As per procedure, every soldier of the 'Rawhides'-unit stood gathered in the briefing-room until the emergency was declared to be resolved. Had it been a military attack against the ship, then everyone would have reported to their respective assigned battle-station to fight it off – but this emergency had been caused by a breach in the quarantine-section. As regulation states in such an incident, no one was to go near that area unless they were specifically trained for it, and no one was allowed to run around on his own aboard the ship while the danger of contamination was present. So they all waited in the briefing-room as they were supposed to, but the mood in the atmosphere was as dangerous as a quarantine-breach was. They had been stuck there for almost 50 minutes now since the alarm went off. The 'Rawhides' were restless and agitated since they could do nothing else but to wait. A bacterial spread was another enemy that they really hated, because it was a threat you couldn't oppose with a gun. But in this case they were even angrier because they all knew that there were no bacterial threats onboard. Quarantine section was the cell for the alien they had captured and those did not immediately spread any viral infections. If the alien was loose, then they all felt that they should be out and search the ship and exterminate it! Their bloodlust had temporarily made them forget the terror they had felt down on the derelict ship when they first encountered the species.

"How much longer are we supposed to be holed up in here?!" Dobermann asked impatiently. His team-mates agreed with his inquiry.

"We will wait here for as long as Colonel Decker deems it necessary!" Sgt. Hurst replied harshly.

"This is ridiculous! We're wasting our time here!" Private Shawn was as frustrated as Dobermann. Not only that: the Vietnamese wanted payback for what the species did to him down in the derelict when taking him out of action by stinging him, and now he wanted to prove his worth.

"Be quiet!" Hurst shot back at him with the same edge in his tone as he'd given the smart-gun operator. "If I can wait here patiently, then so can all of you!" The sergeant was stern, but it was a good thing for him that he had a new pair of shades covering his eyes after he had lost his previous ones down the derelict. Because in truth he was as restless as the rest of the soldiers, and his eyes might have given away his feelings had they not been hidden behind those. He was well aware that the threat of the escaping alien had been dealt with, but no one was to leave until their C.O. gave the permission to do so. The colonel always did this whenever opportunity presented itself: testing the patience of his troopers in pressing situations, making it into a drill to see if anyone would crack. The one who did was in for a harsh refurbishment-course, and Sgt. Hurst had no intention of showing any signs of stress. Just like the colonel, he had to set an example for the troopers since he was second in command. He was about to give them all a reprimand for being such whiners when the screen on the wall came online. The imager displayed a gigantic picture of Colonel Decker as it showed him sitting in his office. It made him look more intimidating which was just the point. He was turned away from his own desk facing the hidden camera within his own screens to make eye-contact during the conversation.

"The crisis has been dealt with. You may return to your regular posts and resume your duties. I expect an evaluation-report of this operation on my desk at eighteen hundred hours." This was delivered on the exact second of 50 minutes passed since the first alarm.

"Yes, SIR!" Hurst said and saluted. Decker didn't return it. He just swiveled back towards his desk and the screen went blank. "All right, now you can go! But you can be sure that I will put in my report your lack of discipline being displayed here, Dobermann and Shawn!" The two soldiers grimaced, but said nothing. "Get back to your posts!" Hurst ordered.

"Not yet." another voice said. "I wish to speak with you first." It was Hicks, standing in the doorway and blocking the path.

"Well, look who has finally decided to show up," Hurst said in a patronizing tone. "Has your time of being dead made you forget what quarantine breach-protocols means? You were supposed to report here 50 minutes ago!"

"Yeah, right!" Hicks snorted. "Everyone gathered in one single spot without weapons with an alien roaming around the ship? Do you know where it would go? Here! Where the meat is!"

"That's not up to you to decide!" Hurst countered. "You disobeyed a direct order, and I will personally make your head roll for it!"

"Yeah, it's been contained again so who cares?" Crabbe said. "Get out of the way!" Everyone began to walk towards the door and if Hicks didn't get out of the way, they would simply and literally step over him.

"Doctors Roman and Arnolds are dead!" Hicks declared. The news made everyone stop in their tracks. They had not heard of this before. "I was in the infirmary when Dr Peters received this information. Decker claimed that they gave their lives to make sure that the creature wouldn't escape! There's no way that they would have done so willingly – which leads to the conclusion that Decker sacrificed them somehow! In other words: he murdered them!"

The soldiers all looked at each other. After a short while, one of them finally said: "So?"

"So?" Hicks was shocked by this nonchalant reaction from them.

