Hicks didn't believe a word of what Bishop was saying over the radio. He didn't want to believe it! It simply couldn't be true - the aliens were all dead! Weren't they?
"Bishop, you're not serious, are you?" he spoke nervously into the mouthpiece of his communicator. "You're joking, right?"
"- I'm looking at two of them right now!" was Bishop's reply.
"B-but it can't be! They were all obliterated when the atmosphere processor blew! How could two of them have survived?!" Everybody present had heard the words exchanged between Bishop and Hicks and they were now looking curiously at the corporal, wondering what was going on. Hicks didn't meet any of their gazes; instead he was looking over at Newt who was still crouched behind the remains of the extraterrestrial pilot. The child had definitely heard and understood Bishop's warning too, because she was wide-eyed and all color had suddenly drained from her young face. She stood with her mouth agape and she trembled all over.
Bishop had to make it all worse. "- Make that three of them, Hicks."
"Three?!"
"- Logically these survived because they've been here all along, shielded from the explosion inside this ship," Bishop explained over the radio. "- My best guess is that they are worker drones, probably assigned here by the Queen to tend to the eggs. When the power station went up and destroyed the rest of them, the three who resided here went into hibernation to bide their time. Our presence here must've roused them."
Bishop couldn't help but to be fascinated as he watched the two beasts unfold their bulks and they stood up straight. The massive bodies were wet and dripping of the fluids from within the protuberances from where they'd just emerged. Their movements and postures were intimidating, malevolent and vigorous. The elongated heads, devoid of visible eyes but with a menacing mouth filled with chrome teeth moved slowly around, surveying the area for intruders. Bishop watched them with his eyes only. His other sensors, those that had survived from his old body were of no use for the moment. Those couldn't see past the energy-barrier the synthetic was positioned underneath.
He had been right: the thin layer of light was a stealth-shield which prevented the parasites within the eggs to detect any organic entities on the other side of it. Bishop should therefore be relatively safe where he was: the aliens were above the field and it was a logical assumption to think that the barrier worked both ways. As long as one of them didn't jump down to the same level as the eggs underneath the field, they would not spot him. He did speak quietly through his communicator though in case the aliens had an acute sense of hearing.
"They just crawled out from two cocoons on the wall and there's a third protuberance that's already empty. Where that occupant is I don't know. It must've slipped away behind my back while I was under the barrier since I missed it."
Hicks got all tensed up. "Did it go up the shaft?"
"Unlikely. You should have seen it by now if it had. Most probably there is another way out of this cargo bay to the upper levels where you are. Since we don't know the layout of this ship, it could enter your area from anywhere. Why do you think I told you to break out your motion trackers?"
Hicks quickly assembled the equipment despite the fact that his hands were trembling. This was no time to be a fumble-finger he told himself - he had to get his head in the game if they were to survive this. Switching his tracker on, he did a quick sweep around the large chamber. Unfortunately he couldn't get a clear reading, there were too many moving objects around him as the other troopers couldn't hold still - they still didn't understand the danger they were in. He turned to Newt to tell her to hide, but he discovered that she was way ahead of him. The last glimpse he had of her was seeing the small child slip down between the legs of the dead alien pilot and into the cavity by its feet under the console that probably was the helm. She could go into places where grown people would never fit, that was how she had survived back in her colony three years ago when it had been overrun by the aliens.
"Stand still, you idiots!" Hicks addressed the others. "You're disturbing the instruments running around like some crazed chickens!"
"Who're you calling 'chicken', you sissy?" It was typical of Dagger to misinterpret what was being said. Because of his lack of self-confidence and a high degree of paranoia, he took every word that could be related to a taunt as a potential insult to his own person.
"Listen Dagger, if you really want to prove your worth, now is your chance. Everybody, load your weapons and stand prepared to fire!"
"Do you think you're the one giving orders here?" Sgt. Hurst asked angrily.
"Begging your pardon, Sergeant, but I know more about what is happening here than you do!" Hicks continued to make sweeps with his tracker. Still no other signal showed on the display. "We got monsters on the loose about to close in on us, and if we want to survive we have to shoot on sight! There is no time for hesitation and no time to play by rank!"
"Rank precedes everything, Corporal!" Colonel Decker barked. "And I repeat: No one is to shoot anything!"
"Either we kill it or it will kill us, Colonel!" Hicks persisted.
"You won't kill it! That's an order! If a grown specimen really is closing in on us then it is to be incapacitated. It is to be captured alive!"
