Disclaimer: Alien (1979) , Alien: Isolation, and all its characters are owned by 20th Century Fox.
The oc's (all two of them) were created by me.
Chapter 13: A New Threat
Space for many is the great beyond, an endless ocean of stars, asteroids and planets. For those who have experienced space, life gets a whole new meaning, you begin to feel that things will never be the same, that everything you have ever done has led up to this moment where you experience something few people have, it can bring many emotions, love, hate, anger, lust, or even the feeling that you are really just a spec amongst the vastness of space.
However for two young engineers the only thing they want...is to stop spinning.
Ripley and Mils float seemingly forever, end over end, they spin endlessly in the debris of Sevastopol and the lab they had just exited, thankfully their quick thinking had allowed them to exit the labs without any injuries, other than the psychological terror of being stranded in space at the moment.
"Shit...shit!" Ripley yells as loud as she can, but all she can do is just float there as she steadies herself, meanwhile David tries to do the same.
"Fuck...me...I hate flying!" David yells as he straightens himself, he makes visual contact with Ripley, as she tries to talk to him.
"David...David can you hear me?" Ripley states trying to communicate with Mils, he responds with tapping the side of his helmet and shaking his head side to side, indicating that he couldn't hear her, the most likely cause of this dilemma is that during their hasty exit from the lab they hadn't prepared their radios properly.
"Rip...head for the station" Mils yells, as he points to the dark mass that is Sevastopol, the two slowly turn towards the station, and try to move their bodies as quickly as possible, to the untrained moving in space freely is like trying to swim without lessons or floaties. However Rip and Mils had some experience, it actually was one of the highlights of a fairly dark, and somewhat dull job. When they first exited the lab, the station seemed miles away, but now it was getting closer, maybe too close, they didn't know why or how, but they were now approaching the station at a very dangerous speed, like a bird approaching a glass building, only they won't be crashing through smooth glass, but splattering against hard, cold, heavy metal.
The duo share looks of panic, as they try to slow their approach, by the time they reach the side of the station they had slowed a little, but still ended up hitting the side with respective thuds.
"Shit...Mils come on..." Ripley yells as loud as she can as she waves Mils up the station exterior, Mils sees an entrance hatch above them, probably around sixty feet stand between them and the hatch, Mils scales to the right as Ripley does the same on the left, they hop and jump their way up the metallic tower, this exudes more oxygen than their suits can cycle through as both Mils and Ripley begin to breath heavily and become slightly light headed as they both finally reach the hatch.
Ripley being on the left hand side is closer to the lever that opens the hatch, she pulls it as if all the rust in the universe had built up upon the lever causing it to become nearly impossible to pull downward, with a yell she successfully pulls it down, as the door creeps open and the air from inside exits to chamber, the two grab onto each other's arms (Ripley's right grabbing onto Mils left) as they float into the access chamber, Mils with similar difficulty pulls the latch on the inside downward with all his strength.
The door closes behind them as the room pressurizes, they move into the next chamber as they trade red blinding light for white blinding light, they fall to their knees as the ordeal hits them fully. They take their space suits off as quickly as possible, Mils helping Ripley get out of her suit, both of them are struggling to catch their breaths. Once they have their suits off Mils guides Ripley over to a first aid station on the wall, he grabs an oxygen mask and helps Ripley put it on, he places a reassuring hand on her shoulder as she breaths the fresh oxygen in. He places a second mask on himself as he tries to focus his blurring vision and dizzy head.
"There we go Rip...breath...deep breaths" Mils says through his own machine assisted breaths.
"Okay...okay we're okay" Ripley says quietly to herself, once they feel acclimated, they put the masks back and adjust themselves.
"Alright...back to square one...at least that thing's dead now" Mils states as Ripley looks at a nearby directory
"Yeah...could've gone a little smoother...but it's gone for good" Ripley replies
"Let's just hope Waits has his best men on guard, I'm gonna shove this up his ass for what he did to us" Mils states holding up the wrench
"Not if I beat you to it" Ripley replies picking up the electric prod
"Better tell them we're here" Mils states with a sigh, Ripley nods and with slight smile she accesses the radio
"Hello...Hello...this is Amanda Ripley...can anyone hear me?" Ripley asks, there is silence for a few seconds then a voice cracks through the silence, a voice belonging to the man who had sent them to die, Marshal Waits.
"Ripley!?...Ripley is that you?" He asks
"Yes Waits...me and Mils...you son of a bitch...you locked us in there, blew us into space with that thing...and left us to die!" Ripley states
"I had to do it...I had to get that thing off station by...any means necessary...any means..." Waits answers
"And the ends don't justify the means Waits..." Mils butted in
"But, it worked it goddamn worked didn't it...it's gone, the stations safe" Waits retorts
"That doesn't change much...we still gotta get this damn station back online..." Mils points out
"We'll work on a strategy when you two get here" Waits finishes
"Looking forward to it...and we're gonna discuss your methods when we get there...Ripley Out!" Ripley huffs out the response, she rejoins Mils who waves her over to a door that's sealed.
