"You should have taken her to us sooner!" Dr. Peters scolded the miserable corporal. The surgeon who was second in command after Dr. Roman was angry, and he had every right to be. "The wounds in her chest have been torn open from all the stress she's been through! Even the rib-bone has separated again! And that last shock she suffered literally tore the stitches apart under the bandages, which no one have changed I might add! And like that wasn't enough, her wounds have become inflamed! It has been that for some time even, she was starting developing gangrene in them! I had to put in several antibiotics to stop it!"

The more words that left Dr. Peters' bearded mouth, the more it hurt in Hicks. He looked down on the floor, unable to meet the surgeon's spectacled eyes. He blamed himself for Newt's condition – it was entirely his fault! He should have looked after her all the time! He was after all responsible for her safety – he should have seen the signs!

"And all the blood she lost – it's a good thing we had bags of it with her blood-type aboard for your resuscitation or she would be dead now!"

I was already certain she was dead inside the air-duct. Hicks thought gloomily. It had just been the weak light that had played a trick on him, thank heavens for that – but he could've sworn he was seeing an alien burst its way out of the little girl's chest. It was most likely an effect after having witnessed Dagger get attacked by the facehugger, but that image, even though a false one was still fresh in his memory and it was chilling his bones.

"How she endured all that pain I'll never know," Peters went on. "Didn't she say anything about it to the two of you?"

"Not a word," said Fixer, who looked just as miserable and downcast as Hicks. "I discovered how pale she looked, but she wouldn't admit it."

"It's her way," Hicks said without looking up. "She only had herself to trust after her people were killed. Even though we are her friends, we're still outsiders which she won't trust with everything. It is habits hard for her to break."

Peters was not entirely convinced. "Maybe so, but that's no excuse for just leaving her to herself in a situation like this shortly after being revived from death. It was a close call, but the emergency surgery has stabilized her for now. Know this; had she died, there would be no revival to talk about this time. The circumstances from when you perished in the EEV are totally different. Neither her body or her mind would have been able to take it."

Hicks got to his feet. "Can we see her?"

"This close after surgery? I think not! Besides, she's unconscious."

"Please! We are the only ones she's got! Unconscious or not, it will help her to know that she has not been abandoned."

"That's an argument for a psychologist, not a surgeon!" Peters persisted. Then he sighed. "Very well. It's against my better judgment, but you've got three minutes. Not one second more!"

There was so little time offered, but Hicks and Fixer took it. When they got to Newt's bed his heart sank even further. Hicks had expected to see the girl looking like she was only sleeping, but now he could see how frail and weak she was, almost looking more dead than alive. The two men sat down beside her, being able to do nothing else but to share some space with her for a while. Hicks resisted the urge to caress her blond tresses, afraid to disturb anything. Poor little Newt. She's the one innocent victim who had suffered the most through everything that had happened. It seemed all so unfair. She had done nothing to deserve this. If only he had been there for her when she needed him the most. If only Colonel Decker had allowed her to remain in bed after her revival to heal properly. If only the EEV of the Sulaco hadn't crashed and caused her to die. If only…

So many 'if only'. There were many situations that shouldn't have happened in the first place that have led to this. And suddenly Hicks felt a tremendous anger towards one person in the midst of it all. Strangely enough it wasn't anger towards anybody onboard the Hercules, not towards Carter Burke who'd set the alien outbreak on Acheron in motion… not even towards Michael Weyland – but at a woman who was now dead.

This is your fault, Ripley! You did this to her! You may not be responsible for setting down on the planet in the first place all those years ago, but it would have been better if you remained drifting in space! But you came back, and now you've hurt this little girl! She trusted you, Ripley! She loved you, and you butchered her! It doesn't matter that she was dead – you violated her by ordering that autopsy and now she's paying the price for it. Wherever you are now Ripley, I hope you are seeing this and – god forgive me – I'm hoping you're rotting in hell for what you've did to this innocent child!

All those thoughts swept through Hicks' mind at the speed of a blink of an eye, but it took several seconds for him to register the weak moaning coming from the child.

"…Help…"

"Newt?"

