As soon as we were inside the processing plant, we exited the APC and began moving deeper into the plant, with Frost directing us to where the colonists were. "You're looking for a stairwell forty meters in."

"We see it," Gorman replied as the staircase came into view. "Drake, you're with me on point. Vasquez and Crowe, watch the tail."

"You want sublevel three," Frost continued as we cautiously went down the stairs, looking all around for signs of an ambush, and double-checking with the motion trackers. "Your signals are breaking up a bit."

From near the rear, Hudson said calmly, "Nothing to worry about. We're probably getting some interference from the structure."

As we got lower, the air gradually got hotter and drier, and something stank really bad.

Then we reached the third sublevel, and saw what it was. Even now, several weeks later, I'm still trying to find a good way to describe the disgusting sight that greet us. Almost every inch of the ceiling, walls, and floor was covered in some kind of thick, brown-to-black, organic-looking junk. I had never seen anything like it before. It was all over the place, and it had odd arrangements of holes piercing through it at random points, while other areas had strange, rib-like patterns. When we stepped on it, it was hard and held our weight without letting us sink in.

"What the hell is this?" Gorman asked softly, almost to himself. Touching his headset, he asked, "Ripley, do you recognize this?"

"No," she answered, anxiously.

Gorman looked around again. "Alright, let's go in."

He and I led the way down the gunked-up passage, checking every corner anxiously. It was becoming more and more obvious we were about to run into serious trouble. I wanted to say that we should just get out while it was still safe to, and that the colonists were all probably dead by now, but I couldn't.

"Watch your fire, and check your targets," Apone reminded us. "Remember, we're looking for civvies in here."

I heard a soft snapping sound and looked back to see Dietrich holding a piece of the gunk in her free hand, having just broken it off from the wall. "Looks like some kind of secreted resin."

"Nobody touch nothing," Apone growled, giving her a look. She dropped the piece quickly and kept moving alongside him.

"It's hot as hell in here," Hicks observed as we turned down a different passage. The smell was getting progressively worse with each step as well.

Hudson, of course, was still his usual boisterous self despite the situation. "Yeah, man, but it's a dry heat!" he said, as if that made it better.

"Knock it off, Hudson," Apone and Hicks said together.

"You're almost right on top of them," Frost reported. "End of that hallway opens up into a big room under the primary heat exchangers. That's where they're at."

Gorman looked down at the tracker in his right hand. "I'm still not getting any movement," he said.

Then we reached the end of the hallway and saw why. I have smelled some pretty rancid things over the years. Yes, I've smelled rotting human corpses. It burns the inside of your nose and it twists your stomach until you puke. But never in my life have I ever smelled over a hundred corpses rotting together.

I thought back to my short time in high school, when we were shown the infamous photographs of German concentration camps in World War II. We read accounts of American and British soldiers describing what they saw and smelled and heard in graphic detail. Thousands of dead bodies all at different stages of decomposition.

This was just as bad, if not worse. The only difference was that these people had been stuck to the walls of this disgusting structure and all of them had gaping holes in their chests. Some of them had dried-up organ parts hanging out of those holes.

Taking a breath was difficult. The heat and smell made it impossible, and I tried not to think about it. The stink and the contorted expressions of sheer pain on the faces of the corpses, frozen forever, were making it more and more difficult to keep my mind at bay.

Hicks found a leathery-looking egg thing, and I caught my breath as I remembered the drawings in the caves on LV-400. It was open, and empty, and then I saw him crouch down and pick something up with the barrel of his shotgun.

"What the fuck is that, man?" Hudson asked, his voice full of disgust. I saw it was a weird, spidery, scorpion-like creature, larger than a dinner plate, with a long, limp tail. The finger-like legs were curled up under its stomach, stiff enough to hold their position under the weight of the body as Hicks held it off the ground.

"That's..." Ripley's voice cracked. "That's what was on Kane. It's what implants the host."

This thing had also been in the cave drawings. It was what the eggs held. And all of the colonists... I looked around at the corpses and the holes in their chests. That must mean there was one of those nightmare creatures we encountered on LV-400 for every colonist. My heart started beating faster, and I wanted more and more to say that we needed to get out.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Dietrich approaching the body of a woman with curly black hair, cocooned tightly within the wall of resin. "This is recent," she said, her lamp illuminating the fresh blood still dripping slowly from the hole in the woman's chest.

"How recent?" Gorman asked, only giving the body a brief glance before looking back to the tracker.

"Maybe an hour or two," Dietrich said. "Rigor mortis hasn't set in yet. I'd say if we had come straight down here as soon as we figured out where they were, we would have been getting here right around when this happened."

Gorman shook his tracker slightly in frustration, as if it wasn't working properly. "Is anyone getting any movement anywhere?"

"Negative," Hicks called out, and Crowe added, "Nothing back here, Lieutenant."