"Mind doing the honors Rip...I'll cover you" Mils says unconsciously, Ripley however looks at him with a raised eyebrow
"From what?" She quickly asks
"Well...you know...uhh huh...guess I don't need to cover you for a change" Mils realizes as he lets his guard down.
"Let's just hope we can contact the Torrens...with that thing dead...we might actually get out of this" Ripley says as she cuts the emergency seal of the door, she opens the door and points her gun in several directions as if expecting trouble.
"I plan on it Rip...we'll get out of this mess" Mils says keeping the incinerator slightly raised, the two move through the large hallway they find themselves in, they cautiously go down a flight of stairs, and turn a corner. They both raise their weapons when they find a man sitting down facing towards them, fortunately he's already left the station as there's a large gunshot wound through his head, presumably self inflicted, the weapon of choice for this merciful act, a shotgun still laying in his lap.
"Shit...well that's one way to go" Mils points out, the two walk over to the man, they both eye up the shotgun, and almost just as quickly they make eye contact with eachother.
"Can we at least rock, paper, scissors for it?" Mils says with borderline puppy dog eyes
"Mils...you already called dibs once..." she replies with a raised eyebrow
"Sure you can handle it?...I mean you don't weigh that much" Mils points out halfheartedly
"I went to gun ranges when I was in high-school...so yeah I can handle a shotgun smartass" Ripley replies slapping Mils on the arm
"Alright...but don't come crying to me when you get blasted back Rip" Mils states rubbing his arm, Ripley picks the shotgun up as well as a key-card. They walk over to a locked door around the corner, Ripley puts the keycard in and the duo walk through it, cautiously pointing their weapons in various directions, they discover that they have returned back into the large lobby like area where they first met Axel. Ripley and Mils move to the main door ahead, but not before Ripley thinks of something.
"David hold up..." she says as she focuses on the numerous body bags on the floor of the room, she uses her flashlight to zoom in on the ID tags on each bag, Mils follows her cautiously.
"What's up Rip?..." he asks turning the incinerator off to conserve fuel now that the creature was gone.
"I'm trying to see if there are anyone else whose cause of death was "impregnation"...aww here we go...Madison Schroeder...age 23...died just a few days ago" Ripley explains as she unzips the body bag, the pale body of a young woman, she has all the sign of "impregnation", she sports a chest wound, which still has a slight pool of blood inside of it.
"Jesus...poor kid...seems like she was a nurse" Mils states as he notices the medical outfit the woman is wearing
"Yeah...this thing definitely wasn't bias about who it killed...wait a minute didn't Waits say this thing came out of Marlow's wife...then how do all these people have these chest wounds..." Ripley pondered, Mils meanwhile went stiff at the sudden thought that had entered his mind
"Shit..." Mils states out loud, Ripley looks at him expectantly
"Rip...the only way you can get wounds like that is if...if you have one of those things inside you...it bursts out...which means..." Mils pieces together, a sense of dread fills the room at Mils and Ripley's realization
"We might not have been facing the same creature all this time...there could be more than one!" Ripley says standing up suddenly.
"We need to move now David...we need to get back to the Marshal Bureau" Ripley says as her and Mils walk through the large door in front of them, they run gingerly through the rooms ahead, getting a drop of deja vu with every step. Ripley contacts Waits over the radio.
"Waits come in...it's Ripley...come in Waits" Ripley says, there is silence and then a gruff response from the man who tried to kill her and Mils only a few moments earlier.
"What now?" he responds with obvious annoyance in his voice and tone.
"Waits...besides Marlow's wife...how many cases of impregnation occurred?" Ripley returns with a more serious décor about her
"Hold on...last we checked there were nine cases...unfortunately every time somebody was brought to us we didn't have any choice...we usually had to kill the host...we then waited for the fucker to come out of the chest...we killed the fuckers the moment they came out...we spaced a few during the more tense moments" Waits explains
"Are you sure you got them all?" Mils asks interjecting himself as the duo round a corner
"Trust me...I was there for every case" Waits states proudly
"We trusted you before remember?" Mils states coldly
"Look when you two get back here, we can sit back and watch the surveillance tapes, until then...Waits out" Waits states himself ending the communication, just as Ripley and Mils move into an elevator, Ripley presses the up button as Mils sighs.