"…Help me…"

"I'm here, Newt," Hicks told her. "I'll help you."

"She's not awake, Corporal." Peters said from the side of the room.

"Is she dreaming?" Fixer asked.

"No, she's delirious." The surgeon explained. "It's the fever… and perhaps some of the meds too. Her body is fighting off the infection."

"…Help me, Mommy…" The girl was sweating, and started to breathe more heavily. "Mommy - Mommmyyyy!"

The girl was almost trashing now, and the sickening feeling of helplessness started to creep over Hicks again. No matter what happened here, there wasn't anything he could do to help her. All he could do was to listen to her continued delirium.

"Mommy – I mean, Ripley – I'm scared... Don't leave me… you promised… you promised you wouldn't leave me." She was crying now, and it was no wonder why to Hicks. He did start to feel a bit ashamed though for his anger towards Ripley. It was clear that the girl was still quite taken to the woman, strangely enough more so than she had ever been to her real mother. Ripley had after all been there for the child when everybody else had disappeared. Evidently the girl seemed to be willing to forgive the woman for what she'd done, if only she would come back. And that of course was not likely to happen.

"Your time is up," Peters then announced. "Get out."

"Please, let me stay with her. She needs me!"

"We had an agreement, Corporal! Besides, you might be carrying microbes that she's not having any resistance to right now. Do you really want to risk that?" The surgeon sure knew which buttons to push, so both he and Fixer reluctantly went their way towards the door. But as they walked away from the bed, Newt cried out again.

"…Hicks…"

The soldier hesitated, but the surgeon shook his head. It was only the delirium – she was still not awake.

"…Hicks… can't you do anything?" It was not an accusation – it was a pleading. Hicks was the only one she had whom she could depend on now, but he had already disappointed her by saying that his hands were tied. And look where that got her. Well, not this time! This time he was going to answer to her plead, no matter what the cost!

The sound of the egg-claw locking itself around the fleshy ovoid was satisfying, because this was the last one. A good thing with the bulky and ugly egg-claws was that they were able to be stacked on the height before they were to be used. Not a neatly arranged stack according to military standards of course – the handles on top of each of them prevented that – but adequate for transportation. Instead of having the soldiers bring one claw each per trip, colonel Decker had as many as possible brought down with the last drop piled on top of each other. Since Bishop had stayed behind on the ground during the night, he had used the time to put the claws on all the remaining eggs in the derelict's cargo-hold. 200 specimens were what the Hercules had come to collect – they had to settle with 147. That's how many that had survived under the energy-field. The rest had succumbed by time ever since the derelict crashed on this rock of a planetoid. Of the surviving eggs, two dozen of them had already been hauled up to the ship.

But with the last egg secured, Bishop could now direct his entire attention to the research he wanted to undertake. The energy-field that covered the area of eggs was intriguing. He was 100 % positive now that it was designed to shield the eggs from detecting potential hosts on the other side, and he wanted to know how it worked. Bishop had put some small portable energy-readers on both the mound and on the projectors imbedded in the wall which seemed to emit the strange field. With those he had recorded every harmonic tune the field had made by the reactions the android's presence had caused to it every time he'd broken the barrier. He was specifically interested in finding out if the field was sometimes inconsistent – maybe it from time to time rotated its frequencies for a recharge. If any of it did occur, then it was all registered now. With the data he had collected, Bishop was certain that he would be able to pin-point the exact frequency of the barrier – and that would become an invaluable asset to his research. Even better: now that all of the eggs were secured, the field was rendered superfluous. Bishop could now risk looking closer at the technology that generated the protective shield without risking any 'contamination' should he accidently switch it off and be unable to activate it again. He kneeled to match the height of the mound and started looking for an access-port. That's when his radio crackled.

"- Bishop? Do you read me?"

"I'm receiving you, Hicks. Is it time for pick-up already?"

"- It's quite unlike you to lose track of time, Bishop."

"Even an artificial intelligence like me can get lost in his work."

"- What's the situation down there?"

"As good as it can get. I've just secured the last of the eggs. It's all safe to come down if you'd like."

