Chapter 6 - LaGrange Colony, Orion IV

The sun was bright and the air was hot on the arid planet of Orion IV. The LaGrange Colony was the capitol and where most of the planet's occupants resided. Cobblestone Street was lined with small outdoor shops where peddlers sold wares of every kind. The Colonial Marines walked among them, spending their free hours picking up a few things before the long flight to the Plato Sector.

Newt stopped to browse through various colored tank tops stacked on a table. She had no interest in buying anything. She was just curious to see what Hicks was up to. Something about him had changed. It was in the way he suddenly acted around her. In the beginning he had threatened to kill her a dozen times, a dozen different ways. But now he just stared at her all the time, always with that brooding expression. It sent chills up and down her spine. Her stomach tightened every time he walked into a room she was occupying. On top of all that, she knew he wanted her and he knew she wanted him. The sexual tension between them was frustrating and overwhelming.

From the corner of her eye, Newt saw him buy a pack of cigarettes. He exchanged a few words with the peddler as he lit a cigarette and held up four fingers in front of the peddler's face. The peddler shrugged his shoulders and Hicks pointed in the general direction of the dropship. The peddler nodded in understanding and Hicks handed him some money.

Hicks turned and slung his pulse rifle more securely over his shoulder. When he looked up, he caught the kid looking in his direction, even though she quickly looked away, pretending to be interested in a rack full of ladies' hats. The kid. She was no kid. He smiled to himself and walked toward her. She looked up and saw him coming, and then turned away again. Hicks stopped in front of another peddler. "I'll take five of those chocolate bars."

Newt looked up. She saw Hicks buying some candy bars. After he paid for them, he turned toward her again. He tossed one of the candy bars in her direction and she caught it. He had put three of them away in his pockets and unwrapped the last one, taking a bite out of it. She put the candy bar in her pocket and turned back to the god-awful looking hats.

Hicks came up close behind her and leaned in to talk into her ear. "I hope you're not planning on buying one of these butt-ugly hats, Jorden. It doesn't seem like your style."

Newt turned around to face him. "And what would you know about my style, Hicks?"

"I'm just giving you my personal opinion." He looked over her shoulder at the hats hanging on the rack. "Doesn't look like something a bug hunter would wear." When he looked back at her, she graced him with a smile and he returned it.

The sound of Bishop's voice came on their headsets, always interrupting the moment. "I've picked up a hive signal on the planet. Northwest about 600 kilometers from your present location."

Hicks frowned. "Say again, Bishop, a hive on this planet?"

"Affirmative. But it's dormant, no movement."

Hicks turned to Newt. "We better head over there."

Newt shook her head. "We come across dormant hives all the time. We'll report the location and let another squad take care of the problem."

Hicks couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're gonna risk leaving a hive exposed for anyone of these poor unsuspecting soles to wander over there and pick up a facehugger? You know how fast these fuckers can spread."

Newt reached down to switch her headset to 'all call'. "Pack it up, Marines. We're cutting out. Got some eggs to scramble."

The team met back at the dropship. There were four shipping boxes stacked next to the ramp. The boxes were labeled with a brand of cigarettes.

"Packer, Snow, get those boxes inside." Newt turned to Hicks. "You bought those?"

"Yeah."

"You plan on chain smoking or something?"

"Maybe."

They ascended the ramp and seconds later it closed behind them. The dropship lifted off, leaving a cloud of dust blowing around. Those that had been unfortunate to be close enough grabbed on to anything immobile and angrily shook their fists at the Marine ship.

Six hundred kilometers later, the dropship touched down again, disembarking its passengers before dusting off again. The squad made their way to a cave entrance.

"Hicks, I want you to just stay back."

Hicks turned to Newt. "I've been in hives a thousand times, Jorden. I can handle myself."

"That's fine, but I still want you to cover our backs."

Hicks was about to protest, but decided against it. He didn't want to undermine her authority in front of her subordinates. "Yeah, sure. No problem."

The squad entered the dark cave. They turned on their helmet lamps, panning the beams back and forth as they moved forward, the path leveling downward. Newt was in the lead as typical of any hive raiding party. The tight corridor opened up into a large chamber. Their light beams weren't enough to light it completely.

Silently resting in rows on the ground were hundreds of dormant alien eggs.

Packer broke the silence with a loud laugh. "Anyone for an alien omelet?"