"What are you thinking, sir?" Apone asked from behind us.

Gorman looked around at the bodies pinned to the walls. "I'm thinking we can safely assume that all of the colonists are dead. Whatever these things are that came out of them, they've got to be around here somewhere, and I'd rather we not stick around long enough to have all of them down on our heads. Let's make our way back out of here."

Before we had even taken a step, however, Hudson held up his tracker. "I've got something, man!"

"Where?" Gorman snapped urgently as we all looked around quickly, watching for one of those creatures, or maybe even a civvie, to show themselves.

"It's right on top of us!" Hudson exclaimed as he pointed his tracker upward. There was a movement along the wall right above Dietrich, and in the split second that passed as our lights struck it, I saw it was a black, skeletal beast with an elongated skull. There were several tubes protruding from its back, and I spotted a very long, bladed tail uncurling behind it. It had no eyes to be seen, and its sharp jaws seemed fixed in a permanent, hideous grin. My heart was skipping beats as my mind threw up memories of LV-400, flashing them before my vision. I could vividly see this same creature throwing itself out into the snow, hissing as the Annexers ran around to attack it.

Dietrich's back was to it, and before any of us could even cry out a warning, the thing grabbed her and launched itself upward with its powerful legs. She screamed wildly, flailing around, discharging her flamethrower in her panic as she was lifted up toward the ceiling. Apone had lifted his shotgun to shoot the thing when Gorman tackled him out of the way, and the flames went right over their heads. Hicks raised his own shotgun, but Hudson, who was several steps closer, dropped his tracker to let it hang by its cord, and yelled, "Look out!" as he gripped his flamethrower and fired it right over Dietrich at the creature's head. It let out a screech of agony as the flames engulfed it, and dropped Dietrich. She fell back to the ground with a howl and a thud, some stray fuel from Hudson's flamethrower burning on her helmet. Still flaming and screeching in agony, the creature fell next to her, and I almost dropped my smartgun as I dragged her away from it, knocking her helmet off in the process. Apone and Gorman scrambled to their feet as Hudson let out a yell and doused the thing with flames, and Hicks fired his shotgun twice. Yellow liquid sprayed out from the thing's body, hissing as it hit the metal grate floor and burning right through it. With a final screech, it lifted an arm as if making a last attempt to escape, and then collapsed limply to the ground. The acidic liquid began seeping out and burning through the floor underneath it, and in a moment, it fell through, slamming into the floor of the level below. We could hear the acid hissing again as it began to burn through that floor as well. Dietrich was lying quite still, an expression of total shock on her face.

"You alright?" I asked her loudly, trying to get through to her. She didn't respond, staring up at the wall where the creature had been trying to grab her. "Dietrich!" I yelled.

"Corporal, respond!" Apone snapped, dropping down next to her and slapping her face lightly. That brought her around, and she turned her head to face him. "Stick with me, Marine!" he ordered. "Are you okay?"

"Y-y-yes," she stammered. "I... I thought... That thing had me a-and-"

She broke off with a shudder, and to my surprise, Apone hugged her to him for a moment, rubbing the top of her head. I had never seen him do that for anyone before, but then again, none of us had ever had such a close encounter with something so horrific.

Gorman, meanwhile, was checking around anxiously with his tracker, as were Hudson and Crowe. "Movement!" Hudson shouted. Apone let go of Dietrich and reached for her flamethrower, handing it to her as he dragged her to her feet.

"What's the position?" Gorman demanded, sweeping his own tracker in a circle.

"Can't lock in on it, man! Looks like it's all around us!"

"That's it, we're out of here." Gorman turned to Dietrich. "Can you walk, Corporal?"

I could swear I saw tears in her eyes, but she nodded, clutching her flamethrower tightly to her chest.

"Alright, everyone stick with your partners and watch each other's backs."

"More movement, in front and behind of us!" Hudson called out.

"Vasquez, Crowe, you've got the point now! Let's move!"

We began walking quickly back towards the entrance, looking around wildly for any signs of more creatures. Then I heard Vasquez screaming a curse, and the sound of her flamethrower filled the air for a split second before being drowned out by three shots from Crowe's M322.

Then they were on us, coming from all directions. The passageway quickly turned into an oven as we all began firing, and the darkness was pushed back as patches of burning napalm landed on the walls and floor, illuminating everything around us.

A black, bony arm suddenly grabbed reached out from the wall and grabbed Apone's leg, yanking him off his feet. He landed hard on his tailbone, almost dropping his weapon as the thing began to drag him off. Before I could shoot it, however, Dietrich whirled around and fired her own flamethrower with a scream that sounded like a mixture of terror and fury. It fell to the ground, thrashing as the flames consumed it, and Gorman and I found ourselves having to dodge around the hole that quickly melted in the floor, allowing the body to drop through.