"- Believe it or not, but that's exactly what I had in mind."

"Standing by," Bishop said, finishing the conversation. He didn't pause to wonder how come Hicks was willing to come down to the 'belly of the beast' - it was indifferent to him. Instead he continued to examine the mound-like generator. The untrained human eye would easily have missed it, but Bishop's artificial eye-sight found the near-invisible seam in the middle that went all the way around. The mound was like a vase protruding from the floor on which you were to unscrew the top half to get into. It was an interesting choice of design. He wondered if that had any cultural significance concerning the people of the dead pilot upstairs. Maybe there was something Bishop could learn about them as well as he was about to get a closer look at their technology.

Bishop didn't bother to turn as he heard the sound of somebody stumbling on the floor. The visitor was expected.

"So… this is where it all began," Hicks stated, looking around with distaste evident in his voice. The cargo-hold was gigantic, and filled with thousands upon thousands of eggs as far as he could see. It was a good thing that all of them were dead – only the ones under that weird blue shimmer had survived. One pocket of the cargo-hold had survived - and it was still enough to mark the doom for a whole colony, and maybe even an entire civilization.

"It did for us - at least as far as we know." Bishop confirmed. "I can't help but to wonder if the crew of the Prometheus happened to run into something like this?"

"For their sake, I hope they didn't," Hicks said. "But for all we know, they might've run into something much worse, although I can't imagine what could be worse than this."

"I can imagine worse," Bishop said, still without looking up from the mound. He was looking to see if there were any other seams in it before he tried anything with the one he'd found. "…but I suppose that is too hideous to share, so I keep it to myself. We'll just settle with that we can consider ourselves lucky that we are home-free now, with the eggs secured and all."

Hicks snorted loudly, and that was what made Bishop finally look up from the mound he so vigorously investigated. Now he noticed how dark the corporal's eyes were – his face was a mask of utter bitterness and despair. It was a look of someone who had just lost everything and was out for revenge.

"What happened?" Bishop asked, and Hicks told him; about Dagger and about Newt. Bishop grew concerned. "This is grave news. I did anticipate in my calculations that somebody might do something stupid, but I found the odds to be low under the risk. I didn't expect Dagger to be so unpredictable."

"People who take heavy drugs are an unstable bunch, Bishop. They can never be expected to be predictable."

"This is bad, Hicks. This mission is neither equipped or prepared to handle a fully developed alien."

"Don't tell me, tell Colonel Decker!" Hicks spat. "He's not going kill it! He expects it to be contained within the quarantine walls once it is… 'born'."

Bishop pondered on this. "Perhaps it can be contained for a while. If only I could add some extra protection… it means it is very important that I get back to work!" Bishop turned back to the 'mound'. He gripped it tightly on either side of it with both hands and tried to twist it in every direction he could think of, looking for a side to where it would budge. He found none. In the end he had no choice but to crack the seal to make the top come loose. As he removed the lid, the shimmering barrier covering the eggs disappeared – and from the base of the now exposed generator, the energy cascaded upwards in an uncontrollable frenzy like lightning bolts. Bishop was pleased. That meant that the top of the generator's covering was an energy-sprinkler. There had to be special lenses inside of it that directed the flow outwards into a perfect and steady field. He also found the edges of the covering interesting. There were no sorts of slides anywhere on it that would enable the top to lock onto the base. It looked more like it had been fused – or… grown. Could this material be self-regenerating? That once you've put the lid on, the edges would merge together like biological tissue – could this material be part organic?

So many mysteries that Bishop would love to try to solve, but there was so little time. He took a closer look at the generator. The lightning had a high immensity of power. Should a human try to look into it, he would burn his retinas. Hicks was busy covering his eyes from the blinding light, but Bishop was artificial – not only could he look into the source of power without causing any damage, but the irony was that the dark goggles he wore to cover the camera-lens imbedded in his eye-socket helped to filter out the strong light even more. Therefore he could perfectly see the four levers within the cascade. It looked like some sticks that could be moved up and down – those had to be the power-regulators. Before Bishop touched them he memorized the positions right down to the exact millimeter. Then he reached inside and touched one, pulled it upwards. The cascade seemed to increase in power and Bishop realized that there was a potential risk of danger. He didn't want to risk any damage to the specimens or to Hicks for that matter – this would have to be attempted if he would get the chance to be alone down here, after the eggs had been removed. He pushed all the levers downwards into the base of the generator and suddenly the energy was snuffed out. The unit had been shut down and the environment suddenly felt kind of dark, quiet, and gloomy. Only the sound of some of the eggs rattling since they detected the presence of a human was heard – and the crackling of a radio.

