The Hercules continued its journey through space away from the planet of Fiorina towards a destination that was yet to be revealed. On any other mission the entire crew would all be hibernating in hyper-sleep capsules during travel as it would be inefficient and a waste of resources to have any personnel on active duty while the ship was on route - but on this occasion the doctors aboard needed to remain active in order to treat their patients. Three days had now passed since the casualties of the crash-landed EEV from the Sulaco had been revived – but of the four original passengers that had been ejected into space within it three years earlier, only one of them was awake, although still immobilized. Two of the other passengers were still unconscious, one of them an uncertainty if she would ever wake up again. The last one was not even aboard the cruiser as she was permanently lost, having killed herself all those years ago by jumping into a melting furnace and letting herself be incinerated.

As for the only conscious passenger, (if he now could be regarded as conscious since he was an artificial being,) he was still in the process of being rebuilt. Bishop had been stuck inside of the Hercules' workshop ever since he'd assisted the doctors in the bio-lab – his present condition didn't allow him to leave on his own accord, and besides Colonel Decker had made it absolutely clear that he did not want the synthetic anywhere else on the ship.

Bishop was not mounted on the rack anymore like he had been earlier. Instead he lay on his back on a bigger stationary workbench, being able to do nothing else but to stare up at the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling that illuminated the whole room. He didn't know much what Fixer was doing to him, the little man wanted to keep it to himself for reasons Bishop couldn't comprehend. The short-grown mechanic was right now busy in the corner of the workshop, welding something. Had Bishop been programmed with such a particular feeling within his RAM-interpretive chip, he would feel downright bored with his present predicament. He wasn't in total idleness though. He had asked Fixer to hook him up to a computer with a news network to allow him to catch up on what had transpired on Earth and around the galaxy while he had been inactive on the prison-planet. Fixer who'd found no harm in such a request had given in to the synthetic's wish.

Poor Fixer. Bishop hadn't liked to deceive him like that. Fixer was a good man and an excellent engineer, but his weakness was that he was a little naïve. Bishop had indeed reviewed the events of the three years that had gone by, but that had never been his primary intention. After he'd done that, he had through satellite signal relays hacked into the Network that belonged to the Company. Usually he would never go in there without authorization, but while he had earlier been connected to the hard drives from the cryotubes, Bishop had taken the opportunity to assimilate almost everything that was written on them; especially the recorded thoughts that had belonged to Ripley. It wasn't like he had intended to be snoopy; the synthetic had simply wanted to honor her memory by getting to know everything he could learn about her. Naturally, Ripley's most distinguished memories had been about her encounters with the xenomorphs as well as the loss of her biological daughter, and finally her recently developed maternal feelings for the little girl Newt. But by 'viewing' Ripley's horror-filled events with the aliens from her own point of view, it had made Bishop actually grow concerned, so he had decided to take up one of the last requests she had made to him the last time they had talked: to find out what the Company really wanted with those creatures.

Once inside the Network, he undertook a massive sophisticated search through the maze of the secured channels and he made sure to mask his signature as well as IP-number to avoid being detected by the firewalls. The anti-virus programs had advanced considerably since the last time he'd been in contact with the Network, and that time he had not had any reason to be sneaky about his visit. To trick those anti-piracy programs to not attack him, he had to rewrite his parameters into pretending to be a sub-program that belonged to the Central Network - however that effort gave him what in human terms could be described as a headache; but it was all worth it. Bishop had managed to access the files of the hidden corporate operations, and he had not liked what he'd found. First he had made a backtrack to the history and all classified information that had ever been filed there, and then he cross-referenced them with some vague notes and rumors to finally compare and corroborate those to Ripley's memories that were written on the hard-drive. He even did that to some of Newt's experiences. Afterwards, Bishop believed that he had finally deducted what the obsession with the alien creatures had always been about.

He felt a pang of sympathy and sadness for all the people whose lives had been lost in the Company's unethical attempts to acquire the specimen – for the crew of the Nostromo, who were the first to be sacrificed when attempting to acquire the alien – for the colonists of LV-426 and for the soldiers under the command of Sgt. Apone, Hicks' team. He even felt sad for the prisoners of 'Fury 16' – all of them had been expendable, and it had all been because of one primitive and practically unattainable goal.