The other soldiers muttered amongst themselves. "Capture it alive? I actually liked the sissy's idea better. Why not just kill it?"
Obviously Decker heard them. "I said: incapacitate! Anyone who does more extensive damage to the creature will answer to me!"
"You can't incapacitate it, Colonel!" Hicks argued. "Try to understand: It can't be bargained with – it can't be reasoned with – and it absolutely will not stop – ever - until you are dead!"
"You have your orders, Corporal!"
Hicks was about to tell off the colonel about his orders when he noticed that there was a strange hissing sound in his ear. As he focused on it, he realized that the noise was a low mumbling in the earpiece of his communicator. Bishop was talking to him again, but in a whisper.
"- Hicks, come in! What's the commotion up there?"
"I'm here, Bishop. What's happening down there?"
"- One of the aliens is looking up the shaft. If he heard your racket…" There was a momentary garble on the line. When it cleared, Bishop had stopped whispering. "- Hicks, it's climbing up! The alien is coming up the shaft towards you!"
There was no time to think, only time to act. Hicks rushed over to the hole in the floor where PFC Simpson still stood positioned. There was no time to be gentle either; the corporal tackled the soldier out of the way and then he pointed the muzzle of his pulse rifle down the shaft and squeezed the trigger. The muzzle-flashes illuminated the darkness of the shaft and Hicks could momentarily see the silhouette of the advancing behemoth as the armor-piercing bullets slammed into its skull and torso. There was a screechy sound of protest and pain coming from the alien's throat as the high-velocity projectiles perforated its hide, releasing several geysers of acid which sprayed all over the cramped space of the chimney. Fortunately it was still too far down the hole for the acid to reach the level where Hicks stood.
"Seize him!" Decker roared above the gun-fire noise. Dobermann and Cracken immediately stormed to Hicks's position and grabbed him, not at all gently, and pulled him away from the edge of the hole.
"Let go of me!" Hicks protested.
"You've really done it now, Sissy!" Dobermann said with a grin in the corporal's face. His bad breath almost made Hicks gag. Simpson had meanwhile got back up on his feet, and as he saw Hicks standing with his arms locked between the two men, he walked up and planted a fist on the latter's sore jaw as revenge for being tackled. The pain that came from the slug resulted in making him nauseous and seeing stars.
"Stand down, trooper," Decker said to Simpson. But it was obvious that there was not going to be any harsher reprimand for him than that. The colonel was going to turn the blind eye to the soldier for striking a fellow marine as he probably thought that Hicks had deserved it. Now Decker stood in front of the corporal and glared angrily at him. Hicks glared back, a trickle of blood ran down from the side of his mouth where Simpson had hit him. At that moment Bishop spoke through the open channels again.
"- You got him, Hicks. He fell down from the shaft and does not move." Bishop could strangely enough feel a grim satisfaction as he watched the smoking carcass lying motionless at the other alien's feet. The other creature actually looked surprised that his brother fell back down dead, but that passed quickly. With bared teeth dripping mucous it looked up the dark shaft and snarled. Bishop spoke into his radio again. "Be prepared. I believe the other one is going for an attack of his own." Bishop had stopped whispering. He didn't at all doubt that the aliens had their own sense of hearing, but since this one couldn't see the synthetic crouching below the energy barrier which blocked movements, albeit sounds, it seemed strangely disinterested with him. Or it could be that the alien was more attracted to the meat upstairs.
The alien's next action confirmed its priorities – the meat was of much greater importance than that of some disembodied voice. It bended both its knees and coiled its tail, and then it lounged its massive form upwards to the end of the shaft from where his brother had just fallen from and started to climb up.
"It's on its way, Hicks!"
On the level above, Hicks was frantically trying to wrench free of the hold the two marines was holding him in. "Shoot it! You must shoot it!"
"Not this time," Decker said coldly. Then he turned to his other troopers. "Prepare to capture it."
"With what?" Crabbe asked. "We don't have any nets or anything…"
"You've got training in riot control, don't you?" Sgt. Hurst said in an exasperated tone as if he was talking to some sheep who couldn't understand some simple instructions. "Just subdue it!"
Hicks watched with horror as three of the men: Simpson, Crabbe and Dixon stood poised above the hole in the floor and waited for the approaching alien, hands ready to grab. The fools never did want to understand the magnitude of danger that the xenomorphs were proficient with, but they were about to learn. Yet he couldn't just stand by without trying to verbally convince them one last time: "Don't do it! Get out of there! Getoutgetoutgetout…"
The men didn't listen to him, and neither did they have time to react. The alien shot out of the hole like a cannonball and blew all three soldiers away in the process like they were nothing but a set of simple ninepins.