"I've got a bad feeling about this Rip...if he's wrong...then we've just gone full circle" Mils says with a sad look on his face, Ripley approaches him pressing his her fist against his chest
"Hey...look at me, if he's wrong...we'll deal with it...together" Ripley says with a nod and a smile, Mils straightens himself up and nods back
"You're right...we'll cross that bridge wh...if we come upon it." Mils responds, the elevator doors open and Mils and Ripley exit the small, metal, box.
"Ripley?...Mils?...is that you?" Ricardo's voice suddenly comes over the radio
"Yeah...it's us Ric" Mils answers with a sigh of relief hearing his companion over the radio
"No thanks to Waits" Ripley adds
"Ahh...he's a ruthless son of a bitch...always has been...stubborn too...if...if only he had listened to me...things won't have gone this far".
"It's done now Ricardo" Ripley reassures him
"Umm...I'm sorry I fucked up the lockdown earlier" Ricardo says apologizing
"Forgot it Ric...you got us out...that's all that matters...see ya back at the Bureau" Mils states as him and Ripley notice a group of armed men through some shutters.
"We need power back online or we're not going anywhere" Ripley whispers
"Don't know what these guys are up to, but it looks like they're gearing up for some sort of offensive...shit they may try to take the bureau by force" Mils responds
"We've got to stop them David"
"I hear ya...let's see...why hello there little buddy" Mils states looking down at roving vacuum cleaner unit, pretty much the descendent of the free roaming vacuum cleaner "robots" of the early 21st century, the roving models often belonged to a hub of some sort, Mils knowing this presses the return button on the unit, the unit springs to life as him and Ripley follow it. They have to briskly jog to catch up to the faster moving unit, it hangs a sharp right into a vent, Ripley and Mils follow it into the small hub room. The unit returns to it's holding slot, Mils and Ripley initially don't see any openings till they find a vent, they move into it, reluctantly in Mils case.
"If you were to tell me, that following that thing would just lead to us crawling through another goddamn vent...I would've taken our chances with the militia around the corner" Mils states, Ripley holds a laugh and gives a cheeky reply
"Believe me...I'm not exactly enjoying you staring at my ass all the time" Ripley states.
"One time that happened Rip...once...I swear" Mils replies, they find an exit for the vent and end up in a small room that has various supplies spread throughout, they move through a door and venture into a large service area.
"Uh...guys I'm about to rain on the parade..." Ricardo says suddenly over the radio
"What's up Ric" Mils asks as him and Ripley keep moving through the dark area.
"Something's up with androids..." Ricardo replies, Ripley sighs as if he was stating the obvious, she responds with a slightly annoyed tone
"Something's been up with the damn androids since we got here" she replies, as she turns a lever on a locked door, however as her and Mils enter another small supply room Ricardo adds to the story.
"No this is something else...they're leaving their posts...I just saw some in a public area that's not normal" he stresses
"Great...now the automaton's are giving us problems" Mils says rubbing his forehead with his hand as him and Ripley enter a floor vent.
"Watch your backs you two!" Ricardo finishes before he disconnects, as the two of them move through the vent Ripley contacts Waits.
"Waits...what's going on with the Androids?" she asks grasping her shotgun a little tighter with the close quarters her and Mils find themselves in.
"I don't know" Waits answers with a sort of reserve panic in his voice
"What about the alert status...maybe throwing that damn lab into space has got them going through a certain protocol?" Mils suggests as he adjusts himself for what seems like the hundredth time in the tight vent.
"I don't think so...I'm trying to contact Samuels...see if he knows what APOLLO's playing at" Waits finishes as Mils and Ripley exit the vent, they find themselves in some sort of maintenance backroom, they see the door is locked due to a lack of power, they restart a nearby generator and then exit the door, the sight they see in front of them however makes them stop dead in their tracks as several people try to fight off a group of androids are attacking them, Misl and Ripley curse mentally as they run past the slaughter, Ripley contacts Waits.
"Waits...Waits the androids are out of control...APOLLO's let them off the leash" Ripley says as her and Mils continue to dodge pursuing androids
"I've noticed...they're not searching for something...it's like they're hunting" Waits answers back with more panic in his voice
"For what?...the creature's gone!" Mils adds, as him and Ripley shoot down a single android with their pistols.
"Everything and Anything" Waits responds
"What do you mean?" Ripley asks into the radio
"Standby..." Waits finishes just as Ripley and Mils arrive at the staircase of the Bureau, there is a security shutter blocking the entrance way.
"Waits...there is a security shutter in our way...we need it up now!" Ripley says just as a pari of androids approach the duo from behind, there is silence on the other end, Ripley and Mils point their respective weapons at the advancing droids, shocked and disturbed at what they had witnessed just a few moments ago. Mils readies his incinerator as Ripley pumps her shotgun, they aim and prepare to fire, Mils forms a wall of flame in front of them, but it does little to disinterest the androids who approach the duo with firm determination. Mils aims for the one on the left, while the other on the right is in Ripley's crosshairs, with almost simultaneous nature they open fire. Mils unloads all six bullets in his revovler, with four making contact with the android dropping it dead, Ripley fires one shot nearly point blank into the android's head. The two droids fall dead as Ripley and Mils look down at their corpses.
