Acheron. Everything Newt knew about life, she had experienced on that rock. She had been born there six years ago… well, chronologically it was nine years ago, but the past three years didn't really exist in her mind as she had not been aware of them, or even lived them. To her it was only like the week before she'd left there – the planet that used to be her home. But the happy times of it felt like they've been gone for a whole lifetime.

Her birthdays, especially her fifth one when she got her doll Casey… (Two weeks too late actually because the supply-ship was delayed at the time, but the doll was still meant as a birthday present. Not that it mattered now since she had lost that doll as well)… Christmas days… the public gatherings of all the colonists twice a year for festivities… no matter how much she tried, she couldn't recall those memories. She knew she had lived them, but every good memory she desperately tried to embrace would instead only bring up the memories of them! It always went back to the accursed day she first saw the alien ship where her mother and father had gone inside, leaving her and her brother alone in the tractor outside. And from the moment they returned, the everlasting nightmare had begun – her life never to be the same again. Her father's face was forever gone - it was for all eternity concealed by that horrible parasite that hugged his skull… pulsing… breathing… Newt shivered at the memory, feeling another teardrop rolling down her face.

She had lost all track of time since then. All of the sudden as she remembered, the colony was overwhelmed by the dreadful monsters that had slaughtered every one of her people. The last screams of her fellow colonists haunted her still, as well as the silence that had followed. Only she had managed to get away by hiding in the air ducts, and she had to endure the following long days of loneliness sticking to those narrow places so that the monsters wouldn't reach her, living in what felt like a never-ending terror. Everyone she had ever known was dead and she had been alone for many weeks. Not even she could understand how she managed to survive for so long; she only knew that she never would consider herself lucky to be alive.

As Newt watched from the viewport in the deserted corridor, the planet came closer and closer into view, filling up the whole window. It was so close now that she could almost make out the rocky surface between the openings in the dark clouds that shrouded the planet. That world was the only life she had ever known, and it was the one planet Newt never wanted to set her foot on again. It was bad enough that the memories of the horrible days she'd experienced down there would plague her forever; but she certainly didn't need for the nightmare to continue.

She suddenly found herself wondering how Ripley felt when she was forced to return here. Ripley… Of all the bad things Newt had lived through, that woman had been the only good that had come out of it - she had been the one glimmer of hope amid the girl's despair. At least Newt was still allowed to remember the first time she'd met her. It still felt like only the last week to her: her involuntary solitude suddenly interrupted by strangers invading her realm, people she'd never seen before and with an attitude that was far from friendly. They had scared her almost as much as the monsters did and she had wanted nothing to do with them. So she ran off, escaping back into the air duct that led into her hidey-hole. But one woman had followed her inside and caught up with her right within her own nest. To try to escape the adult's grasp had proved to be futile; her energy had been too much depleted. But the adult hadn't harmed her - instead the child found some safety within those arms, a safety that she hadn't felt for a long time. While she did not find the soldiers any impressive, she found herself willing to open up to the woman. It wasn't just because she had been so nice to her, but because instinctively Newt had sensed that the woman somehow understood the girl's plight, her fear and terror.

And her instincts had proven to be correct: the adult, Ripley, really had understood as she herself had faced those monsters before. Adult and child were two of a kind, that's why they had become so close. The soldiers themselves never understood - they believed they knew better, and they paid the ultimate price for being so shortsighted. But with Ripley Newt found protection and more… their time together had been short, but during that time Newt had grown to love the woman with the same affection that she once had for her own mother. She had secretly prayed that Ripley might've been willing to love her back, maybe even start seeing her as a daughter. And in the end Ripley came through for her, rescuing her from the monster's grasp and taking her away right before the explosion that had vaporized the last remains of her ruined home. Newt had thought that she somehow could find the means to live again after they'd escaped the planet and Ripley put her to sleep for the trip to Earth. She should have known it was too good to be true…

Heavy footsteps interrupted her thoughts, but she didn't need to turn her head. She knew who it had to be…

"Are you all right?" Bishop asked softly.

"N-no…" Her voice was broken. She wiped the tears off her face with the back of her hand. "Bishop… I d-don't wanna go back there…"

"I understand how you feel. I'd rather not return there myself. After all, I lost many good friends down there. But of course… it must be much worse for you." He tried to sooth her by placing his hand on her shoulder. "Try not to worry. We'll be down there with you."

