it wouldn't surprise me if this terrorist group had people planted all over the country to "take care" of anyone who looked remotely suspicious. I had to appear as though I was on vacation, and make sure no one got on my back. That would take time, and Spunkmeyer doesn't have much time.

Still, I'd rather have this be a relatively smooth operation. When the beaches started opening for the day, I decided to rent a chair and lay out. I was glad the beach wasn't overly crowded, but there were still too many people for me to be happy.

You know how I said earlier that I'm pale because I've been living in cold places for the last five months or so? That was a pretty bad understatement. I pulled off my shirt to reveal a snow-white belly. Honestly, I hoped to God no one was watching, because it was embarrassing. Not to mention, I'd probably catch fire after only a minute exposed to the sun, so I had to leave Anubis by the chair so no one took my spot while I bought sunscreen. I can't afford to have a sunburn when I'm ready to steal some antidote, because it would fucking hurt.

I put my shirt back on before walking into a shop parked near the vegetation separating the road from the beach. I got a bottle of strong sunscreen, two towels, sunglasses, and an umbrella, because I'm pretty sure I won't be able to lay out for too long, even with sunscreen on. And I got a couple snacks because I'm not waiting for the burger stand to open for lunch if I start feeling hungry.

When I got back to my spot, I noticed there were more people. A group of kids had set up a volleyball net not that far from where I was laying, but I don't give a crap as long as I'm not smacked with a ball. I pulled off my shirt, and squeezed a massive handful of sunscreen into my palm before lathering it all over my torso. I then set up the umbrella, and pulled my chair out from under it.

Once my sunglasses were on, I could not be bothered to get up. It felt so nice to do absolutely nothing. My mind was actually settled, which made my blood pressure drop a little. I focused on listening to the waves lapping at the shoreline. All I had to worry about was not burning myself.

I'm not sure how much time had passed when I heard something plop in the sand near me, followed by someone running over.

"Hey, mister! Can we have our ball back?"

I turned to see a boy with curly blond hair looking at me. The volleyball was right next to my chair. "Come get it yourself," I said.

"Casey, where's the ball?" one of the other boys yelled.

I sighed. "Seriously, kid, just come grab the ball."

I was beginning to think that the kid had been taught not to go near strangers, because he wasn't budging. Sighing again, I grabbed the ball, and tossed it to him. He caught it, and glanced at Anubis. "Cool dog."

"That's not a dog," I said. "It's an alien."

"Well, that just makes it cooler."

"You think so?" I jerked my thumb in Anubis's direction. "These guys are a lot of work. More work than a dog."

"Is he yours?"

"No. I'm just watching him for a friend. Don't touch him, seriously. They got claws that'll tear you to shreds."

Anubis cooed at me, and not in a friendly way.

"Yeah, you," I said to him.

The kid, Casey, smirked, but looked over his shoulder when he heard one of the other kids yelling at him. "See ya, mister." He ran back to the net, tossing the ball over.

I went back to doing nothing. I did eventually drag my chair back under the umbrella when I noticed my skin was hot to the touch, but I hoped that would put a little bit of color on me. I also hoped that if any spies saw me, they assumed I was just a tourist. I don't look that suspicious, do I?

More time passed. I noticed the kids' volleyball game had ended, and while the rest were going back to their families, Casey was walking over to me. "Hey, mister."

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Thought we could talk more. You seem cool."

"Didn't your mom teach you not to talk to strangers?"

"You're not a stranger no more."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Ma says when you talk to someone for the first time, and get a good feeling 'bout them, they's a friend waitin' to happen." Casey crouched in the sand by my chair, and looked at me. He then pointed at my boots. "Hey, those're Marine boots! You a real soldier?"

"Yep."

"Cool! Wait till I tell the other kids I met a real Marine. You guys are badass. I collect plastic soldiers, y'know. I got the riflemen, the medic, smartgunner-"

"I'm a smartgunner," I said.

"That's even better. What's your name?"