"Then they died for the sake of the mission," Cracken said. "That's an acceptable loss."

Hicks frowned. He should have expected this. Lives of other beings meant nothing to the 'Rawhides' – ethics were superfluous. That was after all the main reason why he never fitted in with this unit – one of the reasons why Sarah left him. He composed himself and changed tactics…

"And you really think that it won't eventually happen to you too?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Cracken replied angrily.

"'For the sake of the mission'. That's what you just said! Dagger and Dixon are already dead for the sake of the mission!"

"They were fools…" Simpson started to say.

"The sarge and Shawn were incapacitated by the creatures – Morgan was burned by the acid – and none of this mattered to the colonel! Do you really think you're safe?"

"This is starting to sound like insubordination!" Hurst protested.

"But the beast is contained now," Shawn said, but Hicks noticed that he didn't sound so assured now.

"It broke through the security-glass!" Hicks told him. "The Plexiglass is supposed to be as hard as steel! How do you know that it won't eventually break through the door as well and escape?"

The seed of doubt had been planted – now Hicks needed to make it continue to grow. Sgt. Hurst would not allow himself to be swayed though.

"That's enough!" Hurst said angrily.

"No, it's not enough!" Hicks persisted. "Don't any of you realize the danger these creatures possess? You've already seen what they're capable of – and you're under orders to bring them back to Earth! What do you think will happen if they break out and start to breed there?" Hicks could see that he was starting to get through to them. "You may be the 'Rawhides' – tough as nails, but you're still soldiers! You're under oath to protect your homeland and your people! Do you really want to be part of bringing this plague home to the planet you're striving to protect? Do you really want that on your conscience?"

"You're talking mutiny!" Hurst growled.

"The decision has to be made now!" Hicks went on. "This has to stop before it's too late!"

"Yes, this is going to stop!" Hurst barked. "You're under arrest, and you will be put to court-martial for attempting to riot a mutiny! Seize him!" But no one moved.

"But… what are we supposed to do then?" Simpson asked, now devoid of his self-assurances as he remembered the ferocity of the creatures.

"Get rid of them! All of them!" Hicks answered. "The eggs are incarcerated. We'll jettison them out into space and let them burn in the atmosphere of the planet as they fall down. And we'll do the same with the alien in quarantine. That section can be ejected!"

"I can't believe that you're actually considering listening to this 'sissy'!" Hurst said, feeling the control slipping through his fingers. "If you commit this act of treason, you'll all be court-martialed!"

"I'll accept all responsibility," Hicks offered the soldiers. "That way you'll go free of any action you take."

"You'll take the fall?" Cracken asked him.

"I'm willing to do anything, because it is the right thing to do!"

"I never thought I ever was going to say this, 'Sissy', but then for once I'm with you."

"As am I!" said Dobermann.

"Let's get some weapons and get rid of those bastards!" Morgan seconded. Sgt. Hurst jaw fell and then he bolted towards the alarm button. Hicks tackled him down to the deck before he could reach it.

"This is treason!" Hurst shouted as Hicks tied him up with a rope that the corporal had in forethought decided that he might need. "I'm going to tell that you are all in on this! You're all going to fall!"

"Then I'm going to make you and the colonel to fall with me, for going rogue!" Hicks told him.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Hurst questioned him, struggling against the bounds.

"This is a secret operation, not sanctioned by the Colonial Administration! You're acting under orders of a civilian! What do you think the judges of the court will say to that?"

"Mr. Weyland promised us handsome rewards!" Hurst argued on. "He promised new lives for you and the kid! She's declared dead, remember? Are you really about to throw that all away?"

"There won't be a new life for Newt if the aliens are allowed to live!" Hicks growled. "I'm doing this for her, so that neither she nor anyone else for that matter will ever have to be afraid of the monsters again! I'll deal with the 'dead'-situation when we get back home! Now shut up!" and with that Hicks put a gag over the sergeant's mouth. He didn't tell anyone how much he actually enjoyed doing that to the annoying drill-officer.

"Well, the reward probably does go down the drain now," Crabbe commented dejectedly. Everybody else nodded. Not all of them were entirely convinced yet.

"From what I've heard of Michael Weyland, I sincerely doubt that you would have seen much of that reward anyway," Hicks told them all. "It was just an incitement to get you to do his bidding. Since he wanted to do this as secretly as possible, I find it quite unlikely that the Company would allow you to be able to spend all that money. More likely he'd make you all disappear for the sake of plausible denial."