"Holy mother of…" Dobermann gasped.
"What the heck is that thing?!" Even Hurst was shaken by the sight of the nightmarish monstrosity that had just emerged. The alien had landed in a crouched position, but now it rose to its full length and it towered over the marines who actually cringed underneath it. For the first time in their careers, they began to understand the concept of the word fear!
"Don't just stand there with your mouths hanging, you dolts!" Decker's harsh voice echoed in the large area. "You're outnumbering it, so seize it! But don't shoot it!" Their military training kicked in and several of the soldiers charged onto the alien with the butts of their rifles raised in attempt to knock the beast unconscious. The alien saw them all advance, but didn't back away. Instead it pirouetted, the long barbed scorpion tail lashed out like a whip and knocked them all down with one swift stroke. The tip of the tail hit Private Shawn square in his belly and he fell, not getting up again.
Colonel Decker watched the whole action and felt his aggravation rise to its highest peak. "Why was I saddled with such incompetent underlings? Must I do everything myself?" If it was his deep sense of duty at play, or if it was simple madness of overconfidence of his own abilities, Hicks couldn't tell. But the colonel jumped the alien himself to wrestle it down, for all the good that did him. The monster easily broke the grip Decker had taken on it and it returned the gesture. Locked in its hold, Decker saw how the maw of the alien opened wide and revealed a tongue whose tip had its own set of teeth.
Decker had studied all the reports that concerned the alien monsters, so he knew what was about to happen. But he absolutely refused to back down on his duty even on the brink of death. He was a soldier and a soldier was never to give in to the enemy. "Surrender!" was all he said to the creature as the tongue shot out.
Decker had his back turned to Hicks where he stood in a clinch with the alien. The corporal's view was therefore obscured but he saw how the creatures' tongue hit the colonel in his chest. The only sound that escaped Decker's lips was a short groan and then he went stiff. The alien threw Decker's still form away, the body sailed through the air and it disappeared over the edge of the pilot's platform and plunged into the darkness. The monster turned back towards the rest of the company and hissed. Everybody scrambled to make a distance from it, including those who'd been hit by the alien's tail and had their breath knocked out of them. Even Dobermann and Cracken backed away now, releasing their hold on Hicks. The only one who didn't run was Dagger, but it had nothing to do with any form of bravado. He simply remained where he stood because he was petrified, so overwhelmed with fear that he was completely unable to move. The drugs he took helped to deaden his death-guilt, but in this case it wasn't enough. It was never enough. Dagger's kneecaps knocked together as the alien turned towards him. He even wet himself in his pants as the creature approached him.
"Looks like you're in charge now, Sergeant!" Hicks said as he dove to retrieve his dropped pulse rifle now that he was released.
"I… I… I…" Hurst only stammered, not believing how a simple mission like this could suddenly have turned into a disaster. Decker's death had been so sudden so he was caught completely unprepared.
Hicks was prepared though. When some fully grown aliens had come into the equation, the corporal had expected for something like this to happen. He had experienced it all before with Lieutenant Gorman on his first encounter with the xenomorphs. And Hicks was not going to wait for Sgt. Hurst to regain his composure, because like Gorman, the sergeant probably not even would at this time.
The alien stood just in front of Dagger now, its slime lubricated lips curling back to once again reveal the chromed teeth while the tail sneaked up behind him. Dagger whimpered like a terrified child.
"Take it down!" Hicks shouted and fired his weapon. The alien staggered away from Dagger as the miniature projectiles penetrated its silicon-based skin. Dagger rolled his pupils up inside the cavities of his skull that contained his eyeballs and he swooned. As the private fell out of the way the rest of the soldiers got themselves a clear shot at the bug-like cephalous. Whether it was because they had now seen what the alien was capable of, or if it was that its appearance simply repulsed them, it made no difference. Colonel Decker's orders not to shoot it did no longer apply to the 'Rawhides'. They all followed Hicks's lead and fired. The alien shrieked as multiple hits threw it backwards. Acidic blood spilled from its wounds and the floor started to ooze and melt where the yellow-colored fluid dropped. The monster retreated – it jumped off the platform down to the next level below where it earlier had thrown the body of Colonel Decker.