"It won't make any difference! It won't matter where I'll be, since they want to bring the monsters up here! They think they can hold them - they can't, it's inevitable. The monsters will find a way to get free, they always do." Newt sighed, her head dropped from the viewport, hanging towards the floor. "They don't understand… none of them ever will, because they don't want to. They won't survive. They will all die."

Bishop was not taken aback. He had expected Newt to say this in accordance to what she knew about the aliens. She had after all seen it with her own eyes; the outcome would never be something other than that. Bishop found it fascinating how the child delivered her statement with assurance and cool certainty, but at the same time he felt sorry for the little girl. The horror of the aliens had made her to prematurely attain the wisdom of an adult, but she was still on the emotional level of her true age. No doubt those two senses clashed, which caused her to feel like an emotional wreck. Hicks suspected that she probably never could be a child again and the synthetic was inclined to agree with the corporal. He wished he could say something to reassure her, but he knew that no form of speech would accommodate this girl. She would see through such words as if they were as transparent as viewport she was looking through right now. He had no choice but to go business.

"We need to go. We're wanted in the ready room for briefing."

"Me too?" she asked quietly.

"You're not exactly asked for, but since you for some reason are part of this expedition, I really think that you should hear it too."

"This briefing started one minute and thirty-five seconds ago! Didn't Fixer equip you with a clock, Robot?" Colonel Decker stared angrily at Bishop as he entered the ready room.

"I had to find Newt, Sir. I thought that she should be present for this since she will be down there with the rest of us."

"Who said that you could make such a decision on your own accord, Robot? Remember your place or I'll leave you to rust on the dust ball below us! Now get in line and listen up!" Bishop led Newt past the troopers to stand beside Hicks. The corporal, his face disfigured some with new bruises, smiled down at the girl, but she didn't return it. She was still too angry with him for getting involved in that fight in the mess hall. It had brought up unpleasant memories of her annoying older brother as he sometimes had gotten into fights with other kids. And yet she missed her brother just as much as she missed her parents.

"Now that everybody is finally here," Decker said aloud. "…we will now hear from the man who sent us on this mission: This is a recording that was made just before we shipped out. Everybody had better listen, because it will not be repeated! In fact: I've got orders to destroy this recording once it has been played."

Hicks understood now that they were standing before an imagery wall that could display almost all kinds of pictures and environments. Hicks recalled that the walls on Gateway Station above Earth used to play three-dimensional images of rainforests, but he doubted very much that this wall had been installed onboard the Hercules for recreation. More likely it was used only for briefings or tactical views. Hitting a button on the remote, Colonel Decker activated the imagery wall. The people present found themselves looking at a living space that was in perfect alignment to the rest of the chamber outside the picture. It was as if they really stood before another room, the 3-D image was that perfectly synchronized. No, not a room - an office, with a large desk in the middle made of oak. And behind that desk sat a man, who looked quite weary with grey thinning hairline and pale shrunken skin, yet he radiated an aura that made him look regal and with the composure of a man who was quite used to have full authority – and he looked very familiar to the three prodigals.

"Bishop," Newt gasped. "It's… you!" The man that was displayed on the wall did indeed, once you looked past his apparent weariness, look like Bishop - or at least how the android looked like before he was bisected by the alien queen onboard the Sulaco. At one time in the past it might have been difficult to distinguish them from one another, but now as the synthetic was rebuilt inside the bulky environmental suit, it was an easy effort to tell them apart.

"Not exactly me," Bishop told the girl. "That's Charles Michael Weyland: the present CEO of Weyland-Yutani Company, and the man who designed me."

"Why'd he made you look like him?"

"I'll tell you later," Bishop motioned her to be quiet before the two of them attracted the unwanted attention of the colonel. "Let us just listen…"

"- At ease, soldiers!" the CEO on the wall addressed the personnel who was watching. Most of them snorted at the greeting, as if a civilian had expected them to stand at attention and salute for him.

"- Time is of an essence, so I will cut straight to the chase. First of all as your colonel has undoubtedly already informed you, but which can never be reminded one time too many: this mission is ultra-classified! That means that your true destination is not registered on any files, and the full extent of the mission is known only to your Commanding Officer. Officially you are not even in the region of space to which you travelled, so you can therefore not expect any kind of aid or back-up support should things go astray – you can't even contact your superiors back on Earth, so you had better follow your mission-parameters to the letter. If things go wrong, you are on your own!"