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe and the pangs in my chest were smashing down years of work I had put in trying to beat back my PTSD. Shaking my head to try and get those thoughts out, I was suddenly knocked to the ground by a long, spindly claw. A flickering shadow loomed over me, and I heard a hiss. The hissing turned to screeching as Gorman shot the shadow in the head. The acid splashed on the floor, barely missing me as Gorman grabbed my arm and pulled me back up to my feet. "Move, Drake!"

"They're still coming!" Vasquez hollered. "Where's Drake?"

"I got him!" Gorman whirled around to fire a burst into the eyeless face of an alien staring at him, jaws parted to reveal a second set of teeth inside. As the thing fell to the ground, burning another hole in the floor, Gorman cursed, and ejected the magazine from his shotgun, reaching for another one and slamming it into place.

"Move, man! You heard the lieutenant! Keep going!" Hudson turned around, covering Hicks as the corporal dropped to his knees to allow Hudson to fire over his head as he shoved more shells into his shotgun. Hudson let out a scream at an alien retreating from his flamethrower, "Why don'tcha come back and suck on it?! That's right, run, motherfucker!"

My heartbeat was beginning to drown out all other sounds. All I could see were claws and fire and...

Broken glass.

Delhoun's silhouette as he broke down the lab door.

I can't let this happen now. I can't.

I was experiencing a terrifying blend of flashback and reality as I continued pressing back with the others, pausing occasionally to shoot. Out of all the nightmares I've had, this one was the worst. Mainly because it was real and actually happening. I knew I would see it in my sleep for a long, long time to come.

Vasquez and Crowe made it to the stairs first, and they both turned around to cover everyone else as we dashed towards them. Hicks was the first up the stairs, followed closely by Hudson. I was last in line, behind Gorman, and I turned to fire my flamethrower at an approaching alien.

"Drake, come on!" Vasquez screamed. A black shadow appeared to my left, but before I could turn to face it, the banging of Crowe's shotgun echoed around the passage, accompanied by a shriek of pain. Acidic blood splattered the left side of my helmet, even on the faceplate, and it began burning rapidly through towards my face.

"Shit!" I yelled, and dropped my flamethrower in my rush to yank off the helmet and toss it away. A few drops had landed on my chestplate, but not enough to burn through it. I barely had a chance to grab my flamethrower again before Vasquez had grabbed me and was pulling me forcefully towards the stairs and then shoving me up. She and Crowe were right behind me as we followed the others up the stairs and towards the entrance, the aliens in close pursuit.

Reaching the top of the stairs and rounding the corner into the long tunnel towards the entrance, we saw more of the creatures jumping around on the pipes and machinery above, working their way forward to drop down on us. The APC was sitting by the entrance with both turrets in action, the autocannons blowing the creatures overhead to bits. Wierzbowski was crouched in the APC's doorway with Frost's shotgun in his hands, firing past us at the aliens coming from the direction of the stairs. Hudson reached the APC first and slammed his back against it next to the door, firing a jet of flame at a creature about to leap off the wall at Dietrich and Apone. Hicks was right behind him, shoving past Wierzbowski as he yelled, "Frost, drive! Drive! I'll take the weapons!" Apone pushed Dietrich on board, and then Vasquez, before climbing in himself.

Still the creatures came. Hudson screamed at the top of his lungs as one of them appeared around the side of the APC and tried to grab the back of his armor. Crowe's flamethrower nearly singed part of his helmet off, but Hudson was able to scramble free and throw himself into the APC. Wierzbowski threw his arm around Crowe, yanking the smaller man in the vehicle, and Gorman and I were right behind. The moment we were through, Wierzbowski slammed the door closed, roaring, "Frost, go, go!"

The APC lurched into motion so quickly that all of us in the back, except for Wierzbowski, who was still holding onto the door handle, were thrown to the ground. Hicks was sitting at the weapons station, still directing fire at the monsters as the APC sped towards the entrance. Before any of us could even try to get up, we were bounced around wildly as the APC hit the rough terrain outside the processing plant, and Hudson was almost thrown on top of me. After several seconds, Hicks called out, "Frost, we're clear! They're not following! You can stop here."

The APC shuddered to a halt, and Frost and Hicks both immediately jumped from their seats to come check on us.

Wierzbowski knelt by me, helping me sit up. "Drake? Are you okay?"

I coughed before grabbing a canteen of water. I realized, after gulping down the water and setting the half-empty canteen on my lap, that I was crying. Wierzbowski saw, too, and he tried shielding me from the view of everyone else. I started feeling all over my face and neck, amazed that none of the acid had gotten on me. The helmet had probably saved my life, or at the very least my face.

"Is anybody hurt?" Hicks asked.

"I got some scratches on my left leg," Gorman said. "Nothing major."

