Chapter 4
"This way."
Lt Gorman walked confidently, guiding Ripley and Burke up the ship's ramp and into the cargo hold. He expected Ripley to be nervous and on edge walking into the cramped unfamiliar place. Her file indicated phobias about small places and the dark. It was a pleasant surprise however to see her strut up the walkway, almost leaving Burke behind who seemed the most uncertain of the two.
"You're eager." He said light heartedly. "I was expecting you to feel a little more nervous. Especially to be inside a ship again and given where we are going."
She stopped and looked at him and it struck her then that indeed she was not scared. She looked around the ship's interior and could see just how different it was to the Nostromo. Her ship was dirty, dark and civilian. This place was lit by harsh light, Spartan and devoid of luxury.
"I like the ambiance." She said.
"Good to hear." Gorman said cheerfully and led the way once more.
The majority of the ship was not visible inside the hanger. Most of the ship was obscured by the docking station. She saw a schematic of it on a vid screen and an overview of its dimensions. Overall, it was actually a fair deal smaller than her Nostromo, but it still appeared enormous. A passenger liner in a past life, it had been converted into a military troop transport. Looking around, she could see where particular fittings designed for opulence and convenience had either been removed or converted. Where a bulkhead would have housed a series of couches, it now was a storage rack for various items of equipment she did not recognise.
A small kitchenette with a bar no longer had the beer and spirit taps, and the bar fridges that would have held wine and other alcohol held nothing so desirable. She could even see one place where an advertising billboard would have once lived.
Nonetheless, she felt comfortable and excited. The fear and anger that coursed through her veins after the incident at the art class seemed a million miles away. She guessed that had a lot to do with a distinct absence of medication in her veins. Her head was clear and sharp for the first time all week.
She felt alive again. She hoped she could stay that way.
"This way, please. The stasis tubes are just through here. The detachment have already prepared and entered cryosleep."
The dim hallway opened up to reveal a locker room. Neat and tidy apart from stickers that dotted the locker doors, it smelled clean. Actually, it smelled overly clean. A further examination found the smell of sweat had partially been covered over with air freshener and de-oderiser. It reminded her of field trips to the sports ground at school when she was a little girl. It also reminded her of when Amy did the same.
"Your locker is over there. 32. Burke, yours is 33."
"Hm," Ripley stepped over to inspect them. "Hey Burke. Mine's above yours. My locker's better." She joked and followed Gorman as he continued the tour.
Burke fumbled a reply of no discernable words and ran to keep up.
"There are the tubes. They're a bit more advanced since your day. You'll find they're less taxing on your body and in all likelihood, more comfortable as well. Also, these ones are higher end. Not made in China. They have a longer life."
Ripley smiled, "Lt Gorman, I personally have a deep respect for the Chinese manufacturing industry. If I recall correctly, my stasis pod back on the life boat worked non-stop for 57 years."
Gorman smiled, "So the warranty on that one's been and gone long ago. Eh?"
"That's right." Ripley smiled back.
"So these are the troops?" Burke said killing the brevity.
"Yes." Gorman replied.
Ripley and Burke stepped forward to see. Ripley started from the left end, and Burke from the right. They both peered inside with a strange fascination, like perusing items on a shelf they could not afford.
Cradled in the tubes like babes in the womb, Ripley found it hard to find any distinguishing features on them. Her old tube always had a small issue with condensation on the glass, but these ones definitely were better quality. These were crystal clear.
She walked down the line, glancing at the names.
Frost
Dietrich
Drake
Crowe
Hicks
Spunkmeyer
Ferro
Hudson
Vasquez
Wierbowski
Apone
Burke had been doing the same and the two of them almost bumped into each other. Burke decided he'd had enough and left to get changed.
Ripley continued down the line before eventually reaching the end. In all there were eleven of them. They seemed so few and yet so many. She felt sorry for them. She wondered with all her heart whether she had just walked an inspection or a funeral procession.
She tried to convince herself it was the former, but a niggling feeling tied her stomach into knots even as she dressed and climbed into her tube with the rest of them. It took a moment longer to fall asleep than she expected. She found herself constantly scratching her hip, expecting it to be brushed by itchy cat whiskers. But of course, the owner of said whiskers was not with her and would soon be millions of miles away.
Xx
She had no idea what time it was, but the confines of her new home allowed no basis of reference to tell without a clock. The clock on her wrist watch was broken. Her mother had given it to her on her birthday two years ago. She did not throw it away.
It had taken a long time before nerves settled and fear gave way to the more important and mundane stimuli. Finally, her stomach decided to remind her she was thirsty and hungry, but her imagination gave her many reasons to continue hiding in her corner for longer yet.