"He can't do that!" Shawn argued.

"Oh, you don't think so?" Hicks glared at the young Vietnamese. "He sacrificed the crew of the Nostromo to get his hands on the creatures! Three years ago an accomplice to him allowed a whole civilian colony to be destroyed and my unit was deemed expendable when we went there to sort it out! I don't even need to mention what they thought of the prisoners on Fiorina 161. What makes you think that you would be treated any different from any of them?"

"But why does this old man Weyland do all this then?" Crabbe asked. "What does he want with the things?"

"It's all purely egoistical! He believes the creatures can make him immortal!"

"Can they?"

"There's nothing, absolutely nothing that indicates that the creatures are some kind of a 'holy grail' or a 'fountain of youth' if you prefer," Hicks said.

"So he's making us pay with our lives so that he can live healthy forever, and it is only just speculations?"

"That about sums it up," Hicks confirmed.

"I'm not participating in that," Crabbe declared. "Let's go get rid of them." Everyone was in agreement, and that was something unique for the Rawhides, especially since they were in agreement with Hicks whom they otherwise didn't like at all. But in the face of danger and corruption, differences had tendencies to easily be set aside, especially when the group of people had been used against their own will.

Nine rogue soldiers were now heading towards the storage-room for toxic disposal where all of the alien eggs were stored. On the way there they had stopped by the armory and equipped themselves with weapons. Those weren't required of course: the eggs were locked down with the claws and would not pose any threat. They would be easily picked up and carried to an airlock where they would be jettisoned out into space. The weapons were just a precaution in case somebody who was not within their right mind would get the idea to stop them. An unlikely scenario: there weren't many people left onboard who didn't resent the creatures. It would not be any problems. At least that was the plan – when they arrived at their destination however, Hicks immediately saw that something was very wrong…

"Why is the door open?" Hicks asked, starting to feel nervous.

"Maybe somebody forgot to close it?" Private Cracken said, although not entirely convinced of his own theory.

"No way," Hicks said. "Colonel Decker checks it personally after every haul to make sure that the eggs are secured. He would never allow anyone to leave the door open like this. Someone unauthorized must be in there."

"Who would go in there willingly?" Cracken asked.

"Bishop?" Hicks called. "Is that you in there?" There was no answer. "Well, it's not him. Whatever differences we may have right now, he wouldn't ignore me."

Hicks turned on his motion-tracker and directed it towards the entrance to the dark storage-room. It beeped slightly. "There's a very faint movement in there… barely detectable." Hicks and Cracken looked at each other – then they simultaneously switched on the lights mounted on their rifles and carefully moved closer to the doorframe. Everybody else remained where they were, staying totally silent. The air was tense. Hicks and Cracken reached the door and they took position on each side of the dark opening in the wall. The Afro-American slowly shined his light inside the room over the floor – Hicks peeked inside, following the circle that illuminated the deck with his eyes. It moved over a shape of a human. The white lab-coat revealed that it was one of the medtechs.

"That's Phillips!" said Hicks. "It's Dr. Peters' nephew! What's he doing in there?" And then they saw his face – or to be more precise: what was on his face! There was the source of the very faint signal that was registered on the motion-tracker. The grotesque shape of the multi-fingered hand-like parasite was wrapped around his head, the sacks on either side of the root of its tail was steadily pumping, breathing like lungs.

An icy chill crept all along his spine as Hicks came to realize the magnitude of the drama that was going on inside, and he let his own light sweep across all the eggs that were stacked within the hold. His worst fear became confirmed. But it was Cracken who gave voice to it.

"The claws are off!" he shouted in despair. "That damn fool has removed the claws!" Suddenly there was a crack in the air and something faster than the eye could see flew out of the room towards the private. Cracken flew backwards and landed like a heap on the deck as he clawed on his face which was covered by another of the terrible crablike shapes. Hicks retreated from the door, just in the nick of time as another of the monstrosities hurled itself at his face. It overshot him as Hicks ducked and it smacked into the floor of the corridor – however it scrabbled upright immediately and was about to take another leap. Hicks perforated it with his rifle, but the danger was far from over.

"Watch out!" he screamed. "They're attacking!"