"Drake."

"You're a cool guy, Drake. I like you. Say, whatcha doing out here anyway? Is there a base out here?"

"If there was, I couldn't tell you. I'm here for the same reason you are-vacation, well, we call it 'leave.'"

"How long you gonna be here?"

"Probably a couple days. Not that long."

"We gonna be here a whole week. We're goin' sailing tomorrow. Gonna see stuff we don't got back home."

"Where're you from?" I asked.

"Georgia. You?"

"Pennsylvania." Leave it at that. He's getting too close to all the shit you don't want to talk about.

Casey dug up a shell. "How long you been a Marine?"

"Three years."

"Been in combat?"

"Sure have. Several times, actually."

Casey jogged out to the water to wipe the sand off his shell, and then ran back. "You here by yourself?"

"Pretty much."

"You got a family of your own?"

"No."

"How come?"

"Hard to explain."

"Adult stuff?"

"You could put it that way, yeah." Internally, I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't want to attempt explaining myself to this kid.

"Do you like being alone?"

"Sometimes. There are times where I need to be alone." I glanced at Casey. "It's probably not something you'll understand till you're older."

"You got the sadness? OK, I know that's not what it's called. It means sadness. Heard Ma say it. Starts with a D-"

"Depression."

"Yeah. Depression. You got that? That why you like being alone? Ma works with people who got problems inside their heads. Says it's common for people with . . . depression to like being alone."

I adjusted the chair so I could sit up. "Well, there are plenty of people who like being alone that aren't depressed. I know some like that in my unit, but, yeah, I'm depressed. There're a lot of things wrong with me right now."

"Like what?"

"It's not something I want to talk about, and it's not because I don't trust you or anything. That's just how I am. It takes a long time for me to even want to open up to people about what's going on."

"Not mad at you, Drake, y'know, if that's what you're worried about." Casey looked up at me. "I'll bet that's why you're here. You're lookin' to just empty your head."

I can't fault the kid for not completely understanding. However, he wasn't wrong about me wanting to just empty my head. Even though I didn't tell him my story, he seemed to grasp that I was uncomfortable, and respected that. I think he also liked that I wasn't talking down to him, or telling him to move on to something more appropriate for his age.

The conversation ended there. I was expecting Casey to go back to his parents, but he stayed with me, continuing to dig in the sand and pulling up shells and stuff like that. He was separating them by size, and when he decided to stop digging, he began using a shell with a sharp point at one end to poke holes in some of the other shells.

Again, I don't know how much time went by. We had to have been sitting there for hours, and I silently cursed myself. Hornby and Delhoun can't keep Spunkmeyer on support forever. I have to get that antidote soon. By now, I'm pretty sure I didn't look suspicious to anyone. My next task was getting a weapon of some kind and finding the facility where that antidote is made.

Casey turned around quickly when he heard a woman calling his name, and we saw who I assumed to be his mother walking over to us.

"Are you bothering people, hon?" the woman asked. "Been looking all over for you."

"Sorry, Ma. Been talking with Drake. He's a Marine."

The woman waved to me. "Hi. I'm sorry 'bout Casey. Hope he wasn't-"

"He's fine," I said. "I've enjoyed his company, actually."

"Well, that's good. Come on, Casey, we're gonna go get lunch. We might be able to come back later, OK?"

"OK, Ma." Casey stood up, and turned to face me. "Open your hand."

I did, and he gently placed some of his shells in my palm.

"Thought these'd look good on your necklace thing." He gestured to the bones and pendent around my neck.

I managed to grin a little. "Thanks."

Casey smiled as well, and stuck out his hand. "It was nice to meet you, Drake."

I gave his hand a firm shake. "And it was nice to meet you, as well. Take care, and behave yourself, alright?"

"Right. See ya."

To be honest, I was sad to see him go. At the same time, I knew I couldn't afford to put off getting the antidote for Spunkmeyer for much longer.