"Don't let it escape!" Hicks rushed towards the precipice of the pilot's platform and let loose a new burst with his rifle downwards. But the alien was already gone. "Blast it! It won't be long until it has healed and then it will come at us again!" He consulted his motion tracker again. He was faced with the same problem as before with the soldiers running around.
"Everybody stay clear of the edge! Move to the center and form a circle! We mustn't let the creature get the upper hand or it will pick us off one by one!" Unfortunately the soldiers weren't all that eager to comply anymore. Although they were faced with an imminent threat, they weren't ready to listen to Hicks. He was still an outsider in their opinion.
Now that the alien was gone, Sgt. Hurst regained enough self-assurance to reassume command: "You have no authority here, Corporal. And now that we got a moment's break, we can reassess the situation. Bottom line: Colonel Decker's last order stands! We will not kill this specimen; it has to be captured." Every standing soldier began to voice a protest.
Hicks looked at Hurst with pity. "You still don't understand what you're dealing with here."
"We were simply unprepared. But now it is down there, wounded. It's an easy target now to apprehend."
"Hey, count me out!" Dobermann said.
"No way am I going near that thing!" Morgan agreed.
"Those are your orders, people!" Hurst countered.
"Did you hear nothing of what I said?" Hicks cut in. "It won't stay wounded for long, it has an incredible regeneration system! Soon it will come for us again! And look at the holes in the floor where it dripped its blood: it's a miracle that none of it got splattered on us!"
"We got cuffs and steel-wires in the APC…"
"Didn't you see what it did to the colonel? It threw him away like a rag-doll! And I've seen evidence of them having broken through barriers of solid steel! Cuffs and steel-wires are like sewing-thread to them!"
"Well then, what do you suggest?" Hurst asked exasperated.
"Kill it. Plain and simple. It's the only way to be sure." Hicks watched his motion tracker again.
"That's not an option!"
"It's your only option!" The motion tracker was not very cooperative. There was a strange signal in the midst of moving dots that were the readings from pacing soldiers on the display, but he couldn't make out what it was or even where it was. "Damn, what's the matter with this thing?" He shook the device in frustration to try to clear out the mess of multiple signals.
"Hicks! Hicks!"
Hicks looked back behind him. "Newt, get back down! Stay where you are!" But Newt looked wild and pointed anxiously upwards with her finger.
"It's right there! It's right there! Above you!"
Both the corporal and the sergeant looked up. Hicks jumped out of the way just in time – Hurst screamed as he was grabbed by a six-fingered hand and was lifted off his feet. Hicks looked up at the abomination that had grabbed the sergeant. It was hanging down by its long and powerful tail from the dark ceiling; he couldn't see what the tail was latched on to. But he could make out that this was not the same alien they had just fired upon. This one was darker in color, more massive with more pronounced features, and it looked a lot more menacing.
Hicks realized that this was the third alien, the one who had eluded Bishop down in the cargo bay of the derelict. Bishop had theorized that the aliens who had hibernated inside the ship for three years were worker drones, assigned to tend to the eggs. If that was the case, than this was a different brand: and sure enough, this one looked more like the type of creatures Hicks had faced three years earlier. This drone was a warrior! And that meant quite likely twice as dangerous as the other two.
Somehow it had sneaked in there from the cargo hold via a different route and stayed hidden in the shadows until it found an opening to strike. And now Sgt. Hurst was in its clutches and he was quickly carried off. The sergeant flailed with both arms and legs, but he couldn't get loose from the alien's iron grip. All he managed to lose were his shades which fell to the floor and shattered. Hurst's screams ended abruptly as if he had somehow been silenced and Hicks lost track of both human and monster as they disappeared into the shadows of the ceiling. It had all happened extremely fast. There had been no time to fire his weapon, and now he had no way of knowing whether Hurst was alive or dead.
"As I said before: move to the center and form a circle!" Hicks called out to the remaining troopers. This time they were more inclined to comply after having witnessed both of their commanding officers fall victim to the beasts. They fell in and stood with their backs to the dead pilot. Hicks continued issuing orders: "Those with weapons equipped with searchlights cover the ceiling, while the rest of us keep tabs on the edge of the platform! Use your motion trackers and don't hesitate to shoot if you see something moving! But at least try to make sure first that it isn't a friendly. And somebody wake up Dagger!"