Even the crew of the Hercules was considered expendable – Bishop had managed to uncover what this classified mission was about, and he found it doubtful that they would succeed even this time, taking into account of the experiences of previous attempts that had shown to be fruitless. Bishop wondered if Colonel Decker was aware of the danger they were headed into. To try to express him a warning or any form of recommendations for caution though would be futile; the colonel had on several occasions shown that he would never listen to a mere machine.

There were only two courses of actions that could be taken. The most logical and effective choice would be via his interface to the network to commandeer the ship by remote control and make them turn around. It would be easy: the soldiers aboard the Hercules were still in hyper-sleep, and none of the biotechs would have the experience to disconnect him. The only one who would be able to hinder him was Fixer, but Bishop was certain that he could convince him to step back. Unfortunately, commandeering the ship was not an option when considering Bishop. It wasn't just because he was at the moment immobile; it was because Bishop after all was a product of the Company. His program wouldn't allow him to take any action against them, no matter how much he disagreed with their affairs. There was therefore only one course of action left that Bishop could take in order to save lives. It was unavoidable. Hicks would not be happy about it once he wakes up and find it out.

Not happy at all.

At that moment, Corporal Dwayne Hicks did wake up, and he woke up in a world of hurt. He was certain that the headache he had was about to split his head in two, unless he wasn't killed first by the agonizing pain he felt in his chest.

As he tried to sort out his bearings, the horrifying memories resurfaced in his mind. He recalled his mission, his team under the command of Sgt. Apone, directed by the incompetent Lieutenant Gorman moving into the complex of Hadley's hope on LV-426, or Acheron as the colonists called it. The colonists. God, poor devils! The soldiers had found them under the processing station, encased to the walls with some glue-like membrane, their chests ripped open from the inside. And then the monsters were all over them. Those horrible monsters that seemed to be all teeth! Monsters that would not be found in your worst nightmares because they were a lot worse than your worst nightmare. His whole team was gone - taken by those dreadful creatures. If only he could've helped them.

You can't help them! They're being cocooned, just like the rest.

Those were Ripley's words. Ellen Ripley. Where was she now? Had she returned from the station? She'd gone in there to save the little girl, little Newt. The poor little child. Were they still waiting for her? How long until it blows? If only he could have gone down there with her. But he was badly hurt, that last alien he killed had bled its acidic blood on him, on his armor – and then the corrosive fumes had burned his face. That had really hurt, and it was still hurting. His jaw in particular felt both numb and on fire at the same time. Bishop. Call for Bishop. He had to go after Ripley and the girl. They had to get out of there. Damn the pain. His chest was burning. His cheekbones were burning! And on top of that, he had some trouble breathing - and he couldn't recall what had happened afterwards. Had he gone after Ripley? Was he back down in the processing station? He discovered that he couldn't move and neither could he see. To his horror he realized that the aliens must have captured him. They had trapped him to the wall, and infested him. That's why he couldn't move, and that's why his chest was burning with pain, why his jaw hurt. A face-hugging parasite must've forced his mouth open, and that could only mean one thing! A monster. There's a monster in my chest that's chewing its way out. I don't want to die like this. Kill me! Somebody, please kill me!

"I believe he's coming to, although his words are not what I really expected to hear."

A woman's voice. Ripley? Thank goodness, I was only dreaming. By the smell of the sterilized environment, he realized that he must be in a sickbay, and Ripley must be there with him. He needed to see her; he had to open his eyes. It proved to be a bit difficult, but he saw some light, a blinding light. Someone was bending over him. He concentrated his gaze onto the figure, which was difficult. The left side of his face was covered with bandage after the incident with the alien. He tried to focus trough the small opening over his eye… and then he froze, his eyes became instantly wide open. He actually preferred the monsters before this being that stood before him.

"MY GOD! PLEASE TELL ME I'M JUST DREAMING!" He wanted to scramble away from the sight of his past, but he found that he couldn't. He was strapped onto the bed.

"No Corporal, this is reality." The figure that was clad in a dark brown leather-uniform had a hard-edged face; his gray-stained hair was thin lined with a bald spot on top of his dome. His expression was unfriendly and his voice was stone cold. Hicks knew this man since before. It was a man Hicks actually hated.

"Colonel Decker?" he gasped.

"I take it that you are not happy to see me? That's good. As you know perfectly well, that's the way I like it."

"B-but what in heaven's name are you doing aboard the Sulaco?"