"Nice shootin Tex..." Mils says coyly to Ripley with a wink as he reloads his revolver.
"Glad to see you can back up all the talk Mils" Ripley says falling back to his last name due to the severity of the situation, Ripley knocks on the shutters behind them.
"Waits...we're still here...how's the override for these shutters going?" Ripley asks
"You bastards...leave them alone...no...you bastards...ughh...ahhh..." Waits responds suddenly with sounds of androids in the background of his broadcasts, his screams are replaced with choking garbles and then silence.
"Waits!...Waits!" Mils says, both him and Ripley make eye contact, before stating the obvious
"detour" they both say in unison, they retreat across various hallways and stairwells, trying to find the backdoor to the bureau, they had to get in there somehow, they stayed out of the android's path of destruction, they had had enough of the automatons of death, they eventually enter a room with sleeping cells and pass through a door, before hanging a left and going down a dark stairwell into a dark maintenance hallway, they move through it slowly Ripley checking the tracker constantly, they move past a door and enter into a vent, they slowly move through it still paranoid the creature may be near despite recent events. They finally move out of the vent into a room near the Marshal Bureau, Mils listens to an audio recording from Doctor Lingard about the parasite Marlow's wife was infected with, turns out they didn't follow quarantine precautions properly when the Enisadora had arrived. He rejoins Ripley who is examining a man lying against the wall.
"Jesus...Mils the androids slaughtered them..." Ripley says turning away from the corpse
"Poor bastards...let's go find Ric" Mils says as him and Ripley move sprightly around the corner into the waiting area, they pause with horror as they see the sight before them. All the people they had left in the bureau were dead, their bodies mangled and motionless on the floor or leaning against the walls of the waiting room. The only person besides them left alive is Ricardo who looks like he's not even alive himself as he sits on the bench looking at the site in front of him, they walk up slowly to him and Ripley shakes him lightly with her hand, he jumps slightly before looking back at the two engineers.
"Rip...Mils...they're dead...all of them" Ricardo mournfully says
"We know Ric...we saw what happened and heard it too" Mils adds while walking over to the body of Waits, whose eyes look down at the floor, Mils closes them.
"Why...why the fuck would they do this?" Ricardo asks noone in particular as he looks between Ripley and Mils.
"I don't know...but Samuels does" Ripley adds.
"Samuels?...why would he know?" Ricardo asks standing up, and walking over to a nearby corpse.
"Because...Waits sent Samuels to access APOLLO, try to find out what's going on with it" Mils says as he turns around from the body of Waits, he approaches his two friends.
"Makes sense...him being a synthetic and all" Ricardo says as he examines the body of his dead colleague
"Ricardo...have you seen Marlow or Taylor?" Ripley suddenly asks realizing that it had been sometime since they had heard from the WayYu team member.
"They're not here...I didn't see them anyway" Ricardo states looking down at the corpse in a daze.
"We need to find him...Ricardo? Ricardo!" Ripley says shaking the young man before her on the shoulder
"If we go after Samuels...can you run this place...We need eyes and ears" Ripley asks
"I'm not fucking staying here!" Ricardo says quickly, Ripley looks to speak up, before Mils beats her to it
"Ric...we need you now...you can run this place...we need somebody watching our backs out there...we do this together" Mils states looking at Ricardo dead in the eyes
"and we leave together" Ripley adds, after a few moments of silence Ricardo stands up with a determined look in his eyes
"Alright I'll do it" Ricardo says as he approaches the security shutters in front of him, he presses a few buttons on a keypad next to the shutters which causes them to open, Mils and Ripley approach him.
"Thanks Ricardo...we'll come back for you" Ripley says with a smile
"Lock the fucking doors, and don't let anyone in...watch our backs and we'll be back before you know it" Mils states as he readies the incinerator, him and Ripley step through the doorway and look back at Ricardo one last time.
"Good luck you two...I've got your backs" Ricardo says with a smile and a nod just as the shutters close.
Ripley and Mils move down the stairway with a determined stride, they now have a new enemy and a new mission...find Samuels.
Ripley Audio Log 6
While Marshal Waits has been less than helpful, we've gotten some technical support from a man by the name of Ricardo, he seems to know the layout of the station fairly well, and looks as if he's cool under pressure, me and Mils are going to need that more than ever, we're heading back towards the Systech Spire, hopefully with Ricardo's help and a little luck, we can finally kill this fucker, at least that's the plan.