It was close to four-thirty in the afternoon when I finally gathered up the supplies I needed, and got the location of this facility. As I thought, it was on an isolated island, but much to my surprise, it wasn't heavily guarded.

I had stowed away on board a civilian vessel set to pass close to this island. With an old AK-style weapon equipped with a small flamethrower attachment slung over my shoulder, I dove into the piss-warm water, and started swimming to shore. I could see a building about the size of what you'd expect a high school to be through the trees. The humidity had dropped a little, so it didn't take too long for me to start drying off. I mean, most of my shirt got dry, but there's no worse feeling in the world than wet underpants.

This is generally not what smartgunners are trained to do. We typically hang back and let the agile riflemen (usually Hicks, Frost, and Crowe) scout forward. The bigger and less-stealthy guys (Hudson and Wierzbowski) will go when the others give the all-clear, and then me and Vasquez will come through. If this had been a unit effort, I wouldn't be crawling through the jungle; I'd be waiting for Hicks and the others to clear out the guards and yell for me to provide cover fire.

Well, this wasn't a unit effort, and I'm on my own with an Annexer for support. Anubis was ahead of me, sniffing out a clear path for us to get in. He gave a short screech, mimicking a tropical bird you'd see around here. Crouching next to him, I pulled some leaves out of my way to see the main gates of the facility. There were two guards standing in front of them, and behind the fence were more guards, pacing with dogs.

I looked at Anubis. "You got a plan?"

He nodded, and darted up the nearest tree. A few seconds later, a strong stench saturated the warm air. I gagged and felt my stomach contort.

The dogs went nuts. They barked at their handlers and in the direction where Anubis marked his territory in the tree. The guards opened the gates, running to investigate what the dogs were smelling. With them all distracted, I moved in, sprinting through the gates.

I didn't get in unseen. Someone hollered, "Shut the doors!" just as I threw myself inside the building. The doors were locked and sealed behind me, and alarms were going off everywhere.

"Some intruder! Main entrance!" someone yelled.

I flicked the safety off my weapon as guys rounded a corner. They barely got any shots off; once one was down, another would come, and then he went down. I kicked down a door, taking the fight into an empty laboratory. Lots of stuff to hide behind. Bullets shattered stasis tubes, spattering the floors and walls with cold fluid.

"Someone's gotta go protect the scientists!"

My gun ran dry, and I got behind a massive microscope to yank out the empty mag and insert a fresh one. There were several loud clangs as bullets struck the side of the machine. I noticed a door leading to another lab on the other side of the room. The guards were yelling orders at each other, and some tried running toward me, only to be mowed down.

Someone shouted that they needed to get the wounded out and call for backup. I took that opportunity to run into the next lab, which was also not being used. The third one in a row was being used, and I charged through the door. A guard was trying to get the five scientists out, and blood spurted onto somebody's desk as I shot a single round through his head.

I locked all the doors, keeping my rifle trained on the scientists. "Hands up, all of you!"

Nervously, they put their hands over their heads.

I regained my breath, but my heart was still pounding. "Alright, where's the silver flower antidote? Tell me where it is, and no one's getting hurt."

They were all silent for a moment, but one of them opened his mouth to speak. "Second floor. S-Second floor, right next door to where they grow the flowers."

I lowered my weapon. "See? That wasn't so hard."

There was no way I was going out the door, but I heard screaming, and someone screeching, "Kill it!" They had to be talking about Anubis. There was banging and howling and the awful sound of a large animal ripping flesh with its claws.

I went through another door, and saw the fray through a window. Anubis was a terrifying black and white streak, tearing into anything within his reach. He had a guard in his grip, and another was coming up behind him. I shattered the window, firing several rounds at the approaching guard.

That hallway was now empty, littered with bloody bodies. I looked at Anubis. "Second floor. That's where the antidote is," I gasped.

Anubis nodded, and gestured for me to go on. He hardly knew me, and here he was trusting me to do this. Without a second thought, I started running. There was a dark stairwell at the end of the hall, and I could hear people yelling something about "two intruders, one human, one animal." I kept my gun at the ready, and found myself immediately in a fight as I came up the stairs.