"I'm not, and neither are you. You're aboard the USCM Hercules: my ship. That means you're under my command now!"

"T-the Hercules? With the 'Rawhides'? What is this? What am I doing here? The Colonial Administration can't just transfer me back to your unit without signed orders, I have not been briefed about this! You have no formal authority to order me around until then, so you are not my commanding officer!"

One side of the colonel's mouth crawled closer to his cold eye. According to Colonel Decker's reputation, smiling was something that he never did, unless he'd found something in another man's misfortune that would work in his favor. That was one of the few things in the galaxy that actually amused him. It disturbed Hicks that the colonel smiled now – it meant that something terrible must've happened.

"I got news for you, Corporal." The colonel moved closer towards Hicks, now smiling with both sides of his mouth. A chill moved down his spine. He knew that he wasn't going to like this.

"You're officially a dead man, Hicks. As far as the rest of this universe is concerned, you no longer exist. That means nobody knows that you are onboard this vessel – and that means there's nothing to stop me to do anything I want with you even if I don't have the formal authority to do so."

"I'm… dead?! What do you mean? What happened to me? The last thing I remember I was on the dropship outside the Atmosphere Processing Station on LV-426 and…"

"Your questions are a nuisance to me, Corporal!" Decker interrupted harshly. "You will cease with them! They are as uninteresting as they are irrelevant! You only need to know one thing, Hicks: signed orders or not, you are to fall in and obey my every command. Is that understood?"

"But I don't understand what…!"

"Enough! This discussion is terminated!" The colonel turned his back on Hicks and headed for the door. "I expect him up and about and fit for duty shortly, Dr. Roman," he called over his shoulder.

"That may take some time, Colonel," was the woman's reply. Decker stopped in his tracks and turned towards her.

"Time is something I don't give freely, Doctor! You know the timetable we got, so I have no intention of giving anybody another second more! So you make sure that he's on his feet by the time we reach our destination or there will be hell to pay!" Without waiting for another reply, he left; leaving thousands of unanswered questions rattling inside Hicks mind.

"What's going on here anyway?"

"A dispute of medical treatments, that's what's going on." The woman's voice again. Hicks surveyed the room, found its owner. The woman was of average height, around her mid-thirties. Her blond hair was cut short like a dome around her skull and she was keeping her hands in the pockets of a white coat. She was probably some kind of a medtech. Hicks could have found her attractive if it weren't for the typical none-smiling expression of a scientist plastered on her face, the one that could be found on most of the people who worked for the Company. He wondered if he always wore that expression during missions.

"Could you please tell me what has happened? Why am I hurting so much in my chest? And why does my jaw feel so swollen? I can't talk straight - I'm slurring my words!"

The woman Dr. Roman hardly looked at him; she kept her eyes on the bio-screens beside his bed. "Let's just say that you been through a serious trauma, and you are right now recovering from surgery."

"What sort of trauma? Can't you be more specific?"

"No. You are not ready to hear the details."

"Bullshit. I'm a marine soldier, I'm ready for anything."

"Even a marine has to follow his doctor's directives. You need to rest, so that your body can heal."

"I can accept that if only I knew the details! And why am I strapped down to this bed? Are you afraid that I might run away?"

"It is for your own safety. While you were asleep you were thrashing around like a maniac. We had no choice but to strap you down. Otherwise there was a potential risk that you would hurt yourself."

"Well, but now I'm awake. You can remove these restraints."

"No, I won't! You'll stay there until I say otherwise. I'm quite aware of what type of patients you marine soldiers usually are. You're not exactly known for taking us doctors all that seriously."

Most of Hicks's patience had gone down the drain by now. This doctor was going too much by the book for his liking. "Never mind about that! Listen Doc, I've just been through a rough experience and then I wake up with this excruciating pain in my body and a man I never wanted to see again tells me that I am officially dead! Do you really expect someone to take those words for granted without even being explained to as to how that happened? If no one around here will tell me then I'll…."

Hicks lost himself in his mid-sentence. Back in the far end of the sickbay another door had just opened and another medtech, a man stepped out. But the male orderly was of no interest to Hicks - he had gazed past him, looking into the other room. It was dimly lit, bathing in a weak red light. Some kind of transparent tank stood in the middle of that room filled with a strange-looking colorless fluid. Thin mechanic arms moved inside of it, working on a motionless figure secured completely submerged halfway down to the bottom of the tank. The figure was small-sized and pale. The only thing moving was long strands of blond hair, floating slowly around the angel-like face whose mouth and nose was covered with a breathing mask.