"- Corporal Hicks! What's happening down there?" It was Sgt. Hurst. Although he had not fully recovered from his encounter with the aliens earlier, he still insisted on continuing the mission. He was a soldier and a soldier did his duty even if he wasn't entirely fit for it. "- I'm still waiting for confirmation for hauling up the specimen. Get your thumb out of your ass, you Sissy!"

Hicks grumbled and attached the end of the line that had lowered him down the hole to one of the clawed eggs. Then he grunted a confirmation into the mouth-piece of his radio and the load was dragged off towards the chimney as the people waiting upstairs reeled it in.

"You may get this load, but there won't be anything for tonight." Hicks muttered as he fished out a flat object from under his armor.

"What did you say, Hicks?" Bishop asked.

"I don't know what it is you're working with there, Bishop, but you had better be quick about it. It won't be here for much longer." he said as he put the object on the floor between several eggs.

"What are you doing?!"

"I went through Dixon's stuff before we flew down here. You can't believe how many inconspicuous bombs that maniac had built. Not only was he a walking arsenal, but his locker is literally a weapons depot." Hicks put a water-bottle on the floor, which was actually a secret grenade. "I have no idea how he got his hands on so many explosives that he rebuilt, but it sure suits my purpose. Since they're not standard issue in appearance, I managed to smuggle several of them down with me without anyone noticing it."

"You're planning to blow this place up!"

"You can bet your diodes that I am! This has got to stop now! I owe it to Newt, to Ripley, Sgt. Apone, Hudson and to the rest of my team as well – hell, I owe it to everybody those monsters have killed!"

Bishop sighed. "You shouldn't have told me, Hicks. I'm going to have to stop you now."

Hicks turned and faced the android. "You what?!"

"I told you that my programming will not allow anything to hinder this mission. Michael Weyland implanted absolute obedience into my psychological profile. He wants these specimens and I'm obliged to deliver them to him despite the danger these creatures' presents."

Hicks challenged Bishop. "And how exactly are you planning to stop me? By force?"

"Don't go there," Bishop advised.

"You're a liar, Bishop. You've got an implanted behavioral inhibitor – you cannot harm me."

"But what you don't know is that the command-codes Michael Weyland supplied to Fixer when I was re-built overrule my subroutine to never harm humans. My obedience is my prime directive. I'm trying to work around it as much as I can, but I can only do it if you'd allow me to continue working with my research. I cannot let you destroy this place!"

Hicks drew his gun from his holster and pointed it to the android. "Get out of my way, Bishop! I'm warning you!"

"Put that away, Hicks! I'm warning you!"

With a flick of his thumb Hicks released the safety-catch on his weapon. That's when the android moved with such great speed that the corporal didn't have time to react. Bishop grabbed his gun-arm and twisted his wrist, making Hicks drop the weapon as he groaned in pain. Then Bishop forced the soldier around and twisted his arm up to the shoulder-blades of his back in a hammerlock. Hicks cried out in both agony and rage.

"My subroutine preventing me from harming humans is overruled, but the routine to not allow a human to harm me is not!" Bishop informed the other. "You may not agree with my methods, but believe me when I'm saying that I am doing this because I am trying to save you! All of you! Don't make this any harder than it already is!" The android released the corporal. "Now Hicks, pick up those explosives and leave. Please don't make me report this incident in to Colonel Decker. It won't do either you or Newt any good."

"Damn you, Bishop!" Hicks roared as he massaged his aching arm. "DAMN YOU!"