"Shut the fuck up, you idiot," said Newt. "The slightest vibration will cause them to open." She sighed heavily. How long had these eggs been here and how had they gotten here? "Burn them all." She stepped aside as her squad laid in three streams of fire from their flame-throwers, setting the eggs on fire.

Hicks watched the eggs burning. A quick movement to his right made him turn and before he realized it, a facehugger slammed into him. His arms had gone up in time to hold the crab-like creature back, preventing it from shoving its grotesque appendage down his throat.

Newt saw the attack as if it was happening in slow motion. She rushed over to Hicks, who continued to struggle against the surprisingly strong creature. The creature proceeded to wrap its tail around his neck. She unholstered a device that had come in handy hundreds of times. "Don't move, Hicks."

Hicks was already feeling himself weaken as his oxygen was cut-off. Then just as quickly as the facehugger had attacked him, it suddenly released him and fell on its back at his feet. He gasped for air and kicked the thing away from him. Newt trained her pulse rifle at it and blew it to pieces. "What…what the hell did you do…to get it off me?" he asked between gasps of air.

Newt held up her tazer gun. She had zapped the facehugger, momentarily stunning it so it could be disposed of properly, away from its intended host, where any acid blood could do serious damage.

"Thanks," he finally said after catching his breath.

"I thought I told you to be careful."

"You told me to cover your back. You never said anything about being careful." The moment hadn't called for light-hearted humor, but Hicks was elated to have survived another facehugger attack. There had been two other close calls during his later years in the Marines and the first one had earned him a scar above his left eye. Another inch and he would have been blinded.

Newt punched his arm. "Quit messing around and let's get the hell out of here."

With the task complete, the squad emptied out of the cave and boarded the dropship.

The last few hours before cryo-sleep were spent eating, exercising and joking around. This was the typical mood of the Colonial Marines. More goofing around took place in the docking bay. Bishop impressed them with his many knife tricks and they cheered him on.

Hicks watched them from a distance, sitting on some crates, smoking a cigarette. He knew all of Bishop's knife tricks. When Jorden had introduced him to the squad, they looked at him like he had four heads. Maybe they thought he was a washed up Marine who quit when the going got tough. He didn't fit into their plans. It was no big deal. He wasn't planning on making any friends. Friendship only led to deep sorrow. He didn't want to mourn any of them if they got themselves killed. And he knew this mission was going to lead to that.

His main concern however was Jorden. He couldn't get himself to refer to her as Newt. Newt was too cutesy of a name. There was nothing cute about her. She was a real looker, physically fit from head to toe, courageous and hard on herself and her people. She had survived the countless challenges presented by the aliens and came out on top. Even though he knew that she could take care of herself when it came to the bugs, he still couldn't help but want to protect her.

She was tough as nails, but everything about her was feminine and it drove him up a fucking wall. There had been women in his life, but none had ever elicited this kind of overwhelming sexuality and she wasn't doing anything intentional. Jorden made a gesture, something as simple as biting her lower lip in concentration and he'd start to sweat. Then whenever she was within five feet of him, he'd smell her and he was a goner.

Hicks glanced in her direction and couldn't suppress his smile. As tough as she was, some of the things she did made her appear vulnerable. It was a simple task. She was painting her toenails. But it was driving him crazy, which was the reason he decided to cut out before the sensation he felt got too far out of control.

Newt watched her crew with a smile as they laughed and enjoyed Bishop's antics. She was sitting on a chair, one foot up on the edge as she painted her toenails. It was the only womanish thing she did. Forget the makeup and the hair combs. She didn't even paint her fingernails. But she liked having red toenails.

She knew Hicks was watching her, always watching her. Then from the corner of her eye, she saw him hop off the crates he had been sitting on and then he walked out of the docking bay. Something was stressing him out and she wondered if it was because of where they were headed. She wondered if he suffered the same nightmares everyone who came in contact with the aliens suffered. No one was immune to the fear the aliens elicited. She still feared them; she just learned how to hide it from everyone else.

"Bishop…" she called out. The laughter died down momentarily as everyone turned to her. "How long before we jump?"

Bishop checked his internal clock. "There's still three hours and twenty-seven minutes."

Newt got up and walked barefoot out of the docking bay. She was determined to tell him the truth. She wanted him to know who she really was. She wanted to tell him how she had coped throughout the years and how she could help him do the same.