Hudson's face was covered in soot. His earlier confidence had all but faded. "I'm alright, man. I don't wanna go back in there."

"Nobody does."

My heart was still pounding. The screaming from human and alien alike was still ringing in my ears. Something deep inside was demanding I curl up into a ball and just hide until we returned to the Sulaco. I wanted to talk with someone alone, but I knew that wasn't possible right now. I was going to have to do what my therapist said I shouldn't ever do; I had to cram my emotions down my throat. Every thought and feeling not relating to our task at hand needed to be tossed away.

"What're we gonna do, man?" Hudson asked, his composure becoming nothing more than a ghost in his eyes. "There's nothing we can do. All the colonists're dead and there's no point in trying to salvage this place, man! We may as well go home! Get the fuck outta here!"

"Hudson, relax!" Vasquez shouted.

"You saw those things! I ain't staying here and letting 'em kill us!"

"Knock it off, both of you!" Apone yelled over them. "Lieutenant, what are your orders?"

Gorman was sitting limply in one of the side seats, his helmet in his lap as he gulped from a canteen. He lowered it and straightened up, looking over everyone as if to make absolutely sure we were alright before speaking. "We're going to go back up to the Sulaco and report what we've found to Command and see what they say. Frost, let's get moving again."

"Yes, sir!" Frost sat quickly down in the driver's seat and a moment later, we were once again lurching over the bumpy ground. Gorman turned to Hicks. "Hicks, call Ferro up and tell her to get the dropship prepped. We'll meet them on the landing pad."

"Right." Hicks reached for his radio. "Ferro, do you copy?"

Her voice was cool and steady as she replied, "Standing by."

"Prep for dust-off. We're heading back up to the Sulaco and will meet you on the landing platform."

"Roger, see you th-" Her voice cut out suddenly. "Ferro, what's wrong?" Hicks asked. No response. I felt a chill run through me as Hicks tried again. "Ferro, respond."

It was like the oxygen had been sucked from the vehicle. The blood drained from Hicks's face. He tapped another button. "Spunkmeyer? Spunkmeyer, do you copy?"

Hudson put his head in his hands. He was breathing almost as hard as I was just a few minutes ago. "Fuck, no... No, man..."

The APC bounced along the landscape as we raced back to the dropship. I think we were all trying to process the worst case scenario in our heads. We were all trying to figure out how we'd react to seeing Spunkmeyer, Ferro, and the little girl either torn up or taken away to be hosts for more of these monsters' spawn. Frankly, between the two I'd rather see them torn to bits. Ultimately, I don't want to see that at all. I want us all to go home. I want to go home.

I've never really considered anywhere to be home, but, overall, Earth is home. Not to mention, I do have a place waiting for me when I'm discharged, thanks to the late Doctor Hornby's will. I want to go there, with Vasquez, and start making plans for civilian life.

For now, I have to worry about making sure every single one of my teammates gets home as well. A good number of us are nearing the ends of our contracts. Hudson, for instance. I want to make sure he goes home to his girlfriend and proposes to her. Wierzbowski's got a wife waiting for him. The majority of us have loved ones.

When we got out of the APC, I expected to see huge swaths of blood and flesh and organ bits on the ground. Instead, I saw Ferro standing over the body of an alien, P90 in her hands, and Spunkmeyer crouched down, holding Newt tightly. I didn't bother hiding my relief. "What the fuck happened?"

Ferro gestured to the carcass with her weapon. "That happened." She took a breath. "Spunkmeyer was by the ramp with Newt, and got jumped. He was trying to shield her with his body. I was yelling at him to get out of the way so I could shoot it. I couldn't respond to Hicks, I'm sorry!"

"It's okay, relax," Hicks said. "Is everyone alright?"

No, not exactly. When I looked again, I noticed Spunkmeyer had several long, deep scratches across the back of his right shoulder. There were burn-holes from the creature's acidic blood on the base of his jacket, and the thing had burned several uneven dips in the landing pad we were standing on. At least it didn't damage the dropship.

I could see Newt's dirty sleeves around Spunkmeyer's neck. Her head was buried in his chest, and I heard Spunkmeyer whispering, "It's gone... It's gone, sweetheart." He grunted in pain, blood running down his back and soaking his jacket.

Ripley was able to pull Newt away so Dietrich could get to work on Spunkmeyer. The rest of us were starting to become annoyed and frustrated.

"Who else is starting to agree with Hudson that we need to get outta here ASAP?" Frost asked.

"No one wanted to come here in the first fucking place," I grumbled.

"I'm not leaving until we come up with a way to destroy every last creature in this damn colony," Ripley said, icily.

"Right, and I'm Santa Claus."

"Drake, that's enough," Apone replied.

"It's not like we're gonna set up camp here," Gorman said over us. "Let's get back up to the Sulaco."