She replayed the previous day's horrible attack over and over and stinging tears came many times and wracked her body with uncontrollable sobs. She thought of the times that had been a happy family, going out for walks and playing together. They always held hands in the same way. Father, mother, Timmy then Rebecca. In order of age and height.
And in that order they had also died.
At least she guessed so. Her mother had been at the barricade with the rest of the fighters, whilst Timmy was with her. It may have only been seconds the difference, but nonetheless, she held no doubt her mother was dead and Timmy came a close second.
Shadows danced overhead as a ceiling fan span round and round, but as the hours passed, she noticed that the fan slowed down to nearly a stop. She supposed that the regulators were either broken or diverting power to something more important.
She wasn't entirely sure what to do next, but she knew well enough she couldn't just stay where she was. She could hear her mother and father's voices telling her to be brave, but it was difficult. She depended more on her brother to help her when she was scared. When she was younger when they first came to the colony, she was scared of the dark. Timmy had the idea of playing in the venting system and her fear promptly gave way to fun and games. She grew to love crawling around the maze of ducts and tunnels. She quickly became the best at it. Without a sense of claustrophobia and a newly banished fear of the dark, she was always game for squeezing into areas other kids were too scared of.
She absently fingered a scar on her left thigh as a reminder of her talent. It was a mark of infamy about how she had once climbed into the garbage disposal chute. The mulcher at the bottom of the chute would have killed her had she not the presence of mind to grab a jutting piece of steel that cut into her leg on the way down.
Whenever she felt scared or down, she played with the tangle of lumpy flesh on her leg and it reminded her she was strong. That there was something she was better at than anyone else. For all she knew, it was this talent that meant she was now the only person alive on the planet. She had even evaded those creatures.
She decided now that she would need to do so again.
Slowly, but silently she crawled back the way she came towards the living quarters. The same duct she had crawled into and Timmy had been pulled out of seemed so innocuous now. Everything was so quiet. Normally the ducts vibrated and air whooshed through them like a heart beat. Instead, all she could hear was her own and her thin breaths.
She neared the duct's opening and slowly found the nerve to poke her head through. It was dark, but everything was still discernible. She expected to see something that would scare her witless and send her scurrying back where she came. Instead she saw nothing unusual at all and she wasn't sure whether that was in fact scarier in some way.
She expected to see blood and dead bodies, even dead monsters, but there was nobody around at all. They only sign that something untoward had happened was a torch that lay alone and still shining down the walkway on her left.
Otherwise, it was as quiet and still as a tomb and she had a terrible time convincing herself to emerge fully and explore. She felt like those times every child had in their bedroom when horrible monsters threatened to emerge from the closet. As was always common in such instances, the only absolute way to ensure survival was to cover up any bare body part of skin beneath the blanket.
It was a childish idea, but she felt the same way now about the duct. How was she to know there wasn't one of those unseen monsters hiding somewhere, watching her even now, just waiting for her to come out?
You can do it. She heard Timmy say.
Slowly and silently, she careful crawled out. The air was cold and made her feel deathly vulnerable as it touched her sweaty and grimy skin. Her heart was racing and her eyes darted in all directions, inspecting every shadow. She sat still, waiting for some signal she was not alone and squatted on her feet, ready to run if she so needed. But soon her toes were on fire with pins and needles and nothing had moved.
Slowly then, she emerged from underneath the floor and crept across the hallway. A door was open to someone's bedroom. She didn't know whose it was and didn't think to read the plaque above the threshold.
Checking left and right still, she crept inside with absolute silence and scanned the area.
Nothing appeared untoward. If anything it was still neat. A pair of jeans lay on the back of a desk chair and a T-shirt and jacket lay folded neatly at the foot of the undisturbed bed. The bedroom, like many others had little in the way of decoration, but it still felt quite homely.
On her right was a computer desk with a laptop plugged into the wall. Next to it was a packet of crisps and an unfinished coffee. She sniffed, hoping to detect the slight aroma of the coffee beans, but instead smelled cold blood. She couldn't see blood anywhere, but she could still smell it.
All the same, she was hungry enough to ignore it and moved for the crisp packet. Her fingers clasped the foil and it crinkled loudly in the silence.
It was the loudest noise she had ever heard in her life and without thinking she ran back to the duct and scurried back to her lair like a frightened mouse. Crying and spluttering, she hugged her knees to her chest and ran her finger along her leg scar once more, looking for courage.
She wanted her family, wanted to hear her brother to tell her it would be alright and feel the softness of her mother's arms around her. She wanted her father to stand guard and hold the monsters at bay.
There was no way to know how much time had passed, but she finally passed out from exhaustion and slept fitfully in her filthy corner.