Colonel Decker was at the moment standing outside the big viewport that separated the quarantine from the observations lounge, together with his chief med-technician Dr. Roman and her assistant Arnolds. The three of them were observing Private Dagger who was strolling around his completely bare cell like a caged animal, looking all but nervous. Dagger in turn could not see his commanding officer or his staff right now because there was a privacy-shield in place. The transparent barrier that separated the prisoner from the officers was two-layered: aside from the thick pane of Plexiglass that was permanently affixed into the walls, there was another thinner pane of glass in place that was one-way polarized. They could see in, but the occupant of the cell couldn't see out – and the cell speaker was also turned off, so Dagger couldn't hear them talking. He was therefore not at all aware of that he was being watched. Instead he kept pacing around, but he avoided the far right corner. It was there the facehugger lay dead, but the soldier looked at it as if he expected it to suddenly jump up and attack him again.

The three spectators stood watching in silence. Not because the medtechs didn't have anything to say, (on the contrary they had a lot of thoughts they wanted to express,) but because they were waiting for Colonel Decker to give the signal to remove the privacy-screen. Finally the C.O. gave the nod and Arnolds hit a button. The outer layer of glass that was one-way polarized was raised up into the roof and communication systems were activated. Dagger rushed up to the viewport the instant it disappeared.

"Colonel!" he almost cried. "Get me out of here!"

"Why should I?" Decker's face showed no indication of sympathy for the private at all. "You got yourself in there."

"But I didn't do anything!" Dagger whined. "At least get that thing out of here!" he said, indicating to the dead parasite. "It gives me the creeps. What if it's contagious?"

"You've already been exposed to it," Dr. Roman said, stating the obvious. "You won't attract anything worse than you already have."

"But I'm not sick!" he shouted, slamming his hands into the glass. "I feel fine! Please, Colonel! I won't cause any more trouble, just let me out!"

"Dagger, I've come to realize that I have made a mistake with you," Decker said. "I shouldn't have let you keep those drugs. I suppose I've got myself to blame: I need soldiers who can do what's required of them without question and without scruples. To artificially suppress those kinds of emotions has clearly proved to be an ineffective solution."

"I am the soldier you need! I have no scruples – I never did!"

"Instead you are a coward!"

"Am not!"

Decker's face was filled with contempt. This sorry excuse for a soldier was even more pathetic than he'd realized. Not only was he a whiner and a weakling, but his petty attempts to deny his own faults made him absolutely despicable. Being rid of him would not be a loss.

"Dagger, you're an idiot! You were born an idiot and you lived your whole life as an idiot!" Dagger looked like the colonel had just punched him in the solar plexus. "Maybe dying will prove to be your greatest deed ever done, at least in the name of science and for the sake of the mission!"

Dagger became white in his face. "Dying? Am I going to die?"

"Don't tell me you didn't listen to the reports on how those creatures evolve."

"They're all true?!" Dagger nearly choked on those words. "I've got one inside me?!" The silence he received from the spectators stated the facts. The doomed man instantly became panicked. "NO! This can't be happening! You can't do this; you've got to help me! You've got to…" Then he paused, and he put his hand to his chest. "T-there's something moving… I-I can feel…" He slammed his hands on the glass again, now completely terrified.

"Colonel! I don't want to die!"

Colonel Decker was stone-faced, seemingly uncaring of what was about to happen. Dr. Roman also kept her cool, but her eyes displayed another kind of emotion; a scientific curiosity! She wanted to see this! Only Arnolds looked uncomfortable, but he didn't speak up for the soldier either. Instead he stood quietly, mentally preparing himself for the grotesque show that was about to take place.

"COLONEL!" Dagger cried again, but he pleaded to deaf ears. Then he began to convulse and as he groaned in agony, he spitted out some drops of blood. And then he screamed and fell to the floor where he wriggled and trashed as the center of his chest began to bulge and rise. A red stain blossomed on his shirt and finally Dagger's chest erupted in blood as a pale, fanged skull punched its way out to freedom.

Arnolds turned away to retch. Dr. Roman was trembling, as if she'd just witnessed something spectacular. Colonel Decker just stood there, as still as a statue, betraying no emotions at all.