The whole rogue operation had unexpectedly turned into a nightmarish calamity. From the storage-room a flock of facehuggers emerged and charged at the eight remaining soldiers. This was not supposed to happen. There was no way to suspect that somebody would stupidly have removed the egg-claws and enabled the creatures to go on a killing-spree. The soldiers who were there to dump the eggs out into space now had to fight for their lives. They all opened fire and began to blow the obscenities to pieces – but it was not enough. Two of the monsters slipped through the spray of projectiles and latched themselves onto PFC Samson and Corporal Riker. And as they went down there was a window suddenly free of weapons-fire. Before anybody had time to adjust their aims to cover it, three more parasites got to Private Shawn, PFC Simpson and Private Morgan. Only three of the soldiers remained now: the two smartgun operators Crabbe and Dobermann, and Corporal Hicks.

"Lay down continuous fire and let's get out of here!" Hicks called over the noise of the smartguns. He blew two more facehuggers to pieces as he advanced downwards the corridor from which they had come. The two soldiers moved along with him. How many could there be left? Hicks wondered. How many did that young fool manage to release?

It looked like they could make it. They were about to move past the door that separated the sections of the ship. Right outside that doorway to which they were moving was where Dagger had released the first egg and fallen victim to it. Once they've managed to move past that passage, they would seal it and hopefully trap the remaining facehuggers. But as they were about to make a final run towards it, the door closed by itself!

"What the hell's going on? Open it!" Crabbe cried, close to panic. Hicks rushed up and pressed the button that was labeled 'Open', but the door remained shut. "I'm going to kill Fixer!" Crabbe screamed again while he continued to fire. "I'm going to kill him! He was supposed to fix that door!"

But Hicks started to suspect that there was nothing wrong with the door, because on the panel by it there was a red light flashing. And as he looked around, he noticed now that there were more red lights activated. They had been too busy defending themselves that they had not noticed the alarm going off again. Hicks strained to hear above the gunfire what the computer was saying:

"Warning! Structural damage sustained to decks five to seven, sections twelve and below. Emergency! Structural integrity to lower hull has been compromised! Decompression imminent! Emergency protocol activated! Pressure-doors are closed. Emergency! Decompression imminent!"

"Oh my god…!" Hicks whispered. The acid! The corrosive liquid of the facehuggers that they have blown to pieces had eaten through both decks under them and was now burning through the bow of the ship, about to open them up to space! And now the computer had automatically sealed off all the areas that were about to be exposed to vacuum and they were trapped inside! And the worst part was that they themselves, and especially Hicks, was the cause of this predicament!

"Danger!" the computer announced. "Decompression in five seconds… four…"

All sense of hope left Hicks in an instant. As he was faced with the final defeat, he let his rifle be lowered towards the floor as he prepared himself for the inevitable.

"Three… two…"

Newt. Forgive me.

"One!"

The Hercules rocked in space as a large portion of the air inside was suddenly blown out of the newly made hole in the hull. Inside the corridor where the fight was going on, the three combatants lost their footing and was momentarily dragged towards the area outside the storage-room where the acid had eaten out pits in the floor and where the air was being sucked out. Having lost their equilibrium and coming to the realization that they have lost precious oxygen to breathe; the soldiers unwillingly ceased firing and that left a clear path for the last of the facehuggers to catch their prey. The last thing Hicks became aware of before he lost consciousness due to lack of air was the sight of one of the terrible creatures flying towards him with its fingers spread widely apart…

It was a few minutes after the hull had exploded – the felon Robert Morse had found Sgt. Hurst tied up and gagged in the briefing room and for reasons that he wouldn't divulge, the prisoner had untied him. Hurst was now in communication with Colonel Decker and he was nowhere near his usual cocky demeanor as he spoke to his superior on the screen. Morse just stood back in the corner with his hands behind his back, looking slightly amused.

"I-it was Hicks, Sir! He staged the whole mutiny, and he managed to talk everybody in on it using lies and slander! I tried to stop him, but he overpowered me! I swear to you, Sir, I had nothing to do with…"

"Be quiet, Hurst!" Decker cut him off. "We have more important matters to deal with now before we start shifting blame for this sabotage! The preliminary reports say that every deck above and below section twelve has been decompressed and sealed! The air above the toxic disposal area must've escaped through the climbing-tube that connects all the decks!"

"We've been cut off from the whole fore-section of the ship!" Hurst realized with shock. "That includes the bridge! Sir, how are we supposed to break orbit and go home?"

"Relax, you fool! I can still run the ship from my post!" Hurst let out a breath of relief. He had temporarily forgotten that the colonel's office also served as a battle bridge. "However it is the nature of our mission that concerns me now!" Decker continued. "What happened to the specimens? What can be salvaged?"