"In other words:" Hicks muttered under his breath so that only the one's closest could hear him. "...we're all expendable! And we're as good as already written off. Worse even: the Colonial Administration doesn't even know that we're here!" Many of the other soldiers seemed to have come to that conclusion as well, as they looked around at each other. The Company CEO displayed on the wall went on:

"- I have enlisted you to this mission because not only are you one of the best units, you are also the unit who is known to do your work without asking questions. And questions are something you will not ask even after this mission is accomplished. If you do: you will be charged with treason and made to disappear – forever!"

"No need to threaten us!" a person in the crowd exclaimed. Someone else agreed with the first. "Yeah, we know the drill."

"- I promise you this: accomplish this mission for me and you will all be handsomely rewarded with what each and one of you mostly desires – to some of you I can even offer a whole new life." Hicks realized that that was directed to himself and Newt. "- So, it is not only the reputation and the future of this Company I'm putting at stake here, it is also within your own interest that this mission pays off. I hope that I can count on you – all of you! Good luck." The video ended and the wall went blank.

"Hey, what's this about?" raised voices was immediately filling the chamber, filled with evident annoyance. "Who does he think he is?"

"Ten-HUT!" Sgt. Hurst roared above the noise. Military discipline instantly kicked in and everybody stood firm and erect, no more protest being uttered. Decker now addressed everybody in a loud and commanding voice.

"Now as we have heard that, I will tell you how we will proceed. In three hours and fifteen minutes from now I want everybody and everything ready for departure in dropship 01 down to planet LV-426. That's the one below us in case you didn't understand that. Our mission is to land at the crash site of a derelict ship, enter it and extract specimens of the extraterrestrial life forms that's stored there. We will…"

"Sir. Will we…" Private Dagger suddenly spoke up.

"I will not tolerate being interrupted!"

"But I was only wondering…"

"Questions will be asked later, Private! You're on report!" Beside Colonel Decker, Sgt. Hurst made a note on his writing-pad with a satisfying smile on his face. Decker continued:

"We will gather two-hundred specimens if there are that many available to collect, transport them up here and store them in section twelve, which is the storage-room for toxic waste. There will be many trips up and down so be prepared for our staying here for at least a week. Now are there any questions before I go on?" He flashed an angry glare at Dagger who immediately spoke up:

"What kind of resistance will we meet from these aliens?"

"None. That ship has been there for nobody knows how long, therefore there is no one left of its original crew. The specimens are as far as we know dormant where they are - therefore we should face no problems."

"What? No resistance?"

"Aw, but Sir…? Dagger wasn't the only one who was disappointed; everybody else started to protest as well. The 'Rawhides' lived to fight and kill. Another trooper now raised his hand.

"Yes, Dobermann?"

Hicks looked over at the other smartgun-operator besides Crabbe. He didn't know the man too well, only that Dobermann was a nickname he preferably used - his real name was unknown. It was probably because his ugly face reassembled the looks of an actual Doberman dog. He also had a halitosis that matched the bad breath of the same mutt.

"This sounds like a science mission and not military. Why'd the top-brass pick us for this?"

"It is not your place to question the top-brass, trooper. You will do as you are told, without objections." Every soldier shook his head in disgust. Had Hicks not been through his recent experience with the aliens before this, he would probably do the same. But Hicks knew more what to expect below than the others did, therefore now he raised his hand. Decker nodded at him with his usual sour expression.

"With all due respect, Sir, the specimens aren't that completely dormant as you claim. From my experience, they become quite active once we get into close proximity to them and that's when they become deadly! Just how are we supposed to haul them up here without risk of… shall we say: 'contamination'?"

"Dr. Roman." Decker called behind his back and stepped aside. The biotech came into the room pushing ahead a low flat-bed cart in front of her. On it stood two objects: One was a metallic spider-like device - it was barely three quarters of a meter tall, standing on four flat legs with pointed feet that was connected to a single coupling chamber on top of them. The whole device ended with a large loop strong enough to be carried around with. The other object on the cart was an alien egg. Newt gasped as she saw it and immediately rushed behind Bishop's legs, wide-eyed. Hicks was almost as upset as the child.

"Where did you get that?!" he almost yelled.

"Relax, Corporal." the biotech said. "It's just an empty shell."

"But where does it come from?" Hicks insisted on knowing.

"You could say that it's a gift." Roman would not reveal any more information than that. Instead she addressed everybody in the ready room.