"Newt!" Hicks gasped out in recognition, feeling a sensation of anxiety and a deep concern grip his stomach. "W-what happened to her?"

Roman looked back, motioning Arnolds to shut the door, but the damage was already done. "Hurt badly in the same accident as you," she told her patient. "But her damage has become much more severe than what we had first anticipated done by some stupid decisions."

"Will she be all right?"

"We don't know yet. Her condition is stabilized but still critical."

She got out from the complex. Ripley rescued her. Hicks' thoughts were spinning around his mind. Then where is Ripley? He asked Roman this, but the reply he got just added more fuel to his frustration and helplessness. "Ripley is of no concern for you anymore," she simply told him.

"She is, damn it! My team was in charge of her protection as well as of Newt's. As far as I'm concerned I'm still following those orders until I'm relieved of them!"

"Consider yourself relived of them then."

"Bullshit! I haven't received my new orders yet." Hicks felt himself really losing his temper now. The medical computer noticed that to, as it began beeping.

"You better calm yourself down, Corporal. Or I'll have to sedate you."

"You can sedate me all you want, but it won't change the fact that I demand answers to my questions!"

"So be it." Roman reached under the bedside-table, grabbed a syringe and injected it into the nutrient drip-hose of the IV-unit that was connected to Hicks' arm.

"Wait a minute, I didn't mean it!"

"But I did," Roman answered shortly and removed the needle. Hicks started to thrash around, desperately trying to get off the bed and not to fall asleep.

"I want to know what has happened! Where is Ripley?"

"You'll feel better after some rest. Consider it to be doctor's orders."

"WHERE IS RIPLEY?" Hicks demanded again, but Roman had left his bedside, ignoring him completely. Hicks felt his body going numb, his eyelids growing heavy. He cursed everybody around him under his breath before he went under; going back to the bad dreams had plagued him for the past days.

Roman went over to Arnold's side, studying his neutral expression on his badly shaved face. He was slightly taller than her and around her own age.

"You have a bad habit of choosing the most inappropriate time to show your face," she told him. "His condition does not allow him to concern himself for any other people."

His reply was defensive. "How was I supposed to know he was awake? Am I to knock on the door every time I want to exit?"

"That's not a bad idea. Have you got anything new to report?"

"As a matter of fact, I do." He held forward a thin paper-strip from a computer printer. On it were three wave-lines drawn all the way along from beginning to end. "This is the latest read-out of the Electro-encephalogram. The top line is what was registered by her cryotube before the accident, and the second is her current pattern."

Roman studied the paper and nodded in satisfaction. "The two patterns are identical, while the bottom-line of her R.E.M. readings are erratic. That means that there are certainly different activities going on in there. Dreams that do not seem to be pleasant, but she's definitely aware of them. Lucky girl, she's not brain-dead after all."

"Lucky for the Company too, I suppose," Arnolds put in. "They certainly were not happy about us having to put her inside the E.I.S. unit. It's an expensive procedure that would have gone to waste if there was nothing left worth saving."

"Tell me about it," Roman said as they entered the other room where the child was being treated. "The Electro Impulse Stimulation unit is solely reserved for wealthy people who can afford it. One procedure alone costs up to two million big ones. No one is happy to raise that kind of money unless they expect to get something back for them." She peered inside the tank for a closer look under the motionless form. The mechanical arms kept putting thin needles in and out along the little girl's body; the low electric charges stimulated the nerves to force the body to regenerate the frostbitten cells of her skin. One could think of it as a kind of acupuncture, only it was all computer controlled.

"How much longer is the estimated time for the treatment to be finished?"

"One more day to work on the flesh, then we'll take her out of there. The Company declined the work on her ribcage; it will have to heal on itself."

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Roman said dispassionately. "The Company is as good as broke, charity goes a long way down on the list. Not that charity's ever been close to the top of the list in the first place where the Company's concerned."

Fixer had worked overtime since his breakthrough with getting Bishop back online. His excitement had given him a high amount of energy to last past the recent 3 days without almost any sleep and only taking quick mouthful of some sandwiches to replenish his nutrients. It was after having gone after another quick meal that Fixer now got back to the workshop where Bishop involuntarily resided, laying on top of the workbench.