She reached the door to his quarters a few minutes later and pushed the buzzer. She waited for a response and none came, even after she hit the buzzer two more times. Just when she was about to give up and look for him elsewhere, the door slid open. Hicks stood in the doorway, wearing standard issue green boxers and nothing else. His hair was wet and so was the rest of him, like he had just gotten out of the shower. But he wore the chain with the pendant. Did he ever take it off?

"Oh, uh…sorry, I'll come back later," she said as she backed away from the doorway.

Hicks had taken a cold shower after leaving the docking bay. "I'm done. You can come in." He stepped aside and he noticed her hesitation before she finally made up her mind to walk in passed him. He pushed the button to close the door and then he turned toward her. She was walking around his room, looking at things he had scattered around.

Newt was a nervous wreck. This confused her. She had faced full-grown alien drones and facehuggers and queens of every different size and she was nervous about telling Hicks who she was. She spotted his pack of cigarettes on his nightstand and walked over to them.

Hicks walked toward her as she pulled out a cigarette. When she tried to light it, her hand was shaking so much the flame kept going out. He came up and placed his hand over hers to steady it so she could light her cigarette. Something was obviously making her visibly nervous. She had always hidden her emotions well. He lit his own cigarette before asking her, "Is something wrong?"

"Yes," she said as she looked up at him, trying to focus on his face and not on his abs. "I need to tell you something."

Hicks looked into her eyes. He had a sneaking suspicion she was about to tell him everything. If she did then there was no use in him pretending that he didn't know.

"My name's Rebecca Jorden…I'm Newt."

"I already know."

Newt's jaw dropped. "How long have you known?"

"Since Bishop told me the day you kidnapped me."

Newt shook her head with a sigh. "I'm gonna have to talk to him about that big mouth of his."

"So now that it's out in the open, we don't have to pretend anymore." Hicks picked up a bottle of tequila he had gotten on Orion IV. "How about a drink?"

"Yeah, sure." Newt sat down on the side of the bed and waited for Hicks to come back with two cups in which he poured the tequila. She took one of them and followed him with her eyes as he moved to sit a few feet away on the bench against the wall. It disturbed her that he made no move to get dressed.

"So whatever happened to Travis?" He recalled with vivid detail how he had risked his life for a puppy just to get a smile out of her when she was a kid.

Newt smiled and looked down, also recalling the memory. "Travis is old and currently living with Ellen. They wouldn't let me take him with me. Pets aren't allowed in the military."

"And what's up with Ripley?" he asked.

"She's living in Napa Valley, has her own vineyard."

"No shit."

"I haven't seen her in almost eight years."

"How come?"

"Well, we had this big blowout about me joining the Marines. She wanted me to stay with her. But when I turned eighteen I knew what I wanted to do and nobody was going to tell me any different. She re-married, you know, and she had twins, a boy and girl. They're probably about ten or eleven by now."

"I'm glad for her. Looks like she learned to move on."

"I couldn't do that, Hicks. I knew those things were out there and I was deathly afraid of them. The nightmares were horrible. Even after a few years, I still had the dreams. It was almost like the aliens were calling out to me, mocking me, daring me to face them again. I still saw that alien queen chasing me and Ripley. I was terrified. After hearing about the alien sightings on some of the planets, I knew what I needed to do. I wanted to be part of the exterminating team. But I needed to join the teams first. I had read about some of your accomplishments with the Centurions. In fact, I had hoped to be assigned to one of your teams, but then you disappeared."

Hicks looked away and frowned.

"What really happened to you, Hicks?"

Hicks looked down at his cup of tequila and took a sip. "I guess I was in a pretty dark place in my head back then. I was blind drunk most of the time. It was the only thing that kept me from thinking about things. I was pissed at myself; I was pissed at the universe. It amazes me sometimes that I survived those times because I can't tell you how many times I woke up with my face in the gutter, my wallet and most of my clothes gone. Or how many times I thought about eating a bullet." He laughed.

Newt didn't laugh with him. She didn't think it was funny at all. "But you survived it."

"Barely. The nightmares were pretty bad for me, too. I kept seeing Hudson getting dragged down, I kept reliving those few moments when we entered the atmosphere processor and were under attack. You have no idea how scared to death I was when we finally made it back to the APC."

"You didn't show it."

"How would you know? You were eight years old."

"I was eleven."

"Anyway, it wasn't even the aliens that put me over the edge. It was those fucking Centurions."

"Why do you hate them so much?"