"Gentlemen. This is, in a simple word an 'Egg-claw'. The specimens you're supposed to pick up are as you can see here organic eggs with an opening on the top. This thing is quite simple: You turn the handle on the top to open the claw, like so," Roman twisted the loop and the spindly legs spread even more apart. "Place it over the egg with the 'head' right above the cusp and twist the handle again to close it." She did this to the empty egg for demonstration. The spindly legs grabbed tightly around the oval shape. "Once secured, the organism will be unable to get out and thanks to the 'legs' that reaches almost under the bottom of the egg you can easily carry it with you. As long as the claw stays on you should be quite safe."

None of the troopers said anything. They all felt that this was a waste of their time. It was Sgt. Hurst that now voiced a question.

"And you are sure that that thing will fit all the eggs down there?"

"We are quite sure that there is only this one size of the eggs," Roman explained. "This 'egg' here is actually only a model replica of the one found aboard the Colonial Marine ship: the Sulaco." Here Roman flashed an amused look towards Hicks and Bishop. "The original empty one that was found is still back on Earth for the scientists to carefully study. But they took the exact measurements when they made this model, so there is no doubt that the claws will work to our full benefit."

Hicks cursed silently. Bishop was secretly impressed. Newt only shivered at the sight of the 'egg'. Although it was a fake, it still symbolized all the terror that was connected to the aliens.

Decker stepped forward. "Are there any more questions?"

Crabbe raised his hand. "Any chance that we can go back to sleep and let Dr. Roman and her crew do the work by themselves instead of wasting our time with this joke of a mission?" he asked with clear reluctance. Decker turned to his drill sergeant.

"Put him on report for that obstinate tone," he said. Hurst grinned with anticipation of disciplinary administrations for the two cheeky underlings who had the nerve to show insubordination during the briefing.

It was a disgruntled bunch of people who left the briefing room. Unlike Hicks's old team, save for Vasquez and Drake, the 'Rawhides' only longed for causing destruction and possible kill scores when they were on a mission. Being deprived of those privileges, it was like taking away the whole reason for them being soldiers all together. It was a classic case of 'men and their toys', and they were not allowed to play with those toys on this assignment.

Hicks's own disgruntlement was directed elsewhere though. He was just as confused as Newt. Who was that man in the video who looked like a dead ringer to Bishop's original look (save for his apparent high age,) and what was his role in all of this? And how had he been able to convince a hard-core military officer who usually loathes civilians to take on a mission that had not been sanctioned by the Colonial Administration? He asked the android for clarification of the mystery as the three prodigals walked down the corridor.

"Charles Michael Weyland is the C.E.O. of Weyland-Yutani Company," Bishop explained to his friends. "And he's actually responsible for everything that has happened concerning the xenomorphs from the start. It was he who orchestrated the plan to have the Nostromo change course and set down on LV-426 to obtain the first sample."

"But that was sixty years ago!" Hicks pointed out, seeing the obvious impossibility. "And he looked about seventy in the video!"

"You need to understand one crucial thing about the family-line of Weyland: they're obsessed with power and prosperity. However, prosperity is in one specific area denied to them."

"What do you mean?"

"It is often referred to as the 'Weyland curse': the family has been rich and powerful even before Charles Weyland of the twentieth century founded Weyland Industries and began to change the world. However he was affected with an advanced case of bronchogenic carcinoma: cancer in his lungs. He died the year 2004. Before and after him: every family member of the Weylands all contracted a terminal disease and expired somewhere in their middle-ages. It was quite frustrating for them: they had power and wealth, and yet they couldn't stop themselves from dying at an early age.

"The one who managed to hold on the longest was Peter Weyland, son of Charles' brother who was a professor of Comparative Mythology. Thanks to the billions Peter made from the company he'd inherited from his uncle, he could afford to cheat death by undergoing several medical procedures: complete change of blood, heart replacements, bone marrow transplants and rejuvenation therapies. He reached an age over a hundred years when in the end even the medical procedures reached its limit. Around that time he had already cemented a partnership between Weyland Industries and the Yutani Company and he allowed their representatives to run the business while he spent a great deal of his final years in a stasis pod to prolong his life while waiting for a new breakthrough. One possibility seemed to present itself in 2091 when a group of archaeologists found clues of extraterrestrial beings visiting Earth in mankind's earliest years. Among those clues they also found a star map that led to the moon of LV-223, a planet that's actually not that far away from our current position."

"What kind of extraterrestrials?" Hicks asked.