"Hey, Bishop! I got some great news for you!" Fixer said as he entered the shop, sounding excited. "I just heard from the doctor's assistants that your friend the corporal regained his consciousness a few hours ago, and they've confirmed that the girl is now expected to live as well! Isn't it great?"

"Thank you for telling me, Fixer," Bishop said, sounding just as calm and neutral as he always did.

"Err… you don't' sound particularly excited about it," Fixer said, now confused. "You were happy that you could help them to be revived; so aren't you glad that it all went well?"

"Under any other circumstances I would be," Bishop replied still with a flat voice. "But I'm no longer so sure that I did them a favor when I helped to do so."

"How is it saving their lives is not doing them a favor?"

"I read their recorded thoughts and memories while I was connected to the hard-drives. I needed to do that to find their brainwave-patterns. I discovered that Corporal Hicks has a history with Colonel Decker and the 'Rawhides' – he served with them for a while, and things did not go well as they were not on the same level. He was very relieved when he managed to get a transfer to Sgt. Apone's team. I'm inclined to think that Hicks would rather be dead then to be forced back into this unit."

"Well, at least the girl will benefit then…" Fixer tried to lighten the mood.

"I'm afraid you're wrong. With her the matter is even worse. Newt has suffered a severe psychological trauma: she has lost her entire family in a horrible way - every friend she ever had and the only home she has ever known is gone. She has seen things no child should ever have to see and she's been living in constant fear since then. Ellen Ripley was the one who helped her to cope, but now that she's dead the child will find herself to be alone and lost in this big galaxy which she knows nothing about. I dare not say how she will be able to handle that. I fear she might end up being a case for a psychiatric institute, and that is a fate worse than death."

"Not necessarily," Fixer tried again. "She still has you, doesn't she? Can't you help her?"

Bishop thought this over. "Perhaps. She may not be as taken to me or Hicks as she was with Ripley, but we still might be able to give her some support. Hopefully she should trust us enough with that. Unfortunately I can't do much in my current state. My immobility prevents me from helping her."

"Then let us do something about that, shall we?" Fixer said, his spirits rising again.

"Does that mean you're finally going to let me in on what you have done on me so far?"

"Well, why not? Stay put for a second."

"I don't seem able to do much else." Fixer disappeared from view and Bishop tried to follow him with his head. But his motor functions were still inactive, so he could only wait. Fixer returned, bringing with him a surgeon mirror, flapped vertically just above him. Even though Fixer had described it to him, Bishop hadn't realized how badly broken he actually was. From his original self, he was no more than an upper torso with his smashed head, but Fixer had been quite innovative in his work to correct the damage. Bishop's left eye that had gone missing had been replaced with what looked like a camera lens imbedded in his eye-socket. It was not a pretty sight. There obviously wasn't much Fixer could do for his face, instead he had fastened different metal-plates all over his skull to reinforce the base-skeletal structure and to hold the loose flaps of synthetic tissue in place over it. Rolling his remaining eye downwards to look more below him, he saw that Fixer had placed his remains onto the inner side of a back plate to some kind of body-armor.

Other stuff had been placed there as well. He saw the flight-recorder that served as his new hard-drive just below the remains of his chest, followed by a big oval-shaped black canister. A power cell he assumed. Bishop's new body consisted mostly of metal-rods and wires, his movements were to be simulated by different vacuum-canisters to drive the pivots in his separate joints. Those in turn were all connected via other joints and cogwheels to a small engine of some kind, most likely Fixer's own design, that rested in the groin cavity.

"Well, what do you think?" Fixer asked.

"This is… quite intriguing, to put it mildly."

"I know you miss your old body, but think of this as a temporary vessel until we can get you back to Earth.

"I wasn't criticizing you, my friend," Bishop said, putting Fixer more at ease. "Considering what little there is left of me, it is remarkable that I am salvageable at all. It looks like you've built me as an artificial human-like skeleton that will be driven with internal motors."

"That's just what it is. Why try to create something new when the basic design has proved to be the superior model? If you want to perform human tasks then you need to be built closest possible as a human."

"What kind of work is left to do on me?"