Struggling to keep myself from getting shot, I fell backward, down the stairs. Time seemed to slow as I tumbled. The second floor guards followed me, all pointing their weapons at me. I watched my life flash before my eyes, and then I heard an ear-splitting screech. Anubis used me as a launchpad to hurl himself into the oncoming guards. Blood was soon running down the stairs as Anubis slashed his way through the men. Some of them were risking shooting their own comrades as they tried to stop the enraged Annexer. The blood was starting to pool around me, and I found some of it was mine from a nasty gash on the back of my upper arm from my fall.

Bodies were falling around me. I scrambled to get up, and forced my way upstairs. Spunkmeyer owes me big-time for this, I thought, breathing hard.

I was baffled to find the floor was deserted. Had we killed all the guards? Were the scientists hiding, or planning an attack against us? Gunshots and screaming were still ringing in my ears, though slowly fading. My heart continued to throb, but I was feeling sick; I haven't eaten much of anything, and my body was demanding energy. At the same time, I could tell my stomach didn't want to hold anything right now.

The silence was ten times scarier, and something was telling me to run. They grow the flowers. They grow the flowers here. I felt like crying, but I knew I had to keep going. I couldn't let this stop me.

Through a window, I saw hundreds of thousands of those little silver bastards sitting pretty in their rows of carefully prepared soil. The room was illuminated with their bright toxic glow. I suddenly felt as though someone had their hand around my throat. I heard glass shattering as Delhoun freed me from the lab. I heard the doctors saying they were gonna lose me.

Anubis trotted up to me, studying my panic attack while I was slumped on the floor. His ears were still flat against his head as he rested his forehead against mine, slowly nuzzling me. I gripped his head, rubbing his jet-black fur, tears running down my face. "I can't do it. Help me," I breathed.

He looked me in the eye, and took my hands in his bloody paws, gently pulling them away. He rested my left hand on one of my pockets, the one where I had put the shells Casey gave me.

My thoughts turned to Casey, and to Spunkmeyer, and to Hudson, and Ferro, and Vasquez, Wierzbowski, Hicks, and Miranda. I knew they all believed I could do this if they knew, and I wanted to go back to them, triumphant. They would not let me quit now.

Slowly, I stood up. A sense of bravery and courage kicked in as I jogged to the lab where the antidote was supposedly kept. Sure enough, there were hundreds of large, covered syringes full of a clear substance. All were marked "silver flower emergency antidote." I began grabbing handfuls of syringes and putting them in my backpack. It would be enough to help Spunkmeyer and allow Hornby's team to study and duplicate the medicine.

As I prepared to make my escape, I remembered the flowers were right next door. Instead of fear, I felt rage. I wanted to completely annihilate the lab. Plants are flammable, right? I knew there was a reason I shelled out extra money to have that thing connected to my rifle.

There wasn't a lot of fuel in the little canister, so I needed to pray that once one flower caught fire, it would start a chain reaction, and spread quickly. I stepped back as I shot out the windows to the lab, and then gripped the flamethrower's trigger. The room lit up like a Christmas tree as a jet of fire flew from the weapon's muzzle.

I think my heart stopped for a minute when a massive explosion flung me backward.

Question: How would Drake's actions be different if Hudson or another one of his teammates had accompanied him on this mission?

Author's Note: Several times, I've thought about having Drake set fire to a room full of silver flowers, and interacting with a child character, and I've scrapped both ideas multiple times out of fear they'd be way too similar to "Aliens." At the same time, it provides an interesting context for the upcoming alternate-ending story, and could help Drake connect with Ripley. I became less afraid to make a younger character for Drake to interact with when thinking about how many times I've written that he seriously doubts his abilities as a future father. I think once he gets over his nerves, he'd get really fussy and protective, which would straight-up annoy the crap out of Vasquez.