"Apparently a bio-technological advanced race. The archaeologists actually believed the extraterrestrials to be the creators of the human race, and they even managed to convince Peter Weyland of that. Weyland founded an expedition of the ship Prometheus to LV-223, and he secretly went along with them obviously in hopes of finding the means to prolong his life even further. They should have arrived there around Christmas day 2093. Unfortunately I know nothing if they found anything – the expedition was never heard from again. Peter Weyland was declared dead 2099, leaving no known children behind. There were rumors that he had a daughter, but one he had disowned for the reason that she was born of the wrong sex – therefore no one knew where she was, or even who she was, but it made no difference: since she had been cut off, the lawyers could not sign over the company to her.

"Enter Charles Michael Weyland: Peter Weyland's young great-nephew on his baby brother's side. Knowing that Peter had no son of his own to inherit the company, Michael had made sure to obtain a large share of stock from both the W.I. and Y.C. – when the two companies officially merged into one, it turned out that he owned over 50 percent of the stock with them together, allowing him to wrench power as soon as Peter was declared dead. He became one of the world's most powerful men over night."

Hicks actually smirked. "Let me guess: that's when the 'Weyland curse' got to him. Right?"

"Correct," Bishop confirmed. "Michael was diagnosed with an aggressive variant of degenerative artery syndrome; however by that time it was still dormant. He began taking medications to keep it that way and then he adopted a habit of his great-uncle: He spent a great deal of time in stasis while waiting for his researchers to make a breakthrough for treating his illness, mostly up to six months a year."

"He sounds desperate," Hicks commented.

"He still is. But let's not get ahead here. The mystery of the Prometheus expedition left the Company no peace, so they made continuous long-range scans of the area of LV-223 in hopes of finding something about their fate. That's when several years later they detected the signal from LV-426, the beacon of the crashed derelict that was a warning to tell others to stay away." Both Newt and Hicks looked more intensively at the android now. "Since the signal originated from the same area of space, the Company presumed that it had to be the same language of the extraterrestrials the expedition was searching for. They deciphered it and learned of the alien life form – there was a highly detailed description of them included. Michael Weyland's interest was quite piqued, so he arranged for a company-agent to go there and collect a specimen aboard a commercial tug that was issued orders to change course as a response to the beacon. This operation took place the year 2122. The Company-agent's name was Ash – an android."

Hicks looked astounded as it all became clear. "The Nostromo! Ripley's ship!" Bishop nodded.

Newt broke her silence for the first time since the briefing. "They knew what the monsters were capable of and they sent her there anyway?! But… they must've known that the people on her ship would die?!"

"They did. But the Nostromo's crew was considered expendable. The value of the alien was far greater in the Company's opinion."

Newt could hardly believe what she was hearing. "Does that mean that my people were expendable too?"

Although much of his face was hidden under the metallic plates and dark goggles, Bishop looked saddened. "Your people should never have had to face the aliens at all, had Michael not been so… thorough. You see, when the Nostromo never came back, the Company figured that something had gone very wrong. They declared the ship lost, but they had to withhold the circumstances of its disappearance in order to collect the insurance money. Had it been revealed that Weyland orchestrated for the Nostromo to pick up a hostile life form, the insurance company would have had all the leverage they needed to refuse the claim for compensation. Weyland-Yutani Company would have to take the whole loss, and that wouldn't sit well with the stock-holders."

Hicks sneered. "It always comes down to the money, doesn't it?"

"Weyland sealed the files himself, concealing everything that was ever connected to LV-426… unfortunately that meant that the planet was never even red-flagged. The branch of the Company that ran the deep-space colonization-operations had no way of knowing of the danger the planet posed when they cross-checked it through the data-base searching for new worlds to colonize. And by the time Ripley returned after drifting through space for fifty-seven years, none of the Company officers who'd been involved in the Nostromo-operation were active anymore. Weyland was of course the exception, but he was indisposed at the time as he was in stasis, leaving his subordinate executives to handle the investigations and none of them believed her story." Here Bishop looked directly at Hicks. "You're well aware of what happened afterwards, aren't you?"

Hicks nodded. "Oh yes. That's when Carter Burke took matters into his own hands and dropped all of us into the meat-grinder."

"Mr. Burke was an overly ambitious underling who was looking for a quick way to a wealthy life. He obviously figured that if there was a truth to Ripley's story, he could make the Company a new fortune in bioresearch and earn him a promotion. He conducted a discreet investigation, sending a directive to the colony of LV-426 to have a team to investigate the coordinates…"

"You mean sending my family out there!" Newt's tone was very bitter and none of the other two could blame her for that. "So it was his fault!"

"He did overstep his boundaries," Bishop continued. "But by the time the word had reached Michael Weyland, the military was already too far involved and the rescue mission was ready to go. That's when he sent me in."