"There… there's no way to tell, Sir," Hurst stammered. "The space-suits required for going through vacuum are stored on deck six directly below section twelve, which has been depressurized. There's no way to get there!"

"Well, you better find a way, Sergeant: because I'm not breaking orbit until I know whether we can still accomplish our mission or not! I will not let mutineers break the glorious reputation of this unit!"

"B-but Sir…" Hurst started to object.

"Carry out my orders, Sergeant and report back to me A.S.A.P.! That will be all!" And then Decker cut the transmission.

"But what does he expect me to do?" Hurst asked out into empty air, exasperated. "There's no way I can get into an area of hard vacuum!"

"Send the droid."

"What?"

"Send the droid," Morse repeated calmly. He still held his hands behind his back. "Surely it can survive the vacuum and be able to carry any potential surviving specimen out of there if necessary." Hurst was about to retort, but stopped himself. The logic behind that solution was as evident as it was brilliant, but he'd be damned if he was going to admit that to a convict! He had to swallow his pride though, and that left a bitter aftertaste.

"Just because you came up with the plan doesn't mean that you'll earn any special privileges," Hurst made sure to tell him. "I still don't like you, so don't press your luck." And with that the sergeant left the briefing room.

"Oh, Sarge…" Morse smiled victoriously. "It's not your liking of me that I require of you." And he flexed his fingers around an object behind his back in satisfaction.

The air was pumped out of the on-the-spot makeshift airlock before Bishop was to override the security-locking mechanism on one of the doors that led to the decompressed sections of the ship. He was at the moment standing in a junction on the lowest deck. That level consisted mostly of service-tunnels leading to various key-sections in the bow of the ship, that's why each of those corridors was equipped with a door of its own. The midget mechanic Fixer had installed a hose through one of the bulkheads which he'd been forced to cut through next to a doorway that was leading to one of the joint passageways. By sealing the existing doors closest to the locked-out area and spraying the frames of those with special Seal-Leak foam, he had made them airtight and had in that way created the small space of the junction to serve as an airlock. With the help of a big air-pump outside one of the hatches, the junction was now being depressurized which would help equalizing the connecting area with the vacuum that had formed in the exposed sections. Since bishop was built within an armor that was designed to withstand most environmental conditions, he was not affected by the dropping pressure. He would be able to move through the vacuum like a walk in the park. If only this could've been just as joyful as that…

Bishop's internal sensors informed him that all the air was now removed from the junction. He opened an access-panel to the sealed door and rerouted some of the electrical cables. He managed to reverse the power and the locking-clamps were released. Bishop pushed the door open and entered the airless and cold area. The warmth had escaped together with the oxygen and the temperature in the decompressed area was continuously dropping rapidly. Aside from that: at first sight everything looked absolutely normal. The only weird, but expected damages were the many holes in the floor and roof. Melted holes – caused by acid. Each of the holes were small and in various sizes, but no size ever mattered if there became a breach in the hull which the air could escape through. Big or small: the tiniest hole could doom an entire spaceship if not isolated and sealed in time. The Hercules' security computer has managed to save the ship by closing off the areas that was to be exposed to the vacuum – unfortunately it couldn't save the people that still had been trapped within those corridors.

Bishop found the climbing-tube that housed the ladder for climbing up to the decks above. It was practical as a direct route to get from the lowest to the top deck quickly, but unfortunately it was through this chute that all the air on the levels above him had escaped. Bishop's destination was two decks up. His assignment was to investigate if any of the xenomorphic subjects they had hauled up from the planet below had survived the sudden decompression. As he was an artificial being, he expressed no certain emotions about the fate of the eggs. It made no difference to him whether they had survived or not, although he knew that humankind would benefit if it turned out that all of the specimens had been destroyed. Bishop didn't even let himself be affected by the fact that there were several bodies waiting for him on deck five whom had perished from lack of air. He had already come to terms with the fact that the crew of the Hercules would inevitably die one way or another – he hadn't thought that it would happen so soon though.

As Bishop had expected when he got out of the climbing-tube on level five, he found every soldier sprawled all over the deck in the airless area of section twelve. What he definitely hadn't expected was to find that the soldiers lying there were all still alive!