"Well, I am finished building most of your components. Some still need to be installed, but mostly there's only the fine-tuning to be done, like aligning your servos, testing your connections…"

"If all of those are to be set straight, I personally need to test them one by one. I will therefore now assist you with the rest of your work. Please proceed. With my guidance and your skills, I estimate that I will be completed within the next 24 hours."

"Well then, what are we waiting for?" Fixer said with a big grin and fetched his adjustable screwdriver.

For the duration of the day, several components were aligned, tested, realigned and adjusted. Fixer worked mostly from his terminal while joints and servos were tested, while Bishop adapted his program to the new signals that would control the movements in his limbs. When the tests had been finished and approved, Fixer carefully covered the metal-skeleton with soft foam rubber inside the arm- and leg-armor that was to dampen eventual abusive force. When they finally were near completion, Fixer retrieved something he had told Bishop several times that he was very proud of. In his hand he held a complex circuit card.

"This will be the main circuit in your body," he happily explained to Bishop. "It is one of the first things I built in my youth when I discovered my true talent for engineering - I always knew that I someday would build my own robot. This circuit board will receive all of your impulse-commands from your 'brain' and arrange the signals to the correct sequences required to perform the task you wish to do. I know this will work, because I ran it several times in a simulation in my computer. If I wanted the left leg to kick, it kicked and so on. You'll walk just like any human."

Bishop didn't answer. Had he been human he would have a hard time try to cover his excitement as Fixer inserted the circuit card into its special slot in the main motor. But Bishop wasn't human, so his face showed no expressions at all. Fixer was fortunately not offended for the lack of reaction. Once the circuit was installed, the engineer finished covering the inside of the torso with shock-dampening foam rubber and finally he put on the outer shell of the armor Bishop had been rebuilt in.

He now saw that Fixer had built him inside a green thermo-suit: an all-weather hermetically sealed armor designed for several rough environments. He assumed that this armor was since before broken and discarded, because it should usually have a helmet and the temperature regulators had been stripped away. Fixer had also fashioned him with dark goggles with a rubber band to cover the camera-lens in his eye-socket. Other than the visible metal-plates on his face, he saw in the surgeon mirror that he would pass fine to be a human in armor.

"All that's left now is to power you up, and then I will disconnect the cables to give you full control," Fixer explained and threw some switches. It took a few minutes to charge and then…

"Are you ready to assume control?"

"Do it," Bishop answered. The cables were disconnected and Bishop felt a sensation flow through his 'brain'. Going ahead carefully, he tried to sit up, and was rewarded with a different angle of Fixers workshop. Moving down from the workbench, his feet landed heavily on the floor with a large 'thump'. He moved his head, flexed his fingers, testing every joint inside the thermo-suit. His moves were remarkably soundless and perfect. Granted, the new body was still crude and quite inferior to his old self - but for the moment it was quite adequate. It felt good just to be able to move and even walk again.

"You are to be commended, Fixer. You've done a marvelous job."

Fixer actually blushed, not used to getting that kind of praise. "I'm quite amazed myself. I already knew I'm a good mechanic, but I never actually tried to build something this advanced before."

"You did say you were an inventor. I'd say that your reputation is well earned."

"Stop it now or I might blow up with pride. I'm just glad I was able to help you." Fixer now slumped in his chair. Bishop could see that the little man was exhausted. Now that the rebuilding was completed, his weariness quickly made itself shown.

"Then it is my turn to help you now. I can't help but to notice that you are worn out from all this work. Why don't you go get some rest and let me clean up this workshop for you?"

"Really? You don't mind?"

"Not at all. Think of it as an adapting process. I have been immobile for so long I would enjoy doing some chores."

"You're a good friend, Bishop." Fixer got up from his chair and turned to leave. "Good night. Enjoy your newfound ability to move. Just remember that the colonel wants you to stay in here. Don't wander of."

"Don't worry. Sleep tight," Bishop called after him as the door closed. Before it did though, he was certain that he caught a glimpse of a smile on the engineer's face. Maybe the little man wasn't as naïve as the synthetic first had suspected; he knew perfectly well that Bishop would not allow himself to be confined in the workshop. Not while he had friends that were confined in sickbay. If they couldn't come to him, he would go to them – the colonel's orders be damned.

Author's notes: Is there anyone who remembers the Alien toy action figures released by Kenner somewhere around 1992? There was an armored version of Bishop released back then, and that's the figure I have based Bishop's new look in this story on. There are a lot of pictures in Google-search for better references.