"What do you have to do with Weyland?" Hicks almost demanded.

"Because of him spending half his lifetime in stasis to avoid his illness to break out, his authority to be C.E.O. of the Company was beginning to get questioned by the other stock-holders. Therefore he created me in his image to fill out his shoes during his absence."

Hicks looked at Bishop curiously. "I never met Michael Weyland in person, but from what I am hearing; you are nothing like him?"

"I'm not. Weyland never got that far with me. We all receive a basic programming when we're built, but like with humans we learn as we go along. Some are allowed to expand to become individual artificial persons while others are being programmed with different parameters for other tasks intended. I was a servant under Michael Weyland for a while to assist and to keep close progress with his illness with my scientific knowledge in an attempt to find a cure. But I was also to observe how he walked, how he expressed his words, what rhythm his heart beat with and so on so that I could completely mimic and become him, until I eventually was to be programmed with his personality to act in his stead. I confess that I did not look forward to that, therefore I was grateful when I was assigned to the Sulaco and your team, Hicks. Since it had been ages Weyland showed his face in public, no one would know my connection to him or question me for being a duplicate of him. I was there to observe the mission and to do a study of the alien life forms and then I would report back to him."

"You were a spy!"

"In a way - but I personally never meant anyone of you any harm. I was just following my instructions."

"And what now?" The three-some now stopped in the middle of the corridor. Hicks had grown unsure what to think of the synthetic. He had respected Bishop, even liked him. But after this revelation… "Where does your loyalty stand today?"

Bishop looked pained. "I'm afraid my primary functions stand. I'm programmed to do his bidding even though I can think for myself. Weyland made sure to supply Fixer with a special directive which he had uploaded into my system-programs as he rebuilt me. That file has been implemented and has now rescinded all of my other priorities. Obtaining the alien life form is my creator's last chance and I must help him to get them."

"You must?" The corporal was not happy to hear this. "What makes the aliens so important anyway?"

"Michael Weyland is dying, Hicks. He went to Fiorina 161 personally to convince Ripley to surrender the alien to him. There he received a hard blow to his head that cracked his skull. And then he experienced tremendous despair when he lost the last alien as Ripley killed herself. The combined traumas activated his illness. You saw the video; he's succumbing quickly to the artery disorder as he deteriorates even more for every day that goes by. He's desperate to get the specimens."

"He's dying and all he cares about is to get the aliens for the bio-weapons research? He should get his priorities straightened out."

"In a way he has. Nobody either within the Company or outside knows that he's dying – do you know what would happen if the stockholders found out? They're looking at a forty-percent fall in Weyland-Yutani Company share prices… Like you said: in the end it always comes down to the money. And this time there is no heir to take over, that's why the drop is in danger of becoming so great. That's why he had to conduct this mission in absolute secrecy, to keep everybody in the dark about his condition. It's his last chance to save his life."

"His life? He thinks that the aliens can save his life?!"

"Don't you see? That's what I been trying to tell you about the Weylands with this background story. A family who's always been obsessed with wealth and prosperity – Peter Weyland who went to LV-223 in hopes of finding new means of prolonging his life, and now Michael?

"It's not just for bio-weapons research that he searches the aliens; the message from the derelict told of the species having a superior regenerative system and are being capable of laying dormant for maybe thousands of years – it seems that the alien's lifespan may be indefinite! And that's what Michael Weyland wants! He is convinced that the aliens regenerative cells can be adapted to a human's and thereby being the key to eternal life!"

Hicks stared at Bishop with disbelief. "Are you serious? That's a foolish man's dream!"

"It's the dream of all men who wields power. And it adds up to powerful men's usual greatest fear: To lose that power!"

"Obviously he has too much power already, since he somehow managed to persuade a warmonger like Colonel Decker to do his bidding," Hicks stated. "Decker is known for despising civilians, so if Weyland managed to buy him out enough to take on this mission against the authority of the military high command, the price must have been way out of the ordinary."

Author's notes: The family line of Weyland: names and relations, occupations and dates of operations mentioned – most of it come from the trivia of the site IMDB (Internet Movie Data Base) so not much of it is made up by me. One change I made was concerning Charles 'Bishop' Weyland – yes, from the movie AvP. I included his name and illness, but not the events in the pyramid under the ice in Antarctica – that is totally ignored. All facts concerning Prometheus are also authentic as far as I've been able to follow. The 'Weyland-curse' and the reason for the obsession with the aliens however is all mine.