Chapter 9

Ripley left her meeting with Van Leuwan and Carrie not sure of what to think. On one hand this was still the same company that totally didn't believe her true account of what happened to the Nostromo. On the other hand, she was hearing things she wanted to hear.

She came to the unfortunate conclusion that they were mostly right and she could only agree with them. But, they were still two days out from Earth, so she knew she had to keep herself busy and that she would have to give her account of what happened on LV426 and at least they would believe her this time.

She caught Carrie coming out of the cubicle and spoke up, "Ms Fisher, what of the Nostromo?"

"As I said Ripley, I have someone, who is very good at this sort of thing, working on those files right now. To be honest with you, I hope he finds something, I'm sorry we didn't take you more seriously."

"What about Burke, family?"

"Burke's dead, if he wasn't, as Van Leuwan said; he'd be in the brig and looking at a lifetime in prison on Earth. I know you have one of those small company apartments, well the one he would have been spending his time in wouldn't have been half that size, which reminds me, I will organise better living quarters for you and Rebecca when we get back to Earth."

"Thank you, but you didn't answer regarding Burke's family?"

"Oh yes, well, I'm not sure, don't worry, they won't suffer other than knowing what he did, however, all of his assets will be seized and sold off to help compensate family members of the victims of this mess. Now excuse me, but I have to right up the report regarding young Rebecca's testimony, gutsy kid."

"Okay, thanks for listening." responded Ripley, "this is going to be a long two days" she said as she made her way back to Newt and Hicks.

As was expected, the rest of the trip was a little tedious and boring for the crew and survivors on the Sulaco. Ripley and Hicks both gave their testimonies to the events of what happened on LV426, which left even a battle hardened Hicks exhausted and a little emotional because he lost his entire squad to the aliens back there.

One of the questions that did come up was Lieutenant Gorman being in command. Van Leuwan and Carrie both testified that Weyland Yutani wanted a more experienced commander for the squad, but the Colonial Marines didn't view the mission as a high priority but compromised having Gorman, who had performed admirably in his one actual drop and all the simulated drops, with the seasoned veteran Sergeant Apone.

The Colonial Marines had had considerable experience with what the grunts use to like to call; bug hunts, and thought this was going to be no different. The Marines would simply shoot up a lot of alien animals that may have been a little difficult for the colonists to handle, but not so a fully armed squad of Marines.

Nothing had prepared them for the Acid Bloods, which with Bishops' testimony and his research he did on the specimens they found at LV426, were determined to be a genetically created biological weapon of mass destruction.

This of course raised the question as to why a species would create such a thing and how did it get out of control. Questions which they knew they would probably never find an answer unless they happen to come into contact with the species that actually created them.

Which in itself wasn't a very much sort after experience as a species capable of creating the Acid Bloods is probably capable of much worse things. They were either a species bent on conquest, or out of desperation to survive, created a doomsday weapon.

Of course, the real worry was if these things were elsewhere in known space, or unknown space as the human race pushed the frontier further and further out, that eventually, there would be contact with them again. As it was, Ripley's mission on the Nostromo was one of those missions that helped push the frontier out in search of resources. In fact, few would venture that far out at back then because of the time it would take to cover such distances.

Of course that was nearly sixty years ago. Improvements in propulsion systems and spacecraft design had reduced the time from months and years to weeks to reach these worlds. In fact some of the new generation of craft would reach LV426 in half the time it had taken the Sulaco.

Twenty hours out from Earth, Van Leuwan happily announced that the military had agreed to let Weyland Yutani use the Sulaco for the return mission in approximately six months time, and while it is in dry dock being fitted with the necessary scientific equipment to help study the Acid Bloods. It would also have a major engine upgrade which would reduce the travel time to LV426 by seven days.

As with their departure from Earth, the Sulaco did not pass any of the outer planets on its way back to Earth, simply because it was approaching the Earth from a forty five degree angle to the plane of the solar system. However, at about ten hours out of Earth, they came to one of the Solar System Gateways.

The two Colonial Marines, who were the pilot and co pilot of the Hawkwind, went back to their ship as they would follow the Sulaco into space dock. A crew of four Colonial Marines boarded the Sulaco to pilot it into space dock.

It took about forty five minutes for the transfer to happen and the two ships resumed their courses.

Ripley took Newt to the window facing forward and pointed a faint blue dot that was emerging.

"Newt, that's Earth"

Newt squinted for a moment and then replied, "It's blue, it's pretty."

For Newt, there was no memory of Earth as when her family left for LV426, she was only one year old so she watched with fascination as the blue dot became brighter than bigger, though she occasionally lost interest and disappeared for an hour or two at a time, until the Earth was clearly visible as was the moon.

Ripley and Hicks stood by her as they watched home get bigger and bigger in the window.

"Ripley, it's so blue and green."

"I know Newt, its home from now on, our home, you me and Jonesy."

"What about me?" asked Hicks, as his relationship with Ripley had grown a bit since they were awakened from their hyper sleep.

"Well, we'll have to see about that?" Said Ripley with a smile, "that's still in the development stage."

Hicks snickered, 'I hope so."

The Sulaco approached the space dock and from the forward window they could see the tight security that had been placed by the military on their dock number. No one other than military and top representatives from Weyland Yutani were allowed anywhere near the ship or its occupants.

Van Leuwan approached Ripley, Hicks and Newt as they watched the ship dock.

"Welcome home guys," he said, "now we have secured the dock and we will be taking you out of here after the appropriate medical checkups, so as to avoid the press for now."

"For now?" replied Ripley.

"Look Ripley, sooner or later, all of you will have to make statements whether you like it or not. I personally would prefer you didn't, but public opinion and awareness is huge on this. We want people to understand just how dangerous these things are. Yes that will help us make more money when we develop an effective defence against these things. However, it will also mean more money because it will greatly reduce the risk of those things getting here, which I think we can both agree that that would be very bad."

"Yes we can Van Leuwan, but don't expect me to be all glowing about Weyland Yutani."

"I wouldn't expect anything less, Ripley."