Hicks looked down again. It was painful to talk about. God knows he had tried to deal with it, went through numerous psyche analyses and just about put the analyst through the wall. "I was on leave…with my family. I hadn't seen my father and mother in three years. My little sister, Maya, who was sixteen years old at the time was with us."

Newt had a feeling this wasn't going to be a very happy story. She wondered why his file didn't mention anything about his family, or where they were.

"We were having a picnic. Everything was perfect. Until a Centurion raiding party showed up. They held me at gunpoint while they dragged my father and mother away. Then…the Centurion bastards held me down and forced me to watch them…rape my little sister…" Hicks almost lost it. He could clearly see it happening as if it had just happened. "She put up quite a fight, kicking and screaming the whole time."

Newt felt a lump in her throat.

"Can you image what was going through my mind at that moment? What could I be thinking of as I watched a fat Centurion fuck my little sister and then dice her up alive right before my eyes? I couldn't do anything. They had four Centurions sitting on me, holding me down. I tried to get them off and I screamed and swore at them, but they didn't stop. They…they cut her into little pieces…" Tears stung his eyes and he clenched his teeth.

Newt was horrified. She didn't know what to say. She wanted to console him in some way, but he seemed unapproachable at the moment as he recounted the events, a glazed look in his tear-filled eyes.

"They took me to a slave camp with my parents and separated my mother from us. Later, my father heard she got sick and he wanted to see her. He was shot in the kneecaps. They killed both of them after that. The Centurions killed my entire family. There isn't a single moment in my life right now that I don't think about wasting the entire race."

Newt fully understood what he was going through. She could relate. Her entire family had been killed, too. By the aliens. "How did you manage to survive?"

"I was being taken to this building I knew where humans went in and never came out. I took off running and the Centurion guards came after me. I ran for miles and lost myself in the cliffs. Later I hitched rides to various spaceports and finally got away. When I got back my superiors all wanted to know what happened to me. I talked to whoever they wanted me to talk to. I told them what the Centurions had done. Nobody believed me. They wouldn't even verify that a human slave camp even existed. I knew what I wanted to do, even after I had heard about the peace treaty between us and the Centurions. I armed myself and went back. I killed most of their high ranking Centurion officials. I was like a goddamned killing machine, unable to stop. All I could see was Maya being sliced into little pieces in front of my eyes."

"I'm sorry about your family, Hicks."

Hicks turned to Newt, almost forgetting that she had been in the room. He had been so consumed in his visions. "I want them all dead. I know not all of them are bad, but I still want them all dead."

Newt wanted to change the subject because he was starting to sound psychotic all of a sudden, maybe going down to that dark place he had mentioned earlier. "Your file says you turned to contract killing."

"They forgot to add that I only kill Centurions. I got caught and they threw me in prison on Gateway." Hicks frowned again. "I would have been fine with serving my sentence, but someone had other plans for me. They were going to give me a fucking lobotomy."

"What? Performing a lobotomy on a prisoner is against the morality act. You could have reported those guys."

"Yeah, right. They would have made up some story. I mean, you've read my file. What'd it say, that I escaped from prison and injured some guards? It was all bullshit."

"It's not the first time that entries on records are false. When situations can't be explained, they make things up."

"I almost killed innocent people when I stole that freighter. I was trying to break free of the station. The whole outer wall could have come off. I was reckless. I suppose I'm just your average, run-of-the-mill bad boy."

Newt shrugged. "I've done my share of reckless deeds."

"Like when you killed that queen I saw in your quarters?"

"It was no big deal. I got careless and fell. She came down on top of me and she would have crushed me if I hadn't been wearing my body armor. I was also lucky to be wearing my armored gloves because I smashed my fist into her chest. As she started bleeding to death, I crawled out from under her."

"Yeah, I'd say that was pretty reckless."

"That bitch gave me permanent scars." Newt lowered the collar of her teeshirt down to reveal her left shoulder. "I've got one right here," she pointed out. "From her thumb nail when she grabbed my shoulder."

Hicks got up from the bench and came down on one knee in front of her to inspect the scar just below her collarbone.

"And the rest of her fingers got me back here," she said as she turned slightly to show him the back of her shoulder.

"Must have hurt like hell. You're lucky she didn't pierce you down to your heart."

"That would have ended it for me."