Crabbe took his canteen and poured the content in it over Dagger's face who sputtered as he was jerked awake. Hicks half expected Dagger to start ranting about how he actually had not fainted, but instead had pretended to pass out as a tactical action to give his comrades a clear shot at the alien. Fortunately Dagger remained silenced as he saw the concentrated expressions on his comrades' faces and he started to glance nervously around, understanding that they were not out of the woods just yet.
The motion trackers gave out a signal almost instantly as soon as Cracken and Simpson activated them. Their anxiety made almost all of them point their barrels upwards towards the source and they would've fired if Hicks hadn't stopped them as he consulted his own tracker. "Hold your fire! There's something peculiar about this signal. It's moving, but doesn't change location. The monsters do not act that way. Either they're travel or they remain completely still…"
"So maybe it's tap-dancing on the spot, it's still a grand opportunity to put some caps in it. You did say: 'don't hesitate', didn't you?" Morgan pointed out.
"I also said to make sure that it isn't a friendly before you fire!" Hicks persisted. "Let's get some lights on that spot, let's see what's there."
Some soldiers muttered something incomprehensively but shone their searchlights towards the source of the movement the trackers were registering. Something was hanging down from the ceiling, swinging from side to side. It looked like a sack of some kind, created by what Hicks recognized as the same translucent resinous membrane the aliens usually secreted to create their cocoons. And this was a cocoon: Sgt. Hurst was inside it, like a doll roughly stuffed into Santa Claus' sack – only this was a sack from hell.
"Sarge!" one of the men gasped. "W-what did that thing do to him? If it killed him, why do that?"
Hicks squinted with his eyes, trying to see more clearly. "I don't think he's dead. He's not moving, but I think I can make out his eyes fluttering. He's only paralyzed. The alien stung him and left him hanging." An idea crossed Hicks's mind. "Did anyone check on Private Shawn? Is he dead?"
Morgan went over to his fallen comrade-in-arms whom had suffered the attack of the first alien. The APC-driver was surprised. "No, he's still alive! There's a purple discoloration on his stomach under his ripped jacket, but no blood. Does that mean that he was stung too?"
"Most likely," Hicks confirmed shortly while scanning the area. It was an uncomfortable feeling that the alien kept itself out of sight.
"So they don't kill us, then?"
"Oh, don't start feeling secure now. Stunning the victims is the first stage for infestation. They can't use dead people as a host, which is the only reason Hurst and Shawn are still alive."
"You're saying that Sarge and Shawn are infested?"
"Didn't you read my report? That's what the eggs are for. Fortunately there are no eggs up here, so they can't…" Hicks stopped in mid-sentence as he realized that he had forgotten something very important. His statement wasn't entirely accurate.
"Damn it! The egg!" There was one egg on their floor, the one they had hauled up from the lower levels before the threat of the aliens had come to occupy their attention. Hicks rushed over to the area of the pilot's platform where the egg had been stashed and he produced a lightbar to get a better view of the ghastly ovoid.
The warrior alien was there! It was trying to loosen the claw that was clamped around the quivering shape of the egg. Would the warrior be given enough time, it would probably just rip the entire trapping device apart and the parasite within would be released.
The warrior alien looked up as it realized that it had been discovered and it let out an antagonizing hissing screech.
Hicks' determination did not falter. "No, you don't!" he called and fired his rifle. It came out in a short burst that was just slightly enough to drive the alien back away from the egg, but then the weapon failed. Hicks cursed. How could he have been so stupid that he neglected to check the ammunition counter readout on the side of the rifle? It had reached zero and he didn't have another magazine to replace it with! He attempted to fire a round of the grenade launcher to drive the warrior back even further, and if it blew up in the process, all the better. But no matter how much he pumped the slide, no grenades came out.
Damn you, Decker! Since this was just a retrieval mission, there was no need to load the pulse rifle with grenades. That was how Colonel Decker had reasoned beyond his decision to let the troopers only carry one ammo-clip each. Probably he hadn't wanted to risk a grenade going off by 'mistake' among the captured eggs, he'd known all about Hicks's resentment about their objective. Decker's precautions could now mean the death of them all.
The warrior alien regained its equilibrium after having staggered from the hits of the heavy shells. It was wounded, but not mortally so. Now enraged, it leaped at Hicks. The corporal quickly drew his pistol he'd brought as extra precaution and fired its smaller rounds into the giant husk of exo-skeleton. He hardly managed to slow it down; the small bullets only seemed to enrage it even further. It still advanced against him and it would not stop. The alien was almost on top of him, about to tear him to pieces.