They were still casualties though. Each and one of them had their face covered with a facehugger - it had to be the reason why neither of them were dead. The parasites blocked both mouth and noses completely and Bishop knew that there was a tube-like intestine forced down each of the victims' throats. It was the creatures who supplied the soldiers with oxygen – if they hadn't; all the alveoli in the soldiers' lungs would be ruptured now by exposure to the vacuum. But from where did the creatures get the oxygen? There were no gases at all in this vacuum that the facehuggers could extract it from. Bishop could only come up with one possible theory: as all carbon-based life-forms inhales air that has been produced by plants to oxygenate their blood, they all exhale carbon dioxide which a flower in turn absorbs. It was the symmetry of life – none of the two breeds would be able to survive without the other.

And in some ways the facehugger is characteristic to a plant: it breaks down gases and converts those to whatever the host needs to breathe – that way the parasites can ensure that the embryo implanted will be able to grow accordingly. It also appeared that the symbiotic creatures provided the hosts with heat as well! Bishop's internal sensors confirmed it. The environment was presently chilling because of the vacuum, but the victims showed no signs of hypothermia. The cold of the vacuum should have sucked all moisture from their exposed skin, but it remained to look normal. Some of those weird intricate tubes of the parasite must serve as natural heat-elements.

From a scientific point of view, it was fascinating – remarkable! It was too bad that the species was so ferocious. It wasn't meant to preserve the life of the host indefinitely, but to make a grand healthy vessel for the embryo implanted to develop within as a cocoon, until it was ready to emerge. And when that happened, it meant the death of the carrier in a violent and messy manner.

In a sense, it would be a more humane thing to just leave the victims where they presently were. As this section for the time being would contain nothing but vacuum, the facehuggers couldn't leave the hosts as it would mean immediate death for those people, and a premature expiration of the host could cause damage to the embryo. And there was one basic necessity that Bishop was certain that the facehuggers were not capable of providing: sustenance! He remembered Ripley's report on how her crewmember Kane had acted after the alien had dislodged itself from him: he had been as good as famished, which indicated that the embryo was absorbing the nutrients from the host's body while developing. The facehuggers couldn't leave their victims in the vacuum which in theory meant that the embryos couldn't gestate while it remained dependent on the ambulatory delivery-organ. And while the soldiers remained unconscious they wouldn't be able to eat anything – they would eventually starve to death. It would be a prolonged ending, but they would die without having to endure the agony of the creature's birth.

Unfortunately Bishop's programming prevented that outcome. Not only was he compelled to provide as much care as he could for any human being in need of aid, which meant that he couldn't just leave them in the vacuum with the parasites on their faces – but under Company-orders he was also obligated to save as many specimens as possible. Again his priorities conflicted with each-other and almost caused his circuits to overload – he wondered how much longer he would be able to work around the system before he'd eventually break down completely.

Among the victims, not at all unexpected, he found Hicks. Just like the rest of his co-conspirators in this mutiny, his face was covered with a facehugger, being cocooned. Although he was an artificial being, Bishop allowed himself to feel a moment of sadness for Hicks' fate. There was no way to save him now: the facehugger couldn't be removed without resulting in his death, and Bishop very much doubted that a surgical removal of the embryo from within his torso would result in a different outcome. Once this species had gotten hold of a victim, death was unavoidable. The only thing anybody could do now was to determine just how the unavoidable fate would be allowed to progress. Bishop kneeled beside his fallen comrade and placed his hand on Hicks' chest. With his acute sensors, he could detect the presence of the embryo within the thorax – it had been positioned.

It was time for a decision, and it made Bishop feel guilty that he would conduct this action without Hicks' consent. He would most likely not approve. But Bishop knew that there were moments occurring when the need for an advantage was sometimes greater than the need for following the code for ethics. The android knew that this was one of those moments, even if it went against his directive to protect humans. That's why he used the Company command-codes that had been installed to temporarily overrule his implanted behavioral inhibitor. From a hidden compartment in the armor he was built in, Bishop produced a syringe which contained a vile-looking fluid – the same substance that he had extracted from one of the organs of the dissected alien back in the science-lab. Automatically he tapped the syringe with his finger three times to mix the fluid and then he pressed the handle slightly to fill the needle – a small drop was now hanging from the tip. Bishop hesitated for a moment, even trembled momentarily as the directives made war with his programming again – but then his sub-routines surrendered as the Company-program took over and Bishop stabbed the syringe into Hicks' chest right where the embryo was positioned. And Bishop injected the contents…

What's done had been done. There was no turning back now. Since Bishop had been designed to resemble humans psychologically as well as physically, he prayed that he had done the right thing. Time would have to be the judge of that, but now there was other work to tend to. He picked up the body of the first victim to carry back to the makeshift airlock…