Hicks knew he was lingering too long this close to her. He was going to get up. In a minute. He just wanted to linger a minute longer so he could smell her. "Yeah, I've got plenty of my own scars." He glanced down at his hand where an eleven-year-old girl had bitten him once, the scar still visible.

Newt knew what he was thinking and she reached to take his hand, looking down at the small scar. She had been so frightened back then, living on her own for weeks, trying to avoid the alien drones seeking live hosts for the eggs. She involuntarily kissed his hand where the scar was, then looked up into his eyes. "Hicks, why didn't you tell me that you knew who I was?"

"Well, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I wanted you to form your own opinion of me without knowing that I was the little girl you rescued."

"I don't see a little girl when I look at you."

"I don't see an average, run-of-the-mill bad boy when I look at you."

Hicks made up his mind in two seconds. He lowered his other knee and moved closer to her. But not too quickly. He wanted to see what her reaction would be, even as he made his intention quite clear. He wasn't disappointed when she lifted her arms and wrapped them around his neck.

His eyes were intensely locked on her and Newt felt her cheeks heat up in response. He leaned closer to her and she looked down briefly, her eyes drawn by the chain hanging down on his bare chest. "Don't you ever take this off?"

"No, never."

"Why not?"

"Because I made a promise a long time ago that I would always wear it."

Newt initiated the kiss this time. Nothing was going to stop her feelings for him. No matter how many times she tried to convince herself that she wasn't, she knew she was falling in love with him.

Hicks kissed her back. She parted her lips and he dipped his tongue into her mouth. She tasted like tequila and tobacco. When she started running her fingers through his hair, he knew there was no turning back.

Until Bishop's voice came on the com. "We've got a problem, Rebecca. You're going to want to see this."

Hicks reluctantly pulled away from her, sighing heavily and looking annoyed. "Shit…"

Newt got up from the bed. "Where are you, Bishop?"

"I'm on the bridge."

"Be there in a minute." Newt started to walk toward the door. She paused and turned back to Hicks who was getting on his feet. "I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."

"Yeah, yeah, get out of here."

Newt turned and as the door slid open she walking out.

When Newt got to the bridge, she found Bishop at the communication panel. "What is it, Bishop?"

"I received a message from a Centurion colony on Baronia III. There's an infestation at one of the hospitals."

"What's the problem? Can't their army handle the situation?" The vision of a sixteen year old girl being diced up by the Centurions came to her mind. She didn't want to help any Centurions.

"Their weapons have no affect."

"Tough shit. Tell them to blow the dust off their slingshots." Newt started to walk away and then stopped, her shoulders slumping. Not all Centurions were bad. Some of them were good. Her problem was that she was just too soft. She turned her head back toward Bishop. "Tell Packer to meet me in the docking bay."

Hicks paced in his quarters. 'Don't go anywhere', she had told him. "Fuck this," he finally said. He threw on pants and a teeshirt and then walked out of his quarters to find out what was going on. He hated being left out of the action. If something was going on, he wanted to be part of it.

He found Bishop on the bridge. "What's going on, Bishop? I thought we were heading for our jump point."

"We had to make a slight detour."

"Where's Jorden?" he asked, having expected to see her on the bridge.

"She and Corporal Packer are answering a bug call."

"Where? Why didn't anybody tell me?"

"She didn't think it was necessary to gear up the entire squad."

Hicks moved over to the navigation panel and studied the graph and the figures there. "What the fuck…Baronia III? Is that where the call came from?"

"Yes. The Centurions have an infestation in one of the hospitals."

"Shit! Goddammit, Bishop…are you daft or something? Centurions breed the mother fuckers. They can control them!"

Bishop stared at him blankly, as if he had just been told that the Earth was flat. "I was unaware that they…"

"It's not an infestation, it's a goddamned trap! Call her, where the hell is she?"

Bishop hurried to the communication console where he tried to raise Newt. "Judgement to Drop 1, come in. Drop 1 this is the Judgement, come in, please."

Hicks grabbed the small mic out of Bishop's hands. "Jorden, come in, goddammit! Are you there?" Then he turned to Bishop. "Why the hell isn't she answering?"

Bishop walked over to the radar console. "The ship's still on radar. I can see the blip on the screen. Maybe they're in a dead zone, unable to communicate."

Then Hicks saw Bishop frown. "What?" he asked.

Bishop looked up at Hicks and he announced in an even, calm tone, "The signal's gone."

Hicks stared at Bishop in alarm.